Photos

Robin Staps

The Ocean

"I was recording with another band in the US in 2006 when I saw a PRS custom 24 for the first time, and I instantly fell in love with it. The beauty and elegance of its design, with the bird inlays and maple top, caught my attention - but I simply couldn't afford one at the time, and I felt I wasn't ready for it yet. I was afraid of breaking it during our violent live-shows. Now that I own 2 custom 24 guitars, I know that the elegance of their design is just the surface-level: beyond lie unrivaled playability, perfect workmanship, a comparably light weight and still endless sustain. And yes, these guitars are not just pretty, they are also more sturdy than any other guitar I've ever had: I have had to deal with 5 broken headstocks in my career as a musician with this band, but to date my PRS has remained in good order. I guess you are naturally taking better care when you are playing such a classy and precious instrument." - Robin Staps

Watching THE OCEAN perform live is an experience you will never forget especially when Robin Staps and Jonathan Nido leap feat first into the baffled audience, over a photo ditch that is a good 2 meters wide or more... no PA speaker is too high for them to climb and jump down from, and it's a miracle they never broke their necks, not even their ankles during their daring, adrenaline-fueled stage maneuvers...

But sheer brutality is by far not all there is to this band: 5 Silhouettes, their backlit bodies moving frenetically in front of the monstrous LED lighting rigs, flashing synchronized to every little change in the music: the videos, the lighting and more than anything, the music - orchestral, dense and epic - all contribute to that certain atmosphere that sets THE OCEAN apart from most of their peers in the realm of modern day's heavy music. The lynch-esque play with darkness and dynamics make it easy for the listener to get lost in the dismal oceanic spheres.

The band originated in 2001, when Robin Staps leased the basement of a former aluminum factory from World War II in the heart of Berlin-Kreuzberg. After a few weeks of daily construction work, Oceanland was born a large underground complex of recording studio and sleeping rooms, where many members of THE OCEAN would spend the bigger part of the upcoming few years of their lives. The band's live show was conceptualized and improved here, and over the years, a collective of musicians from classical as well as rock music backgrounds formed around Staps. Four albums were recorded at Oceanland, before the band was evicted from the place in 2008.

Despite initial hardships and the changing lineup, The Ocean Collective have released 6 critically acclaimed studio albums over the course of the past 6 years. Praise of their 80 minutes concept-opus Precambrian (2007) spread like wildfire in the community:

"Epic in scope and flawless in execution, 'Precambrian' reinforces The Ocean as one of the most exciting names in modern heavy music. Behold mind-blowing metal on a wagnerian scale", ROCK SOUND (UK) cheered.

"Ambitious and epic, dense and orchestral, the latest album from Germany's premier thinking man's metal collective The Ocean features a dizzying array of musical and vocal styles, from Mastodonian prog jags and Fear Factory jackhammer blasts to ethereal electronics and florid classical instrumentations", AMP (USA) added, and DECIBEL (USA) found the album to be "engrossing to the point where words don't necessarily matter. The Ocean do for earth science class what Mastodon did for Melville: make learning brutal".

After more than 650 shows all over the world, supporting bands like OPETH, ANATHEMA, BETWEEN THE BURIED AND ME, THE DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN, THE BLACK DAHLIA MURDER and CULT OF LUNA and successful headlining tours in Europe and the US (supported by KYLESA), the addition of vocalist Loïc Rossetti marks the final step in a recent development within the band: after 8 years of existence, THE OCEAN has transformed from a collective into a band. The people I am working with now are the people I have always been looking for, and naturally, everyone else is much more involved than ever before", comments Staps.

Rossetti replaces Nico Webers, who joined War From A Harlot's Mouth, and Mike Pilat, who left the band because he did not want to let touring be an integral part of his life anymore. However, the collective is not dead. As a matter of fact, 2009 album Heliocentric featured the largest number of additional musicians to date, mainly classical players. With 4 Swiss band members, THE OCEAN has found a new home in the highest city of Europe, La-Chaux-de-Fonds - although Staps still lives in Berlin.

The Ocean released their opus magnum in 2010 with the separately-released double-album Heliocentric (April 2010) and Anthropocentric (November 2010). This enormous conceptual effort took almost 2 years to be completed. From a lyrical and artistic point of view, the albums represent a fundamental and philosophical critique of Christianity. Both albums scored rave reviews all over the world, including album of the month in Metal Hammer Germany, Italy and Greece and a cover feature on the December- issue of Metal Hammer UK / Subterranea. AMG Magazine (US) stated that "This is the most forward-thinking statement by the Ocean yet, and stands as the most seamlessly integrated and consistent recording theyve issued to date", and Rock Sound (UK) found the album to be "Luxurious, tectonic, ingenious, calculated, charismatic, enterprising, dextrous, inventive, unrestrained, fascinating and poignant. If all this doesn't convince you to at least check them out, then seriously, fuck off." - Rock Sound (UK), 9/10

2011 saw The Ocean break jaws of first-row-punters in North America and Europe for a good 3 months. Now the European summer festivals are up next, before the band will head to China and Russia for an adventurous month. We all know, the world is not a safe place anymore...