Meet the metalheads
After touring the world for 15 years, UK band Tesseract are headed for South African shores at last. Shingai Darangai spoke to guitarist James Monteith
BRITISH band Tesseract is set to bring their brand of progressive metal rock to South Africa, with shows in Cape Town and Johannesburg on Friday and Saturday. The band’s rhythm guitarist, James Monteith, says they’ll be playing a mix of music from three albums.
“This is the first time any of us have been to South Africa so it’s a whole new experience. We’re really looking forward to it. We’ve had lots of nice messages from social media from people excited for the show, which is great to hear. It’s always amazing playing gigs anywhere in the world, but it’s especially exciting and special when we go to places we’ve never been before. We can’t wait to meet new people and experience the culture,” said Monteith.
Tesseract has toured around the world since the band was formed almost 15 years ago and this marks an exciting new step for them.
They have released three studio albums: One, Altered State and Polaris, which came out two years ago. They have released an album every two years (2011, 2013 and 2015), but this pattern looks like it’s about to come to an end.
Monteith said: “We actually wanted to get one out this year, but we’re kind of running out of time. I guess we didn’t really set ourselves a target of releasing every two years, we just wanted to get (an album) out when we could.
“What we don’t wanna do is rush anything and put out something we’re not happy with, or something substandard.”
He revealed that the new material the band is working on is an exploration of different textures, sounds and melodies, and that there might be more long, expansive songs than they had on Polaris.
Tesseract is made up of four other members, Daniel Tompkins, Alec “Acle” Kahney, Amos Williams and Jay Postones. Williams is the father figure in the band and also directs the creative vision in terms of the artwork and their concepts.
“He’s sort of the dad of the band. Acle, who is I guess the main songwriter, was the guy who started the band. He’s the very quiet one and he usually keeps to himself in the corner, except on the rare occasions where he has too much to drink. Then he transforms into a character we call Dave. When Dave comes he’s sort of like a loud, crazy party animal. He’s slightly insane.”
Tomkins and Postones are the crazy ones: “They’re quite often taking pictures of their poo.” Enough said. Monteith is the more reserved member of the band, it seems, and he spends a lot of his time with his wife and kids. He says he used to be a huge soccer fan, but as time has passed he’s lost a bit of interest. By day he works with other bands as a music publicist.
After their South African trip Tesseract will be playing a few festivals in Europe and a festival in Montreal, Canada, after which they hope to do a short tour of North America.
TOUR DATES
Friday: Mercury Live, Cape Town – supported by Verona Walls. Saturday: Rumours Rock City, Johannesburg – supported by Deity’s Muse, Red Helen and Only Forever.