Paul Antonio Ortiz: Chimp Spanner got-djent.com interview

(Chimp Spanner) Last year you played a few shows with some members of Monuments. In the meantime you've recruited your own live band. Can you tell us who they are and why you picked them? Will they be contributing to your new material?

Paul: The live band is myself, Jim Hughes (second/rhythm guitar), Adam Swan (bass guitar) and Boris Le Gal (drums). In the run up to the Tech Yourself Before You Wreck Yourself Tour with Aliases, I basically put out a plea for band members as my understanding at the time was that Monuments would be tied up, and I'd already committed myself to the shows. Hayato Imanishi of Cyclamen was kind enough to put me in touch with Boris (who had worked with them and Haunted Shores on their split EP) and my good friend Jim from home stepped up to the role! Finally Adam (or Swanney as most people know him) became free in time for the tour and...yeah that's kinda how that happened!
As far as writing goes, it's still just me going nuts in my room haha. It can be a bit frustrating but I think for now it's the best way to keep sight of where I'd like the project to go.

(Uneven Structure) Since the last time we interviewed you guys (roughly 1.5 years ago), you recruited a new drummer. In the meantime he's been with the band for a while of course. What surprised us is that he is also Swedish, where does this preference for Swedish drummers come from?

Igor: Our previous drummer was French, although he lived in Sweden for some time. But yeah, it's kind of a coincidence!
Auré: Actually it all happened last year, a few months before Euroblast festival. We needed a drummer to play that show and Daniel Ädel (Vildhjarta) told us he knew a drummer and that he could put us in touch, so we asked him to try. Since everything went really well we kept him in the band, also he has some crazy cooking skills!

Auré: «Our drummer has some crazy cooking skills!»

(Chimp Spanner) You had a side project called 'Blessed Inertia', but it's been quiet around that for a while now. What happened? Adam Swan is also in Monuments of course - do any of the other band members have other projects?

Paul: Yeah that was basically started up by me and Jim quite some time ago. We were going to take it live, mainly for the sake of experience. Then everything kind of kicked off with Chimp Spanner and it got put on hold. The tracks we have are really cool though, and we'd still like to do something with them, maybe involving some guest vocalists! As for other projects, Boris plays in 101% Pantera and Neonfly. Check them out!! more