OzProg: Could you give us a brief history of the band?

Tim Charles: The band originally formed in 2003, and after about six months the band got the final lineup together by adding myself, as the violinist, then it basically disintegrated. Throughout the course of 2004, every band member was replaced, except for myself and Xenoyr (vocalist). The band as we know it really only formed in January 2005 when Dan (Presland, drummer) joined the band, and it was about that time we started to write in a direction that was closer to what we sound like today.

We had lots of setbacks, in 2005 we were going to start playing live and I had to get my tonsils out, couldn't sing for a couple of months, then Xenoyr was in a car accident and broke his leg. We actually had our live debut planned for August 2005 but we had to cancel it a few weeks beforehand, it got pushed back about six months.

OzProg: That sounds horrible!

It actually ended up being fortunate for the band, we had six months off and we'd already learnt our live set so we started to write new material. It was at that time we wrote "Forget Not" and a lot of the material that people who know Ne Obliviscaris know us for.

So in April 2007 we finally released a demo, after about a year on the scene, the response to that was fantastic. After only a few months we parted ways with guitarist Corey King, and we ended up spending about nine months looking for Benjamin (Baret, lead guitarist).

OzProg: It was a very long nine months.

Yeah, absolutely. I'm sure it was long for the fans and it was incredibly long for us.

OzProg: So why did Corey leave?

We've got six people in the band, it's always more likely that there's going to be a difference of opinion, personality clashes, all of those sorts of things that a band needs to deal with. Sometimes you can work them out, sometimes you can't. In the end, Corey was going in one direction with what he wanted, in music and his life, and the five of us were going in a different direction. It was unfortunate, but we were hoping in the long run it would be what was best for the band. Now that we've got Benjamin on board, we're absolutely thrilled, really excited about the future.

OzProg: Benjamin made the move from France to join the band, which is pretty huge. Was it the band's decision from the beginning to look globally for new guitarist?

We didn't really expect somebody to move from interstate or overseas to join the band. It's a pretty huge thing to ask someone. After advertising for a bit, because the internet is such a great resource and people can look at it from anywhere, we did have a couple of people from interstate apply, a couple from the U.S. apply. When we started getting a few people from outside Melbourne, there were lots of things to consider, them being elsewhere made things slightly more complicated.

OzProg: [laughs] Little bit, yeah.

It was something that we really fell into. We got applicants from overseas, we decided that we'll go through the audition process, if we get to the end and one of the best happens to be from overseas, we'll look into it more seriously.

OzProg: Has he been settling in well?

Absolutely, absolutely. There's a big risk with bringing somebody in from overseas. We were 100% sure that he would be perfect for the band musically, and I'd spoken to him quite a bit on the phone before he arrived, but I guess you never really know somebody until you meet them in person. It's very important with a band like ours, being a family unit, that everybody gets on really well. He's just a really fantastic guy, everybody gets on with him really well. He was living with me for about a month when he first arrived, he has got his own place in Melbourne now, getting all the little things sorted, a job, an income, all that sort of stuff. He's really enjoying it. The best thing was moving towards playing live, getting that experience going. We're pretty excited about that.

OzProg: Would you say that your sound has changed significantly now that Benjamin is in the band? Has he brought a new focus?

I wouldn't say that there are any significant changes. We had a couple of new songs that were mostly written before he joined the band, we just hadn't written most of the lead guitar parts. The two new songs that we debuted at our comeback show, "Xenoflux" and "As Plague Flowers The Kaleidoscope".

OzProg: Which were excellent, by the way.

[laughs] We sent him preproduction demoes of those songs with some of the ideas we had and asked him to come up with his own stuff. It worked really, really well. He's a different guitarist to Corey, he has different strengths and that will definitely be obvious to people when they hear him play.

OzProg: You guys picked up a pretty huge following based on the demo (The Aurora Veil), what do you think it was that drew people to Ne Obliviscaris?

It's always hard to tell something like that. When we started the band, we really didn't have lofty aspirations, we were really just creating music for ourselves. Within the band, as we started to think "Hey, you know, this isn't too bad", we started to raise our goals, and over the last couple of years our hopes have gotten higher and higher.

We love our music, we spend a lot of time trying to create music that we love. With the demo, we had three songs that were very different to what was going on (in the rest of the music scene) at the time. We have strong influences, like every other band going around, and if you break down our sound you can hear them. You can hear Cynic in the bass parts. You can hear extreme metal influence in the way Dan plays. The overall combination of the band though is quite different to what is going on.

I've always found observing the scene, as a fan myself, when there is something a bit different going on it attracts a lot more passion. From the very beginning we were very fortunate to have fans who were actively trying to get everybody they knew into Ne Obliviscaris. They just loved the band so much, they wanted everybody to know about it. That's really the way it happened, it was a very grassroots thing, lots of people talking about it, spreading the word.

OzProg: So what're the plans for the future?

We'll hopefully be starting to record our debut album in January. Tentatively, it'll be out mid-2009. It'll likely be seven songs, including re-recordings of the three demo songs and the two new songs we played at the comeback show. We're at the stage where about a year ago we had everything for the new album prepared. We're now all ready to go and we'll hopefully be starting preproduction in the next month.

OzProg: What would you say you've learnt from the recording and releasing the demo that would help you with the new album?

Lots. For a lot of the band, The Aurora Veil was the first time they'd ever done a studio recording. I had done recording before, but not for a band. I'd only done classical. We went into that demo quite inexperienced, it was a huge learning curve. Getting used to playing along with click tracks, learning how perfect a recording needs to be to sound good on CD. When we look back at it now, we wish we could tighten up sections, all these little things that most people probably don't notice. We've learnt though, we're in a position now where, months before we head into the studio, we're doing the things we need to do to make sure our performance is as good as it can be.

Ne Obliviscaris are playing in Melbourne through October and November, before heading up to Queensland in December. You can also catch them supporting Psycroptic in New South Wales, the ACT and Victoria.

Be sure to check out part two of this interview where Charles discusses life, love and side projects.