GOJIRA Drummer Talks About North American Tour

French progressive metallers GOJIRA are currently on the road in the United States as the support act for Sweden's IN FLAMES. GOJIRA drummer Mario Duplantier recently spoke to Radio France International about the band's first show in North America. "We arrived in Montreal where we had a great and warm welcome, just as usual, we noticed that the people from Quebec seem to like French bands in general," he said. "This first show at Metropolis was sold out and people were very enthusiastic and wild during our show, we felt somewhat overwhelmed by the crowd's energy... that was awesome! We really need to go back there for a headlining show next time!"

He added: "Our setlist is pretty different from when we play in Europe, we are openers here. So we just play 35 minutes every night and that's a little bit frustrating with four albums of songs to choose from. We try to strike a balance between the more accessible tracks and the more violent ones, also, when we only have such a short playing time, we're just trying to be efficient and straight to the point."

GOJIRA will embark on a headlining tour of France in February 2009. Confirmed dates are as follows:

Jan. 30 - La Cartonnerie - Reims, France
Jan. 31 - La Laiterie - Strasbourg, France
Feb. 01 - Le Transbordeur - Lyon, France
Feb. 03 - Le Brise Glace - Annecy, France
Feb. 04 - Salle du Canton - Monaco, France

GOJIRA sold around 4,200 copies of the band's new album, "The Way of All Flesh", in the United States in its first week of release to debut at position No. 138 on The Billboard 200 chart. The CD's cover artwork was created by Joseph Duplantier, who was also responsible for the artwork for GOJIRA's previous album, 2005's "From Mars to Sirius".

GOJIRA recently shot a video for the song "Vacuity" with French producers Julien Mokrani and Samuel Bodin of Six Pieds Sous Terre Productions. The location of the shoot was in the Basque country where GOJIRA resides. Joseph Duplantier told the UK's Rock Sound magazine about the clip, ''It is a fantastic, mind-blowing video. The song is about the Buddhist meaning of the word which is emptiness not nothingness, the ultimate presence. It was very hard to picture that concept in a video so we told the story of a girl carrying her own casket as the whole album is about facing your death and your pain. It seemed fitting."

HardTimes.ca conducted an interview with GOJIRA guitarist/vocalist Joseph Duplantier on November 6, 2008 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Watch the nine-minute chat below.