AN NCS INTERVIEW: ED WARBY (THE 11TH HOUR, HAIL OF BULLETS, GOREFEST)

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Mar 162012
 

(Guest writer KevinP recently conducted an interview of Dutch multi-instrumentalist/vocalist/songwriter Ed Warby, who is a member of multiple active bands, including The 11th Hour, whose 2012 album Lacrima Mortis was reviewed by Kevin here.)

Everyone knows you from Gorefest and Hail of Bullets. Tell us how The 11th Hour came to be. What was your inspiration and how long did you have this planned (if at all) before it became a reality?

I met Rogga [Johansson] on the Global Domination forums and he asked me if I’d be interested in making some doom together. Somehow this mutated into me joining Demiurg instead, but I liked the idea and started writing on my own. First song I wrote was “One Last Smoke”, which was my take on the ultimate Candlemass type riff and I was quite pleased with the result so I continued, trying different moods and ideas until I had a complete album on my hands. In the meantime I’d seen Krux live for the first time and enjoyed it so much I became even more convinced I had to pursue my doom aspirations. At that point I asked Rogga if he was still interested in participating and the rest as they say is history.
 

Was there something you felt that you needed to express, that you were not able to do with Hail of Bullets (and your other projects)?

It’s taken a while to admit this to myself, but I guess me starting The 11th Hour had a lot to do with the writing/recording of the last Gorefest album. I wrote about 3/4 of the album, but for some reason this was not to be admitted in interviews and my role was so severely downplayed I got more and more frustrated. It’s not necessary to be praised in each interview or review, but I do believe in credit where credit’s due. So if anything, I wanted to prove to myself that I could in fact write, arrange and record an entire album on my own.

Musically, I wanted to further explore my melancholy side. I sneak a sad melody into a HoB song from time to time, but too much and the other guys will hit the brakes (and rightfully so, brutality and aggression should always be the main focus for the Bullets). In doom, I’m free to write a 9-minute song with elaborate melodic sections to counter the heavy riffage and I really enjoy taking these journeys, letting the song unfurl without any restrictions. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: TUOMAS SAUKKONEN (BEFORE THE DAWN)

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Mar 092012
 

EDITOR’S NOTE: Finnish multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, and songwriter Tuomas Saukkonen is the driving creative force behind two of this site’s favorite bands — Before the Dawn and Black Sun Aeon — along with about 1,000 other musical projects. BTD’s new album, Rise of the Phoenix, is scheduled for release by Nuclear Blast on April 27, and just yesterday we featured a killer song and official video for one of the new songs, “The Phoenix Rising”. If you haven’t seen it yet, make haste to this location, where you’ll also find a link to a free download of the song.

Today, we’re fortunate to feature this interview of Tuomas Saukkonen by guest writer KevinP, which includes insights into the new album, the band’s line-up changes, and the shift in musical style that we’ll be hearing on Rise of the Phoenix, along with much else.

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This is your second album coming out on Nuclear Blast. What’s different this time around and why should people who didn’t care for you in the past now be interested?

The timing is a lot better than with the first album with NB. We signed the deal just before Christmas and the album came out in Europe 16.2. So there was not much time for promotion. With the new album we have totally 3 months, which is pretty big thing. Musically there has been a pretty big change in our scale, and there will surely be some changes in the fan base also. If you thought we were just one girlie metal band, you should really check out the new material.
 

Lars (bass/clean vocals) and Atte (drums) are out of the band and replaced with Pyry (bass) and Joonas (drums). What made you choose them as replacements?

Joonas and I have been friends for a looong time and we have been trying to find a band or project for a long time where we could be in the same line-up. I’ve been a fan of his playing for a long time. Also he has inspired my drum playing a lot. Pyry used to be my drum student a few years back but had been playing guitar since he was 10. Very cool and musically talented guy who started to play bass around the same time as drum, so he was an ideal choice. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: THE DEMONSTEALER (DEMONIC RESURRECTION)

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Mar 082012
 

(In this post, Andy Synn interviews The Demonstealer (Sahil Makhija), frontman of India’s flagship metal band, Demonic Resurrection. As you’ll see, he has a lot of irons in the fire.)

 

Your last album The Return To Darkness was released back in 2010: it’s had amazing staying power and continues to attract new fans and positive reviews even now. Stupid question, but just how proud are you of what you have achieved with it?

I would say I’m quite proud of what we’ve achieved with it. We got signed to Candlelight Records to have it released, so that was kind of the biggest payoff for us. Musically, we’ll obviously aim to better what we did. We’ll probably say the new record is our best work to date (which musician doesn’t? :P). So yes, I’m quite satisfied with the way it’s gone, but there is a long long way to go yet.
 

What was the compositional process for the record like? How do you write, either individually or as a group?

Given the instability of the band’s lineup I’ve always remained the primary songwriter in the band and Mephisto has been the second key contributor musically.  I started writing songs in 2007/2008 for this record and that was about the time Virendra Kaith joined us as a drummer, so jamming with him had a huge influence on my riff playing because while our previous drummer was more straight-out death metal, Virendra bought a different style of drumming to the table, which was influenced by bands like Meshuggah, Sikth, Textures. etc., and we had to kind of get him up to speed to the death metal style. So I think that’s how we got most of the sound for the record.

Daniel Rego joined us in 2008 as a lead guitarist and he contributed mostly the solos and some riffs on the record. His lead playing in my opinion was absolutely stellar and exactly what we needed. So the songs were written and then jammed on and edited and changed around til we got the best possible result. We tend to record everything and then we have about 5-6 versions of each song and there is an evolution process involved with the tracks so we can get the best out of it. Continue reading »

KEYBOARD WARRIORS: CHRIS GONDA

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Mar 022012
 

 

(Rev. Will’s interview series focusing on metal bloggers and metal print journalists continues today with Chris Gonda, the founder of PureGrainAudio.)

 

So after cruising through a bunch of American subjects, I’m finally back on Canadian territory with the founder of multi-genre music website, PureGrainAudio. While not a physically-published metal journalist like his fellow countryman Adrien Begrand, Chris Gonda spends his day toiling away for BlackBerry and working his ass off on PureGrainAudio logistical and miscellaneous matters at night—all in a passionate bid to keep the already 7-year old project running so as to promote both Canadian and international music. Talk about keeping yourself busy.

Like Islander and Erik Thomas (of Hails And Horns, Teeth Of The Divine), I’m a cyborg survivor of the Artificial Intelligence Holocaust of 93,1349 Mars years ago back when Earth was dominated by T2’s sent back in time by Skynet and humans were learning how to make Coca Cola. Hence, it was mindless of me to have wanted to interview Chris in person initially, since I don’t have a head (and haven’t had one since the conclusion of the holocaust). Oh, I didn’t get the tattoos though. They didn’t have the Immortal cat design!

After my efforts to force Chris to reply over cyberspace while, ahem, persuading him with an animated .GIF file of Burger King blowing McDonald’s head off, the humorous Canadian gave in to my tyrannous request and shed light on the origins and workings of PureGrainAudio (and more, when I proceeded to show him the .GIF file of Burger King w-a-t-c-h-i-n-g ALL OF US!!!!!!). For example, the dude needs alcoholic rehabilitation.
Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: GRAVEYARD

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Feb 232012
 

Graveyard is a band from Barcelona, Spain, who I came across through their superb new EP released by Pulverised Records, The Altar of Sculpted Skulls (reviewed here). It caused me to ponder the question how a band can distinguish itself playing “old school” death metal without tinkering with the fundamental elements of the music in a way that destroys its authenticity. Graveyard pull off that trick; they succeed where other bands fail. They are also one of the few bands from Spain I’ve heard who devote themselves successfully to traditional death metal.

I had the chance to do an e-mail interview with Graveyard’s lead guitarist, Javi Bastard, who also runs his own recording studio. His answers are smart, funny, honest, insightful, and very interesting. Topics include Graveyard’s philosophy about music, observations about why Spain lagged much of Europe in the development of metal and about the current scene, the band’s approach to recording that old-school sound, recommendations about other Spanish bands, and future Graveyard releases. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

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I should confess up front that I’m a newcomer to Graveyard, with “The Altar of Sculpted Skulls” being my first exposure to your music.  How would you say it compares to the band’s previous releases?

Javi Bastard: I think “The Altar of Sculpted Skulls” sounds more spontaneous than our previous works, at least more than “One with the Dead”, in my opinion. The 4 new songs on “Altar…” were written and rehearsed in just 1 month or so while the songs on “One with the Dead” took us much longer… When we wrote/rehearsed “One with the Dead”, the band had existed for just 1 year and a half or so, now we’re getting closer to our 5th anniversary as a band so I think that explains a few things. In my opinion, “Altar…” is the first GRAVEYARD release where you can actually find a band with its “own style” (considering the small room left for “own style” when you play this kind of classic Death Metal). “Into the Mausoleum” is a whole different thing; it was written, rehearsed and recorded in 2 alcoholic days back in 2007. It was released as an MCD, but of course I see it as a demo released on CD. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: CHRIS OJEDA AND TONY ROHRBOUGH (BYZANTINE)

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Feb 142012
 

(TheMadIsraeli scored this interview of two very talented dudes — Chris (“OJ”) Ojeda and Tony Rohrbough — of the revived and rejuvenated Byzantine. We could hardly be more excited about the rise of this band from the ashes and the promise of new music to come. We wrote about them most recently HERE, in a post that included their appeal for help with a Kickstarter campaign to assist in the financing of the new album — a goal that has already been met and exceeded. But the campaign is still open, and you can GO HERE to contribute.)

It seems appropriate to do this after Byzantine officially reached and exceeded their Kickstarter goal.  Now, production of a new album can officially commence in earnest, and I’m quite looking forward to seeing and hearing what will happen.  I hope you will enjoy reading this interview of Chris Ojeda and Tony Rohrbough as much as I enjoyed doing it.

Alright guys, I don’t want to bother with the bullshit formalities.  Let’s start with what I think of as the ideal opening question is here.  Byzantine: What happened to break you guys up, why did it happen, and why did you get back together?

CHRIS OJEDA: My perception of what happened is this: and it might differ from the other guys because we all were dealing with this internally and processing it differently… We signed a deal with a label and we didn’t really know what we were doing and weren’t prepared for the task at hand. And by task at hand, I mean, going broke, working shit jobs between tours, and not having one single thing in common with your boss at the record label. It started out nice, turned sour and then ate away at our friendships.

When you’re in a touring band, certain things are destined to happen if you do it long enough. 1: You will begin to lose sight of why you became a musician. 2: Relationships will falter back home and/or family members will die while you are gone and you will resent it. 3: Your hatred for your spiraling life will turn and focus its vitriol on your band mates because… well, because they are there. We essentially signed a recording contract, said “Fuck it! Sink or swim”, tied an imaginary chain around ourselves and dove into the water. Unfortunately, I was the first band member to wiggle out of the chains and swim for shore. I bailed. A divorce happened between friends and we wound up not playing music for the better half of 4 years. Wow… that was long winded!!! LMAO! Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: GORD OLSON (DEMISERY)

 Interviews  3 Responses »
Feb 082012
 

(Demisery is a two-man death metal project consisting of noted guitar whiz Keith Merrow and his partner in crime, guitarist/vocalist Gord Olson. TheMadIsraeli raved about their 2011 debut album Hive of Misery in his NCS review last November — an album you can stream and buy HERE.  Today, we’re happy to publish his interviews with Demisery’s dynamic duo. In this post, he talks with Gord Olson and  in the immediately preceding post, Keith Merrow.)

Mr. Olson — you have a voice that sounds like a grotesque swamp monster and the shred skills to eviscerate an entire army of demons.  Why ARE you so fucking awesome?

Thank you very much, sir. I can only say that my skills either came to me through many long years of study and practice, or perhaps that creepy guy dressed up as the devil at that Halloween party had something to do with it… As part of a gag, I “sold my soul” to him! (laughs) But of course, that stuff isn’t real though, right? RIGHT???
 

I’m going to start this interview with the same question I asked Keith: How did you and Merrow hook up, why form Demisery, and how do you feel about Hive Of Mutation in retrospect?

Sometime in late 2010, I had stumbled across a couple of Keith’s videos on YouTube, and I was impressed by certain aspects of his sound. Actually, one of the videos I saw was of him doing a guitar cover of a Cannibal Corpse song, which I thought was really cool, so I wrote to him. I was wanting to pick his brain a little bit about his production techniques. I mentioned that I was a huge fan of old-school Death Metal, and sent him a couple of tracks that I was working on at the time. We found out that we had a near identical list of influences and favorite music, and it was kind of a trip to find that we had many other things in common as well, so I guess that was the start of the friendship. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: KEITH MERROW (DEMISERY)

 Interviews  1 Response »
Feb 082012
 

(Demisery is a two-man death metal project consisting of noted guitar whiz Keith Merrow and his partner in crime, guitarist/vocalist Gord Olson. TheMadIsraeli raved about their 2011 debut album Hive of Misery in his NCS review last November — an album you can stream and buy HERE.  Today, we’re happy to publish his interviews with Demisery’s dynamic duo. In this post, he talks with Keith Merrow and  in the next post, Gord Olson.)

This is so fucking cool to be doing an interview with you.  How are you today fine sir?

Hey thanks man, things are fantastic right now. Happy to chat with you!
 

Alright, so let’s get to the nitty gritty here.  How did you and Gord hook up, why form Demisery, and how do you feel about Hive Of Mutation in retrospect?

I met Gord a couple years ago. He had emailed me for some production tips, and I ended up doing a Skype lesson for him. We just basically hit it off after talking about our musical influences, and found that we had so much in common, musically. We’ve talked nearly every day since we met, and he’s just a great guy. He’s a wicked guitar player and has a knack for writing awesome old-school DM. We had talked about doing a collab on a death metal project for a long time. After he sent me a couple riff ideas he had, we basically just dove into it, head first. I’m really happy with how it turned out, in the end. We set out to make a traditional DM album, and that’s just what it is. It was cool to pay homage to our influences.
  Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: SVEN DE CALUWE (ABORTED)

 Interviews  7 Responses »
Feb 032012
 

We’re as proud as a three-balled tomcat to bring you this very special NCS interview, conducted by e-mail. The victim was Sven De Caluwe, the frontman of Aborted, System Divide, and grindcore trio Bent Sea (which also includes Dirk Verbeuren and Devin Townsend). In part because of his well-known demented sense of humor, we decided to tag-team him with an interviewing duo of Andy Synn and Phro — both of whom also wrote reviews for NCS of Aborted’s ass-ripping new album, Global Flatline (here and here), which is out now on Century Media Records.

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Phro: Global Flatline. Holy fuck. This album impregnated my ears, impaled the aural baby with a clothes hanger, and roasted it over an open flame. This album was originally slated for a 2011 release . . . WHY DID IT TAKE SO FUCKING LONG???

We were too busy jerking off for the past 2 years. As you can imagine, the fine art of auto felatio can take up quite some time. In all honesty it took this long because we wanted to take our time to come up with the best album we could and not rush things out like we have on some past records.

 

Andy: So first off, can you give us some of the themes behind the title Global Flatline? (the less obvious ones I mean, more what it means to you personally).

As you can tell, it deals with the end of man through man. Different probable causes are taken on topics through the album, such as extremists and religion, drug abuse, social apathy and whatever else causes mankind to show its fantastic attributes to the world—and oh yes, let’s not forget feces. The album talks about feces too. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: OWAIN WILLIAMS (XERATH)

 Interviews  8 Responses »
Jan 312012
 

(Xerath’s 2011 album “II” was one of our favorites last year — check out TheMadIsraeli’s review of it here. Recently, he caught up with the band’s stellar guitarist Owain Williams for this real-time interview conducted via Facebook chat — a conversation to be continued at a later date.)

TheMadIsraeli: Hey Owain, totally random ass question…

Owain: Fire away

TheMadIsraeli: interested in doing an on the spot interview right now?

Owain: I’m game

TheMadIsraeli: Xerath. How did it start and why?

Owain: It was actually the brainchild of Andy Phillips, the old Xerath guitarist. Myself and Michael Pitman were merely there to facilitate his ideas. His vision was to marry classical music to technical heavy metal. All Mike, Rich and I have done (as well as recruiting Chris) is understand and realise that goal and try our hardest to make it our own and achieve it. While Andy’s no longer in the band, I think we were in agreement in the first place about how the band should sound

TheMadIsraeli: And Andy was on “I” and you were on bass at the time. So in a sense you’ve kind of taken the helm of a band you were just assisting along in its goal originally. How does that feel?

Owain:  I was credited as bass/guitar for “I”, so there are some songs that Andy or I would call our own. “Alterra” for instance was all Andy, “Right to Exist” was me, some we played about 50/50 guitar.  We’re such a multi-instrumental band, it’s hard to put a finger on who’s responsible for what anymore. For example I think the first song we ever wrote together was me showing Andy how you could have different tiny Polymeters on drums over different limbs which ended up as “Intrenity”. Rich (vocals) wrote a LOT of riffs on “II”, like “Sworn to Sacrifice” (my favourite!), and Mike (drums) wrote probably the most technical “guitar-wise”, “The Call to Arms”. Continue reading »

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