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From Fitted Kitchens Of The Living Damned (UK)

Tell us the history of MB in less than 100 words. Go! (Influences, amusing anecdotes, trials and tribulations blah blah. Also, mention any recent changes etc eg following Brian leaving blah blah blah. Make it 'Now', baby!)

The current line up of Mourning Beloveth is Darren-Vocals, Frank-Guitar, Tim-Drums and Adrian-Bass. Brian left due to personal problems a few months back. The first demo-untitled ,was recorded in April 98 and has sold 400+ with the new Demo 'Autumnal Fires' passing the 700 stage now. Hypnotic riffs, heavy deep distorted guitar, rumbling bass ,slow drums and a guttural voice with some clear pieces too that create the raw, melancholic doom that MB have made their own . Funny stuff Hmmm I remember myself and Darren checking out printers for to do the inlays and we went into one place and the woman asked us for an example of what we would like the inlay and from his pocket Darren produced this inlay from some demo band who had a fetus on the cover and it was a bit graphic, I just laughed and ran .

1998's 'Autumnal Fires', forty five minutes of claustrophobic doom. It ain't easy listening, definitely a case of needing to be in the right frame of mind or else it is oppressive listening. When will Mourning Beloveth be getting lawsuits filed by the parents of fucked up teenage suicides? Did the music make them do it?!?

That's another good description of our stuff. I suppose it is a bit hard to listen to and it helps to be in the right frame of mind to listen. You have to know what to expect and to have respect as we have found out at some gigs. When we supported cathedral some idiot was shouting "play a fast song", maybe he was getting depressed listening to us, which is good, what better compliment could you get. We are not the type of band to go slamming or vicious headbanging to, people usually stand around and might sway a little , get a little paranoid and suicidal. I don't think we would cause any suicides but it would be cool if it did ,for a demo band anyway, become a cult and then break up ,yup. mass suicide heh heh. It would be nice to see if any people that listen to our stuff get death shivers like I do sometimes when we play .Let them on.

MB's music has been labelled 'raw melancholic doom' which hits the nail squarely on the head I'd say. There's no concession to the listener with attention deficit disorder, and MB positively revel in producing genuine grief-filled soundscapes. Give us your thoughts on your lyric matter provided by vocalist Darren. In fact, tell us the basis behind the three meisterpieces on the latest demo.

The new demo is a trilogy based on the pain, grief loss and murder of beauty which we experience in our lives. The lyrics deal with images of nature and carries an atmosphere of darkness and sorrow. When Darren writes the lyrics he might't know what the song is about until there is music behind them, which adds to the mystery of MB. " When grief wrapped its cold arms around my body the embers still flickered in the Autumn of your love"(Autumn Fires in Somnolent Harmony), "Your poison takes my life, the emerald has now turned to stone, our castles now overgrown". See what I mean. Darren prefers to let the listener to get his/her own personal meaning from our songs as they are personal enough lyrics, which in turn adds to the feeling of Mourning Beloveth and where we would like to remain.

Labelling yourselves as 'doom' as you do on your website and demo inlays could lose you potential listeners who may be put off by their own preconceptions of the genre. What do you think?

Well it wasn't intentional in the beginning to''label'' ourselves as a doom band we did avoid it for as long as possible but when it came down to promoting the band we had to decide on what to call ourselves so as to reach the audience we kind of intended to reach but we as it worked out we are reaching a lot of different audiences, I've seen goths ,thrashers and other freaks giving the nods of approval at our gigs and buyingdemos and t-shirts. I think it could be the way our music touches whatever depressing nerves we all possess and this is good . It doesn't limit us to any particular scene but then I would say we do strongly remain a part of the doom genre.

Given the fact that Mourning Beloveth have been around since '92, but have only managed to gloom your way through two demos, you're not exactly pushing yourselves. This suggests that you're a bunch of pot-addled heads. Fair comment? Also, with a spate of local acts being signed recently (Waylander, Geasa, A Incarnate etc), are MB likely to miss the boat? (is getting signed even that important?)

I'm not going to make any pathetic excuses about why we are slow at putting out demos but there was a difficulty in trying to establish a stable line up for a while and it had its effects on the band. We do take the odd toke or two but that's just us and if it effects our productivity its our fault. I hope we don't miss the boat as you say in so far as getting signed but it would be nice to get something professional out and be on a par with our mates who are getting off the ground because I believe that Ireland is going to get a lot of notice and attention metal wise pretty soon. This country has a lot of good bands and I can't honestly say there are any or many shit bands out there ,a few dickheads allright yes, but that keeps a good balance. I suppose. Mourning Beloveth knows that the music we play is not too popular so we know the possibilities of being /not being signed.

Any scene will have its in-fighting and ego-clashes. How do you see these tensions manifesting themselves in the Irish scene?

You are right there. Of course there are ego-clashes and ridiculous in-fighting in this scene as well and as good as any other scene but those assholes thrive on shit like that and I don't like to get involved ,That would make me as bad as them so I mainly avoid those situations if I can. I know some of those people and I like to take the piss out of them unawares. They will be lonely old men in years to come so fuck them. As long as we don't start killing ourselves like those crazy norwiegans we will do allright . The Irish scene is still small enough but is growing very quickly and it would be a shame at this stage to let the assholes mess things up. The best thing is not to listen to them.

A little birdie told me that you went down like a sack of shit at your last Belfast gig. What was the story? Indeed, playing music as slow as you do, it must be hellishly difficult to motivate an audience to participate in the whole thing.

That little birdie just was probably wearing a KORN T-shirt and swigging stale titjuice or else he doesn't appreciate slow music. If you read the ONLY live review that we have on our web page, you would see that it is quite a favourable review and we seem to have went down better than any of the other bands that played (Abaddon Incarnate ,Waylander) and I didn't think they were shit either. And I quote (First band on were Mourning Beloveth who wallow in doomful, gothic, Sabbathesque riffs played with mantra like repetition. They played material from their "Autumnal Fires" demo which was good in a depressing sort of way. Check these guys out if the contents of your wardrobe is exclusively black and your house is illuminated by candles……. ) I didn't honestly feel that we went down like a sack of shit or any bad way at all. We thought and some others that said it to us that it was one of the best gigs we played (now there was fuck all people there anyway but that doesn't matter).So tell that bird to jump to a higher branch and get the full picture .maybe he's one of those fiends mentioned in Q.6.That gig was also the last Brian played with us so that was a bit special.

Poppyhill Studio is getting a good reputation as a recording venue for all things Metal… recent clients have included your good selves, Arcane Sun, Moonfog and Thy Sinister Bloom I do believe. Would you recommend it to anyone else?

I would recommend it to any good metal band that has it together to go and record some stuff. Now the danger with that is that bands would be afraid that the production achieved might eventually become similar for all bands that would do stuff there but this is not so. You will get a great sound at Poppyhill,the engineers are very good ,Willie the guy that owns the studio has a great insight into the stuff you give him ,but the other guy Graham ,he did our demo is a metaller himself and if you can describe what you want in a song,or a particular sound on something he's the man for the job. It is a purpose built studio 24 Trk,good outboard equipment,great live rooms and compatable to any type of music really as a good studio has to be. If there are any foreign labels or bands reading this it would be worth the bother to check it out. I am going back there again in September to record a demo with another band I'm in ,Kingdom (black/death/doom).

After a hard day's graft at work, what's the best selection of audio pleasures to clear your head and spark you up for an evening of doomy deviance?

After a hard days work (and I do many) I would hold off on the doom until later on. When I get home or am finished I might put on some At The gates or Dimmu Borgir,Death,Borknagar a lot of fast and nasty stuff brimming with Satanic or Evil intent just to calm me down for a while. Later on after a feast of mashed giblets and worm juice topped off with a smoke or ten I will put on something else like Anathema,Black Sabbath,Pink Floyd,The Doors or some laid back backround music. It depends on the mood you would be in really. I listen to a lot of different types of music not necessarily all metal so most of the time I could put anything on as my house mates past and present would vouch for.

Far from being the oft-maligned cause of despair, violence and all things downright nasty, Metal is actually an extremely powerful vibe for chilling to and working out your frustrations with everyday drudge and irritation. Discuss.

It's the emotion that you get out of a particular song or part of a song that gets you on that vibe and because so many emotions can be found in different styles of what you might listen to no matter what mood you're in , you can find music to suit. Ye know some days when you might want to kill someone, well I would put on something like Dissection or Mayhem if I wanted to plan his/her murder and get the creative side going or put on my Dying Bride , Black Sabbath or something soft as a distraction. "music calms the savage beast", .It's a pity though when you see kids in court being blamed for a murder that was "apparently incited" by listening to some form of extreme metal. Maybe these kids are unfortunate in the lifes path they lead musicwise. Image says a lot for metal too and as much as it is to criticise it for the 'evil looking figures in black' as it is also to be deceived. For instance I saw a web page of this doom band from the states, checked it out and it was this "christian doom ' outfit. Now I don't go for that shit but I would imagine those guys get some stick about looking evil and they supposed to be holy holy. Metal is a powerful vibe indeed and there are some who just can't handle it and it has its rammifications, schoolyard assas9nations,suicides etc. Every scene has its own problems, like the fucking punks, some people are as afraid of them as they are of the quiet metallers, goths generally look too fucking dodgy and suffer for that but that's because of the idea society generally takes for granted. We're all tarred with the same brush sadly. I would be great though to steal some of those young girls that you see at the front of some big faggot bastards gig like Robbie Williams and get them to throw their tits out at me . we need more of thet in our scene. They should listen to metal ,feel the fist of fury and be smitten by the Jaw of Doom.

Tell us about your favourite thing that you've stolen from a clothes line.

I stole the whole clothes line once. I needed the rope to carry out a girlfriends sexual fantasy (not really mine). She put on a rubber catsuit that was 5 times too big for her filled it up with plastic balls and warm water and suspended her from a tree hands first. Then I opened the neck of the suit and slid in .After an hour of bang bang sticky nicey I ripped the crotch out of the suit and we both went for a bath of red wine and blood sucking leeches. Bit far fetched isn't it.

What can we expect next from MB?

We plan on recording around December or soon after with 2 songs and one piano piece; to release as a 7 inch or mini-cd is the plan. That's all for now. We are still trying to finalise a second guitarist also to capture the fullness and heaviness that we play live with.

Cheers for the interview.. close off as you see fit!!

Thanks Andy for the interview ,I hope you're mag gets bigger and better and that the next timer we meet in the Kitchen preparing saucy giblets I can give you our debut full length CD. Doom on brother.

by Andy Orr