| INTERVIEWS |
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From Legacy
We look back on those weeks as some of the best we have ever had as a band. It was our first tour, our first time do play so many gigs so close together and it made us a very tight unit musically. WE played with Morgion and The Prophecy and these guys became friends over the two-week period of the tour. I do no think there was a low point of the tour, the hardest part was probably driving so many miles, sometimes straight after the gig drive through the night just to reach the next venue in time but it was as if we were all in a dreamlike state driving through the hills and vales of Europe. The tour happened almost by accident, Heiko from doom-metal.com visited us in Ireland and was interviewing us when we mentioned we were thinking of touring, at this time Morgion and The Prophecy were organising some UK shows for themselves and we jumped on board and expanded the tour to cover France, Belgium, Spain, Portugal and the UK and Ireland. This was our first contact with either band and after two weeks on the road we all became friends. There was no real aim of the tour just for the three bands to promote our music but also to see some of Europe that we had never seen before, so it was almost like an adventure with a gig every night. We have since toured the USA and Europe again. 2. How was the resonance from the audience? I heard that the tour wasn't really what you could call successful … But then Doom Metal was always sort of an underground thing and I guess a few guests who really appreciate what you are doing are after all more valuable than an anonymous mass which just feels okay with what you are offering them, right? For us the tour was a huge success. We played to crowds ranging from 30 in Spain to 400 in Portugal and we met so many people on the road who were willing to put up with us for the night and share their homes and hospitality that it all gave us great heart about the underground doom scene. The crowds were great, w eplayed a wine cellar in apris, a tiny place but it was one of the most memorable nights on tour as the crowd were in our face and the sweat dripping from the ceiling gave the night an almost electric feel. We played to 400 people in Portugal in the grounds of a 16th Century cathedral and the Portuguese people were some of the friendliest we have ever met. This was then countered by driving for 16 hours straight at top speed over the Spanish mountains to reach a gig in Murcia where 20 people turned up but again that night I met some people I had been writing to for years and it was again a great night, so no negatives whatsoever from the tour, except maybe to our pockets. Yeah it seems with doom shows the people are there for the music alone and every night we played everybody in the crowd really got in to the music and this was reflected in the merchandise sales every night. 3. What I found interesting about the Doomination over Europe tour is that even though Doom Metal is often considered to be a very conservative genre in regard to musical development, the bands which were involved there have quite a broad idea of what is Doom and what not. If you, for instance, look at Morgion's brilliant new record, it differs considerably from your new effort. Nonetheless, you would call both bands Doom, since they share important concepts and views. Now, would you say that the Doom Metal as such is still underestimated by many of today's metalheads? What distinguishes Doom Metal for you and what makes it so worthy? There is such a variety of bands in the doom underground that I, for
one, am still discovering new stuff. I mean the range from Candlemass
to Esoteric and all in between can keep anybody interested. It is true
that the three bands on the tour were doom bands but we all had our own
thing going also and that for me is a reason why the doom scene is so
interesting, each band plays from the heart without thought for trend
or we should sound like this syndrome we play our music with raw passion
and nothing else. 4. I think you have always been a band with a style of its own, although similarities to others are of course undeniable. Can you still recall what was the first Doom track you got in contact with and how you felt when you listened to it? So many magazines say we sound like this and we sound like that but they all say we have something of our own style be it from the fact that we play from the heart and not the head, we mightn't be the tightest band you ever hear but that is not what's important, feeling and passion is what's important or the fact that we are Irish and have a different mentality than most of Europe, living on an island does strange things to the mind…haha. Fuck I must be getting old, I cannot remember the first doom track I ever heard, probably Black Sabbath, Black Sabbath but I didn't realise it at the time. I came from the early thrash scene ( but WASP was one of my favourite bands around this time) and then to death metal, got bored with that quickly and then started to discover bands like Black Sabbath and Mercyful Fate, Led Zeppelin then strangely to MDB and Anathema, Paradise Lost and then on to Candlemass, Vitus, Trouble, Solitude Aeternus, I always like to go back and see what bands influenced the bands I am listening t at the moment..these days I listen to anything from Neil Young to Pink Floyd to Skepticism to Venom to Judas Priest to Candlemass…….anything. 5. I guess the first words I read about Mourning Beloveth were published in the great Moondance magazine (R.I.P.). You were sort of newcomer of the issue in there. Do you feel that this review has opened some doors for you, especially in Germany? Yeah I remember that review, we are still very proud of that today. I think it was Timo Kolling??? I since lost contact with him and Moondance is dead but it was one of the best zines around at the time. We recorded our first demo and sent it round to some zines but not many replies, then when we recorded Autumnal Fires demo we sent about 300 to press and the best review was that one, demo of the issue in a respected German magazine. It was probably a pivotal point for us cause up until then we hadn't much positive feedback at all, Moondance gave us the confidence to go on and record our debut album ourselves. I don't think it opened any doors for us in German however, we did get feedback from other corners of the world about it but Germany, no. In fact on the Doomination of Europe we couldn't get a gig in Germany but we remedied that last year with 4 gigs in Germany. 6. Quite some time ago I was asked to review the first edition of a metal-zine you also contributed to. I was surprised that that should have been the first Irish metal-mag., since you have so many great bands around there in Ireland but now appropriated press … I really liked the magazine, but never heard about the further development. So what has happened to it? What did/do you personally enjoy most about doing this mag.? It is the first pro-printed Irish magazine, there have been many zines such as Deprived, Through Irelands Eye, Dark Skies Ahead but this is the first proper magazine with good distribution. We are now on to issue 5 of Metalworks with Judas Priest on the cover. It is hard work but a lot of fun. Our main aim is to promote Irish music but to do that we need international bands in it too and I have had the pleasure of interviewing bands like Slayer, Opeth plus the numerous gigs we get in to for free because of it..haha. It is also a way for us to discover new bands and we are not pushed by label interest, just cause a label places an ad doesn't mean their band will get album of the month, it is run in the underground way and we speak honestly and passionately about the music we listen to. I am now also involved in running a music store with Adrian and Brian of Sentinel which is located in Temple bar in Dublin so if you ever get the opportunity just drop in. 7. What I have always admired about your music is that it sounds so goddamn intense and in it nakedness so purely personal and emotional. Would you say that your motivation to be an artist is first and foremost an egoistic one? To absorb all the negativity surrounding and inhabiting you? Our music is written and recorded for ourselves and our own interest, we write music that we want to listen to and as the years go by our musical tastes differ but we still need this outlet, a vent for all the negative shit going on in our lives and the world around us, you then may ask why do we push to get signed and release our music. It is a journey of self discovery, see how far we can go with what we love and releasing the music has helped us to tour Europe and America, seeing the world while playing the music we love. W eplay from within, with passion and feeling-whatever we have going on in our lives is what comes out in the music, no frilly gimmicks, just five guys playing doom. 8. You have once described the writing process of a Mourning Beloveth track as if it was some sort travel which is carried out by the whole band and might sometimes last months. Do you think that Mourning Beloveth's music necessarily has to be an interactive occupation to sound as atmospherically intense? Yeah definitely, we are not a quick fix metal band, the music, art and lyrics must be absorbed for the listener to understand what we are doing. This album was definitely a journey for us, we added some new stuff to our sound, some more diverse pieces to challenge ourselves and the year coming up to the recording of the album was very intense.. Songs were written and re-written so many times that it became quite nerve wrecking towards the end as most of the songs were not finished. Each week we came up with something new for a certain part but we had all been working around the loose concept we had and just weeks before the recordings we finished everything. There are advantages to this in that the music came out very intense and focused but the negative thing was that we all just about new the songs going in to the studio… 9. You do not seem to be in a hurry with releasing new music. Quite some time elapsed between your first demos as well as between "Dust" and "The Sullen Sulcus". Would you say its necessary that music has enough time to grow and evolve? Is that the reason why so many recent bands are constantly releasing complete crap: because they don't take their time and are furthermore lacking the vision? We had a lot of discussions about this album cause we had an extra song to record and we didn't know whether to release it with this cd or leave it for a later time but looking back at our previous albums, each one has a specific atmosphere to it, a certain dynamic and if we had left this song and put it on the next cd it would have sounded completely out of place because it was written now and everything we had been going through was put in to this song. Each album we do is going to sound different, obviously within the doom genre, we don't listen to trip hop or dance music so there will be no departure there but each album is a print of what we have been going through in the previous say two years from its conception to its final recording. For me the lack of passion in music today is a lot to do with the fact that nothing is permanent, look at the internet-what I read today on the net could be changed tomorrow, there is no transparency, people just want a quick fix and then move on to the next thing. I am sounding like an old fucker now but when I was growing up we would sit and wait for the new release from whoever it is, get the train to Dublin and buy I, now it seems there are so many bands, so many releases that you have to dig further and further through the waste to find something worthwhile. Is it just a reflection of our society, mass produced metal……? 10. What would you say is the most important characteristic about your music? Passion 11. I think it was the first time that you didn't go to Academy studios to record an album. Inasmuch as Markus Stock and being away from Ireland influenced the outcome of the new record? Have the songs changed while you recorded them? I mean the sound is obviously different, colder and much harsher than on your previous efforts …It was our first time away from Academy and there was a few reasons for it, first we wanted to challenge ourselves to see could we record with another producer and to get away from the MDB tag that has plague us from day one but also the price factor had something to do with it. We always try to record away from Ireland as it helps us focus on what we have to do without any distractions, our sound has evolved and we felt we needed a different atmosphere because of the music and lyrical concept. We went for a more in your face production, with the guitars really hard and to the front and the vocals much angrier than previously. The songs didn't really change in the studio, it was the weeks and months coming up to the recording that they changed each week. Vocally I knew what I wanted to do but had not rehearsed most of it as the lyrics were mostly unfinished coming up to the studio time and so most of the vocals are done there and then, a lot of one takes and a lot of trying different things. 12. Was it difficult to get used to methods of a new producer? We thought it would be but we got on with Markus from day one, he is a really cool guy and we admire his music from the Empyrium days. We had a lot of fun recording and drinking at night and it was probably the most relaxed we have ever been in the studio and it probably brought the best out of us. We were all a little anxious about the move to a new studio and producer as all we knew was Magz and Academy but it was learning experience again for all of us I think. We clicked with Markus straight … 13. Your lyrics always strike as being really elaborate pieces. Indeed, you are one of the few bands which still has lyrics in the very sense of the word: you are trying to express something, have the power and will to express it. How would you describe the relation between lyrics and music? Would you say that your admiration for the mighty Keats (La belle Dame sans Merci and This living Hand are presumably among the darkest poems ever written…) has sharpened your senses for words? For us anyway the music, lyrics and artwork all come together under the
title a Murderous Circus, you cannot have one without the other. This
time round for the lyrics I had all of the ideas and images I wanted written
but they were mostly not put together until all of the music had been
recorded, that is when I finished everything. I finished three songs over
there but all of the lyrics were on scraps of paper or just notes that
all became clear when the music was complete and so they were written
under the atmosphere for this album lyrically and vocally I tried to capture
the mood of the music for each piece. 13. 'The Apocalypse Machine' is actually a very impressive piece in that regard … Could you say that the line "Today I feel defeated…alone, the stench of all that is dead but still walks" is one of the most central ones on "A Murderous Circus"? The Apocalypse Machine is a summation of the whole album and you picked
out one of the central themes there. Again I wrote personally and universally,
personally about the hell we go through after a time of excess and the
depression that follows, how I feel that everything around me is dead
or perhaps it is the fact that I am dead to the world. It is also a statement
on the world in general and how so many people live such vacuous lives
forced upon us by this uncaring, unfeeling world of mass commercialism
and globalisation. The two topics are intertwined as we question is it
because the world is like this that I follow the path of excess to block
out the mundane existence around and by creating my own world through
excess does it eventually lead to an existence parallel with what we are
trying to escape from?" Most of us in the band over a number of years
have been leading lives that are not exactly healthy, pushing ourselves
to the limit on many occasions and the past two years has seen this very
focused. This album musically and lyrically is dealing with this and it
is a very diverse album as two things pull against each other creating
a grey vastness between, musically we have written some of the softest
pieces yet and also some of the most brutal and cold. It is a reflection
of our own world and the world we live in that we have to try to create
our own chaos to escape from banality and by trying to escape we are slowly
killing ourselves. 14. Which other favourites do you have and why? " the trouble is I though we would live forever, the truth is we
were dead before we were born" from the song "..yet everything"
again a line along the same themes as the previous question and I love
it's openness and still it has a personal meaning 15. What makes darkness and despair so fascinating for you as an issue for your lyrics and your music? Would you describe yourself as an extreme band in that sense as you search for and evoke utter darkness? I don't know if they are fascinating, I am trying to vent what I have inside and by laying lyrics on a page, by screaming them out it seems to help me; it is the same for the rest of the lads in the band when they write music it is pure catharsis to clear all of the negative crap inside. I suppose we are all attracted to the darker side, be it music, books, film it is much more interesting than flowers…
The title deals with two things, firstly the fact that our lives have
followed the path of excess for many years with over indulgence in the
various forms that can be explored and how this circus we create only
leads us to death and also the fact that the world we live in is so vacuous,
so interested just in the façade and not what lies beneath that
this is what has made us try to escape from it. So while the topics dealt
with in the lyrics are very personal they are also universal and while
I do speak from personal experience it is wrapped up with everything that
is happening in the world today and perhaps this is the reason why we
choose the path we lead, it is just to block out this mundane existence
we are forced to live 17. Would you describe yourself as a political person, in that sense that you try to be up-to-date with all the things that happen around you and take them as an influence - explicit or implicit - for Mourning Beloveth? Do you think that an artist should seek to mark (social) problems? How many of your words actually reflect what you perceive around? I do keep up with world happenings and have my views on the world and I think they are shared by most thinking people.Everyone can see behind the lies of Governments and how, no matter what they say, keep us down with tax upon tax etc. An example in Ireland at the moment is that there is so much US investment that our government is afraid to say no to the US government over any issue and this is just another form of control the US has over Ireland without even invading. How the fact that the wars the US wage every day be it on there own people with tighter controls of everything you say or do or waging war on other countries for supposed weapons of mass destruction which I am sure existed ( just look at the receipt haha) to control their oil supply or to get rid of them as a force in the future, how there are so many drug companies now making products that nobody needs or wants…… I am sure you know where I am going with this but these are just my personal views, which I do not really bring in to MB. Implicitly I deal with how our society controls what you think with propaganda and commercialism, how the feeling is gone in society and how something you read today can be changed tomorrow, how these affect us personally and how we try to escape from this uncaring world. Everything I perceive around has an influence on me and I intertwine this with our personal hell, which we force upon ourselves sometimes to escape from this grey world. 18. There is a strange coherence between your new album and Primordial's last effort: You are both sort of lamenting about the fact the world has turned into an utterly dark place and that it is us, the people, who made it like this … I will ask you the same question I asked Alan some weeks ago: Do you sometimes feel like you are thrown into a time you cannot relate to, maybe even feel alien to? myself and Alan do share some of the same views, his are probably a bit
more extreme than mine, as we did grow up in the same times. It is no
longer a world of the people, but then again it probably never was, it
just seems governments are trying to control us more and more and our
own government is even trying to get rid of its history by tearing up
ancient burial sites in the name of progress.This is not the Ireland I
grew up in where we were proud of our heritage and our struggle for freedom.
It seems these are now dirty words , we grew up learning about our history
and how our forefathers fought and died for us, this seems to be forgotten
about today 19. What about your future plans? We are doing a few gigs soon, in Paris then hopefully Germany and in October we play Dutch Doom Day hopefully followed by a tour and after that back to writing some new material.
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