Metal Shock Finland’s David Pearce caught up with KATALEPTIC at Bloodstock Open Air 2012. Kataleptic got to Bloodstock by winning Metal To The Masses. Here they are talking about their new Ep, what it meant to win Metal To The Masses and what it was like to play Bloodstock Open Air.
Kataleptic formed in ’08 in Birmingham, England with the aim of making pure, brutal, Death Metal. The band quickly formed a following in the Midlands playing the local pubs and clubs as well as recording and releasing two demos between ’09 and ’10. The band was also featured in Terrorizer Magazine’s Grindhouse compilation. Now in their fourth year, Kataleptic are wrapping up the recording of their new EP “Through The Eyes of Carnality” which promises to be more savage than anything previously released by the band.
Metal Shock Finland’s David Pearce caught up with Tim Neale from PYTHIA at Bloodstock Open Air 2012. He took a time out to give us the interview about how the tour went with Mortad earlier this year, their new album The Serpent’s Curse and playing Bloodstock for the second time he is what he had to say. Check out the audio interview below.
PYTHIA (pronounced pie-thee-ya) are a group of classical and metal inspired musicians who believe that the art of music is a hallowed path, only to be undertaken by the strong willed and the dedicated. Fronted by Emily Alice Ovenden, a published novelist and member of the number one selling act ‘Mediaeval Baebes’, PYTHIA were formed at the end of 2009 and brought together by a love of fantasy and gothic imagery and literature, the darker, more enigmatic classical works, and, of course; heavy metal.
Wolf Hoffmann is an amazing artist indeed, a legend for many of us who influenced many bands and musicians. He is one of the founders of the legendary band ACCEPT who play Metal loud, heavy and powerful. I am one of those lucky journalists who got a chance to have a talk with Wolf and ask him some questions. I believe you’ll find his answers interesting. Check them out below:
Mohsen: Hello Wolf, How is it going today? Any shocking news?
WOLF: Mohsen, nice to meet you. It is a real adventure to be talking to someone from IRAN!
Wonderful news ….plenty. STALINGRAD has been as successful as BLOOD OF THE NATIONS – both albums are still selling and both have been in the top of the charts, sometimes even competing with each other! We are very happy about that. The tours are going great and we have been around the globe twice in not even 24 months and we are starting another tour around the world again in a few weeks.
Mohsen: To begin with, we had a tribute project to Ronnie James Dio and we got several nice messages from many artists like your band mate Stefan, but I’d like to know your opinion about Ronnie and if you have any particular memory of him?
WOLF: Like everybody, I remember him well and he has been one of the greatest and he has left a huge legacy for all of us to enjoy….forever. One of the great artists and great human beings!
Mohsen: You’re going to tour the USA and the Canada with KREATOR this September, it would be a long tour and I’m sure it won’t be a new experience, but would you tell me how do you find living on the road? Myself personally and perhaps our readers would like to hear if you have any particular or funny memories?
WOLF: The tour is about 5 weeks with KREATOR. We share the bill with them as co-headliners. This package is a historic one. It is to bring GERMAN HEAVY METAL to the fans. Both bands are from the industrial area of Germany, where the German Steel is coming from. ACCEPT opened the door for KREATOR and Mille told me, ACCEPT has been his first concert. The interesting aspect of KREATOR is, that he did not copy anybody, they took the inspiration and created their own niche, they made their stand and will leave their vey own legacy. So this is a very special co-operation and the fans will love it!
Mohsen: You shared a stage with Swedish heavy metal band WOLF in the UK last year. The vocalist Nik is a good friend of mine and they are one of my favorites, but what are your thoughts about them?
WOLF: You know, I guess they are a cool band. But, we are so very busy that we hardly have time to hang around. I wish we cold have seen them. However, they did a good job.
Mohsen: Let’s go back to 2009, when the best news of that year, “Metal Heart Beats Again” was published. Can you tell me more about those days, how did you and Peter get the idea of a reunion and did you expect such success that you got from both of your latest albums at the beginning of this reunion?
WOLF: We lived a different life for many years and it has been sheer destiny, that Mark Tornillo – who lives very close to Peter – never ever met Peter. But, he ran into us one day and like us, he had a different life and being a musician has not been on his agenda at that time. In a spur of a moment we invited him to jam with us, fell in love with his voice and he with our music and the rest is history!
Mohsen: ACCEPT seems to have followed the same themes in writing and recording the “Stalingrad” album as you did in your previous album “Blood Of The Nations” (For example writing lyrics which were influenced by WWII). Would you tell me more about it and what exactly the band wanted to say with those albums?
WOLF: ACCEPT has been one of the very first Bands who made very controversial lyrics and it is always about suppression, dark sides of humanity and a reminder, that there is something you can do about it. We cannot talk about that here, you really have to read the lyrics from BALLS TO THE WALL on….you will see, as the majority of the songwriters and the lyricist are still together there is a golden thread running through it and Mark Tornillo had the gift to continue our tradition.
Mohsen: Some of your fans believe that ACCEPT with Mark is even better than Udo and some do not, but how did you find the differences between working with Mark and Udo?
WOLF: Every time in your life has different circumstances. The voice of a singer is a matter of taste. Today – with Mark we feel absolutely on top of the game! To compare the times we are living in NOW with the past – is not possible. We all grew into different directions and Mark is with us at a time, where we are at our happiest.
Mohsen: Some critics and people believe record labels were killing metal in the 90’s when they were supporting Nu-metal bands. How do you see metal music and the industry today?
WOLF: Yeah, there is something to it. Same thing here, you can not compare the past with the present. Nothing is the same and the Internet has changed EVERYTHING. Today you have to do totally different things than in the past. I consider it as normal. Times change and who cannot change will be left behind!
Mohsen: Would you tell me more about ACCEPT’s future plans and when do you think it would be time for the band to retire? Hopefully not soon though!
WOLF: Hey…we just started…how can I think about RETIREMENT!!! Not possible. We are at our best and as long as the fans want us, we will be there…
Mohsen: You’ve chosen Andy Sneap for both of the band’s latest albums, would you tell me what was the reason and how it was working with him?
WOLF: Andy Sneap is the perfect match for us. We really got close and our creativity is exactly where it needs to be … FLYING HIGH!
Mohsen: Have you any plans to work on another solo album, as your “Classical” album is a masterpiece indeed?
WOLF: yes, that is my secret dream and like with all dreams, they take their time…but something is coming up. I miss that music and I can never let go! You got it …this is MY PASSION!
Mohsen: Photography is one of my favourite kinds of art, so I’m glad to ask you about that part of your life, how did you find out that you like photography? And would you tell me more about your techniques and influences?
WOLF: I am an Anselm Adams scholar…but drifted towards corporate photography in later years. I always work, when I can. Lately ACCEPT’s taking up all my time. But, this will never leave me – like CLASSICAL MUSIC.
Mohsen: As a final word feel free to leave a message to your die hard fans and our readers.
WOLF: I am really sorry, that we have no way of coming to your country. Please follow us on our web site – if you can. We wish for you, that times will change and that we will be able to live in a world without borders. We can only write songs ….telling you, that we understand you and that we love you!
Mohsen: Thanks a lot Wolf for giving me your time.
WOLF: THANK YOU and you are always welcome to write to us!
Metalshock Finland‘s Tarja Virmakari met Ben Varon (guitars) and Ari Koivunen (vocals) from AMORAL, backstage of Myötätuulirock festival, which took place in Finland (Vantaa, Hakunila sports ground) on August 3-4, 2012, organized by Rockfest Finland Oy.
In this exclusive interview we talked about Amoral’s music, their latest album, the busy summer festival period, their upcoming European tour…. and about life in general… listen to the interview below.
Interview and stage-photos by Tarja Virmakari, interview-photos by Petri Virmakari
Check out below the video footage of AMORAL‘s performance at Myötätuulirock festival.
Photos of AMORAL performance and interview at Myötätuulirock festival
AMORAL is a band established by founders Ben Varon and Juhana Karlsson in Helsinki, Finland in the late 90’s. The band’s music is best classified as Classic Rock For The 21st Century: versatile, heavy and riff-driven, yet still melodic with a power groove. Skillful ensemble and crisp performance have characterized Amoral, which is internationally recognized as one of Finland’s foremost bands. The brave and independent development of their music can be heard throughout their five albums.
Recently Metalshock Finland had a chance to interview Yuval Algiz Levi, the Keyboardist from Israeli power metal band SPITEFUL.
1. Hello Yuval and welcome to Metal Shock Finland
Thank you Kostya, I am very glad to be here.
2. Let’s start with the history part. Tell us about how Spiteful was born and why power metal?
The original Spiteful was founded in 2008, by lead guitarist Slava Fedorov. Unfortunately, a dramatic event ruined it, and Spiteful totally collapsed. In august 2011, Slava decided to form the band again. I was the first to join him after the band “NeverWhere” disassembled, where I was the keyboardist. So Slava and I found the new, mightier, and better Spiteful. Power Metal is in my blood, I always appreciated the original Spiteful, and to build a new Spiteful with Slava Fedorov was a great “New Beginning” for me, after NeverWhere disassembled. He fell just in time!
SAVAGE began their career in the 1980’s during the NWOBHM explosion. They released the legendary heavy metal album ‘Loose & Lethal‘ in 1983, described as ‘probably one of the finest British metal albums ever released.’
A young METALLICA covered ‘Let It Loose‘, one of the songs from the album, but it was only ever released as a bootleg.
SAVAGE are now back with a brand new album ‘Sons Of Malice‘ with two original members still in the band – Chris Bradley and Andy Dawson. I recently had an interview with the band:
Hi and welcome to METAL SHOCK FINLAND, how are you today?
KB: Awesome, cheers!
AD: Fine thank you; watching G Britain smash the Olympics!
CB: Good here hows you?
Ali Blackdiamond: Good thanks!
‘Sons Of Malice’ album released this year is your first since 2001, what was the reason for the long gap and can you tell me what was happening with the band during that time?
AD: The band never split , just dealing with personal stuff, suffered many bereavements in that time most notably my Dad and my Brother only 2 months ago. Plus I became a Dad in 2004. I work in music and the arts so I was never far away from it. I’ll be making music until they put me in a box! The time was right and we just got on with it.
CB: Yeah pretty much as Andy said, he missed a couple of divorces out in there also, basically personal lives just got in the way, and it wasn’t until 2009 we found ourselves in a position to kick start everything again, All the other guys play in various other local bands too and that’s always there, for me though there is only Savage, my spare time is taken up with doing my Bachelors Degree at Nottingham Trent university, but only one more academic year to go! Woohoo!
I have read some good reviews of the latest album and Andy has stated ‘It’s by far the best sounding album we have ever done.’ How do you all feel about how it has been received and can you tell me about the process you went through to make it?
KB: We basically spent 10 days solid in the studio, just us 4 and we had a blast. No egos. No clashes of personality. Just a real good time making some real good music!
AD: The reviews have been great, which is a relief after so long a gap. Sometimes you’re just too close to it to know. The sound of the album is a lot down to Mark the drummer. He’s a great musician and engineer. He still feels he could do better so you never know! We took our time to write the stuff and when we had 16 tracks we put them down and then picked the 13. I feel that the 3 extras are just as strong, in fact I wished they were on it! There are plans for a limited vinyl release with all 16 which will be immense.
CB: Not all the reviews are great, laughs, you just cant please everyone, but to the most part probably 95% are good to great, its always nice to get the critical acclaim, but the way the industry is they just don’t translate into the sales you would expect, as its so easy now to get everything for free off the internet. I do understand why the public do it but they forget that most of us hold down jobs to pay for all this and the official sales are what keep bands financially viable and able to keep making music. As far as the sound goes I would say this is the first album that truly captures the real tone of the band and Mark is the man responsible for that!
SAVAGE Keep It True Festival 2012
Have you planned to do any touring in support of the album?
CB: We’ve got a few in the bag for the end of the year, at the moment we have been totally focused on promoting the album and ensuring the fans know we are back in business, but yes we want to get out and play as many territories as humanly and financially viable as possible, including the ones we have never done like Scandinavia, Eastern Europe, South America, Australia and Asia!
AD: At the end of 2012 in to 2013 we should be playing at a few events, we are open to offers from promoters and want to play all over the world.
KB: We’ve been waiting patiently by the phone since it’s release.
You’ve been around since the early NWOBHM days, how have things changed for you as a band and within the industry over the years?
AD: Everything has changed, especially the industry. The digital world has opened everything up for bands; you can have total control if you want. The downside is illegal downloading which is inevitable; it could kill a bands ability to make enough to sustain a band to carry on. We are older and a little wiser and we can make the music we want and not try and follow trends. We felt under enormous pressure to be like the press wanted, we should have ignored them!
CB: I agree with Andy but would also add that I actually feel totally confident for the first time in our career that the other two members of Savage have the strengths and abilities to positively contribute to the band as equals!
How does it feel now, that Metallica, a band now so huge, covered your song ‘Let It Loose’ back in their early career? Did they pay you the license fee?!
AD: Show me the money!!They are the biggest band ever and I am pleased we had an influence on them. I’m still waiting for Lars to call…
CB: No, the version available was always a bootleg so neither band got a penny for it, I was always disappointed that they never included’ Let it Loose’ or ‘Dirty Money’ on the ‘Garage Days’ album, if you check out the sleeve notes you will see them listed in the live set lists found there! We would have made some serious cash from that, laughs.
SAVAGE Keep It True Festival 2012
When you started out in the music business you had many band influences, can you tell me about that time for you and how it has changed regarding influences for you now?
CB: I think that everything influences you, not just music but life in general, yes I still listen to the bands I listened to when I was a teenager, Deep Purple, Queen, Thin Lizzy, UFO and Van Halen, but I also listen to lots of other bands that have come up over the years. I appreciated some of the bands from the Grunge movement specifically bands like Alice in Chains and Pearl Jam. I like a lot of the Nu Metal bands; Avenged Sevenfold, BFMV, Slipknot and specifically Disturbed, I just love David Draimans voice and Dan Donegans riffs, I can also appreciate some of the pop punk bands like Good Charlotte and Sum41, maybe because being from the era of post punk here in the UK I can appreciate the energy, and of course how can you not listen to Iron Maiden and Metallica? I could talk about this all day, but we need to move on so I’ll shut up now, laughs.
AD: The influences for Savage remain the same. Lizzy UFO, Purple, Van Halen, ACDC. I like newer stuff, Audioslave, Foo Figters, Slipknot but they don’t influence Savage. Listen to Lights Out by UFO and I still get goose bumps!
KB: My influences obviously differ. Whilst I come from the same school of music as the other guys, my main influences are more modern and certainly a LOT heavier!
‘Loose And Lethal’ was described as ‘probably one of the finest British metal albums ever released’ by Garry Sharpe-Young in the 2002 ‘Rock Detector A-Z of Thrash Metal’ book. How do you feel about that and the impact the album had on the metal world?
CB: Nice one Garry! And he was right! Laughs. We just didn’t think about that at the time, we liked the songs and that has always been the bench mark for us, I guess its always going to be up to the listener. Bottom line is we write songs that we like and hope that others like them too; however each album was a reflection of me and Andy’s personas at that point in time. But I do understand that many of the fans want us to keep recording ‘Loose ‘n’ Lethal’ but that was that point in time and you can never recreate without sounding contrived, we just try to create something new while retaining our own distinct sound.
AD: Garry was a good friend and is no longer with us. He did the album artwork which was ground breaking at the time. I don’t think we understood how important it was, we were too close. You just go in a studio and make the best album you can. I still find the production hard to listen to, would love to re record it or at least put out a live version!!
The band folded in 1986 due to lack of label support amongst other things, can you tell me more about that and the situation now for you?
AD: We lost momentum and lacked the support and direction from management and label, were still very young, I was 22 I think and knew nothing. Now we have control, we have maturity, I’m certainly a better player but also I don’t take it so personally anymore. I know I’m a good player and writer and have spent many years supporting young kids through my work to have a go at music. Nothing is ever lost, wasted or forgotten’ quoted from Simon Dawson my brother, who died in June.
CB: We didn’t have the guidance that bands like Iron Maiden and Metallica had, both of whom have great management! We where young, naïve and spent far too much time listening to certain members of the British music press, their comments which we should have ignored led to factions within the band and to all intense purpose the others left and started a new band without me, which left me not wanting to carry on, my musical brother Andy had gone and I just gave up for a while; however in hindsight I can’t see how the band could have carried on at that point, the internal personal problems that had developed by then where probably insurmountable without a complete timeout.
SAVAGE Keep It True Festival
How do you see the future for the NWOBHM scene and also for Savage, and what are your plans for the future?
AD: Maybe there needs to be a new NWOBHM ! It’s not important in Britain to be honest, it is only really acknowledged in the rest of the world. Many of those bands were brilliant and many were poor. All bands should be judged on their music. Most popular in our culture does not always mean best. Our plans are to promote the hell out of this album for now and see if we can build on that.
CB: I don’t see a scene for NWOBHM as I said earlier it was a point in time and that’s long gone, and you cant re-create that again. Honestly we never felt part of that movement as we didn’t feel much affinity with those other bands that many now remember so affectionately, we thought of ourselves as apart from that and were always heading in a different direction. Being tagged with NWOBHM has a certain amount of benefit because it gives us a tag to hang on to but can also be something of an ‘Albatross around your neck’ because it also comes with a pre conceived notion of what the band is and should sound like and that is not Savage!
I’d like to ask a question from Dennis, a big fan of yours – ‘What are your early tour memories?’
AD: Nothing outshines the Aardschok gig with Metallica, about 10,000 people going nuts.Local gigs were fun, playing to mates you are at school with is great.
CB: Yeah Aardschok was a high point, but the thing I remember most was the reaction from the fans, they where so into it! And I am sorry we didn’t do better for them.
How did you find Metal Shock Finland and what do you think about us?
CB: I came across you guys on the internet and was impressed by the website, so it was a forgone conclusion that we had to make contact, and I am so glad we did!
AD: Think you guys are great because you are pushing and promoting music to Finland and the world. No bands would be anywhere without support from you guys.
Please feel free to leave a final message for your fans and the readers.
CB: Thank you for all your support over the years, we are back in business and intend to give you our best!
KB: Keep it heavy; guys and girls!
AD: Be brave, be Bold, open hearts, minds and ears to good music old or new!
Thank you for your time and have a great day! Hope to see a show sometime!
AD: Thanks, have a great day yourself
CB: No, thank you!
Check out the new video for ‘Sons Of Malice‘ video below:
SAVAGE are:
Chris Bradley – Vocals, Bass
Andy Dawson – Lead Guitar
Mark Nelson – Drums
Kristian Bradley – Guitars
For more information about SAVAGE check out this location
All photographs by Metal Mike.
THE ROCK ALCHEMIST – Italian Rock Band from Turin with a strong sonic identity that blends modern rock with progressive, hard, alternative, and pop elements!
Kimmo Kuusniemi’s SARCOFAGUS return with a Historic 2010 Concert Video Premiere on YouTube! Click image to watch the video
