Probably the US band that impresses me the most with their two last releases "Hail infernal darkness" and "Merciless hammer of lucifer". DRAWN AND QUARTERED find their own hellish trademark combining the essential elements of darkness, infernal moodand ability to create gloomy yet melodic tunes able to captivate many children of the underworld out there. Here are some words given by Kelley the main man behind the cult of obscurity.
Darkest greetings Kelley! Firstly, thanks for taking the time to answer this interview, I have hard times to complete my fanzine’s summary as now some bands didn’t reply to my requests and think the Myspace shit will do a better job. I can understand some bands to be busy to a certain extent but at least they just can say “no”. How are you doing?
Hello, I'm doing well. Let's get to the questions;
I stop complaining and come back to what’s focus my readers’ interest, that is to say your new album “Merciless hammer of Lucifer”. I must admit that my first listening of this release was a bit disappointing as the previous “Hail infernal darkness” was a real achievement. But now I use to listen to it regularly and it’s a killer job indeed in the direct continuation of “Hail…”. How is the response so far? Do you think DRAWN AND QUARTERED has found his unique sound and style?
I was pretty happy with "Hail Infernal Darkness". When we were working on material for "Merciless Hammer of Lucifer" I knew that anything would seem like a disappointment, so I consciously wanted to make the recording a lot different. To make the catalog more diverse, you can't do the same thing over and over. Well we do, to a certain extent, but there are things you refine and things you leave behind. Some of the differences were in the production. I wanted a listening experience that would be a lot clearer when more volume was applied. As a result, at lower volumes the sound may come across a little thin, without some eq. And there has been some criticism about that. But you can crank the volume and it is clearer. You can add some bass frequencies if you need to with eq, instead of having to decrease them, or the volume, or boost the highs as much. Production decisions, affect the mood of a record a lot. And let’s face it, we're not world class recording producers. We learn each time. The recording experiences probably influence the writing a little, too. Some of the songs just flowed out when we were rehearsing and writing for the CD. Most of the time I write at home, and refine ideas, and figure out different chord voicings and stuff before bringing them to the band. Or Dario or Greg will have parts or a song that I will work out parts to.
The response has been good, a lot of people seem to get it. Our fans love it. It has a dark vibe. That is really cool. The songs and solos are different, but there's enough familiar things in there to remind you that you're listening to brutal death metal. Our musical style is quite different than most death metal bands. We have a couple of constant comparisons, and those are valid. Upon further examination, and a health collection of "old school" thrash and death metal recordings ,you'll see that we draw from a huge wellspring of influences. It is all interpreted through the guitar and vocal style that we use, that gets us compared to those other bands that we're all well aware of. Their constant and consistent brillance, drives us to new creative levels. Is it unique? That is hard to answer. Yes. We combine some elements, in a different way. Our approach is different, our lyrical style is pretty brutal. I don't like playing a lot of real busy parts, so fast you can’t really detect music, with overly loudrums and vocals, what I consider kind of boring. That seem to be a lot of these type of bands, that for years didn't even have guitar solos anymore. To me metal needs guitar solos, and I'm glad to see those back, for the most part. And the solos don't have to be incredibly technical neo classical doodlings, to be good. I like that style when it is done well, but to me, that fits more commonly into the thrash style of guitar playing. We play detuned, so it has different characteristics. This and that I don't play the open E string, based thrashy SLAYER type guitar riffs to much is probably what people use when they compare us to other bands. That guitar playing is what got me interested in doing this band in the first place, so I'm not about to stop playing guitar like this to please one or two critics or some fans of music that I don't really like that much. I find it interesting, when someone questions our originality, when I hear a lot of bands far more derivative than us doing really boring mediocre crap heard a million times.
Only one year separates your two last releases which where recorded at the same studio, Autopsy Room with the help of Jesse O’Donnell. The result on these albums is quite homogenous. You used to work with him since your second conjuration “Extermination revelry”. Can we say that he understands the essence of DAQ music better than anyone? Will you ever try with someone else?
It has been beneficial to the band to have some consistency with working with certain people at certain places. Each effort has a new and better result. We have a lot of fun and all work very hard. When you find people willing to go the extra milke, it means a lot, in getting things accomplished. Making a record in the amount of time we usually do is a huge effort. Hours of playing and work in the studio. Being the only guitar player, I there at least twice as long on most of the sessions. People I've worked with before, we're like on a time clock. At a certain time the day was finished, so you we're kind of stuck with results that could have come out better with a little more time, and less pressure from worry of time limits. Sometimes when you're on a roll, you can get a lot done with by staying lat a couple of evenings getting the work done, and that is what Jesse does, he works his ass off! We may try some other studio, in the future.
Your album cover art is done by Gabriel T. Byrne since your first album. How does he work each time to create such chaotic and blasphemous artworks? Does he listen to music first or do you give him recommendations?
Each of his cover paintings has been done differently but, we always have some input. Sometimes we'll look at sketches. Sometimes we've had a lot of input, sometimes less. There are always things from the songs represented on the album covers, and much deeper things based on our or his interpretations and philosophies.
DAQ is a combination of dark atmospheres and merciless brutality draining influences from INCANTATION, IMMOLATION and MORBID ANGEL. I think you get the essential feeling to create something personal without copying the bands mentioned above. Are there influences you would point out but that are less obvious like black metal for example?
DRAWN AND QUARTERED has many influences, yes not all of them are as apparent. They are probably the same influences as the bands you mentioned. Heavy metal, like JUDAS PRIEST, BLACK SABBATH, IRON MAIDEN, SLAYER, POSSESSED, DEATH, VENOM, BATHORY, SODOM, KREATOR, DESTRUCTION, MAYHEM and tons of other heavy metal bands, thrash metal, speed metal, doom , grindcore and black metal. From the get go I was influenced by CARCASS, IMMOLATION, CANNIBAL CORPSE, INCANTATION, DEICIDE, MORBID ANGEL, BOLT THROWER, SINISTER and a bunch of early 90's death metal bands. Not to mention all the great scandinavian black and death metal.
In your way of songwriting, you keep a balance between brutality and infernal and sinister moods. Is it a conscious way of creating songs? What do you think of bands creating brutal tunes for the sake of brutality or the endless contest of speed?
If you started playing death metal after hearing only death metal, not all the stuff that came before, you might miss some of the essential elements such as mood and songwriting, focusing only on the newer death metal elements such as growly vocals, clicky sounding bass drums and blasty snare parts, you end up with this kind of watered down style. There are some bands that do real well in the speed death metal stuff, but the best bands mix it up a little. We have always tried to create some dark melodic parts that stick in your brain, making you want to listen to the songs again. Many bands CD's don't really let you catch your breath and all the songs start sounding the same after a while.
Kelley, in you DAQ you remain, since the beginning of the band if I’m not wrong, the sole guitar player although there are many lead-guitars in your songs as well as guitar harmonies. How do you manage to reproduce your tunes with one guitar? Have you ever thought of adding a second guitar player to DAQ?
The second guitar stuff evolved with each passing record, and some things I couldn't do, but I had effects and harmonizers, or we didn't do songs that relied on that stuff, we have a lot of songs. Sometimes I just did the main part and alternated between voicings and the bass has always filled in a lot. We have been playing with a second guy, John Fryer who plays guitar in one of our side bands called WINDS OF PESTILENCE(BLACK/THRASH). Eventually I'd like to add the dueling leads thing like MAIDEN and PRIEST, we'll probably explore some of that on future recordings.
You must know that when checking reviews about DAQ I often read quite restrictive comparisons with IMMOLATION. Is this something you understand or are you tired of hearing this? I think you have found a personal way of playing as well as a different sound. Do you still listen to the band and what is your favourite release of their?
Yes, we are tired of the IMMOLATION comparison. But I can't deny an influence, but it is more of a surface similarity. Our recordings really don't sound alike at all. I was mainly influenced by the earlier stuff and my favorites are the first two, "Dawn of possession" and "Here in after". But all of the recordings by IMMOLATION, INCANTATION and MORBID ANGEL inspire me. We combine the styles of guitars, vocals and drums, Really we are inspired by the mood and the overall vibe, not really a riff for riff duplication. I still love IMMOLATION and see them live every time they come here. In fact we opened for them last November, here in Seattle.
Let’s talk about your side project, featuring all DAQ members, called PLAGUE BEARER that was originally the pre-DAQ era. The material released as an EP “Rise of the goat” by Nuclear Winter Records is rather close to DAQ maybe a bit straighter, a kind of rawer and bestial black/death metal orientation but keeping the evil sounding trademark. When composing, at which moment do you feel a riff or structure fits better to DAQ than PLAGUE BEARER? Will you release something else with PLAGUE BEARER?
After playing in a couple of death metal bands in the early 90's, I formed PLAGUE BEARER with some new people I just met through local music paper and a bass player I'd been working with on and off for a while. We record some songs, on my 4 track, but never released it, and did one show. The group fell apart, but I continued with some session guys on a demo in 1993, called "Bubonic Death", not widely distributed, but did help me recruit people until finally, around 1995 we changed the name to DRAWN AND QUARTERED, something Herb came up with. I later revisited the PLAGUE BEARER name between 1999-2001. We ended up recording some more 4-track demos, that I worked really hard on, wrote all the music and lyrics, even mastered some mixes I made, and created a layout for a CD release but I never released the stuff. Around 2002 our drummer Matt left DRAWN AND QUARTERED, we found DARIO and the D&Q writing came a lot faster and easier. Around 2004, DARIO took about 5 or 6 months off from the band, and we got more serious about our WINDS OF PESTILENCE side band wrote a set of material and have done shows with that band and a little California tour in 2005. Around 2004, we also managed to squeeze in some time to write and record a four song PLAGUE BEARER demo "Rise of the goat" that eventually came out in 2006 on NUCLEAR WINTER RECORDS, as a 7". We are now working on a deal with SUMMERS END RECORDS to release a CD that will include some recordings from the 2001 sessions, the "Rise of the goat" recordings, and I've just transferred the "Bubonic Death" demo to digital form for a new mix I'm trying to schedule as we speak. The artwork will be the cool painting used on the "Rise of the goat" ep, by Gabriel Byrne. The music is similar to the D&Q stuff we did a little before that recording (the "Bloodbath communion" sessions, tracks featured on the bonus disc available with the first 3,000 copies of "Merciless hammer of Lucifer". Two of the songs I had written possibly for more of a black metal style performance, but adapted to the "rise.."project not having much time to write new material at the time. It was kind of hard to fit in the extra rehearsal time, and the drummer was in another local band and we had "WINDS.." going as well, and I had two jobs for a while back then. So it was pretty straight forward. And I wanted some cool, different vocal effects. I felt a little less pressure with the leads and didn't really compose anything just went off in the studio, tried a few different effects. We didn't have a lot of time, and there we're obstacles because of a death in Jesse's(our engineer) family, he actually went to a funeral between sessions. Really, it is amazing we ever got that together. But we felt determined to get it accomplished, really just for fun, and more valuable studio experience. With all that playing of shows, rehearsing, writing and recording, we were pretty inspired when DRAWN AND QUARTERED started writing again later in 2004 for the "Hail infernal darkness", CD. and all that work helped refine our songwriting and playing for the that recording. All these projects, are really helpful with your music development. It is really the band that makes the songs different, the drummer for the D&Q project had style much different than Dario. That recordings sound more like D&Q because we used the same tunings, as well. The stuff I have been writing for D&Q now is using more chords, and complex guitar riff combinations and diverse tempos. I'm writing some PLAGUE BEARER songs now, actually and we may record something this year.
Concerning the EP “Rise of the goat”, does it contain totally new tracks or did you re-record stuff from the demos? How did the old stuff sound like compared to the actual stuff of PLAGUE BEARER?
The songs on "Rise of the goat" were all new stuff written for that project at that time. Those songs we're more like the early 1990's demos. Two songs from our first album, were originally for PLAGUE BEARER ("The hills run red" and "Christian extinction"). The stuff we did in 2001 is sort of a cross between that and the WINDS OF PESTILENCE band we do now.
You use to play gigs in the US with DAQ but what about PLAGUE BEARER? Have you ever thought making a tour with both DAQ and PLAGUE BEARER? Have you ever had proposals to tour Europe?
We almost did some shows in 2001, as PLAGUE BEARER, but the drummer was busy with his main band at the time. We we're considering doing some shows as PLAGUE BEARER, in 2004. We only had those four songs, and never got around to learning more with that line-up, due to the other bands being so active at the time. We have and are considering doing one of our side bands and D&Q on tour and that may happen. In fact we just did our first WINDS OF PESTILENCE show in over a year on January 4th(about five days ago from the day I'm writing this". I am working with a talent agency to put us on a tour in Europe this year, And we are doing a Three week U.S. tour this spring with more to come.
Despite the fact that the metal scene becomes a commercial joke today, some bands are still devoted to the darkest way of creating real death metal like KAAMOS, NECROS CHRISTOS, BLOOD RITUAL or IMPURITY (US). Are you still looking for new bands or do you rather listen to classics of death metal? What impressions leave on you this wave of “new” old school death metal bands like BLOODBATH, CHAOSBREED, DEATH BREATH, created by guys that leave this style, years ago, and decided to get back. It’s more a Swedish trend it seems.
I don't spend a lot of time looking for new bands, but I hear some stuff now and then. I haven't really heard those bands of the new style you mentioned, but to me the cool Swedish stuff was by DISMEMBER and early ENTOMBED, early AMORPHIS, of course AT THE GATES, and Finlands GRAVE. This newer stuff, that seemed to start with ARCH ENEMY is not really to my liking.
On the other hand even if some bands don’t create something really new or innovating they help to keep a certain spirit and tradition that may prevent the style to slowly disappear or lose complete interest. How do you witness the death metal evolution in the area of Seattle? Do you have die-hard fans always there at your gigs? Do you see younger metal-heads attending at gigs?
Death metal has definitely evolved in SEATTLE. And there are some diehards, and a lot of younger people coming out now to the well promoted all ages shows. Being all the way up here in the PACIFIC NORTHWEST, we didn't start getting lots of regular death metal bands touring until the mid to late nineties, there were some early shows but not a lot. There was a little scene back when we started and some(very few) of those people went on to do things or are still in death metal. Black metal caught on pretty big up here, but not many bands of that genre really do a lot of tours out this way. We've seen MAYHEM, and MARDUK, not many other bands like that, other than locals.
I remember journalists arguing about the end of death metal in the mid 90’s, it was mostly due to the growing interest for black metal coming from Europe. I have never understand this so called “death” of death metal, I think the style remains just more confidential but was still active ands strong. Did this event affect DAQ in any other way or in fact was it just a European buzz?
Yeah, that was about the time we we're getting started. Not the best time really. And our early incarnation of the band was a little more grindy, the songs didn't flow as well as ours do now and the production we ended up with on our 1996 demo wasn't very good, and wasn't that widely distributed. That didn't help, much. Now a days , there is no way you can get away with a crappy sounding demo. But from the earliest attempts at doing this style I've always embraced black metal, I was listening to VENOM and BATHORY in the eighties. Eventually the darker side of our style became more recognisable, as the band evolved. Death metal is definitely a hard genre to make an impact in, especially up here and on a small label.
Kelley, it’s all for today, I have asked everything I wanted. Thanks for your cooperation. Close this chat with your own words. Hail DRAWN AND QUARTERED.
Okay, then thanks for the exposure. Hopefully we can interest some new people into becoming fans of our work. I've done this stuff for a long time, and would like to continue for many more years, but who knows. It has been a priveledge and an honor to be able to do what we've done, and many of my goals have been achieved. There are many things left to accomplish, and with some luck and some more hard work, we'd like to take this band to new levels of success. Thanks to all of our fans, and all the bands we have shared the stage with, check out some of our songs and videos on myspace.com/drawnandquartered666. HAIL INFERNAL DARKNESS!!!!! It's up to you fuckers to keep metal alive and make it stronger! RAISE THE HORNS, UP THE IRONS, BANG YOUR HEAD,HAIL SATAN, FIGHT TILL DEATH, CRUSH THE WEAK, DIE BY THE SWORD, STAND UP AND BE COUNTED and DEFEND THE FAITH OF THE CHURCH OF HEAVY METAL!!!!!!!!!
http://www.myspace.com/drawnandquartered666
Darkest greetings Kelley! Firstly, thanks for taking the time to answer this interview, I have hard times to complete my fanzine’s summary as now some bands didn’t reply to my requests and think the Myspace shit will do a better job. I can understand some bands to be busy to a certain extent but at least they just can say “no”. How are you doing?
Hello, I'm doing well. Let's get to the questions;
I stop complaining and come back to what’s focus my readers’ interest, that is to say your new album “Merciless hammer of Lucifer”. I must admit that my first listening of this release was a bit disappointing as the previous “Hail infernal darkness” was a real achievement. But now I use to listen to it regularly and it’s a killer job indeed in the direct continuation of “Hail…”. How is the response so far? Do you think DRAWN AND QUARTERED has found his unique sound and style?
I was pretty happy with "Hail Infernal Darkness". When we were working on material for "Merciless Hammer of Lucifer" I knew that anything would seem like a disappointment, so I consciously wanted to make the recording a lot different. To make the catalog more diverse, you can't do the same thing over and over. Well we do, to a certain extent, but there are things you refine and things you leave behind. Some of the differences were in the production. I wanted a listening experience that would be a lot clearer when more volume was applied. As a result, at lower volumes the sound may come across a little thin, without some eq. And there has been some criticism about that. But you can crank the volume and it is clearer. You can add some bass frequencies if you need to with eq, instead of having to decrease them, or the volume, or boost the highs as much. Production decisions, affect the mood of a record a lot. And let’s face it, we're not world class recording producers. We learn each time. The recording experiences probably influence the writing a little, too. Some of the songs just flowed out when we were rehearsing and writing for the CD. Most of the time I write at home, and refine ideas, and figure out different chord voicings and stuff before bringing them to the band. Or Dario or Greg will have parts or a song that I will work out parts to.
The response has been good, a lot of people seem to get it. Our fans love it. It has a dark vibe. That is really cool. The songs and solos are different, but there's enough familiar things in there to remind you that you're listening to brutal death metal. Our musical style is quite different than most death metal bands. We have a couple of constant comparisons, and those are valid. Upon further examination, and a health collection of "old school" thrash and death metal recordings ,you'll see that we draw from a huge wellspring of influences. It is all interpreted through the guitar and vocal style that we use, that gets us compared to those other bands that we're all well aware of. Their constant and consistent brillance, drives us to new creative levels. Is it unique? That is hard to answer. Yes. We combine some elements, in a different way. Our approach is different, our lyrical style is pretty brutal. I don't like playing a lot of real busy parts, so fast you can’t really detect music, with overly loudrums and vocals, what I consider kind of boring. That seem to be a lot of these type of bands, that for years didn't even have guitar solos anymore. To me metal needs guitar solos, and I'm glad to see those back, for the most part. And the solos don't have to be incredibly technical neo classical doodlings, to be good. I like that style when it is done well, but to me, that fits more commonly into the thrash style of guitar playing. We play detuned, so it has different characteristics. This and that I don't play the open E string, based thrashy SLAYER type guitar riffs to much is probably what people use when they compare us to other bands. That guitar playing is what got me interested in doing this band in the first place, so I'm not about to stop playing guitar like this to please one or two critics or some fans of music that I don't really like that much. I find it interesting, when someone questions our originality, when I hear a lot of bands far more derivative than us doing really boring mediocre crap heard a million times.
Only one year separates your two last releases which where recorded at the same studio, Autopsy Room with the help of Jesse O’Donnell. The result on these albums is quite homogenous. You used to work with him since your second conjuration “Extermination revelry”. Can we say that he understands the essence of DAQ music better than anyone? Will you ever try with someone else?
It has been beneficial to the band to have some consistency with working with certain people at certain places. Each effort has a new and better result. We have a lot of fun and all work very hard. When you find people willing to go the extra milke, it means a lot, in getting things accomplished. Making a record in the amount of time we usually do is a huge effort. Hours of playing and work in the studio. Being the only guitar player, I there at least twice as long on most of the sessions. People I've worked with before, we're like on a time clock. At a certain time the day was finished, so you we're kind of stuck with results that could have come out better with a little more time, and less pressure from worry of time limits. Sometimes when you're on a roll, you can get a lot done with by staying lat a couple of evenings getting the work done, and that is what Jesse does, he works his ass off! We may try some other studio, in the future.
Your album cover art is done by Gabriel T. Byrne since your first album. How does he work each time to create such chaotic and blasphemous artworks? Does he listen to music first or do you give him recommendations?
Each of his cover paintings has been done differently but, we always have some input. Sometimes we'll look at sketches. Sometimes we've had a lot of input, sometimes less. There are always things from the songs represented on the album covers, and much deeper things based on our or his interpretations and philosophies.
DAQ is a combination of dark atmospheres and merciless brutality draining influences from INCANTATION, IMMOLATION and MORBID ANGEL. I think you get the essential feeling to create something personal without copying the bands mentioned above. Are there influences you would point out but that are less obvious like black metal for example?
DRAWN AND QUARTERED has many influences, yes not all of them are as apparent. They are probably the same influences as the bands you mentioned. Heavy metal, like JUDAS PRIEST, BLACK SABBATH, IRON MAIDEN, SLAYER, POSSESSED, DEATH, VENOM, BATHORY, SODOM, KREATOR, DESTRUCTION, MAYHEM and tons of other heavy metal bands, thrash metal, speed metal, doom , grindcore and black metal. From the get go I was influenced by CARCASS, IMMOLATION, CANNIBAL CORPSE, INCANTATION, DEICIDE, MORBID ANGEL, BOLT THROWER, SINISTER and a bunch of early 90's death metal bands. Not to mention all the great scandinavian black and death metal.
In your way of songwriting, you keep a balance between brutality and infernal and sinister moods. Is it a conscious way of creating songs? What do you think of bands creating brutal tunes for the sake of brutality or the endless contest of speed?
If you started playing death metal after hearing only death metal, not all the stuff that came before, you might miss some of the essential elements such as mood and songwriting, focusing only on the newer death metal elements such as growly vocals, clicky sounding bass drums and blasty snare parts, you end up with this kind of watered down style. There are some bands that do real well in the speed death metal stuff, but the best bands mix it up a little. We have always tried to create some dark melodic parts that stick in your brain, making you want to listen to the songs again. Many bands CD's don't really let you catch your breath and all the songs start sounding the same after a while.
Kelley, in you DAQ you remain, since the beginning of the band if I’m not wrong, the sole guitar player although there are many lead-guitars in your songs as well as guitar harmonies. How do you manage to reproduce your tunes with one guitar? Have you ever thought of adding a second guitar player to DAQ?
The second guitar stuff evolved with each passing record, and some things I couldn't do, but I had effects and harmonizers, or we didn't do songs that relied on that stuff, we have a lot of songs. Sometimes I just did the main part and alternated between voicings and the bass has always filled in a lot. We have been playing with a second guy, John Fryer who plays guitar in one of our side bands called WINDS OF PESTILENCE(BLACK/THRASH). Eventually I'd like to add the dueling leads thing like MAIDEN and PRIEST, we'll probably explore some of that on future recordings.
You must know that when checking reviews about DAQ I often read quite restrictive comparisons with IMMOLATION. Is this something you understand or are you tired of hearing this? I think you have found a personal way of playing as well as a different sound. Do you still listen to the band and what is your favourite release of their?
Yes, we are tired of the IMMOLATION comparison. But I can't deny an influence, but it is more of a surface similarity. Our recordings really don't sound alike at all. I was mainly influenced by the earlier stuff and my favorites are the first two, "Dawn of possession" and "Here in after". But all of the recordings by IMMOLATION, INCANTATION and MORBID ANGEL inspire me. We combine the styles of guitars, vocals and drums, Really we are inspired by the mood and the overall vibe, not really a riff for riff duplication. I still love IMMOLATION and see them live every time they come here. In fact we opened for them last November, here in Seattle.
Let’s talk about your side project, featuring all DAQ members, called PLAGUE BEARER that was originally the pre-DAQ era. The material released as an EP “Rise of the goat” by Nuclear Winter Records is rather close to DAQ maybe a bit straighter, a kind of rawer and bestial black/death metal orientation but keeping the evil sounding trademark. When composing, at which moment do you feel a riff or structure fits better to DAQ than PLAGUE BEARER? Will you release something else with PLAGUE BEARER?
After playing in a couple of death metal bands in the early 90's, I formed PLAGUE BEARER with some new people I just met through local music paper and a bass player I'd been working with on and off for a while. We record some songs, on my 4 track, but never released it, and did one show. The group fell apart, but I continued with some session guys on a demo in 1993, called "Bubonic Death", not widely distributed, but did help me recruit people until finally, around 1995 we changed the name to DRAWN AND QUARTERED, something Herb came up with. I later revisited the PLAGUE BEARER name between 1999-2001. We ended up recording some more 4-track demos, that I worked really hard on, wrote all the music and lyrics, even mastered some mixes I made, and created a layout for a CD release but I never released the stuff. Around 2002 our drummer Matt left DRAWN AND QUARTERED, we found DARIO and the D&Q writing came a lot faster and easier. Around 2004, DARIO took about 5 or 6 months off from the band, and we got more serious about our WINDS OF PESTILENCE side band wrote a set of material and have done shows with that band and a little California tour in 2005. Around 2004, we also managed to squeeze in some time to write and record a four song PLAGUE BEARER demo "Rise of the goat" that eventually came out in 2006 on NUCLEAR WINTER RECORDS, as a 7". We are now working on a deal with SUMMERS END RECORDS to release a CD that will include some recordings from the 2001 sessions, the "Rise of the goat" recordings, and I've just transferred the "Bubonic Death" demo to digital form for a new mix I'm trying to schedule as we speak. The artwork will be the cool painting used on the "Rise of the goat" ep, by Gabriel Byrne. The music is similar to the D&Q stuff we did a little before that recording (the "Bloodbath communion" sessions, tracks featured on the bonus disc available with the first 3,000 copies of "Merciless hammer of Lucifer". Two of the songs I had written possibly for more of a black metal style performance, but adapted to the "rise.."project not having much time to write new material at the time. It was kind of hard to fit in the extra rehearsal time, and the drummer was in another local band and we had "WINDS.." going as well, and I had two jobs for a while back then. So it was pretty straight forward. And I wanted some cool, different vocal effects. I felt a little less pressure with the leads and didn't really compose anything just went off in the studio, tried a few different effects. We didn't have a lot of time, and there we're obstacles because of a death in Jesse's(our engineer) family, he actually went to a funeral between sessions. Really, it is amazing we ever got that together. But we felt determined to get it accomplished, really just for fun, and more valuable studio experience. With all that playing of shows, rehearsing, writing and recording, we were pretty inspired when DRAWN AND QUARTERED started writing again later in 2004 for the "Hail infernal darkness", CD. and all that work helped refine our songwriting and playing for the that recording. All these projects, are really helpful with your music development. It is really the band that makes the songs different, the drummer for the D&Q project had style much different than Dario. That recordings sound more like D&Q because we used the same tunings, as well. The stuff I have been writing for D&Q now is using more chords, and complex guitar riff combinations and diverse tempos. I'm writing some PLAGUE BEARER songs now, actually and we may record something this year.
Concerning the EP “Rise of the goat”, does it contain totally new tracks or did you re-record stuff from the demos? How did the old stuff sound like compared to the actual stuff of PLAGUE BEARER?The songs on "Rise of the goat" were all new stuff written for that project at that time. Those songs we're more like the early 1990's demos. Two songs from our first album, were originally for PLAGUE BEARER ("The hills run red" and "Christian extinction"). The stuff we did in 2001 is sort of a cross between that and the WINDS OF PESTILENCE band we do now.
You use to play gigs in the US with DAQ but what about PLAGUE BEARER? Have you ever thought making a tour with both DAQ and PLAGUE BEARER? Have you ever had proposals to tour Europe?
We almost did some shows in 2001, as PLAGUE BEARER, but the drummer was busy with his main band at the time. We we're considering doing some shows as PLAGUE BEARER, in 2004. We only had those four songs, and never got around to learning more with that line-up, due to the other bands being so active at the time. We have and are considering doing one of our side bands and D&Q on tour and that may happen. In fact we just did our first WINDS OF PESTILENCE show in over a year on January 4th(about five days ago from the day I'm writing this". I am working with a talent agency to put us on a tour in Europe this year, And we are doing a Three week U.S. tour this spring with more to come.
Despite the fact that the metal scene becomes a commercial joke today, some bands are still devoted to the darkest way of creating real death metal like KAAMOS, NECROS CHRISTOS, BLOOD RITUAL or IMPURITY (US). Are you still looking for new bands or do you rather listen to classics of death metal? What impressions leave on you this wave of “new” old school death metal bands like BLOODBATH, CHAOSBREED, DEATH BREATH, created by guys that leave this style, years ago, and decided to get back. It’s more a Swedish trend it seems.
I don't spend a lot of time looking for new bands, but I hear some stuff now and then. I haven't really heard those bands of the new style you mentioned, but to me the cool Swedish stuff was by DISMEMBER and early ENTOMBED, early AMORPHIS, of course AT THE GATES, and Finlands GRAVE. This newer stuff, that seemed to start with ARCH ENEMY is not really to my liking.
On the other hand even if some bands don’t create something really new or innovating they help to keep a certain spirit and tradition that may prevent the style to slowly disappear or lose complete interest. How do you witness the death metal evolution in the area of Seattle? Do you have die-hard fans always there at your gigs? Do you see younger metal-heads attending at gigs?
Death metal has definitely evolved in SEATTLE. And there are some diehards, and a lot of younger people coming out now to the well promoted all ages shows. Being all the way up here in the PACIFIC NORTHWEST, we didn't start getting lots of regular death metal bands touring until the mid to late nineties, there were some early shows but not a lot. There was a little scene back when we started and some(very few) of those people went on to do things or are still in death metal. Black metal caught on pretty big up here, but not many bands of that genre really do a lot of tours out this way. We've seen MAYHEM, and MARDUK, not many other bands like that, other than locals.
I remember journalists arguing about the end of death metal in the mid 90’s, it was mostly due to the growing interest for black metal coming from Europe. I have never understand this so called “death” of death metal, I think the style remains just more confidential but was still active ands strong. Did this event affect DAQ in any other way or in fact was it just a European buzz?
Yeah, that was about the time we we're getting started. Not the best time really. And our early incarnation of the band was a little more grindy, the songs didn't flow as well as ours do now and the production we ended up with on our 1996 demo wasn't very good, and wasn't that widely distributed. That didn't help, much. Now a days , there is no way you can get away with a crappy sounding demo. But from the earliest attempts at doing this style I've always embraced black metal, I was listening to VENOM and BATHORY in the eighties. Eventually the darker side of our style became more recognisable, as the band evolved. Death metal is definitely a hard genre to make an impact in, especially up here and on a small label.
Kelley, it’s all for today, I have asked everything I wanted. Thanks for your cooperation. Close this chat with your own words. Hail DRAWN AND QUARTERED.
Okay, then thanks for the exposure. Hopefully we can interest some new people into becoming fans of our work. I've done this stuff for a long time, and would like to continue for many more years, but who knows. It has been a priveledge and an honor to be able to do what we've done, and many of my goals have been achieved. There are many things left to accomplish, and with some luck and some more hard work, we'd like to take this band to new levels of success. Thanks to all of our fans, and all the bands we have shared the stage with, check out some of our songs and videos on myspace.com/drawnandquartered666. HAIL INFERNAL DARKNESS!!!!! It's up to you fuckers to keep metal alive and make it stronger! RAISE THE HORNS, UP THE IRONS, BANG YOUR HEAD,HAIL SATAN, FIGHT TILL DEATH, CRUSH THE WEAK, DIE BY THE SWORD, STAND UP AND BE COUNTED and DEFEND THE FAITH OF THE CHURCH OF HEAVY METAL!!!!!!!!!
http://www.myspace.com/drawnandquartered666
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