Yeah, of course you can go back a bit further than that actually when really the band began. It was sort of a black metal thing. It took us about, yeah, about '93. Daemonium the band was called then.

Do you guys consider yourselves a combination of both death and black metal?

Yeah, definitely. I mean, we are I suppose, really. Originally it was only really Nigel that's left from the original band even though me and Rob have been there for quite a while. We’ve always been into sort of death metal. We started off getting into death metal and the black metal thing followed. The band came on after that and we got started there. We just enjoyed them both. I think at the time it was more black metal because that was what we were doing. That's what we were into at the time so we started off as really totally black but we went into death metal then and listened to a lot of it. I think it's progressively sort of crept up.

What is the major difference between the two?

I think it's orchestration to be honest. If you've got a death metal song, you can play it exactly the same. If you add this sort of symphonic sound to it, all of a sudden it becomes black metal. I suppose there’s a bit of a variation of the vocals. Black metal vocals tend to be more sort of screamed. That rounds them out. I think what sometimes is regarded as black metal is really death metal. It’s more death metal than black metal. I think it’s a thin line. I think that it’s keyboard orchestration and maybe the beats. Some of them are black beats, that’s black metal. Death metal uses black beats as well but they’re punched at a different pace.

I think death metal is more guitar oriented than keyboards.

A lot of black metal bands, at least what I think are regarded as black metal bands, keyboards do take center stage most of the time.

I was reading some of the CD reviews of your new CD and people keep comparing you with Cradle Of Filth.

Do they? We’ve always had that right from the start. It’s understandable but it’s a pain in the ass. I think it gets a bit too much out of hand sometimes. Considering we started and Jon left the band pre-Daemonium and then it was Daemonium. He actually had a start then basically with Cradle. He came back to do vocals. At the time we didn’t have a vocalist so Jon came back then on vocals and I must admit that his vocals are very much like that sort of screaming. Then again if you’re doing black metal, you’ve got to be using it really, the black metal scream. So that’s how it started and it’s gone from there. At first we did sound very similar, there’s no doubt about it. We were both British and we were both playing symphonic black metal. They made it before we did. They got really big. We’re always going to be in the shadows of them coming from the same country. We started off the same way in some respect but I think we’ve pulled a bit from that route many years ago. There’s no way there are any sort of similarities now really. Not out and out musically. It gets a bit old when people say all we do is sit down and copy Cradle Of Filth. There’s very few Cradle Of Filth songs I actually know. When people say all we do is copy another band, it’s insulting. If people don’t like our music, fine. Maybe they can see similarities but it’s our own and it’s original. We just play the music we want to play. We can’t help it if other people are doing the same music that we choose to do.

I didn’t really see it myself because I listened to the CD and I just saw Cradle Of Filth recently.

The first EP and I suppose maybe our first album sounds that way but that’s only the vocals. We both play symphonic black metal. I think there is a difference in ours. We’ve always been more aggressive in black metal. I think Cradle is a bit more gothic. Any similarities I think went with Jon really and that was just down to his vocal style. There are other bands out there that you could have said that we were similar to but just because we were both British, we got put in the Cradle thing. And of course Jon was with us for a while. Redimus and Kings Of Chaos, I hear more death metal in those albums. The guitars come to the fore a lot more.

You guys just recently put out Redimus. Tell me a bit about it.

We’re very proud of it. We actually produced it ourselves for the first time. It was something we wanted to do previously on CDs but we never actually got around to doing it. Not every album you do, you’re always very proud of. I think we’re more so because of the fact that we produced it. I think it’s a good blend of death metal and sort of black metal styles. I think it’s the heaviest album we’ve done to date without a doubt. We went to a cheaper studio than we’ve done before. A totally digital studio which is not new. But because we weren’t paying a producer, we saved a bit more money. We had more time in there. We really worked on the drum sound and the guitar sound and we really got a good blend. I think it’s the best sounding album we’ve done. It’s heavy. Some of the parts are extremely quick. It still has the death metal elements and the ethereal parts with the keyboards and a lot of piano. I think it’s a good extreme metal album.

When you produce it yourself, you have more control over what goes on.

We went to a studio in Manchester. It was only a small studio. It was a little digital studio. The owner there was a good lad. It was his studio. He built it. He knew it inside out so we used the guy’s help with all the technical aspects. We knew how we wanted it to sound. We knew how the drums were supposed to sound. And the guitars were supposed to sound. We just did that. We just mixed it all ourselves and got the sound that we wanted.

I was curious. People always tell me when they start an album, they lay the drum tracks down first. They use those drum tracks. Why don’t you re-record some of the drums if you feel they don’t sound right?

It’s pretty difficult to do if you’re recording the drums live. If you get a full track of drums and you start cutting them up and botching them, you can tell it’s not a smooth run. The sound of it. It doesn’t really work. You can to a certain degree. You can fiddle with them a bit. It depends on how you do it. If you do it totally digital, then you control the drums and you can have perfect drums every time. We prefer a more natural sound. The drummer has to perform and make it sound right or as well as he possibly can.

The reason I asked that is because drummers have told me that when they played on an album and listened back, they didn’t like the drums. I was wondering why they didn’t redo them if it was that bad but I guess it would be a problem.

I think if you listen to something, youre critical of yourself. You listen to an album and go “oh man, I should have done this and I should have done that.” When you’re there in the studio and you‘re trying to work fast because you don’t have the biggest budget for money, you’ll always be pressed for time. You’d always like to do a bit more and spend a bit more time but it’s not really realistic. We spent more time than we ever have before. We’re very pleased with it but still, we feel we could have done more. We could have done this and we could have done that. That’s the problem with that. It’s just quicker once you get the drums down. As quickly as you can, get the kicks down. You go on from there.

Your vocalist Dean left. Have you found a new vocalist yet?

Yeah. We actually talked with Dean in the studio. He finished the recording. It was very amicable. He was going to be a father which he is now. That’s going to take up a lot of his time. He wants to spend time with the new baby. I think he was getting increasingly disheartened with the scene. Dean is very old school. He’s proper black metal. He doesn’t want to go through a bunch of rigmarole. He just wants to get on stage and scream. I think he was getting a bit disheartened. We found a lad and he’s from up north of England. He’s a bit further again from where we are. His name is Dagon and we’ve known him for quite a while. He’s been in another British band, Heathen Deity. That’s a local black metal band. We’ve played with him before on a few gigs as support over a few years. He heard we were after a vocalist and he got in touch. Again, he’s very traditional black metal. He’s got a good range with a good low and a good high. He’s a little bit further away so he doesn’t practice as regularly with us as Dean used to. He’s very good. We did think of him originally when Dean said he was leaving but we weren’t sure what he was doing. Luckily he got in touch with us and we knew him. He knew us. He came down for a couple of practices and that just seemed to work.

You had a change in keyboardists as well. You have a new guy named Peter.

Yeah and again, we’ve known Peter for a long time. He’s actually from the same town as me and Nigel. About four or five years ago when our old keyboard player left, Peter came into the band. He played with us for a few practices and a few gigs and then he went away to a university. Funny enough he got out and he was back up around here. We saw him when we were out one night and we got to talking and he was keen to come back for another gig. He’s a fantastic pianist. He’s classically trained. He actually reads and writes music. He writes something and just plays it. He’s a very knowledgeable musician. The new stuff we’re writing now is very good and the keyboards are coming back into it a bit more. They’re a bigger presence. The last couple of releases have been more of the guitars taking over. Nigel and I have been writing most of the songs so it’s been strongly guitars. Now the keys have come back into it a bit more and we’ve thrown together a good blend there.

It’s funny how there are so many people in the music business but so few of them can actually read music.

I’ve done music and I couldn’t. He’ll sort of sit there as we’re playing and he’ll write something with the transcript of the proper music. He’ll just be writing it down. That’s how he plays. He just has these sheets by him and he looks down and he knows exactly where he is and what he’s doing. He’ll follow an entire set and back up what he learns in about a week. He just sat down like a sponge and just came out and played it. Yeah, it’s surprising. Not many people actually recognize it. In our band, it’s only Pete. We all know the music but couldn’t actually read and write it like that.

Yeah, learning to read sheet music is like learning a foreign language.

It is. I think it’s very mathematically minded.

Are you guys doing any gigs right now or do you have any tours lined up?

Yeah, we want to tour for Redimus but there’s not much forthcoming. I think it was a few months back the label pulled out the support with the money and we haven’t really come up with anything else. We’re a bit disappointed because we saw Redimus as being very well accepted. We’ve had some good responses. We want to get out there into Europe and start gigging it but we’re still hopeful for things to come up. We’ve played over here in Britain. We’ve gotten a few gigs and we’ve got some more coming up down in London. Three or four in London, Manchester, and Liverpool. We’ve got a couple of gigs in the Czech Republic in May. It was going to be a one off date but they came up and changed it to another one. It’s only two days but you never know if something else might expand from it.

It’s always amazing to hear people talk about going to Budapest or the Czech Republic and doing shows there. I always find it pretty cool to hear that.

Yeah, it’s Eastern Europe. The band actually travels there quite a lot. It’s got a lot of really beautiful cities but on the other hand it’s pretty run down. You get some real poverty out there but it’s great. I don’t know. There’s something about it. It suits the decor with the music. With black metal. Sort of a city you visit. It’s real gothic. It’s a great place and I actually want to go back.

Don’t you hate it when you get your expectations up for a tour and at the last minute you’re told it’s not going to happen?

Yeah, there were a few dodgy parts. I understand a couple of shows got cancelled. I think the label just thought we were going to get stranded out there. They don’t trust the promoter so they pulled the money.

The last thing you want is to get stranded somewhere.

Well, yeah. I think it probably would have been all right but that’s record labels for you.

How long has Redimus been out?

About four months.

People are digging it?

Yeah, reviews have been very good. A lot of feedback and it’s all been positive. I mean you get some negative reviews but you just accept that. It’s been very well received. I haven’t really seen any figures yet although we should be getting our statements any week or any day so we can see what our figures are like. I’ve been talking to some people at the label. They’re saying it’s coming around. It’s been well received. Because we produced it ourselves we’ve been like proud fathers. The most important thing is we enjoyed it. We’re really pleased with it. We enjoyed the process. It’s a very important album for us. Obviously, if other people take it very well that’s even better. I think it’s doing well.

Any other thoughts or comments?

I thank you for the interview and we send our darkest regards to all your readers. We’ve never actually even been approached about playing in America but it’s something we’d like to do because we get a lot of interest from people in America. That’s strange. On my website we’ve got a lot of people on our forum. I think the majority are probably from America. We’ve never ever had the opportunity to get out there.

Hopefully sometime in the future you will come and visit us.