Vallenfyre
Too Visceral For Some People

13.05.2014

For those not in the know: Vallenfyre is an English supergroup where members of Paradise Lost and My Dying Bride play evil old-school death metal. Needless to say, I was really excited when in the evening of April 29 I got a call from Vallenfyre’s mastermind Greg Mackintosh, who was willing and able to tell me everything about the new Vallenfyre record coming out right about now, about the British death metal sound, lyric-writing hardships and about his haircut preferences. Read on to learn all of that useful information (nearly) straight from the source!

How are you doing, Greg?

Yeah, I’m good, I’m good. I’m at home, doing a few interviews. It’s nice to be at home for a bit.

So you are at home?

Yeah, just in England.

What’s the weather outside?

It’s grimmish. It’s warmish, but it’s not sunny.

It doesn’t rain, does it?

Not for the last two hours, but usually it rains quite a lot over here.

Do you like to do interviews?

Do I like to do interviews? Oh, it depends on the interview.

All right, but what happens most, nice interviews or bad interviews?

Ah, most people are pretty nice. Some people do very generic interviews, some people do very interesting ones, but for the most part they are nice, yeah.

Right, let’s get started then. What’s happening with Vallenfyre now? I hear you have a new album coming.

Yeah, that’s the whole idea of doing this interview right now, because I think it’s due out in two weeks, May 12 in Europe, I think and May 13 in America. Yeah, the new album called “Splinters” is a lot more, I guess, diverse and, I guess, heavier than the first record (“A Fragile King”, 2011). We are definitely trying to push the boundaries a bit more on the new record.

Can you quantify the relation between different music styles in the new Vallenfyre material?

On the new record?

Yeah, on the new record and in general. I mean, how much is there from Paradise Lost, and how much is from, say, Benediction or Bolt Thrower?

Oh, it’s not really about a band, it’s more about the feel of the scene between like the early 80s and the early 90s, when I was growing up in music. You know, people hadn’t heard a lot of this music before: early grindcore, post punk and hardcore punk and crust, death metal and early black metal. Nobody had heard all these things before, so it was very exciting time and a lot of great music came out around that time. I guess with Vallenfyre, what I’m trying to do especially on the new record is taking what was exciting about those times, about that style of music and bringing it into what’s happening now, putting it across in a way that makes it relevant in the modern extreme music scene.

But still when I hear Vallenfyre I hear some melodic moves that are typical for the early and even some recent Paradise Lost and for the first Benediction album.

Well, maybe, if you can hear that, that’s fine. You know, I just know the bands that I grew up with in the scene and I kind of take what I love about that and I put it into the modern context, so… I mean, I’m in Paradise Lost so you are gonna hear elements of Paradise Lost. And the other guys in the band, they are in various bands and you are gonna hear elements of all these bands.

Do you agree that there is a phenomenon of a specific British death metal sound?

Yes, I think so.

How can you define it?

Ah, I’m not sure there is too much of it around anymore, but I know that when Paradise Lost first started out we were touring with the bands like Extreme Noise Terror, early Napalm Death and Carcass, Godflesh, Benediction, Bolt Thrower, you know, all these bands. And I think that was the British sound really. It was different to the American sound at the time, which was all Morisound-type stuff like Morbid Angel and Terrorizer and stuff like that. I think it definitely has its own sound.

Can this difference be put into words?

Ah, I don’t know, I think it’s something that’s not quantifiable really. I think British stuff tends to sound colder. That’s all how I can really describe it – a colder, greyer version of it. The American stuff has this warmth to it that the British stuff never did have, you know.

Ok. What are the guidelines for Vallenfyre's creative work?

Well, on the new record we wanted to push the boundaries so that the slow stuff’s even slower, the fast stuff’s even faster, the angry stuff is even angrier. Цe really wanted to try and develop our own sound a bit so that within the first 20-30 seconds you can say “Ah, this is a Vallenfyre record, not just another retro death metal record”. I don’t know if we’ve achieved that, but that’s something that we tried to do, you know. So that were kinda the guidelines, we just wanted to push it a lot further than the first record.

You are the chief in the band, right?

Well, I write probably 99% of the stuff but then on this new record especially all the ideas were given to the guys early on and we talked it over and discussed it and when we got into studio lots of things changed. We tried to do it as off-the-cuff and spontaneous as possible when we were in the studio to make it sound edgy and as live-sounding as possible.

Can you please describe the writing process of Vallenfyre? Did you do it at rehearsals?

Sometimes, but more often than not I will come up with a few riff and I’ll send them to the rest of the guys and they’ll come back with their ideas and say, you know, “Would it not sound better if you did this with it and that with it”, and then we’ll kinda rehearse it out and see what happens of it. And then obviously I’ll come up with the vocal lines and the lyrics to it. It’s a very honest way of writing, it’s kinda like the early days in Paradise Lost, I guess.

Does it take you a lot of time to write lyrics?

Well, I find it the hardest part, really, because to do it really well and to have something that means something to you – I think that’s the most time consuming part for me. If you want the best, if you want to create something that really gets across to people – I think it’s the most time consuming part, definitely.

And you are trying to make some cohesive text in the lyrics?

Well, I’m trying to write something that’s real and visceral, because I think most death metal bands write about things that are escapist. Which is fine, which is great, but when I was growing up, the lyrics I liked were more from the hardcore punk scene or the doom metal scene. It was more about real life. So in Vallenfyre I try to write about things that people can connect with, that happen to everyone in everyday life.

Is your approach different from Nick Holmes’?

Yeah, he writes about real things in a more escapist way. I write about things that are very real, sometimes too real for some people, it might be too visceral for them. I find it more interesting to read about things that I can connect with and I can understand.

So theoretically a reader can understand your lyrics? I mean if I read Nick’s lyrics sometimes I can’t get what he is talking about. Do you understand his lyrics and shall people understand yours? The approach must be totally different, as I get it.

Yeah, I think so. Nick writes more from a third person point of view and I write from the first person. I write from my own experience as Nick does it from the more general perspective.

All right. What’s the current lineup of the band?

It’s the same as the first record, but the rhythm guitarist Mully – he left the band shortly before the recording the new album “Splinters”, so we are a four-piece now.

What happened to him?

He just left because he got married. He wanted the stable life with a straight job and marriage and stuff like that. That’s the best reason to leave a band, because this kind of life is not for everyone. I personally can’t do anything else – this is what I’ve done for 25 years now and I don’t think I would be able to settle into a normal life anymore.

You started playing music at school, right?

Yeah, just after I left, probably I was 17 or 18.

You didn’t get any profession, do you?

Oh yeah, I had a job. I left school and became a printer – I printed books and I stopped around the same time when Paradise Lost became too much to be able to carry on working – I just left the job and started riding around in a van around Europe. And then I’ve been kinda doing it ever since, you know.

To be a printer at that time was like putting letters together, right?

Yeah, it was typesetting, it was also like designing book covers. I used to do covers for children’s books and schools and stuff like that and then print them. I liked the Paradise Lost demo covers – I printed those with my job.

That’s cool. Do you rehearse a lot with Vallenfyre?

No, very little. We have no time, because Adrian (Erlandsson, drums) is in about 50 bands, Scoot – our bass player is in quite a few bands, I’m in Paradise Lost, Hamish (Glencross, guitar) is in My Dying Bride, so we have very little time to be able to do anything. Really we just do a rehearsal maybe a week before the show if we have a show, you know.

And do the shows happen a lot?

No, again, because of the same reason. We have very little time. We want to do more shows after the new album than we managed to do for the first album, but it’s kinda difficult. We are gonna try and do at least maybe a couple of small tours in Europe and Eastern Europe and maybe a small tour in America this time as well as a few flying shows. I’m just waiting for the album to come out in a couple of weeks’ time and then hopefully I’ll start to get contacts from people who want us to go and play places.

Do you get a lot of people on your shows with Vallenfyre?

Well, on the shows that we’ve played so far – most of them were festivals. I mean, the festivals have quite a few people at them, but you don’t know if that’s for you or whether it’s for the lots of other bands.

So it’s unclear what sorts of people those are – they are from different scenes, right?

Yeah, we did a handful of shows for the first record and a couple of them were club shows, but they were mainly festivals. You know, we had a pretty good response, I was pleased with the response we’ve got from the show that we did.

I heard you are doing the second album because you are pleased with the response.

Well, it’s a couple of reasons. One is – yeah, we were very pleased with how the reaction was to the first record and the shows that we did, and the other reason is that we had some great ideas and we thought that we could do an album that was even better than the first, so if we thought we could do that then we are gonna do it, but if we didn’t have the ideas we wouldn’t have bothered. We kinda don’t plan things with Vallenfyre, we just kinda do things if it feels right. It’s like we don’t see the point in having expectations or planning too far ahead, because we just see what happens.

Can you say what’s the target group of your music?

Oh, I wish I knew. (chuckles) I don’t know. No idea, I think It’s fairly… well the fringes of society. It’s the people who are into the extremes in the various kinds of metal. With Vallenfyre we do extreme doom metal, grindcore, almost black metal, death metal, crust, hardcore punk, so we are kinda covering all the fringes of extreme metal. If people like any of those things, I guess that’s the people who might like Vallenfyre.

You are not going into brutal death metal, do you?

Well, yeah, there is some of brutal death metal on there. I mean we don’t think about the audience, we just think about the kind of things that we like and then put it onto a record and then see who likes it. We don’t think about who the audience is when we are writing a song.

Do you do combo-gigs with Paradise Lost?

It’s not something I want to do, but we did – back after the first record – we did a couple of festivals together. Which was fun. It was interesting to do, but I wouldn’t want to do a full tour together, because ehm…

It’s tiring?

Well, yeah, it’s tiring, but I also want to keep the two things separate.

And does the fact that you are doing this kind of raw material with Vallenfyre mean that you are not going into harder territories with Paradise Lost?

No, it doesn’t mean that at all. It just means that I have a very clear idea of what I want Vallenfyre to be and I have even a clearer view of what I want Paradise Lost to be. I’m half way through writing a new Paradise Lost record now and there is some extremely heavy stuff on there. So it doesn’t mean that at all. It just means that I know where I draw a line between them.

Ok. I can’t help but ask – if you are saying it yourself – what’s your clearer view of Paradise Lost? In what direction is it going?

Ah, it’s definitely different to the last two records. All I can say is that there are some elements with the new material that we haven’t used since we first began. It’s going to surprise a few people, I think, some of the things on this next record.

Are you not afraid that you might forget what band you are playing for?

(chuckles) No, no. That’s an easy one.

Because you are not singing in Paradise Lost?

Exactly. I’m guitarist in one and I’m the singer in another, so that’s easy, but also with Vallenfyre it’s kind of… When we get together all we do is get drunk, and when I get together with Paradise Lost we just all sit there miserable. (laughs) It’s easy to draw a line there.

So your few rehearsals with Vallenfyre involve a lot of imbibing, don’t they?

Absolutely, yeah. Too much, I think. When we do shows – and we do very few – it becomes an extreme drinking occasion, it turns into some kind of Saturday night or something, it becomes a little bit chaotic.

It isn’t any problem, is it?

No, it’s not a problem it’s a lot of fun, but sometimes it gets a little bit out of hand.

It doesn’t prevent you from playing right, does it?

No, in fact it helps.

Ok, hahaha.

If you are playing music like Vallenfyre, than having an extreme chaotic time helps with your gig, I think.

Vallenfyre was generally founded to honour the passing of your father, is that correct?

Yeah, that was the reason why all started.

In some interviews you said he was really interested in what you were doing in the band and in the scene in general. Did he like death metal?

Well, that was when we first started out, when Paradise Lost first started out. He used to listen to Bolt Thrower on the John Peel show. And he liked some of our early stuff as well. And he drove us to our first shows and drove us to our first demos, so yeah, he was definitely interested in the whole thing. He was an engineer by trade and he was just interested in how things worked, I think. He was just a genuinely interested person in a lot of things.

What band did he dig beside Bolt Thrower?

He wasn’t really massively into heavy music, he just had very diverse interests. He liked jazz and he liked Bolt Thrower and everything in between. He just had a very healthy interest for diversities in music and in life in general.

Do you like jazz?

No, I absolutely hate it.

Why?

Because it’s just not my thing. I hate prog as well. And I absolutely detest that all these bands are now turning into prog bands. I don’t understand it, but there you go – we can’t all like the same things, can we?

Yeah, but which bands are those?

(laughs) I’m not gonna say that. I’m not gonna say which bands I hate.

You have kids, right?

Yeah, two.

Are they big?

Yeah, they are enormous. Yeah. (laughs)

That’s good. Do they like what you play?

My son does like some of it, my daughter hates all of it.

Does he like Paradise Lost or Vallenfyre?

Paradise Lost. Vallenfyre is too heavy for him.

So he is not that big.

Well, he likes lots of different kinds of music, but he mainly likes classic rock, like Hendrix, Lynyrd Skynyrd and stuff like that. He’s a really good blues guitar player, so he is kinda more into the classic rock type stuff.

Is he playing in a band?

No, he isn’t. I keep telling him he should, but he likes just to kinda jam on his own.

He doesn’t like to jam with you?

Oh yeah, we do sometimes.

What do you play?

Well, he likes to play Hendrix type stuff. Usually he has me playing some Hendrix riffs and he’ll do some made up solos over the top and then we’ll switch round and I’ll do the soloing. We do that from time to time, not a lot, but maybe every a couple of weeks we’ll do something like that.

You do the solos in the Hendrix style too?

Sometimes, it depends what we feel like doing.

All right. Do you dig the new Massacre album?

I’ve only heard one song, the song that they’ve streamed online, and personally it wasn’t up to my expectations, I didn’t think it was as good as I thought as it was gonna be, but I’ll hold judgment until I hear the full album, cause the full album might be great.

Once you said that people should be able to move on – it was in regard of your hair style – sorry I’m gonna ask it.

Oh it’s ok.

Are you wearing dreadlocks now?

Yes.

 Is it convenient – the dreadlocks?

I just can’t be bothered brushing my hair after every show with Paradise Lost. So it was either shave it off – which I don’t want to do because I didn’t really get along with having short hair, I didn’t really enjoy it – or turn it into dreadlocks. So with dreadlocks I can have long hair and I don’t have to brush it and I can just do gigs and walk offstage and not even worry about it. So it’s laziness, really.

So you didn’t like the time with the short hair?

Not really, no. It didn’t feel right.

Does this mean that this dreadlock thing is a long-term thing?

I don’t know. It depends if I go bald or not. (chuckles) I don’t want to have that Devin Townsend type haircut where you have that bald bit with the long hair.  But I’m 43 now, nearly 44, so hopefully if I was gonna go bald that would have happened by now. I don’t know.

What do you do in your free time, not music related?

I’m obsessed with films, horror-films, specifically. I watch a lot of small independent horror films.

What are your favorites?

At the moment… Let me think… There’s one called “Before Dawn” I really like, there’s one called “Sightseers” I like, “Kill List”. Let me think… There’s a film called “Harold’s Going Stiff”… They are all small little budget independent horrors, but sometimes I find them a lot more interesting than the big budget ones, because people have to have good ideas to make them work…

Vallenfyre on the Internet: http://www.vallenfyre.co.uk

Special thanks to Thomas Strimmer (Century Media) for arranging this interview

Richter
April 29, 2014
© HeadBanger.ru