Evile have released a video for the forthcoming single ‘Cult’ which can be viewed HERE.
The single is the first to be taken from the bands third full-length album ‘Five Serpent’s Teeth’ which is due out on 26th September 2011. Lead guitarist Ol Drake speaks to ZT.
ZT: How has your sound progressed since Infected Nations, and do you feel you have matured as a band since then?
Ol Drake: I think our sound has progressed in the sense that we’ve started to take things a little more seriously. We want to be doing this for the rest of our lives, and after the last few years’ events it’s shown us how short a timewe all have. On this one we just wanted to cut straight to the point; no fooling around in strange time signatures or showing off; just getting down to writing some quality metal that we can all enjoy playing.
ZT: What kind of lyrical themes are sung about on the new album? Can you talk about the concept behind 5 Serpent’s Teeth?
Drake: Matt is at the helm when it comes to lyrical themes really. A recurring theme on this album is dreams. We want to leave meanings open to the listener’s interpretation. Information is too readily available in this modern age, sowe want to keep an air of mystery to things this time around. Five Serpent’s Teeth is a literary reference to a book by Alfred Bester, and again, Matt isquite guarded on the meaning behind it; even I don’t know haha.
ZT: It’s been Joel’s first time recording an album with you. How did he find itand what sort of input did he have?
Drake: From speaking to him about it over time it was very cool for him, but also very emotional because of the circumstances under which he joined the band. He had just as much input as any of us. History has taught us to treat him well in thisunique situation, so we treated him just as we would have treated Mike interms of input. The bulk of the riffs come from myself or Matt, but a few came from Joel, and we all have 25% say on everything we write as a collective.
ZT: Possibly a difficult question for you to answer, but did being in the studio bring up memories of Mike [Alexander, ex. bassist who passed away in 2009] and did it ever feel at all strange without him there?
Drake: Of course it did. We’d been at parlour twice with Russ. Once to record “Infected Nations” and once to record the Pantera “Cemetery Gates” cover at Metal Hammer’s request. The third time going there was without him, and it hit home as soon as we walked in. We’re fortunate to have Joel though, he made it a lot easier. I’m glad we have someone we can get on with and feel comfortable with.
ZT: You have recorded a track paying tribute to Mike. Can you talk about that?
Drake: Since years ago Matt had this clean guitar part he’d always play and I’d join in and jokingly play a second part to it. We said that it’d probably never make it into a song, but when Mike passed away it just made total sense for this to be the root of a song on the album. The bass intro is something Mike used to play to sound check his bass, and I thought it setthe tone for the track’s subject perfectly. I asked him what it was and he said it’s something he wrote, so hopefully he wasn’t lying and we don’t get sued hahaha. It was born as a track “for Mike”, but it grew to be more for anyone who’s lost anyone close to them and who are feeling what we went through/are going through. Mike would have been more a fan of the faster stuff anyway haha.
Catch Evile on the road throughout September/October – full list of tourdates available at http://www.facebook.com/evileuk.
