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MM
- How has the tour gone so far? (10th Venue so far).
Shannon - Yeah it's good, can’t complain, been cold, but
it`ll be cold anywhere we are right now!
MM
- How
have the songs from the new album been received?
Shannon -
Great, good reviews, they seem to like them live. We are trying to
do a big chunk of them.
MM - Do
you have any favourite songs to play from the new album live?
Shannon - hmm ... 'Carbonized in Cruciform' is kind of fun and
straight forward, doesn’t need too much thinking or
concentration. Some of the other ones you have to put a little
more thought into it, that one is pretty easy.
MM
- You have had a very busy ten years together, when you first started
out, did you think you would be where you are today, with an army of
devoted fans?
Shannon - I don’t think anyone thought
we would have the opportunities that we have had. It kind of took
everyone by surprise. We started out as a bunch of dudes who like
playing music and tried and take it as far as we could, got lucky and
did the right thing. Yeah I think all of our minds are blown.
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MM
- Do
you feel that the band has reached optimum potential with the current
line up and the material in your
latest album, which is widely
regarded as a major progression in
your writing and musicianship.
Shannon
- I don’t think that anybody’s ever reached their full
potential. Every time you have done something, you can listen back
and think ... arrgh I would of done it this way, or maybe I would of
done it like that. I think so far 'Ritual' is our best record and
closer to the bands full potential. I think with every record a
bands potential becomes greater.
MM
- Venomous
yet Melodic is how your music has been described, this must please you?
Shannon - Melodic? Yeah it is, it's Melodic Death
Metal. We are influenced by a lot of Melodic Death Metal
bands. You can really hear a lot of the Swedish Gothenburg scene
in our music. You can hear a lot of that influence, it’s all
melodious. That’s where we would differ from something like
Cannibal Corpse, which you can hear a lot in our music as well, but you
can hear the difference in what we do and what they do. We are based
more on melody rather than straight brutality, which we like as well
but, yeah when people ask what we are we would say Melodic Death Metal. |
MM
- Trevor
has been quoted as saying ... “being a metal band is being an
“underdog” ... can you explain that feeling?
Shannon -
It's always been like that, I mean it’s a smaller community of people
that enjoy that kind of music, especially the more extreme it
gets. There are less people that listen to it and either don’t
understand it, or appreciate it. It is extreme and metal has
always been like the underdog, it’s not the mainstream, it's
rebellious and stems from aggression that your parents didn’t want you
to listen to. So it’s a smaller community and not mainstream,
there’s a kind of underground. so it makes things harder for a band,
or even just a fan of the music. Now there’s the internet so you
can find new music. Ten twelve years ago the only way you would find new
music was if you went to a record store and just looked, or word of
mouth.
MM
- What music do you listen to chill out?
Shannon - Well we
all listen to different stuff, you have some guys that maybes have
toured as much as others, and they just really like one type of
music. Some guys will literally finish a show and listen to more
metal, which I can’t even fathom, I personally don’t listen to much
metal any more.
MM
- The drummer out of Evile said exactly the same thing, saying it
surrounds us, we live and breathe it, but like to have a break and
listen to Classical or something else.
Shannon
- Absolutely, it’s our job and a great job. It’s what we do
day in and day out and I just don’t care about listening to it
anymore, ha, ha. You know what I mean, way over it. It’s
cool that we can play this kind of music and do what we do, but you know
I have no interest in listening to it anymore, I listen to Country!.
MM
- What
would be the greatest achievement for the Black Dahlia murder? Now and
future?
Shannon - Geeze, erm yeah the record it kind of
encompasses all that the bands done. Everything has lead up to
that, everything’s been a building block to reach where we are at now.
MM
- How’s the tour being going with Skeleton Witch?
Shannon
- Oh awesome, we have done some tours in the past with them and had a
great time. I really dig their music, I like the whole ... “it's
real metal thrash” ... because nowadays the scene seems to over
saturated with this new generation of bands. Maybe people grew up on the
metal that we were into, maybe
listening to say the big four, who probably aren’t into this new
generation of metal because
it’s completely different.
And
it really doesn’t do it for me and I know we have toured with some of
those bands, but it’s refreshing for me to hear a real metal band
who are like a throwback, you know, like vintage, so we are all
stoked. We have another tour with them after this one already
lined up.
MM
- Would you consider playing Download, have you been asked?
Shannon - We done it once, twice actually, two or three times? (Asks
the rest of the band).
All - At least twice!
Shannon
- We would love to come back and do it again, but there was a little bit
of drama last time, so there’s a question as to whether we would be
invited back or not. Whatever drama then was squashed.
MM
- What did you do?
Shannon - Oh you know, sometimes people
get wild when they have a few drinks in them, you know rock n'
roll!!. I think after everything was said and done and apologies
were said, you know it was squashed, what’s done is done, it's rock n'
roll. But it was a great
show, that we did in 2008 or something and it was awesome.
MM
- Tonight's
show, I think you are going to find the crowd are going to be well up
for it in Newcastle.
Shannon
- I'm excited.
MM
- You have a big crowd out there already.
Shannon -
It's funny this was brought to my attention earlier today. My
first tour with Black Dahlia, we came through the UK and I got really
bad food poisoning from KFC of all places! ... and it was the only time
in my career where I have missed a show. I was completely too far
gone to play and it was here, 45 minutes before we were supposed to go
on, I was throwing up blood. They ended up doing the show like a
CD listening party. Some how that worked I guess, but it would be
nice to have some sort of redemption.
MM
- Well you are in the smaller room tonight, which I personally prefer
any way, it's nice and compact.
Shannon
- Well for us we are a energy type band, we need their energy and we
need ours. Being too far away, you know barricades and stuff,
takes away the vibe, but I think it should be fun tonight.
MM
- Ouija boards have you ever tried to use one... if so what happened?
Shannon
- No ... I have no intention of doing it. There’s a lot of
things in the world I am unsure of, well everyone’s unsure of, you
know like the unknown. I’ve talked to too many people that have had
bizarre and weird experiences, and I'm just not interested in opening
any doors. I would rather not play with the fire. If
there’s anything to it or not, I have no idea. If there is,
it’s something I would not care to deal with. There’s nobody
that I want to talk to that’s not here in the present right now.
Well I can’t say that, it’s not true, but I just wouldn’t want to
do it.
MM
- You
as a band are definitely not afraid to shy away from the dark side of
the human psyche, is this true belief system for you?
Shannon - No, nobody in the band is religious. If that’s
what you are getting at then we don’t practise anything, but we are
all interested in the occult. It's fascinating and the whole idea for
me, not speaking for anyone else, the whole darker side, satanism for me
is about free thinking. I am a fan of free thinkers, free
anything, people not following a path in front of them when they were
born, or what they are told. People that take the initiative to
learn and figure out things themselves and what works best for them.
MM
- I think it’s quite interesting actually, if you have ever looked at
a satanist site.
Shannon - It’s not what people think
it is, it’s about self-preservation. I`ve dabbled in some of
those books and the best that I could get out of it is not being a slave
to something that’s real or not. Just free thinking, taking
things for what they are and appreciating the things in life that you
really enjoy, like if it feels good, why shouldn’t you do it?
Why should you deny yourself a lot of the things in life that feel great
because somebody says it's wrong and who are they? Are they the
authority? So it’s a lot about being an individual and not
following the flock.
MM
- That’s it, that was brilliant, thanks for speaking to me.
Shannon - Thanks man ...
Interview
by: Seb Di Gatto,
Photo by: Alison Bear
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