OL From EVILE
Ol talks about 'Infected Nations'
interview By Metal Mick (the beard) Staley
MG: Hi, I last met you before the Gig you did at Rock City (I’m the one with the purple beard), Nottingham, you’re final night of the U.K tour. All fun and games, I can’t wait to catch up with you again at Hard Rock Hell.
Anyway, the new album ‘infected nations’, will be released on September 21st, how well do you think it will be received and how do you think it stacks up against ‘Enter the grave’
OL: I couldn’t be prouder with how ‘Infected Nations’ has turned out. I hope it’ll be received well, as we put everything into it for a long time. It’s basically Evile in its purest writing form. I foresee some people not being a fan of some slower tempos, or some more melodic things, or the fact that Matt is singing more now, but that’s what we do. We didn’t want to release a carbon copy of enter the grave, as to us that’s not progression. We want to make things interesting all the time.
MG: I really like the artwork on the album; does the band have any input on this, and it is very similar in style to Sepulturas' ‘Arise’, is that just coincidence?
OL: The coincidence with Arise is mainly it being the same artist! Michael Whelan. The basic concept, by Matt, was given to Michael with a few pointers which is how we’d like it, and then we just gave him the freedom to do it. I couldn’t be happier with the end result. It was such an honour to have such a legendary artist work with us!
MG: I have listened to ‘Infected nations’ a lot now and apart from the annoying beeps that we get on promo copies, I see it as a more grown up album. What I mean by that is that its not all full throttle thrash, it has a more varied feel, if you know what I mean?
OL: That was our aim. Matt especially wanted to take things a bit more seriously and put a lot more brain work into it. Instead of writing one riff and thinking, yep, that’s good enough, we’d write for a long, long, long time. We’d spend several months on one or two songs, going through every possibility. We wanted to entire album to have different moods and feels throughout, instead of full out Thrash all the way. Don’t get me wrong, we’re a fan of full out Speed, but personally as a listener, I prefer some variation.
MG: The final track on the album is an epic, along the lines of Metallica’s ‘Sandman’. Did you enjoy writing this?
OL: The thing with the final track, the instrumental, is that it originally wasn’t going to see the light of day. About 2 years ago I started writing little things for myself on my computer. I kept working and working on this, and the idea of an instrumental came up, and I thought “…I have something that could work”, so I basically worked on that track for 2 years with slight guidance/opinions of Matt. It wasn’t a purposeful Metallica copy, I just think it’s a good addition for all the musicians who love just hearing riffs and guitar work etc.
MG: I know you are at Hard Rock Hell in December, but what other dates have you lined up?
OL: We’ve got a euro/scandi tour with Amon Amarth and Entombed coming up in October, Which I definitely can’t wait for. Other than that we’re planning some headline shows for the New Year, planning to get to the USA, Canada, Japan and basically anywhere we can get to! We love nothing more than gigging so we will see!
MG: It’s been a good two year wait for this album; will we have to wait as long for the next one?
OL: Now that we’ve had the experience of making a second album, and touring, we have more understanding of how to put time into writing and touring, so I think there may not be as long as wait for the third. We’re already writing material for the 3rd album, and the 2nd isn’t out yet. Want to get as good a start as we can on getting as much out of the songs we’ll be working on. It’s a bad idea to do a last 3-6 month rush for us. We need to spend A LOT of time writing.
MG: Any chance of a copy of ‘infected nations’ without the beeps please?
OL: That isn’t my department! Ha-ha, ask the lovely Talita!
MG: Give all my best to the lads and hope to see you all soon, but in the mean time, can you tell everyone why they should buy ‘Infected Nations’?
OL: I’m so not good at this part ha-ha. The new album’s SOOOO HEAVYYYY and BRUTALLLLLL, and it’s Master of Puppets 2!!!!!! I’m joking of course. People should buy the album because for fans of Thrash, it’s a 2009 take on metal of yesteryear. It’s got the speed, the aggression. The heaviness, the string burning solos (or not), and powerful vocals. Oh yeah and there’s a bass player in there (love you, mike)
Thanks OL, Mick signing out
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