TORCHE:
Stoner pop? Beach Boys-like doom? Whatever.

IREPRESS:
On Grammar, War, Their Love for Cindy Lauper and Their Letting Out of All Emotions.

COBALT:
I don't really consider us black metal in any sense of what black metal is.

DODSFERD:
Motivated by desolation,
despair, hate, irony, death,
loss, betrayal, etc

PYGMYLUSH:
Between the delicacy of
gorgeous acoustics & the
ugliness of noise rock.

TRACTOR SEX FATALITY:
The most active defunct garage band in Seattle answers our questions.

MERCILESS DEATH:
Thrash metal revivalists  
speak out against false metal .

MORE INTERVIEWS

THE HORDE: More Metal Than the Metallest Metal Band.

The Horde’s From Empire to Ashes was to me an absolute revelation. This is a real metal album with zero pretension, where the band took the best elements of the grittiest of metal’s many limbs and came out with one ugly and fluent beast. Think of Tom Warrior at its peak. Think of Tony Iommi and imagine him as a ten-fingered meth head. The riffs fly off the record, knocking shit all over. These are battle hymns. I think more people should be looking this way. I haven’t heard metal this pure in ages. Read on and spread the word.

- First of all congratulations, the record is excellent. I was really taken aback because I don’t know, I guess I felt From Empire to Ashes was real metal in so many levels. You know there is a stoner doom vibe to the music and there are also the vocals which reminded me of Celtic Frost. There is some power metal, which is not a style I dig a lot, but The Horde remains rough and rude and mean and violent and classic. So I guess my first question is where does The Horde gather all the power from? What are you trying to convey with your music?

Tim (Guitars) - Thank you for the kind words. Pretty much our music is combination of everything we've ever listened that was metal and poured it in a cauldron of hate and power and ugly, stirred it up and filled our goblets full and drank until we couldn't drink anymore. This band is everything we've ever loved about metal music. Doom, Thrash, dual guitar harmonies... it all adds up to pure fucking METAL! I'm not sure we're trying to convey anything other than metal never goes away. It may go back underground for a while but never away.

- Musically you guys are top notch. Obviously you’ve been around the block. How did The Horde form?

Tim - The Horde formed around 2 1/2 years ago. I pretty much grew up with Paul and we had played in a couple of bands before and Duncan had also played with us in one of those bands and John and I had played in a couple of bands together so I knew what each guy could bring to the table. It was just a matter of each of us being like minded enough to get the ball rolling. Unfortunately Paul is no longer with us and we have replaced him with ex-Lividity drummer James Whitehurst. We do wish Paul the best. We are influenced by Celtic Frost, Venom, Destruction, old Slayer, old Metallica and of course Iron Maiden along with bands like High on Fire, Mastodon, Weedeater and anything doomy.

- How long did it take from the time the band got to when all the songs From Empire to Ashes were written?

Tim - The six songs on the CD took about 7 months total to be completed. We live some distance from each other so band practice is once a week. We have played some great shows since we have formed and played with some great bands both on the national level and the local level. In 2009 we are looking to really push the band as far as we can by writing the most brutally pillaging battle metal and playing as many shows as we can. Our songwriting process is a unique one. I will bring mostly completed songs and then we learn them and whatever is decided that doesn't work gets reworked and everybody adds their own input and style and the lyrics are written afterwards. I try to do as much as I can to make the parts flow before I bring them to practice because having so many influences can be difficult to bridge together.

- The vocals are awesome. That’s where a lot of the Celtic Frost influence comes from.

Duncan (vocalist) - Thank you for your compliment.... I am indeed a fan of Celtic Frost. But I had, or have no intention to duplicate Tommy G. Warrior’s vocal style. The combination of music and lyrical content of our songs is what develops the inspiration and influence for my vocal style. I just step up to the microphone and tell the tale.

- I consider lyrics to be the least important aspect of music. It may be because English is my second language. But your lyrics were very striking, because they were very fucking metal. So fucking metal indeed that it may alienate many who might tag them as too ‘metal’ or ‘cliched’. I’ve even read a couple of reviews where there is mention of this, what is your take on this?

Tim - For metal bands there are many subjects we can write about. Satan. God. Politics. We choose to write about Sword and Sorcery. The evil and violent side of it. We will not be singing about elves or fairies here. Unless they are slain with a battle axe!

John (Guitars) - In general I totally agree about the lyrics being the least important aspect of the music. The reviews that harp on shit being ‘cliched’ or ‘too metal’ need to lighten the fuck up. We're not trying to reinvent the wheel here, we're playing music that is basically a hodge podge of styles that we all like. If it sounds too much like Iron Maiden or Celtic Frost it's because those are bands that are huge influences on what we do.

- The fantasy and war element of your lyrics is pretty empowering. To me they worked perfectly with the music. What is your take on your lyrics? The balance between what you are saying and the music itself?

Tim - To me harsh vocals in thrash or death metal become an extra instrument. That’s how they are used in The Horde. Our lyrics tell stories of young warriors being taken advantage of by evil witches or about what it's like to score a victory on the battlefield. These songs could be put into modern times like "Curse of the Witch" could be about teachers are seducing teenage students and "Dogs of War" could be about events in Iraq. It's all in how the listener wishes to interpret them.

- The recording of From Empire to Ashes is pretty damn good. It’s raw but professional. It’s got a lot of punch and is very natural sounding. The guitars are mean as hell. The mix is fair. Who was in charge?

John - We recorded the record with our friend Luke Tweedy at his home studio (Flat Black Studios) in Iowa City, IA. It was early on in his setup and it was less than ideal at the point. Basically his control room was in a spare bedroom in his house and the live room was in the back 1/3 of his uninsulated garage and as I remember it was still pretty cold out. We tracked everything live but we just did scratch guitar tracks direct into Pro Tools so we could isolate the drums. The guitar sounds we got I'm really happy with, it was basically a close mic and a room mic on a Marshall JCM 800 2x12 combo amp set up in the stairwell to Luke’s basement. We ended up having to do all kinds of weird placement because his neighbor kept calling in noise complaints to the police. When it came time to mix I was on tour doing sound for Alabama Thunderpussy and the rest of the guys all live some distance away from Iowa City so Luke would work on mixes and email them to us and we would tell him what to change and basically we repeated that process until we were happy with it. I think at this point there is shit we'd all change about how it sounds but I think it's a pretty good representation of where we were at that point.

-  It seems that you guys are getting a bit of shit for not being signed to a straight up metal label. Have you noticed this at all? How happy are you with Scenester Credentials work? Would your next release be out on the same label?

Tim - I honestly haven't seen or heard anything negative about being on a non metal label. The guys at Scenester Credentials heard a 4-track demo we made of 3 songs and liked what they heard. They came to watch our 1st show and asked us if we would be interested in having them release our first CD. They've gotten our music out there to the right people. Our CD is selling well in Europe on CD Baby. As far as our next release we have yet to discuss who is going to put it out.

John - Yeah, I haven't noticed any of that either and to be quite honest I don't see what difference it makes. Also, anyone that's making a big deal about shit like that must not be familiar w/the records they've put out. We're in the company of some really killer bands (Yakuza, Black Market Fetus, In Defence, and The Tanks).

- You guys are playing the Templars of Doom in a few weeks. I think metal is in a very healthy state. I tend to bitch a lot about stuff, but it just seems to me that even though there are more bands than ever, if one looks, one can find tons of quality. What is your take in the healthy state of doom and metal in general?

Tim - I think that metal is enjoying the good life right at the moment. There's a lot of bands out there and it's up to the fans to decide what they want to support. We are looking forward to playing the Templars of Doom Festival in Indianapolis in May and we will have a good time pillaging it!

- I am always looking for new music, what current bands are you guys currently digging? Which classics got you into music?

Tim - I've been jamming Amon Amarth, Goatwhore, Skeletonwitch as far as new bands. Metallica's Ride the Lightning was the 1st speed metal album I bought followed by Hell Awaits by Slayer. I love all of the old German thrash and of course Celtic fuckin’ Frost!

John - As far as current stuff goes I've been listening to a lot of Baroness, Rwake, Torche, Kylesa, & Minsk. The classics that first got the blood pumping would be Kiss, Iron Maiden, early Metallica, & Motley Crue (circa Shout At The Devil).

- What’s next for the band? Tours, recordings?

Tim - We have some big shows coming up. We just played with Exodus on April 2nd at Pop's in the St. Louis area!!! We are starting to get out on the road more and more so check out our MySpace page and come see us when we pillage and rape your town! We hope to be back in the studio by the end of this year to record our 2nd album which is going to be a concept album!

John - Extended touring for us right now is really difficult and some of us have jobs that don't understand the importance of being able to get in a van and drive around the country playing metal. For now we're doing as much weekend warrior stuff as we can. We were about half way through writing the new record when Paul left so we've been spending the last couple of months bringing James up to speed on the stuff that was already done. Like Tim said, hopefully we'll be tracking the new record by the end of the year, please don't let the "concept album" red flag scare you, it's nothing like that last Judas Priest record.

- Last words…

Tim: If we're coming to your town lock up your women and hide your booze because we are taking no prisoners this year and.... KEEP IT METAL!!!

MySpace

Read the Deaf Sparrow review of From Empire to Ashes

Photos by DriadMedia

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