First I’d like to know how has been the response to The Gathering Wilderness so far? Has the album fulfilled your expectations?

i suppose it has, we dont really think or analyse what we are doing that much, when we feel its time for us to do something then we do it. Simple as that. The response to the gathering wilderness was great although some people found it hard to penetrate the atmosphere.

After the immensely dark and depressing The Gathering Wilderness your brandnew album, To The Nameless Dead has much more focused on power. It’s a more varied, even a „colourful” album. You wanted to make a more dynamic, heroic, warrior-like record? What kind of preconceptions did you have throughout the songwriting process, if you had any? Were there any serious differencies in the songwriting comparing to the one of The Gathering Wilderness?

to be honest with you nothing has changed in our approach to songwriting now as compared to 1991 when we started out. We just argue and shout and arrange in the dingey rehearsal room and slowly but surely things happen. We dont set out with some gran plan that was never our intention. We know very well what makes primordial sound primordial and we are our own biggest critics so thats important for shaping the sound. In the beginning in rehearsals i thought the album might be more gloomy then TGW but it just ended up this way, rising from the ashes of defeat.

The Gathering Wilderness had a very gloomy, dark sound, but the new album sounds clearer. It is more easy to separate the instruments from each other, while the music remains as a whole unity. Did you tell any instructions to the producer soundwise? By the way, how did you find Chris Fielding? Did he know about primordial before? Why did you choose that studio in Wales? Do you think that the change of studios help to keep the originality and uniqueness of a band?

Well we learned a lot from recording the last album and we had some very definite ideas this time around and the studio is old itself. It’s full of old gear and we could wake up and jam with each other all standing in the same room and get our ideas out. I don’t like the computerised sound of most modern metal records, they don’t have and life or soul. The frequency range maxed out completely and no space between the instruments. Anyone who tells me the drum sound on the new Soilwork cd is better then Mob Rules or Killers is missing something. We aren’t looking for perfection, we are looking for something honest and real sounding and while everyone is trying to make something sounding more perfect then the next album they are missing one thing. Soul !…I’d rather listen to Venom or The Ramones then something that sounds like it’s been played by a computer !. The differences this time round were that we recorded as much as we could live and went for less layers of guitar only heavier, very much like a traditional old Metal album, two rhythms panned left and right, we fired up some old compressors and went through a big old desk. Not a laptop. The way at least I think Metal should be.

How do you compare the studio sessions of the new record and The Gathering Wilderness?

a lot less chaotic. We recorded and mixed in 13 days. We worked long hard days no messing around. Also being out in the countryside made a huge difference to us. We could focus on the album without distractions. It clears your mind and both Chris and Dave at the studio helped us out in every way possible. TGW was stress and chaos and the album sounds like that. With this one we were more confident I think.

Your vocals have never been this varied as we can hear it on the album. How did you reach this level and how much time did it take? What was the method you followed when it comes to singing? In what way Chris Fielding did help you in the studio? Which one was the most difficult song to sing in the studio?

To be honest I dont know really, I think the vocals on the last album TGW were left a little high and dry in the mix with a cheap sounding reverb. So this time we worked on the sound and some more layers. Thankfully I seem to get a bit better everytime we go in and once the idea becomes clear then Chris pushed me as far as maybe I could go this time. We were rehearsing in the studio and he came down to listen and was like...ah it sounds like Black Metal Bruce Dickinson which was a great compliment and from the moment on he pushed me further and further. I just try and feel the atmosphere of the song and give it more feeling, the passion is more important then technicality. I don’t do hundreds of takes and I dont use auto tune either...

You’re an old-school metal musician and I guess it goes for the other members of the band as well. Was it a conscious decision to give an album an old-school sound?

totally. We didnt want something that sounds like it was recorded in 1980 or something that was too self consciously old school. We were just inspired by albums like Mob Rules, heaven and hell, emperors return, killers, overkill, that kind of thing. So when chris new he could push the old desk and the old compressors it started to sound like we wanted it to. As i said before i hate the modern compressed, computerised sound. Give me 70s rainbow anyday.

Do you watch the current metal scene? Are there any bands out there you consider as really good?

totally, im always interested in new music. My colelction doesnt end in 94or something. Some great  newer bands are – destroyer 666,d esaster, axis of advance, sigrblot, funeral mist, revenge, reverend bizarre, jex thoth, morbid insulter, shining, pagan altar, rotting christ, zemial, slough feg, skepticism, secrets of the moon, deathspell omega, watain, necros christos, assaulter, gospel of the horns, marduk, place of skulls, archgoat, mars volta, woven hand, converge, isis, high on fire, cult of luna...

You have very beautiful, effective acoustic parts, and even a song called „Dark Song”. Haven’t you thought about making an acoustic album once?

its been mentioned we just havent found the time to work on the idea, you never know it might happen someday. So we can put some old great Irish traditional songs out there for people who might never have heard them before in the metal scene to hear. Keep the music alive...

The Celtic folk themes, melodies take an important part in your songs. Some of the guitarlines sound like folk music with rock instruments. I could imagine Primordial playing an acoustic, heathen concert in a forest, among natural circumstances, without any electric. How do you comment this?

sure, the guys in the band can all play other instruments. They had a traditional band together with some people playing in our bass players local pub once a month for drinks a while ago. So its entirely possible we could do that. Im not as into the traditional music as the other guys i must admit that but being part of a really good trad session is something everyone should experience...

Are any of you trained musician?

haha, no fuckin way !. i started singing along to iron maiden, metallica, ufo and ac/dc when iwas a little kid and then after early shows by metallica etc i knew i wanted to be in a band but could never play anything else well enough so i had to sing !. happened by accident.

Can you speak about the nameless dead the album is about? Who are these dead beings or in other words: victims? And what does their death mean to us?

As for the lyrics well there are several different themes of course but one of the main currents running through them is that of nationhood. Why a certain people believe they have rights to a certain land. The movement of borders. The eclipsing of nations, what happens to their folklore, folk heroes, languages etc. the people upon whom empires are built. The nameless dead who gave their lives in wars, in the mud, shit, blood and filth remembered only as numbers. To people who gave their lives thinking they were making a better life for their people only to have it all taken from them. People the world over who in their own way fought for what they believed in…testament to the tenacity of the spirit in man to resist and rebel. Primordial is not escapism, it is not fantasy. This is very real and we are not entertainers. We are artists and at least to me we are continuing a great Irish artistic tradition. Writers and musicians. We are motivated by the need to communicate something to people, which is surely the intent of all art ?. to make people think if we can, challenge and move them.

To The Nameless Dead is very much a warrior-like album. For instance, Traitors Gate is a devastatingly intense song, a kind of like you haven’t played for years. ho came out with the idea to write this tornado of a song?

again no gran plan or design. We always had some fast part and this idea was around with TGW but never worked out so for this album we were determined to work it out. I think it comes as a great fist to the face at the end of the album actually. It has a really defiant spirit !.

On the notes to the album, you mention Cuchulainn, the Celtic heroic warrior, who possessed immense power. Maybe his mythical figure was one of the inspirational sources?

Well I have Cuchulainn tattoed on my forearm exactly as I describe...lashed to the rock for one last fight. So i guess you could say he is an inspirational figure...there is also a bronze statue of him in the front of the window of the GPO building in dublin above the proclamation of the Irish republic. I am quite moved by the great sacrifice people made during the 1916 Rising for ireland to gain independence so thats also quite important...

In the notes of Empire Falls you’ve written that you saw statues of long dead men and women. Can you mention some statues or monuments from your European travels that really caught your attention?

really too many. From sofia to paris, london to berlin. Everywhere i go i get a great sense of history and how most people now seem detached from it. They have been sedated by a society that just wants them to consume through fear to go through life like zombies without any realtionship to their culture, history or folklore. We stand opposed to that...

I’m sure you’re interested in different traditions, cultures. Do You know something about the Hungarian tradition or history?

I know a little here and there, the Magyars were supposed to come from the Eurasian planes in the 9th century or so ?. In the 13th century I think you had the Mongol Invasion which decimated some of the country. Then wars with the Ottoman Empire in the 14th century right ?. Some strong links with Poland also regarding your monarchy I think also or so I have read. Of course i Know about Elizabet Bathori, no metal head doesnt after all !. Then you had the influence of the Hapsburg Empire and some Germanisation after the dark ages i think, most of Eastern Europe did. Then Revolution in the 19th century and some sort of autonomy after the first world war ?...then the communists...up to the fall of commuinism and accesion into the EU right ?. I’m sure some of that is wrong but I’m trying to remember a few things I read...

The most melodic song on the album is Heathen Tribes. What does heathenism mean to you? Is there a possibility in the XXI. century to run a so-called pagan lifestyle? I consider the song, Heathen Tribes as a tribute to the European traditions, cultures, all of which have been in ruins for a long time…

Heathen Tribes is indeed a tribute to all the great places we have been, great people we have met over the years. It’s just a simple old school pounding Metal song. Nothing more nothing less but you are right in its meaning. To be honest what a pagan is now Im unsure, I suppose it can mean different things but in very simple terms perhaps someone who attempts to live in harmony with nature and not opposed to it, someone who rejects materialism and capitalism over spirituality of an earth based sense. Again being a Heathen can mean different things..for me it is basically a word of power. A word that describes my opposition to the morales of society, going against the grain, living for today, defying.

In the song, As Rome Burns, I realize that you use the fall of Rome as a symbol of the declining western civilization. How do you mean it? Because what Rome as an empire represents is the total opposition of what the present European Union is. Can you clear it up in details? There are also a common view that the Roman Empire is similar to the United States Of America, which is one of the biggest bullshit I’ve ever heard in my entire life.

I agree...It’s a very basic metaphor. Everyone knows the story of Nero supposedly fiddling while Rome Burns, well I am comparing the citizens of Europe to Nero...the European governments to Nero and we are fiddling while Rome Burns, or at least Rome is about to burn. We are ready for the fall. I could have used Constantine or other figures but Nero is the most obvious therefore the most suitable for trying to reach people with the message. Rome was sacked by Vandals from the North, it fell into decay and decadence. I think people can see the metaphor...

What do you think about the biggest mistake of the modern western world: the constant evolution in every aspect? While every tradition know that every being has its completeness and harmony within its origin and not in an uncertain abstract future. A so-called development that leads to nowhere but total annihilation. Please, comment on this.

perhaps it was all inevitable you know, man has been on the earth for millions of years and now our current lifetyles are unsustainable. The planet we live on smiply cannot sustain us indefinitely. And the point of no return has probably been reached in the aftermath of the industrial revolution in the 20th century. Everything was a brave new world we headed into without any consideration of the consequences. At least now it seems we are entering the final phase as the powers of the world wage war for what little natural resources are left on the planet. Cultures are being swamped by the pursuit of multinational globalisation. And it seems to me we are fat and bloated in the west, as long as we have enough material possessions to sate or appetite for consumption we dont give a fuck what happens in the world anymore. On the other had its not possible to feel somehow that most matters are now out of our hands, millions of people demonstrated in the streets against te war in iraq, in Ireland the biggest demonstration in the history of the state yet still American planes land in Shannon in the west of Ireland taking prisoners to the Middle East to be tortured or to Guantanamo...I think people feel powerless to change anything. Nothing is going to change in this world unless it happens down the barrell of a gun. Resist and agitate...

Do you have a vision of what will happen after the great fire, the end of the world, the Apocalypse? Do you study the old traditions, the old holy texts, where everything important has been written thousands of years ago? I mean especially the eastern traditions: Indian tradition, Buddhism, Tibetan tradition.

i admit i dont know much about them although what i have read about buddhism it seems the most common sense religion on the planet to me. Its ahrd to say what will happen, we are living in very interesting times and times of great change and upheaval. The next 20 years are going to be very challenging.

Many of your lyrics deal with passing away or the end of the world. Failures Burden is a personal lyric related to the aforementioned theme. Do you often think about death? Do you have fear of not done everything you want when the final time will come?

Absolutely. Im not a morbid person but I think about the short time we have on the planet and the fact it could end tomorrow all the time. Life is short and passes by quicker and quicker so I’ve become more active as I’m older as I get the feeling my time is more and more precious. So far I’ve made some kind of mark on this world, hopefully I can continue to do so for as long as I have breath in my lungs.

I think Primordial is one of the very few bands in metal, whose music is unquestionably spiritual. Beside the extraordinary energy in your songs, one can hear something unnamable in your music: something godlike, ancient, timeless, magical. The lava-like flowing guitars, the pulsing bass, the pounding tribal drums, the passionate vocals. I guess, your goal is to play music that is not for the moment…

of course, you attempt to create something timeless, something that people in 10-20 years can listen to, it doesnt belong in a scene of the moment or a current trend. Primordial is outside of that. We re 5 very different people, we hardly exist like other bands do we are more like a loose collective of people with a common focus. We didnt start with a grand plan or design we simply wanted to create something real, something honest and something pure and evolve as people foremost and and as musicians. We view the band as art, we are artists not entertainers and I view the band as continuing a great Irish artistic, musical and literary tradition.

Alan, on the stage you put your heart and soul into your performance. Does this furious stage-show take a lot of power of you?

When you mean what you say and say what you mean then you cannot help but be moved when you stand onstage and sing something that you stand behind. Playing live is like total catharsis, for that hour you live and breathe the songs. It has be this way, there is no other way Primordial could exist whatsoever. I cannot stand up there and sing about how Metal I am or zombies or fast cars etc. We still have the hunger for playing live, we dont take anything for granted...

Have you played any of the new songs live already?

nope, none yet. Arnhem will be the first time in 2 weeks.

How does an ideal show look for Primordial? I mean: the stage, circumstances, audience, the place of the show, lights etc.

ideally we could have enough crew to help us with lights and stage setting etc but we are still climbing the ladder, we do the best we can for now. Would be nice to take more time over it but its expensive. However whats important is that we make the connection with people and thankfully it always happens. Bad gigs are very few and far between these days. 50 or 500 or 5000 people we play the same...

Last time when we talked, you daid that there were many books you wanted to read. Did you have time to finish some of them? If yes, what are they?

really too many to mention to be honest, im studying full time now so i am reading all the time...mainly Irish political history at the moment.

I know that you like old-school metal, black, death etc. What other music do you listen to?

nick cave, leonard cohen, johnny cash, sopor aeternus, classical, traditional music, trance, 16 horsepower, woven hand, liam weldon, lots of things...

Any plans for tours, festivals in the summer? Maybe a Hungarian concert?

just keep checking our site for info...things are being confirmed day to day...