by Jelena
 

a.. Who would believe that Primordial have been working  more than ten years now, and you are still such a young people. There are six albums behind you if we include the demo "Dark Romanticism" and MCD "The Burning times". If you observe from today's perspective, could you tell that you had quite clear vision of what Primordial should become, or it was growing and developing through the years as you  were maturing as individuals and as the band?

ans :
well I've been in the band since 1991 and Ciaran and Paul playing together since the end of 1987 when they were learning together as young teenagers so its true we have a very long history. well we have 4 albums the way I count it as lots of the songs appeared several times between these releases. in the beginning we were more of a I guess typical underground death/black metal band back in 1991 somewhere between early samael and unleashed or something but by about 1992 we were very conscious of trying to find our own style within the scene and we began to really look back to bands like bathory, candlemass and Celtic frost and also to traditional metal like maiden and lizzy and also to Irish traditional music as well. even way back in the beginning although we were really into bands like dark throne and mayhem we had no interest in sounding like them.

 

ans :
I guess you could say that, journeys end does as the title suggests indicate the end of a particular era of the band. we went through a lot of turmoil, change and frustration to get to that album and then from 1998 on we started to work together as a more focused group of people, our lives developed and we could bare to be around each other for more then a day or two. storm can be seen as the logical follow up to spirit, how the next one fits in is anyone's guess really ?.

 

ans :
usually I rather leave that to people like yourself !, to be honest you know we don't feel confined by any scene. we are five individuals with strong characters and a unified vision who come together to make music with no scene politics hanging around their necks. we do as we please and the only rule really is to make it as honest and pure as possible so what you get is really what you get. no pretension, no bullshit no stupid lyrics or posturing no borrowed riffs or second hand emotions. primordial came from the second wave black metal scene and the whole black/death metal underground and our hearts will always be "black" but we don't feel restricted in any way...play whatever the fuck you want exclusively !.

 

ans :
of course being Irish and everything that that entails from our day to day living, our approach to life from our sense of humour to our relationship to our culture, our history our heritage and folklore everything influences the music. I don't see primordial as political although we as individuals have political views primordial is what you could call culturally aware, we are about many things but of course our Celtic culture provides our roots then add in the heady mix of great Irish literary figures and poets over the centuries. we feel we are continuing what is a great Irish artistic tradition
our ideology ?...if it could be summed up it would be, know who you are, know where you came from and respect that, try and find your place within this world and let no one tell you otherwise

 

ans :
well you know we are not romantics nor are we folklore historians, our lyrics aren't about that. our ancestors are of course inspiring and Ireland is a place to find great inspiration but you really take what you see fit and use it for yourself, whatever makes the most sense to you. if the legends and myths inspire you then don't second guess you're instincts just go with it...

 

ans :
that's true, primordial is far from a simple band, there are complicated messages and images being portrayed...the creative process is hard to pin down as we exist unlike most other bands do, we don't practise often we are slow at writing songs. I mean there is no way we could practise like 3 times a week and bash out a song a week it just doesn't work like that. I guess in that way primordial has no routine which I think can keep it fresh for all of us. I write all the lyrics and really write them on my own when I feel  like writing and then we come to rehearsal with some ideas and then piece them slowly together.

 

ans :
I cant really say anything about this right now
needless to say, money changes people and although they start out with the best of intentions it always seems to end the same and its a fuckin sad enditement of people.
art and business don't mix.
I would always be dis-satisfied unless I did it myself.


 

ans :
true, we aren't a complacent band, we are more fired up and hungry then we ever were and we never go through the motions playing live. on of the best in my memory must be our show at wacken open air in 2002 which was a highly charged night and by the end we could see from the stage so many flags flying high it was fuckin crazy, Irish, Portuguese, Swedish, finish, Australian, German, Norwegian, Greek it was quite moving. there thankfully have been more great gigs then shitty ones and even shows in front of 30 people have been memorable...we always give our all.

 

ans :
great, we have nothing but positive things to say about the whole experience you know. everyone we met without one single exception was gracious, generous and noble in the extreme. its things like this that keep you more grounded you know keep your eyes open make you more aware of the things within our own country that are going astray. trips like this make all the shit that you put up with from the industry seem insignificant and that magical contact that can happen at a show is the most important thing there is. we hope to come back again and again !!!.

 

ans :
everyone was cool, the only pity for us was that we had so little sleep over the weekend, for me I stayed up all Thursday night to get the flight on Friday morning, 2 hours sleep Friday night, 3-4 on Saturday night and about 4-5 on Sunday night that we were all kinda dazed and tired and couldn't really get the party spirit going as we usually do, however that's a minor thing and you can sleep enough when you are dead in my opinion. negura are a great band and something really really different in this commercial world of sound-alike bands hopefully they get what they deserve and can play all over Europe showing the rest of Europe Romanian metal. may result I was not familiar with at all but even though I never heard them on cd nor really got much of an impression of their live show they all seemed like good people.

 

ans :
hopefully it will happen in 2004
rest assured my friend the storm will never calm !!!!...