Hey Alan! How’s it goin’? “To The Nameless Dead” is set to be unleashed soon! What are your feeling towards its release?

Hi, its going fine thanks for asking !. I’m feeling positive right now. We made some decisions surrounding this album that have turned out really well for us. The studio and timing especially. The songs we knew were strong but everything clicked into place more smoothly then I have ever known. We feel positive about it, it’s our sixth album and we haven’t compromised anything or lost our energy. The label are positive and the critics again are on our side. We’ll see what happens.

It took you more than 2,5 years to write, record, produce and release a new album! What happened in between?

Everything takes it’s time in Primordial country. We don’t rush anything. We live quite far away and don’t rehearse often but when the time feels right we get back together and start on new music. We played quite a few shows for Gathering also don’t forget after it was released. When we begin putting things together nothing sounds right but slowly and surely it begins to sound Primordial and once that happens we know we will be in the studio perhaps in 8 months time. A little stress and pressure helps us. We don’t make money from the band so nothing is compromised, we don’t have to make an album to fit into our yearly touring or festival plans. When it happens it happens.

”To The Nameless Dead” was not digitally recorded – just analog! Why did you decide to do this and what are the differences compared to the process of a digital recording?

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…

Please tell us something about the concept of the artwork and the lyrics!

We wanted something that stood out from the usual photo shopped, fantasy, comic book hocus pocus. Something with more depth. I wanted something iconic and I think on both editions, the book and normal we have created this. Paul from Scald has done a wonderful job in interpreting the band and I think it really stands out in the modern metal scene. I was as with the last album inspired by the care and attention to aesthetic employed in the neo-folk/wave scene. For me at least the whole package is very important. The cover/lyrics/liner notes should go hand in hand with the music and thankfully now we have a label behind us that is committed to supporting our vision of the band.

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.

The new album is the most epic work you’ve ever done! There is so much depth and tragedy – where do you get the inspiration for your music?

From just engaging with the world we live in. 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 make a stand for something real, to be able to look my peers, my family, my children perhaps someday in the eye and say what I created came from purity and honesty and I tried to make my mark with honour and integrity. When we stand onstage and play a song like “The Coffin Ships” I hope in some small way I am keeping our history alive, keeping people’s memories alive. Bringing something of ourselves to people. Moving them in some way. Not everything has to be pre-packaged for the 3 minutes pop consumer culture in a shallow way.

There’s always that remarkable blackish touch to your songs (especially on “Traitors Gate”) – do you still feel connected with the black metal scene?

Well we came from that whole second wave of Black Metal from the early 90’s. We started the band in 1991 and that’s what we felt closest to. Black metal will always be part of our music and I think we share many things in common with it but I would never call Primordial Black Metal as I have a pretty strict view of what Black Metal should be and in it’s orthodox sense we definitely are not Black Metal but we were part of that scene and it inspired us and there will always be something of it within the music. This is still the music that speaks to me most within Metal.

You stated before that ““To The Nameless Dead” is defiantly at odds with a modern metal scene that often seems to place banality, mediocrity and safety above passion, honesty and truth”! What exactly do you mean by that – what is your goal you wanna achieve with this album?

I mean exactly as I say. I get so many worthless cd’s that aren’t worth the plastic they are pressed on or waste minutes of my life listening to rubbish. The modern Metal scene seems so safe to me sometimes, where is the seed of rebellion ?. the danger ?. the anger ?. There just seems to me to be a queue of faceless bands with skinny jeans, stupid hair cuts and sleeve tatts on one side faced on the other side by a long line of guys with girls hair and pirate shirts backing up some dumb angelic looking girl in a black velvet dress and a corset singing about fucking unicorns or something…fuck that, fuck all of it. I have zero interest in more or less everything overground these days. Thank fuck for bands like Destroyer 666, Desaster, Axis of Advance, Revenge, Witchcraft, Bolt Thrower, Vrani Volosa, Razor of Occam, Archgoat, Skepticism, Celtic Frost, Hammers of Misfortune,  Reverend Bizarre, Gospel of the Horns, Melechesh, Slough Feg, whatever….etc. I listen to people bitching in magazines about Shining or Watain for example, listen if the alternative is some turgid lame female fronted goth metal shit then I think I’d rather kill myself….and if you are in one of those bands do the world a favour and kill yourself. Our goal ?. I don’t know if we really have a goal. We are just an honest band doing something pure. No Compromise, not then, not now, not ever….

You are also doing a cover band… right?

Yeah together with O’leary the drummer in Primordial, 2 guys from the band Mael Mordha and an old friend of ours on guitar we play when we can for fun, and I tell you what you soon sharpen up your vocals and learn some things when you have to sing WASP, Maiden, AC/DC, Rose Tattoo, Priest and UFO for a couple of hours. It ain’t easy.

As you mentioned in an earlier statement you are planning to do a 7” with TRIMONIUM and some other things, right?! What’s the status of these projects?

Well I have basically an album of songs written and one of those tracks I recorded a few years ago on a 4 track with Michael from Primordial helping me. Einheit heard it and wanted to release it. I said why not and Trimonium I know from organising United Metal Maniacs and breaking some of Tim’s gear o). So why not ?. its just raw and primitive old school Epic Black Metal. Maybe I’ll do an album someday and get these songs out of my head who knows. Then I’m going to do a band with J.Read from Revenge/Axis of Advance and Vermin from Axis called Blood Revolt. Violent, chaotic stuff with an Epic militant edge. This one will weed out the weak for sure. Void of Silence will get together once again and make another album perhaps in 2008 so I have quite a few things happening. I find it interesting and challenging to work with other people and I have enough focus, inspiration and energy for them all.

In April 2007 you played the infamous Metal Cruise – how was it to play on a ship?

It was interesting. Strange to be able to turn around while playing and look at castles going by on the shore out the window as we ploughed down the river but it was a positive experience. I don’t think anyone more then 3 rows back could see a thing but they didn’t seem to mind. And then Goetz deafened us back in the bar. Heavy Metal Maniac indeed o)…

What are your plans after having the album out?

I guess we will see what the reaction is like from the fans and critics. Then see what is offered in the way of festivals and tours. Hopefully we can get on something worthwhile this time and reach some new people. And next year also renew some old friendships and forge new ones in playing some places we have never reached before.

Thx for your time, dude! Any last words to say?

No compromise. Not then. Not know. Not ever. Some bands do stand for something and do mean something. The decision is up to you.

Nemtheanga