AA: Nearly all of them, there are some missing. Its weird you know, as far as memories back then are concerned we used to travel on the ferry from Dublin to Hollyhead and then the train all the way though through the night, without sleep to play those gigs. Of course back then you never got as much as a penny, but you just accepted these things. It was just the way it was. We never had any grand plans or anything. We kept on doing what we did and yeah lo and behold 2008 we are still playing music. The band exists almost like a loose collective of people, there is no like oh its Thursday night it’s time to rehearse or anything like that. There is very little routine with this band, so in that sense it doesn’t really feel like work, you know? If there is nothing to do and no new ideas there is no point rehearsing. We are not Hate Eternal and don’t need to be particularly tight and there are no hard and fast rules to anything.

PW: One thing that really makes Primordial somewhat unique is the fact that you have been playing for such a long time, with (correct me if I’m wrong) no line-up changes. Very few bands can claim such a feat. How do things stay so harmonious within Primordial’s ranks, I am sure many would like to know the secret of your longevity?

AA: Well there have been a few but not many. I think, well we have been in this band for 17 years and didn’t start it as friends we became acquaintances haha. No we became friends over the years and we didn’t approach things as a lot of bands do like agreeing to rehearse Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and we must book band meetings and you must wear this, blah blah. No rules and no regulations and because we didn’t make any money from it, we do a bit now, every now and again but its never a big deal or anything like that. We never set out or sat down and asked what are we going to do to sell the most amount of records or anything like that. What happens, just happens, we don’t have a grand plan, well he might (pointing at guitarist Ciáran MacUiliam and laughing). I try and impress this on people but they don’t believe me that we don’t sit down and go here’s the album, here’s the plan for it. We are free from a lot of the pressures that other bands face, I can see that some have to tour and have to play festivals and record new albums but we never have had to do all that. It’s just kind of Irish, haha a bare knuckle kind of attitude. If there is a problem we can always work it out there’s no prima-donnas you don’t take it personally, there’s no fragile egos and rock stars in this band.

PW: I guess day jobs prevent you from embarking on really long tours. Where would you really like to play that you haven’t yet done so?

AA: Oh South America, Asia, yes to tour America is one of the things I would like to do before we give it all up or whatever.

Ciáran: Greenland!

AA: Err well Middle East, Morocco, Tunisia and Africa would be good.

PW: Japan?

AA: Well we sell fuck all in Japan! Anyway I’m not really sure we are the sort of band who could go out and tour like say Rotting Christ did with their new album. That was something like 200 dates, then it would just start feeling too much like a routine. To do some sort of small tours on your own terms is ok but our lives are just not able to fit around doing things for a month at a time, maybe it would be if that was our living, but this isn’t our living so… I would always like to keep the special atmosphere that generates around the band at gigs, which might be ruined if you saw us in your local venue all the time, we are not Vader!

PW: You haven’t played a huge amount of shows since new album ‘To The Nameless Dead’ came out, how have you been finding transposing the material to the live stage?

AA: Well it’s always nerve wracking when you are doing new songs, especially when the people know the words and sing along and I have a terrible memory when it comes to remembering them. It’s a good feeling though as you get bored playing the same old songs. It’s great seeing how things go and it’s easier to do it after four or five times.

PW: Although stable with line ups no such luck with labels basically, all your previous labels bit the dust, obviously things are much more stable with Metal Blade. How have things been with them? I would imagine you would only work with a label giving you complete artistic control and at your own pace?

AA: We are cursed, watch out. Yes they put less pressure on us than any of the other supposedly underground labels. Half the people who work there at say the German office are musicians, they understand. We say look, you are going to get an album every 2 or 3 years and they understand, this is not your everyday band. They are totally supportive of us.

PW: Onto the new album and the obvious question, how would you say the band have evolved between the recording of it and previous album ‘The Gathering Wilderness.’

AA: You learn a bit more every time you record and I think this time we had a more definite idea of what we wanted to do as regards to the gear, the studio that we picked. It helped that Chris and Dave who owned the studio we were recording in were the same age as us.

Ciáran: With this album we had a week off during the recording so we could listen back to what we had played. We could perhaps think, that’s gone on a little bit too long we could do something with it. In the past it has been, we have two weeks lets go and record it all the way through. This time we had a little more space.

AA: It helped not being in Dublin we recorded this in North Wales. You got up in the morning and recorded from Noon till 2AM every day. You had your breaks but it was just us free of interruption so we could just focus on what we were doing. It made a huge difference. And as he said the time between the recording and the editing, overdubs and the mixing was a huge help. We did everything in 13 days, recording, mixing all of it. Well if Black Sabbath can do it in 3 days we can at least do it in 4 times that. I mean what’s the point? There’s no point in fucking around. The overall feeling is more important than is that bass drum like this blah, blah, blah? Well ok we worked a bit harder with this, this time round but the point being you are not striving for perfection, flaws give character.

PW: I think as far as many are concerned you have maybe inadvertently found perfection though.

AA: Well perfection would be like a ‘Sign Of The Southern Cross’ production, mixed with the tom sound of ‘Killers’ and no, no to be honest this album is the most sonically perfect, for us that we have done. We didn’t want it to sound like an ‘old’ album, we wanted to take a cue from the old stuff that had a great spirit and transform it into something modern.

PW: Although there is no specific concept the album is steeped in historical context, and has themes such as ancestry, pride and a respect for bygone eras coursing through it. Where do you take your inspiration from, I can imagine when not playing music you have your head dipped in a history book?

AA: Well inspiration comes from anywhere, just from being a living breathing human being and interconnecting with the world, connecting with places you go and people you meet along the way. Things that happen every day, to as you say history books, there are no hard and fast rules from where inspiration comes from. For me it comes from trying to understand and comprehend different cultures, histories, cultural awareness, through to an interest in politics.

PW: I would also guess that your environment plays a large part in conceiving the emotion packed into your music. Do your surroundings spur creativity?

AA: Oh yeah totally, I live in a city where I have spent 30 odd years living in a fucking grey, rainy fucking place, so it does have an effect on you. He lives in the middle of nowhere (points at Ciáran) and we are 5 completely different people with different directions but a rough common focus. What inspires me could be different from day to day.

PW: As far as end of year polls are concerned the album leapt very high up in the ranks of the more serious music press. Perhaps you would have hit a few more album of the year accolades if it hadn’t been released Mid November. Was this something you considered or does this sort of thing not really concern you?

AA: Yes it probably could have done. It’s like we have come in from the fringes of the scene, to suddenly occupy centre stage for a brief moment, with an album that without being compromised is essentially commercially perfect both sonically and aesthetically and stands opposed to the general plastic shallowness of the mainstream. All of a sudden, it’s the power metal guy, the doom metal guy, the black metal guy, they all seem to like it. You end up number 2 and 4 and 5 and 1 of these end of year polls and its gratifying that people appreciate the band but its not the b-all and the end all, the most important thing is the people that liked us before are not let down by what we are doing. If we can reach more people by it and they go fucking hell, never heard of this band and they have 6 other albums to discover then great.

PW: One thing I would guess that does concern is piracy, what are your opinions on downloading and how would you imagine it affects you. I would have thought most Primordial fans would accept nothing less than the finished product and preferably buy the vinyl too?

AA: There is that perception about me as Blabbermouth took this quote from me out of context. I was talking about the pros and cons but they printed just what I said about the cons, so I get all this, if it wasn’t for downloading I would never have heard of your band. In the modern age, with Myspace and all that getting your songs out there and downloading is important. I think the concept that if you own a shop and I go in there and take something and don’t pay for it and walk out, you are going to go, you better pay for that. The fact is the record label gives us money, which is like a loan that we have to repay in sales and if everyone just gets it for free, it just doesn’t work like that. The thing is I also understand that people who otherwise wouldn’t be able to hear the band download it and then go and buy the album. That is what didn’t get put across on Blabbermouth.

PW: Your voice has popped up and been instantly recognisable on albums by Marduk and Desaster recently. I’m guessing that you get a lot of requests and am surprised you haven’t popped up on any other Irish bands works that I’m aware of. How do you pick and chose projects you want to get involved with?

AA: Irish bands tend to be a no, my thing and my thing only. They are either my friends or they are a band I can feel some sort of musical relationship to. Marduk, I mean yeah, totally common ground with those guys and Desaster we played with those guys and well that was different. I wanted to do some ‘heavy metal singing’ and they said no we want the Primordial singing. I wasn’t sure if it fitted but Marduk was perfect. I went to Sweden and did it there. Arioch had the whole thing worked out how he wanted it done, you’re this character and I’m this character and it worked out perfectly. Yes I am doing something with Void Of Silence and also with the band Revenge, it’s called ‘Blood Revolt’ and is like militant war metal and very brutal about as heavy as it gets.

PW: There is a rich heritage of music from the likes of Mael Mordha, Mourning Beloveth, For Ruin and Scald to name just a few as well as some great labels like Sentinel and Invictus. Everything musically seems to have common themes, maturity, passion and seriousness are words that spring to mind. What is it about the Emerald Isle that invokes such levels of well perfection?

AA: Hahaha you obviously haven’t met these people! I think it’s just a commitment to individuality but I wouldn’t call it perfection. There’s a bunch of us who have known each other since the early 90s’ who have been doing their own thing when nobody was really interested. Things have started to roll a bit now and there is an underground shop in Dublin run by Brian from Sentinel records (he’s out there selling T-shirts in the venue) there’s Invictus. The things that were planned in the 90s’ have slowly come to fruition and it’s a small island you know. A lot of the people who are active when there was no real scene, we had to make our own scene. Commitment to alcoholism maybe! No seriously all the people who have been around for years, they all support each other.

PW: ‘To The Nameless Dead’ has reached a pinnacle of epic completion, where do Primordial go from here?

AA: I don’t know, who knows? We don’t plan anything it happens when it happens.

So there you have it never rush an Irishman and at this point things were beginning to bustle so we left it there, so the band could get ready for their show, which you can read about HERE.

Visit the band at www.primordialweb.com
www.myspace.com/fallentoruin
www.metalblade.com
Read a review of Primordial at www.metalteamuk.net/review-primordial.htm
If you enjoyed this interview you might also like the following:
Interview with Centurions Ghost
Interview with Moonsorrow

Interviewed by Pete Woods

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