PM: Hi, for the benefit of our readers, can you summarise a brief history of the band from your formation in 1988?

Skully / SOTW - My brother Wes the vocalist, Dennis the keyboard player and I formed SOTW in October 1988. We found a bassist and drummer playing practicing right next door to our place. That lasted for a while and we used to have open house nights on the weekends playing to locals that would show up to party. During the first 2 years we had a few line-up changes on bass and drums. Then we finally got together a solid line-up when Phaedra Rubio joined on bass in summer 1991. And for a short time we had Aaron Winders on drums. Drummer Wayne Hofle joined in summer 1994. Then we had our first serious line-up. We recorded the first album in 94/95 and released it in 1996. Phaedra quit in fall 1998 and we had Chris Whitford on bass. Then we put out our second album titled "Lost In Hell" in 1999 and then our third album titled "Nocturnal Revelation" in early 2002. Wayne played his last live show with SOTW in 2002. Wayne still helped record tracks for our 4th album. Mark Empire joined us on drums as a fill-in player in 2003 but ended up being a permanent fixture. Mark recorded on a few tracks for "Once In A Blue Moon" and is recording tracks on the entire next album. We also have Bill Bois filling in on bass for live shows. Bill also recorded some tracks on "Once In A Blue Moon". Obviously SOTW has went through a few line-up changes on bass and drums. We have recorded 6 albums. But only 4 of them have been released internationally so far. The first couple albums back in 1989 / 1990 were cassette only format and released only local. Over the past few years SOTW music has also been used in several independent horror sci-fi films. In 20 years of SOTW things have been slow but steady. An Independent entity with resilience.

PM: What are SOTW’s musical inspirations?

Skully / SOTW - Mostly bands that became popular in heavy rock from the 70's, and early 80's. Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, Thin Lizzy, Alice Cooper, Deep Purple, Utopia, Blue Oyster Cult, Judas Priest, Black Oak Arkansas, and many others. We also grab on to ideas we get from listening to horror and Sci-fi movie soundtracks.

PM: You have 4 studio albums behind you, are there particular favourites or memories from the recordings themselves? Skully / SOTW - With each SOTW album has come a different vibe depending on what is going on in our lives at the time. Each of them has special memories. During the first album recording it was great to learn many things working at Telstar Studio with Co-Producer/Engineer Bud Synder. Then we built our own studio to record our 2nd album Lost In Hell. Our production skills have grown with each album. We learn a lot by doing ourselves. Making mistakes is a good way to learn. It helps that we can take our time and redo things. We also recorded our 3rd album Nocturnal Revelation in our own studio. The benefit of this is that we have our live rehearsal stage right next door. It allows us to get right to recording when we have worked out the basics of a song. We had been working with several different fill-in bass players and drummers for live shows during the recording of our 4th album "Once In A Blue Moon". So, we decided to include each of the players on different tracks on the album. It also took us a bit longer to get our 4th album finished and released. For this reason "Once In A Blue Moon" is a fitting title. PM: Are there plans to release of your other 3 albums on vinyl, your debut album was recently re-released on vinyl? Skully / SOTW - Yes in fact we have licensed with German record label Pure Steel Records to release on vinyl format all the albums. Each album will have bonus tracks. In fact the next 3 albums will be double vinyl because of the time length. I'm sure that Pure Steel Records will want to release our 5th album on Vinyl as well. We may even give them exclusive release worldwide for our 5th album on CD depending on how things develop over the next several months.

PM: What input did the band have on this re-release, new artwork, any remastering, etc?

Skully / SOTW - At first we were going to go with the original cover art. But, we decided to have an artist selected by Pure Steel Records re-do a new cover for this first vinyl re-release. I do not know if there was any re-mastering. Although we did provide them with 2 bonus studio out-takes from that time period. Natures Revenge (The Black Wolf) and Destiny. These 2 songs were originally going to go on the first album but at the time we felt they needed a bit more production. We never got around to it. So, now they work ok for bonus tracks. On the next vinyl "Lost In Hell" there will be 3 much more polished bonus tracks. And it will be a double vinyl release. Also we will stick with the original artwork for the rest of the Vinyl releases. Although being on vinyl there will be lots of extra photos and such.

PM: Will your early demos be available for any future releases or downloads?

Skully / SOTW - Eventually after we release the 5th full length we will put together a release for the early SOTW recordings from the two cassette only albums. They were released back in 1989 and 1990 in the Tampa Bay only. Back then we felt we did not have a very solid line-up to release internationally. It will be cool to go back and re-master some of those old recordings and get them out there for SOTW fans to reflect and hopefully enjoy.

PM: Why did you change the band logo between the ‘Nocturnal Revelation’ and ‘Once In A Blue Moon’ releases?

Skully / SOTW - The logo lettering we used on "Once In A Blue Moon" is actually the original from back in 1988 before we officially released our first album. Some people complained that they could not read the lettering on the first, second and third album. So, we changed it back to the original for the 4th album. Some people say they can read it better now - but it is strange now we have people saying they liked the other one better. Ha ha ha! They must have just finally got used to the other one. So, maybe we will change back again and confuse everyone even more. Ha ha ha!

PM: Your new release is planned for early spring; do you have a working title for the album yet?

Skully / SOTW - We have 2 working titles, BUT we have moved the release date for it up to early 2010. At this point it will give us another 10 months of production. My brother Wes the lead vocalist is having some issues with his voice right now as well and he is in rehab. So, we decided to take some time off so he can recover. And due to the fact we would like the "Lost in Hell" Vinyl re-release to come out first. This will work to create more awareness for SOTW. The new album is 90% complete. In fact our drummer Mark will be here in 2 weeks finishing up 3 songs. Then there will only be 3 vocal tracks left to do. That will also give us some extra time to see how things pan out in the current bad economy. We wanted to get it out this year - but the timing is not right and there is not much money right now to put into promotions for anything. Entertainment seems to be very low on most people’s priority list right now. 2010 has a better ring to it.

PM: Can you reveal any inside information about this future release? Is it business as usual or are you planning on doing anything different to the SOTW sound?

Skully / SOTW - Fans of SOTW will know it is SOTW all the way as usual. But with each album we inject a bit more futuristic experimentations on some tracks. We are planning to have a special guest vocalist on one track titled "No More Room in Hell". Also just to give our fans a taste we will be releasing one already finished track titled "Solar Flare" later next month. PM: Do you have any European Live dates planned, I was told you had done a festival in Germany or were planning too?

Skully / SOTW - The demand for SOTW to come to Europe is definitely getting better. So much depends on the financial support. And once we do come we want to be able to really lay down a great presentation. There is a large festival in Oslo Norway that we are being considered for. Pure Steel Records is also working towards helping bring SOTW over for a couple festivals in Germany. Swordbrothers Festival and Headbangers Open Air. We have not been able to actually commit to anything yet. After the second Vinyl release comes out and then the 5th full-length album - 2010 is looking like the year for SOTW.

PM: Who would you consider to be the ideal band to tour with?

Skully / SOTW - We would love to tour with Dio, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, King Diamond, or Heaven & Hell. And it would be great to work with some of the upcoming underground metal bands from Europe that are playing the same niche. We opened a show for Blue Oyster Cult, one of our favourites and we would love to do several more shows with them if possible. There are a lot of great bands we would love to tour with. It would end up being a long list.

PM: Do you think Europe differs from the USA in terms of the genre/style you play within?

Skully / SOTW - We have always received more support from Europe for our style of music. The USA is fickle and trendy. It always has been that way here for most anyone in music. Although we do have some loyal fans for SOTW in USA, the interest and loyalty is much stronger in Europe. Our music has more influence from European metal of the past. European hard rock and metal fans seem to have a more open mind. They pay attention to more detail.

PM: Do you see any differences between Europe and the USA in terms of attitudes to album purchases and live gig attendances? Skully / SOTW - Same thing there. Europe pays more attention to detail. Actual physical album sales are better for us in Europe. We have not personally witnessed the live experience over there yet. But, from conversations with other bands that have been there I gather the attitude is much more vibrant over there too. So many great properly organised festivals over there compared to USA. The key words being "properly organised"

PM: A big topic in recent times is mp3 downloading. What is SOTW’s opinion on this? Do you think its different to tape trading in the 80’s (albeit on a larger scale now) because I often feel that newer fans of metal do not appreciate the buzz you get from owning a real album instead of a downloaded MP3 (whether legal or illegal) whilst expecting to get it/them for free?

Skully / SOTW - I am probably too "old school". I think there is something missing from the way music reaches the public now and it takes too much of the mystery and magic out of it. Having internet and music downloading has become a great way of exposure BUT it is not helping most bands to make money for touring and major production expenses. Making money in music business is very complicated right now, especially for unique hard rock bands. The music business is over-saturated with “cookie cutter” bands. Unfortunately at this point I believe the entire world is over-saturated in almost every aspect. It will be interesting to see how all this ends up. That much is certain!

PM: Some band members are credited with recording and producing duties on your albums, yourself included; do you do this for other artists or just for SOTW?

Skully / SOTW - Mostly it has been Wes, Dennis, and myself doing the production end of things. So far we three have always written the lyrics. And so far Dennis and I have done 98% of the music writing. On the albums we always give performance credits on songs. Dennis and I work together as a producer/engineer team and have worked with a couple other bands too. In fact we are looking forward to working with a few more bands in the next few years. That is to say - taking on a couple other projects that have similar taste to help record and produce in our studio.

PM: What were the last three albums that you bought?

Skully / SOTW - I have not purchased any new CD's in quite some time. Alice Cooper's new album "Along Came a Spider" is the only one that comes to mind. And I got a gift of the newest Nazareth album "The Newz". Other than rock music I did get the newest Tangerine Dream CD a few months ago.

Thanks ever so much for your time Skully, best regards to all in SOTW.

For more on the band check out http://www.sotwmetal.com/
http://www.myspace.com/seasonsofthewolf

Interviewed by Paul Maddison

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