With the worldwide revival of Thrash Metal in full swing, complete with classic thrash shirts purchased on e-bay and hi-top trainers being worn by folks who can still fit into drainpipe jeans, you may wonder what about the UK Thrash scene? Look no further than the ‘Apocalyptic Rage’; all day event held at the Purple Turtle in London, hosted by Resilience Records. This label has been at the head of the queue in terms of putting on much needed live shows and bringing some excellent bands to the UK from overseas. I was present at this event and was able to get time with most of the line up to catch up with the bands plans and aspirations and gain an insight into their history.

HALLOWED POINT

PM: Let’s start with a little band background?

HP: I joined the band in September 2007 after numerous line up changes that saw the band come from another band with the only remaining member being Dave our drummer. Tom and Rich on guitars auditioned and joined earlier this year about 3 or 4 months ago, so this line up that played today is pretty new. I think we have found the right people now with the right chemistry in the band.

PM: Your main musical influences?

HP: Well the first EP was kinda thrash and influenced by the “big four” and ‘Overkill’, but obviously now we are changing our style a little and we are listening to acts like ‘Dream Theater’ and ‘Symphony X’. We still retain those original influences, but I feel this is where we are at now with the new songs. My vocals are different to those that we had before; Rob Halford influences me and I try to get to those high screams etc. So I think now that the style of the band has changed we have a broad range of influences than previously.

PM: Best live show so far?

HP: I have to be really cheesy and say today! The venue is really really good, the sound was better than we have had before. Other than that, Joseph’s Well (Leeds) in 2007, we had ‘Arch Enemy’s’ sound guy working with us for that one, it wasn’t perfect, but it was good. Today was a combination of all aspects.

PM: What are your future recording plans?

HP: We are all going back to university in September, so from then we can book some studio time and see where things go from there. We have changed quite substantially in style and line up since the last EP so we hope to record 4 or 5 songs to let people know where we are now. Hopefully by the end of the year, but it keeps on getting pushed back as we are asked to do more and more gigs. (Note: ‘Hallowed Point’ is releasing the live recording of their Apocalyptic Rage gig later this year).

PM: Where do you see the band in 3 years time?

HP: I hope to be doing the same sort of thing to larger audiences and putting in some longer sets pretty much, 25 minutes for me wasn’t enough, I want to play a lot longer than that!

HALLOWED POINT MYSPACE

RADICAL ONSLAUGHT

PM: How did the band get together?

RA: Andy and Joe started the idea of a fun thrash band back in school; later Adam joined playing bass and Dai on vocals. “We have been together for about 18 months now and are from the Hereford area”. Bassist Adam explains that “we had a lot of songs written, but no vocals, we looked for about 6 months, then we found Dai, and it all kind of fitted into place from then really”.

PM: Your main musical influences?

RA: We like a lot a crossover acts, where as Dai comes from more of a pure Hardcore influence.

PM: Best live show so far, apart from today?

RA: Well today was good, but we played a while back in Birmingham with a band called ‘The Uproar’ in this tiny venue, no windows or anything everything was sweaty, that was pretty good.

PM: Do you have any future recording plans?

RA: When we get round to it! Adam says “at the moment we want to get this CD round to as many people as possible and get some more live shows under our belt”.

PM: Have you got any live gigs planned for the near future?

RA: Not at the moment

PM: Where do you see the band in 3 years time?

RA: Adam “we want to have a better quality demo out than what we have and a load more songs to go with it”

RADICAL ONSLAUGHT MYSPACE

DOCTOR DEATH

PM: How did the band get started?

J: We got started about 5 or 6 years ago, I wasn’t in the original line up and their thing was ‘fantasy thrash’, they mixed together thrash and power metal, that line up went AWOL; some joined ‘Damnas’ and others just could not be bothered really. I just saw them in the street and they wanted a bassist, so I joined!

PM: Your main musical influences for the ‘Doctor Death’ sound?

J: A cliché, but mostly the 1980’s in general! One of the guys has his room painted green and black and has loads of picture discs and other stuff all related to that decade all over it. But musically, ‘Helloween’, ‘Agent Steel’, ‘Razor’, 'Grim Reaper' but basically anyone who is fast, but also melodic.

PM: Best live show so far, apart from today?

J: The first one we played here at the purple turtle last year, good set, good crowd, had a really good time. But any gig in London is particularly cool.

PM: Today you played a ‘Manilla Road’ cover version, how come?

J: It’s really metal, and we persuaded John (‘Damnas’ Bassist) to dress up to do guest vocals!

PM: Where do you see the band in 3 years time?

J: Hopefully a lot of gigging a lot of recording, you know, we want to make music and make our living out of making music, not really rich and famous, but doing what we love as a job. No one else in the band can get a job so we have to do this. We are all unemployed (laughs).

AMOK

PM: How did the band get started?

S: At the time myself and Calum (Guitarist) wanted to start a band, the Glasgow scene was on it’s arse. It was all nu metal and stuff. So we decided to form a thrash band.

PM: Your main musical influences?

S: The bay area bands like ‘Exodus’ and ‘Forbidden’. The good 80’s stuff, no shite! However, we try not to put too much of the bay area sound into our music, cause to be honest, there are loads of bands doing that now.

PM: This is what I would say about ‘Amok’ also, there was just something different about your sound this evening.

S: Yeah well we don’t want to be too serious about trying not to be bay-area; you end being all doom and gloom then. We are sometimes compared to ‘Anthrax’ and as mentioned earlier ‘Exodus’.

PM: Best live show so far, apart from today?

S: It would be a toss up between us supporting ‘Destruction’ and ‘Onslaught’ at the Sound house in Glasgow or for me personally, it has to be when we supported ‘Bolt Thrower’ because that was really packed out, it’s very rare that we get a full house in Glasgow at any show, so that was special.

PM: Where do you see the band in 3 years time?

S: Oh well, hmm…well we have just finished the album (‘Downhill Without Brakes’) so we are going to put that about to some labels etc, we are already 5 years into this band I hope to be around with this band in another 3 years time. Hopefully it will be on a label and we will still be making not too serious music, but still being able to evolve knowing that we have done it all off our own backs.

AMOK MYSPACE

HOSPITAL OF DEATH

Another travelling band, this time from Cheshire, minus their usual bassist who was on family duties this weekend (who is now a father – congratulations!) have recently played Bloodstock Open Air and I managed to grab a chat with the whole band in between homeless people asking for money, a guy telling jokes on the street and fans buying t-shirts! These guys are true gents and really nice folks to chat too, especially after a few beers!

PM: How did the band get started?

HOD: It all came out of a school concert I think, we formed cause we hated dance music! But we really formed together out of the ashes of numerous bands, some death metal, some stoner rock”. Then they saw Dave in a pub singing AC/DC, and “the rest of what would become HOD came up to me and asked if we wanted to form a band, this was in 2006”. We now have Hospital of Death.

PM: Your main musical influences?

HOD: Marty Friedman, Adrian Smith and Mike Amott guitarist wise.

PM: I missed who spoke in the next section, however, I was told by “the other” guitarist “I only can play slow so I have to pick someone who plays slow (laughs), although I am thinking of getting go-faster stripes tattooed on my fingers so I can play a bit faster”!

HOD: (After avoiding the question….) Joey-era Anthrax, Testament and Dave’s current god is Yngwie Malmsteen. Vocal wise it’s gotta be Bruce (Dickinson), gotta be the Ripper (Tim Owens)

PM: Best live show so far?

HOD: Bloodstock this year was pretty amazing, that’s probably the best gig so far, we have never had such a big crowd.

PM: Yes it was busy, you were dressed up in your “stage” outfits then, but not today.

HOD: Yeah we set up our gear and the crowd was about 2 or 3 people deep, we went off stage for a bit, then came back out and I thought, look at all those people. We thought they were hiding from the rain, but it wasn’t raining (Laughs). It nearly brought Dave to tears!

PM: Do you have any future recording plans?

HOD: Yeah, we want to record another album, our current one is available for free download, but with another album, we might have to no re-record some of the tracks. I mean ‘Transformers’; I don’t know how we would stand with copyright for that one for a start. But we wanna get out of that mindset of people saying oh, it’s that band who play ‘Transformers’. (But the band tell me that they have written a song in response to the latest ‘Judas Priest’ album…PM)

PM: Where do you see the band in 3 years time?

HOD: Dunno, there’s a bone of contention there mate. We will have done the second album by then, so we will be on the 3rd album, the ‘difficult’ 3rd album so it could be one of all power ballads (laughs). The next album (number 2 that is) will be released on a proper label, whether it is a DIY label or major label. We are all old bastards and we have family to consider as well.

We could have chatted for longer, but the local street comedian came over to us and told us a few yarns, we did not give any money though! HOD are band to look out for in the future for sure.

HOSPITAL OF DEATH MYSPACE

DAMNAS

PM: How did the band get started?

D: Well one of us was a Thai bride, one of us was homeless and the other was on some dodgy website.

PM: Seriously…I will print this!!!

D: We met up in a pub in central London in 2007, but this line has been together since August 2007. We have been gigging constantly since then. We have an EP out (bought by myself this very day – PM) and we ended up having a launch party and drinking lots of beer. (See MTUK website for live review – PM)

PM: Your main musical influences?

D: Jimmy Page, Steve Harris, we don’t know”. Donny states, “it’s hard that one, you have a favourite band every few months.

PM: Ok then, so who inspired you to play music.

D: Simply old school metal, thrash metal, shit loads of bands.

PM: Best live show so far, apart from today?

D: The launch party, but ‘Metalbrew’ was good. We liked that one (Also see the live review on the MTUK website). But for the launch, we had all our friends down and it was just great.

PM: Do you have any future recording plans?

D: We do plan to record an album, but we will take it slow, maybe next year. We are in a good position at the moment with Donny joining the band, we can write more stuff together. As some of us are in other bands, you have to bear that in mind and respect their plans etc.

PM: Have you got any live gigs planned for the near future?

D: We are playing in Wakefield in December, and then we are not really booking any more gigs for a while, we want to go in the studio and come back out live with a fresh new set.

PM: Where do you see the band in 3 years time?

D: Watching porn! Seriously, we want to find a decent booking agent and get some goods shows under our belts and get our name out there. We are all friends, like brothers if you like, so we just have fun anyway.

DAMNAS MYSPACE

NEBUKADNEZZA

PM: How did the band get started?

Donny: We started about 7-8 years ago, I was playing with another guitarist called Seb, and that was back in 2000 or something like that, we used to jam, we had a drummer called Gareth and we did a demo, this was way, way back. We found Adriano (on Drums) in an advert in Denmark St (London – Guitar buying haven!) then we needed a bass player, so as a result of a jamming session with Adriano and Fred, I mentioned that I had a band and from there you have the current line up.

Fred: “I had just bought a bass, having played guitar for years, I just really wanted to be in a fast metal band.” They are basically self-taught musicians (after a few theory lessons etc…) “and so we create a very organic sound” Fred explained.

Fred: We are all probably the biggest bunch of idiots going with drinking and stuff, but when it comes to the music, that’s when it gets serious.

PM: Your main musical influences?

Donny: I would say ‘Napalm Death’.

Fred: Yeah I agree, although I think for lyrical inspiration for Donny I would say ‘Bob Dylan’.

Donny: Fred brings a hardcore sound to us, I guess most people think that we are thrash because of the people that we are, but we have let our music grow more than our characters if you know what I mean.

Fred: To narrow it down a bit, ‘Terrorizer’ or the ‘S.O.D.’ side of thrash.

PM: Best live show?

Both: That’s Tough!

This band had been fortunate to play with top acts like ‘Dismember’, ‘Master’, ‘Agnostic Front’ and ‘Tankard’ so there are a few to choose from! Donny: The ‘Tankard’ show was good, the drunken hoedown!

PM: Do you have any future recording plans?

Donny: We have loads planned actually, we have an EP coming soon called ‘There is No Revolution’ with Resilience Records and then a split called ‘Pronounced Nebukadnezza’ our side of the split with ‘River Freshney’, another London band more of a crossover/hardcore band.

PM: Where do you see the band in 3 years time?

Fred: Hopefully playing music! We would like to get out of the UK.

Donny: Yeah, get out of the UK playing more shows. We had a couple of opportunities to do that, we had an offer for the ‘Dark Funeral’ tour in America, but the buy-on was just too much and we did not have the money, we need to save some cash and try to get out of the UK, that’s our next goal. We have played everywhere in London now.

Fred: It would be nice to be in another country and fans appreciate what you are doing.

Donny: It’s easy to sit back with the people that you know in London and take praise etc. We definitely need to get braver and play elsewhere.

After putting in the years and improving their sound with each release, one hopes this happens.

NEBUKADNEZZA MYSPACE

There were a few other bands playing on the day, but unfortunately, I never got chance to catch up with them. My final thoughts for the day; most of the bands have a very much DIY attitude (with a lot of help from MySpace). It still does not seem that easy for the bands to get out into the wider public, with both venues becoming prudent to cover their costs in the current climate and promoters sometimes unwilling to take a chance. It’s a good job that these handful of bands and Resilience Records have the sheer determination, inter-band camaraderie and energy to push their passion for music further.

Thanks ever so much to all the band members who were able to give their time, until the next thrash event, keep the genre alive in the UK!

Useful website sources: http://www.myspace.com/resiliencerecords
http://www.ukthrash.co.uk/

FEATURE BY PAUL MADDISON

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