Interviews
Alestorm Interview w/ Elliot Vernon & Máté Bodor
Alestorm Interview w/ Elliot Vernon & Máté Bodor
By JJ Ulizio & George Archibald
Myself and a fellow Empire Extreme staff member George Archibald had the pleasure of sitting down and having a chat with keyboardist Elliot Vernon and guitarist Máté Bodor of the pirate themed metal band Alestorm. We caught up with them as their “Super Smashed Turbo Tour 2016” with Aether Realm and Nekrogoblikon sailed into the Smiling Moose in Pittsburgh, PA. It was great talking to them about various topics and they put on one hell of an awesome show later that evening. But enough of my rambling, on to the interview!
JJ Ulizio: How far into the tour are you?
Máté Bodor: It’s day 6 or 7 so far… I think.
JJ: How have things been going?
Elliot Vernon: Its been going great! We did have some shows in Canada that got canceled so we suddenly had to find some last minute U.S. Shows. This is the second of those, I think. We are playing a couple of smaller places that we were able to get kinda last minute. But, its really cool because I like playing these smaller venues. Everyone is really sweaty and things fall apart. So that’s really fun. Its cool.
JJ: Do you have any new material that you have been working on?
MB: We’ve recorded demos for the new album. We have written everything already. We have ten or eleven songs done.
EV: We will be playing one of the new songs tonight. We will be playing one of them every day. We were just listening to the demos just now on the bus. Listening to them over and over again. Listening to them and taking notes, like this needs changing or that. It’s really good to be prepared like that.
JJ: Have you been happy with how everything has been turning out then?
Alestorm (both): Oh yeah its been great.
EV: The new album is even more in like a catchy, poppy direction. Its still metal. It still heavy. There are still screams, guitar solos, really heavy riffs, and stuff. All the songs are just super straight forward and catchy.
MB: There’s been a lot of time, all summer. We have been working on it, taking our time and working on each of the bits. I think we are really prepared now.
EV: In the past we have gone into the studio, and it was the first time Chris had ever sang those songs. Looking back we realized well that song should have been in a higher key, or we should have done things differently.
MB: Now we run things past each other every day and we just see what works and what doesn’t.
EV: That should help really streamline the process at least when we record.
JJ: Do you think it’s better to do the song in the studio first or to break it in on the road?
EV: It’s not really on the road. We have so much time at home, you know this is our full time job so when were not on tour we really don’t have anything else to do. So we really do spend a lot of time writing songs.
MB: We just do it over the internet, we all live in different places
EV: We have a Dropbox folder and we record demos and bits and send them back and forth that way. We don’t ever get together to rehearse or anything, it’s just all online shit. Now I do live near him so we’ve been recording demos together. But it’s cool; it’s really cool to spend all our free time getting stuff prepared.
George Archibald: I was listening to some of your stuff and the song “Magnetic North” it’s got a part in there that I really really enjoy, I’m a big heavy heavy heavy kinda guitar. The part I am talking about is when you have the bass drum and its almost like a breakdown. Can I expect more of that kind of stuff on the new album with the other dynamics as well?
EV: The song “Magnetic North” is on the album Sunset on the Golden Age, and that was my first album with the band, and it was me doing the screams. It was the first time we got to do that, really heavy thing. So this is going to be my second album and there’s definitely going to be parts with big heavy screaming sections. We were a little worried that the fans wouldn’t take to it so much, because we were this cheerful happy band and suddenly we but this big heavy section in there. But the people love it, so we decided to do more of that kind of stuff. It changes up the song, and makes it different. Otherwise it would get a bit boring if it were just happy all the time.
GA: Any other dynamics we can expect that you maybe haven’t really used in the past?
EV: There is definitely more guitar/keyboard solos and harmonies then we have done in the past. Think Children of Bodom or Avenged Sevenfold and that kind of stuff.
JJ: What are your biggest influences musically that you guys pull from?
MB: All different really.
JJ: Well, that helps meld it into a better sound usually.
EV: Solos and stuff we both have our influences with guitarists in metal bands that we look to for solo styles. The song structures and melodies are all pop influenced. We just like it to be super straight forward and catchy. You can hear it once and it gets stuck in your head. When you hear the chorus of a new song live for the first time, when you come around to the second time everyone should know the words already. That’s how we like to approach things. A lot of our influences are really just based on our old songs and which bits worked. We can see, this thing was good, let’s do more of that. We try not to directly steal from other people…
MB: We steal from ourselves, ha-ha
EV: Yeah we steal from ourselves, ha-ha, We’ve found our style and we are sticking to it.
GA: That’s the evolution of your sound.
JJ: Can you talk briefly about how you first got together and how the pirate theme came about?
EV: Oh, I don’t know. It was so long ago. It’s Chris’ thing. I joined the band in 2011 and Máté last year. So he’s been in the band like a year, year and a half or something. I’ve been in the band 5 years. It was just a practical joke that got out of hand. I think they wanted to start a power metal band. A general power metal band, with different songs about fantasy shit and one of the songs was about pirates and it kind of just took off from there, let’s just stick to this gimmick you know? Because so many bands were already doing Vikings and all that nonsense, it just seems to be our thing now.
JJ: Well, it’s working. When I first checked you out I was like, “wow, these guys are awesome”. I am really looking forward to your set tonight.
GA: Is there any place in the United States that you guys would like to visit or tour? Or any place you guys consider a second home or anything?
EV: Well, I’m English and he’s Hungarian. So there’s many places we like, everywhere is cool. The United States is like a big group, every state is almost like its own country. LA is so much different from Pittsburgh.
MB: This is my first time here so I don’t really know yet. I’ve just been on the east coast for the past four or five days, it’s nice but I’m really looking forward to seeing the rest of everything.
EV: We’re just excited for all the food every day. We like trying the local stuff everywhere.
GA: It’s so much different, if you do eat local here there’s a lot of Polish stuff like pierogis, sausages…
EV: We went to the sandwich shop up the street, the Primanti Brothers.
JJ: Did you like it?
Both: Yeah it was good.
JJ: I live about 45 minutes from here, so every time I am up this way if I get a chance I always try to swing by that place. I love it there.
EV: That’s the kind of stuff we are excited for every day, I mean obviously the shows are great but every day we get off the bus and look around and are like “ ok, what’s a good place to eat?” We always try to talk to the locals and get some opinions on where to go.
GA: Do you have a time-line or a rough idea on when that album is going to come out?
EV: We’re recording in January
MB: May or June or something like that. It should be out before the summer festivals.
EV: We didn’t do any of the European festivals at all this year and next year we are planning on doing all of them, or a lot of them. We would really like to have the new material done by then. Otherwise it would have been the third year we did festivals without any new songs, and even if its not out yet, we’re definitely going to have some new songs and new videos out for them. The last album, we finished it in February and released it in August. So it was just sitting there for six months. We were so eager to have it out. We are definitely going to try and push it faster this time. It all depends on the label, we don’t really decide these things.
JJ: I was going to say was that a label issue?
EV: Yes, they wanted to spend a long time hyping it up before they put it out.
JJ: Since you’ve mentioned festivals. Is there a festival you would like to play that you haven’t had a chance to yet?
MB: You’ve played Wacken, I haven’t yet & Grasspop, which I haven’t yet.
EV: We’ve never done Download Festival in the UK; it’s like the biggest rock/metal festival in the UK. We’ve never done that one. As for Europe we’ve done almost all of them. I’d like to do that Woodstock in Poland. There’s like a million people that go to that or something. It’s a free festival. So that would be cool. We did Heavy MTL Canada and that was great.
JJ: What do you like about playing the festivals as opposed to being on the road. I know they are totally different entities.
EV: They are two very different things. When you play a small club, even if there is just 100 people there, you know that every single person has come to see your show. Which is great, but then when you play a festival there may be 30,000 people there and some of them are your fans but they’re not all there just to see you. So playing small shows on the road is cool. Because it’s a very focused direct thing, just for us. Festivals are also great because there’s tens of thousands of people and that’s also cool. Its really different. Playing outside in the sun is different from playing in a small dark venue as well.
JJ: Winding things down here, we don’t want to take up to much more of your time. Is there anything else you want to say or anything you wish to plug before we let you go?
EV: Not really. I mean new album next year, but we don’t really have anything else coming up.
JJ: Alright guys, thanks for your time.
Both: Not a problem, thank you.
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IVE BEEN SUPER EXCITED ABOUT THE UPCOMING TOUR FOR EIHWAR. I FOUND THEM ON THE INTERNET AND THEY BLEW ME AWAY WITH THEIR VIKING/FOLK/PAGAN MUSIC MIXED WITH ELECTRONIC. EIHWAR WILL BE COMING TO THE RECHER IN TOWNSON MARYLAND ON AUGUST 30TH. EMPIRE EXTREME GOT TO ASK THE DUO A FEW QUESTIONS BEFORE THE SHOW.
ARE YOU EXCITED ABOUT DOING YOUR FIRST AMERICAN TOUR? ANY AMERICAN THINGS OR PLACES YOU WANT TO EXPLORE?
ASRUNN: For now, I have to admit I’m still completely stunned. I’m not excited or imagining it yet at all. Right now, I feel like I’m about to go to a country that only exists in TV shows, so I’m still kind of wading through disbelief.
Once I’m actually there, though, I’ll probably start talking way too fast and way too loud, and I’ll want to go way too everywhere.
HOW DO YOU EXPLAIN VIKING WAR TRANCE AS A GENRE OF MUSIC?
MARK: Viking War Trance is basically what happens when you mix Nordic folk influences, tribal rhythms, electronic music and something much more primitive and aggressive. We wanted music that makes you want to dance, fight and enter some kind of trance at the same time. So instead of trying to fit into an existing genre, we just called it Viking War Trance. And about the word “war”: it’s not a war against others, but a war against ourselves. Against our rigidity, our limiting beliefs, our fears. Victory is letting go.
WHAT CAN FANS EXPECT WHEN SEEING THE BAND LIVE?
MARK: Our concerts are much more physical than people sometimes expect from listening to the albums. We want people to dance, scream, jump, crowd surf and completely lose themselves for an hour. It’s somewhere between a concert, a rave and a pagan ritual, but with a lot of joy. “Joyful chaos” is the word that Asrunn often use.
WHAT WAS IT LIKE PLAYING HELLFEST AND WACKEN?
ASRUNN: It’s basically spending an entire hour on stage thinking, “Seriously, what the hell am I doing here? This makes absolutely no sense,” and then, the second it’s over, thinking, “Fuck, that was WAY TOO SHORT!”, hahahahaha!
In reality, it’s a mix of intense concentration and this explosion of joy inside when we manage to bring such a huge crowd into our madness with us. It’s as if, all of a sudden, we’re no longer men and women, but one human tribe, united by joy and raw energy.
HOW DO YOU FEEL THAT YOUR STYLE OF VIKING MUSIC AND IMAGE DIFFERS FROM OTHER VIKING AND FOLK METAL?
MARK: What sets us apart from folk metal is simply that we’re not metal. We don’t use distorted guitars or acoustic drums. As for pagan folk, I think the differences are pretty obvious too. Most pagan bands take a fairly ceremonial approach, resulting in atmospheric, ambient music. Some of them are even very serious. From our point of view, seriousness is a symptom of bad digestion. We prefer to fool around.
As for the peace you find in atmospheric ritual music, we don’t know much about it. Asrunn, our leader, is nothing like a priestess in a linen dress singing with butterflies in the forest. She’s living anger. Our music is joyful and brutal, primitive techno made to dance to until the end of the night.
The biggest difference is also, and perhaps above all, harmonic, in the musicological sense. With ancient instruments, it’s difficult to modulate frequently or to play every note in every octave. We use machines, and that gives us much more freedom to create melodies and chord progressions that evolve constantly and are far more pop-oriented than ancient instruments would normally allow.
DREAM TOUR: YOU CAN GO ON TOUR WITH ANY 2 OTHER BANDS, WHO DO YOU CHOOSE?
ASRUNN: MmmmdzgebhfugzFDBZueisfg that’s WAY too hard to choooooose HAAAAA! I’d say……….. NIN and… well, Sofia Isella, lately. She’s tooooooo good to be true.
MARK: The Prodigy and Peter Gabriel
FAVORITE GAME OF THRONES CHARACTER?
MARK: Don’t know, but I like the soundtrack.
ASRUNN: Bree Van De Kamp.
IF YOU COULD RESURRECT ONE HISTORIC VIKING WHO WOULD IT BE?
MARK: Honestly, my memories from that time aren’t clear enough for me to really know. But I was very fond of the monk Eadwig of Durham, and I’d be curious — and happy — to see him again.
ASRUNN: Lagertha, to prove to Mark that he’s wrong when he says she had bigger boobs than me.
IF YOU HAVEN’T BOUGHT UR TICKETS YET GET THEM HERE
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EMPIRE EXTREME GOT TO INTERVIEW KURT DEIMER ABOUT THE NEW ALBUM “A GROG IS BORN” HIM WORKING WITH GEOFF TATE AND JOSH TODD AND BEING KILLED BY MICHAEL MEYERS AND HORROR MOVIES
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by Josh Drespling
I was at Preserving Underground to cover Filth and Resistor. I was all set with my photo pass and cameras at the ready. And then this young band exploded onto the stage. No grand entrance, no intro music, no flashy lights—just a wall of noise from the first guitar chord and a guttural growl that seemed to come from somewhere below the floorboards. I was blown away. Thoroughly impressed.
This band was Inferious, out of Dayton, Ohio. If you look up the word “inferious,” most dictionaries will tell you it means something low-status, submissive, or fit for sacrifice. But this Ohio metalcore outfit Inferious has spent the last several years proving that definition couldn’t be more wrong. Tonight in the basement of a converted church, Inferious delivered raw, sweat-soaked fury to all who were smart enough to show up early.
Before their set was even half over, I made up my mind that I had to talk to them and let our readers know about this band. Here is how it went:
Empire: This was the first time I have ever seen you guys. I’ve heard your name before but never had the chance to listen. The show tonight was freaking awesome. I loved it from the first few notes. The vocals and the guitar tone just hit ya right in the chest.
Since I am a new fan, can you give me the nickel tour of how you came together and I understand you are from Dayton, Ohio.
Shaun O’Shaughnessy – Guitarist: I live in Dayton, and the original band members all formed in Dayton, but it was kind of a collage of multiple band folks. People from the southwest Ohio area. Gabe [McQueen – vocals] and I were there at the beginning, and then through some line-up changes, this is our current and most solid touring line-up so far with Cody and Kyle. They also are from the area and have been in several bands. So they were always in the same circles, at the same shows, talking to the same people. It all worked out one day.
Empire: Given that, it seems like there is a healthy music scene in Dayton. Are there any good clubs, any fields to play in?
Shaun: It’s hard to say Dayton, Ohio, specifically so much as just southwest Ohio because of the way that Dayton, Columbus, and Cincinnati form like a little triangle. You’re only an hour apart from each other. So we can get into that larger music scene pretty easily. So Dayton itself has venues, but the whole collective area has stuff. There’s some house venues, like Gnome House, there’s Bob’s, but then Cincinnati has Madison Live, and Design Collective [DSGN CLLCTV] was doing shows for a while, but I think they got in trouble.
Cody: Yeah, it some code stuff.
Empire: I think there are a couple decent places in Akron, and even across the border is Huntington, WV?
Shaun: Yeah, that area still does have sick stuff. It’s just farther away from our personal local scene. Cleveland is kind of separate from us too.
Cody: That’s not necessarily our scene, but there is such a good underground local scene from the Huntington / Athens / Charleston area. Shout to Feverwar.
Shaun: We were just at the Grog Shop [outside Cleveland].
Cody: We were at the New Foundry not too long ago.
Empire: Oh, yeah, like upstairs?
Shaun: No, it is Foundry’s new location.
Empire: I’ve not been there.
Shaun: It looks basically like the old one, but it’s new.
Empire: You mentioned the Grog Shop. Were you guys there with Filth and Resistor?
Shaun: Yeah, we’ve been on tour with Filth and Resistor. The first half of the tour had Two-Piece on it; we missed them, but now Mono’s [Monochromatic Black] on for the second half, and they’re homies.
Gabe and I toured with them in Inferious a couple years ago with band called AMTAE, and Monochromatic Black. So, those are long-time homies as well. So, we’ve known Tanya [Elizabeth (Beickert) – Vocals] and Eddie [DeCesare – Drums] for a long time, and Pierce [Akers – Guitar] is our new best friend as well.
Empire: So, it’s just like a big hang for you guys.
Shaun: Yeah, all the homies are back. We’ve toured with Filth before too; we were out with them on the Oceano tour, and then actually a year ago, I think like right now, like today a year ago, we toured with Filth also. So, it’s Filth and Oceano, and then Filth again.
So, it’s been fun to have a full circle of friend hangs, and every night’s been sick. The show turnouts have been amazing, and then just hanging out with all our friends has been amazing.
Empire: That’s part of what makes it fun. Whether you have 50 people or 1000, you have that camaraderie and shared experience.
Empire: So do you currently have an album out? Where do you guys stand with that?
Gabe: We have music out everywhere, on all music platforms: Apple Music, Spotify, Google Play, and YouTube Music. Shit, if you even got to rip that shit, YouTube to MP4, do it, man!
Shaun: We got your back. We got three full lengths and an EP. We are working on a new EP with a label we’re signed to that we’ll announce here soon, but that’s going to be really exciting stuff, and just stoked to be able to get that out soon.
Empire: Cool. So don’t say the label name, but your deal is in place, and then the new album in the fall, winter, spring?
Shaun: Yeah, the EP should be coming out sometime this year, if all the schedules align and everything, but that’s in the works.
Empire: Cool. Filth tour, what’s after that?
Shaun: Finishing up the EP. Record release cycle, and then hopefully touring in support of that. Whether it’s co-headlining with somebody or doing some more support stuff, we’re down for whatever. Hopefully we can fill up the rest of the year.
You know, touring is hard financially, so while we’re able to still make ends meet on the road, it’s hard to pay all the bills, so we’ve got to go home, stack our bread back up, and then be ready to go back out again.
Empire: I understand. Is this your first time in Pittsburgh?
Shaun: We’ve actually played Preserving. This is at least the fifth time.
We played the DIY room, we played this room, this orientation, we played this room when it was facing the other direction. AJ, the owner, has been good to us. He is a rad dude.
Empire: AJ is great.
Shaun: The record shop and merch store upstairs is sick, I just bought a shirt, a Never Ending Game shirt, because we have to do a laundry soon, and I bought a shirt to extend one more day to get through.
Empire: Anything you guys want to add, anything going on? Shameless plugs?
Shaun: This has been a kind of sick tour, because I think we’ve all got to see family members. Gabe’s dad dropped him off, so we got to see Gabe’s dad. We got to go get breakfast with my mom and some family, I saw my aunt. Cody’s mom let us stay at her crib, and we got to hang out with her and his family. Kyle’s family came out last night and hung out, and that was pretty sick, so it’s been a good time.
Empire: Kyle hasn’t said anything, so tell me about your family coming out and seeing the show.
Kyle: I mean, it was my sister’s first time seeing us live.
Empire: What did she have to say? I mean, I’m sure she knew the style.
Kyle: Oh, yeah, she’s conditioned to it.
Empire: She’s not like a Britney Spears fan at a hardcore show?
Kyle: No, no, she’s by far not a normie, but close to it.
Empire: Thank you, gentlemen. That’s all I have today. Appreciate it, and thanks for the show. It was great; loved it.
Shaun: See you next time.
Before that night at Preserving Underground, I’ll be honest: Inferious was just a name on a show flyer. Another opening band before the acts I actually came to see.
That’s the thing about this level of heavy music. The headliners get the lights, the longer set, and the crowd that’s already warmed up. But the openers? They get twenty-five minutes, a soundcheck that barely counts, and a room full of people who are mostly looking at their phones. Inferious didn’t just overcome that. They incinerated it.
What struck me most, sitting down with Shaun, Gabe, Cody, and Kyle after the show, was how unpretentious they were. No egos. No rock-star posturing. Just four guys from southwest Ohio who’ve been grinding in the same circles, playing the same basement venues, and slowly building something real. They talked about the small venues with the same reverence other bands reserve for stadiums. They shouted out Feverwar. They bought merch from the shop upstairs to make it through one more day on the road.
That’s the part you don’t see from the crowd. The financial grind. The van trouble. The “stack our bread back up” reality of modern touring. And yet, here they were—genuinely stoked to have seen family members at shows, genuinely grateful for AJ at Preserving keeping the doors open for underground bands, and genuinely excited about an upcoming EP they couldn’t even name the label for yet.
Inferious may have a name that suggests something low-status, something sacrificial. But after watching them level a converted church in New Kensington, and after listening to them talk about their scene with the easy confidence of people who have nothing to prove, I think the definition needs an update.
Check them out on all the streaming platforms. Catch them when they roll through your town on the next tour. And for the love of God, show up early.
You never know which opening band is going to blow your doors off.
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