BY: JJ Ulizio  Photos By: Elena D’Agostino

My first interview in close to eight years. I sat down for a brief interview with Greywalker from Pittsburgh Pennsylvania, featuring former members of Ascend the Fallen, Mara, and various other bands from the area. They are fronted by Brian “Sikes” Howe of another musical project of his Sikes and The New Violence. Greywalker has a melodic, thrashy, death metal style that I would liken to bands such as Soilwork.

Greywalker is truly a force to be reckoned with their crushing rhythms, interspersed with grooves, and catchy guitar leads all while Brian Howe screams his lyrics at you with a style I find to be all his own.

They bring a solid live show that few underground bands can match and some nationals wish they could. Currently supporting their “Beyond All Mortal” release from 2015, and a recently released music video. I caught up with them at The Altar Bar in Pittsburgh on 04/28/16 where they were opening for Nekrogoblikon and Urizen.

First thing, can you give us a little history as to how the band came together?

Ricky: Yeah we’ve been a band with this current lineup for about two years. A couple years ago I met someone that wanted to start a band. We were looking for a drummer. I knew that Joey wasn’t really doing anything so I called him up. We got together and started jammin’ and the rest just fell into place.

Joey: After we got together we needed to fill the rest of the lineup. We ended up finding Evan for guitar and went through like a plethora of singers and bass players until we finally landed on this lineup. We released an EP with the old lineup. However with this current lineup we have released a full length album last year .

What was the record called where can people pick it up pick it up?

Brian: It is called Beyond All Mortal and you can get it online at greywalker.bandcamp.com or go to greywalker.net and you’ll find it.

When you first got together as a band and began writing was there a certain sound that you had in mind or did you just start riffing and that’s what came out?

Ricky: I really like to listen to Swedish, melodic, death metal. I’m into Darkest Hour and that fast and thrashy stuff. Obviously what we like bleeds over into our playing style. Especially Evan and I, that’s what we listen to exclusively… most of the time. It just so happens that we sound like that. Which is not a bad thing. I think it’s fun and I like fast, heavy, and aggressive music.

What is next for Greywalker? New recording, tour, videos?

Brian: We have a new video out for the song “Nuclear Drone”. We also have another video that just came out a few months ago for “Beyond All Mortal”. We are taking June and part of July off from shows to work on our new stuff. We been working on it, but keep getting distracted with shows. We have a few songs in the can… kinda. We just really need to focus on them. No real touring, maybe some out of town stuff, but nothing major.

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JJ Ulizio

JJ has been a contributing writer and huge asset to Empire and Empire Extreme since the very begining. He is always digging for new bands and has a true heart and desire to see the bands grow and succeed.

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