Interviews : Lord – 08/03/2008

We recently interviewed Lord drummer T.Y about their up and coming live shows, new guitarist and their next album.

Metal Obsession: Firstly, a huge thankyou for taking the time to do this interview for www.metalobsession.net . For those who haven’t heard of Lord, can you give us a quick rundown on the band, and your part in it.

T.Y (Drummer): I’m T.Y, and perform drums and backing vocals for LORD. We’re a melodic metal/hard rock band based in NSW, Australia. LORD was born from the ashes of Dungeon, who were one of the most successful metal bands to emerge from Australia.

MO: Only having released one album under the “new” name (as a full band), how have you found the general reaction to ‘Ascendence’? Has it been as you expected?

T.Y: The reaction on a whole has been excellent, for example we received a great review in BURRN magazine in Japan. The only criticism we’ve received has been relatively minor, and of course we expected some people to not like certain things, so yeah, we are happy with the response.

MO: It seems that ‘Ascendence’ has more of a Rock feel to it than the more traditional power/heavy metal style of Dungeon, is this musical direction you see Lord pursuing further?

T.Y: Basically when we set out to write a new album, we don’t set out to write X amount of slow songs, and X amount of fast songs. We have a general idea of how we want the album to turn out in the end, but it all comes down to which ideas are strongest as to what ends up on the album. I do agree Ascendence is a bit more rocking than Dungeon, and in my opinion that’s not a bad thing. As for whether there’ll be more of these elements on the next album, you’ll just have to wait and see.

MO: When you recently chatted with us you mentioned that you had a new album in the works, hows that going?

T.Y: It’s coming along really well. The writing is progressing very naturally, and I think every member has come up with some cool ideas. Again, it’s shaping up to be a pretty diverse album, maybe even more diverse than Ascendence. I think there’ll be a lot of moments on there where we’re doing things we’ve never done before, as LORD or Dungeon, but also a lot of stuff on there that will be recognizable as LORD. I’m looking forward to starting the recording of it soon.

In fact we already have recorded demos of several songs, and there are plenty more which are almost ready to be recorded.

MO: Is there any particular member doing most of the writing or is it fairly evenly split?

T.Y: It’s definitely a full band effort. For example, someone will bring either a completed song or a few ideas for a song to the band, then the other guys will help refine them or craft them into a completed song. I think the writing is working very well this way.

MO: Mark Furtner recently made the switch from a live guitarist to full-time band member, what prompted this change? Was it something that was considered early on, or did the idea come about after you’d been playing together for a while?

T.Y: Our previous guitarist Maverick Stevens left the band to move to the UK in December 06. We are all very close to Mav and it was extremely sad to see him go. We didn’t want to rush into replacing him, so while we searched for a new permanent guitarist we had some friends help us out for live shows. First we had Shane Linfoot from Transcending Mortality help us out, then Mark Furtner. We were very aware that Mark is an amazing guitarist, but we wanted to be sure that he fit into the band personality wise before asking him to join full time. After a few small tours and a few thousand beers, it was clear that Mark fit in perfectly with us, and so we asked him to join full time.

MO: Will Mark have any influence on the sound and writing of the next album? Does he bring any new influences into the band?

T.Y: Mark has already brought some very strong ideas for the new album to the band, so I think it’s safe to say he will definitely have an influence on the sound and writing of the next album.

MO: It seems to be the general consensus that neither Dungeon nor Lord ever really stood out for their album artwork; however ‘Ascendence’ was  definitely a step up. Are you planning on getting Felipe Machado Franco to do the art for the next album as well, or is it perhaps too early to know?

T.Y: Felipe has actually already completed the artwork for the next album. I think it has turned out amazing, and as good as I think the Ascendence art is, I think the new artwork is even better.

MO: You recently supported Nightwish, how was it?

T.Y: I’ve played with Nightwish when Dungeon supported them in 05, and it was great to have the chance to do it again. We had a great response from the crowd, Nightwish and their crew are all really cool, and of course they put on an amazing show.

MO: What other bands would you love to get the opportunity to support?

T.Y: Speaking only for myself here, it’s X Japan. I just returned from Japan where I traveled to see their 3 reunion shows at Tokyo Dome, and it would be a dream come true to play with them one day!

MO: You have the PBS Benefit show coming up in Melbourne, as well as supporting Saxon’s Australian Tour, do you have any other live plans for the near future?

T.Y: Apart from those shows we have a Sydney show which will be announced soon, but other than that not too many live plans for the moment. After the new album is released later in the year we’ll be playing a lot more shows.

MO: What are the bands aspirations for 2008?

T.Y: Well, apart from getting this new album out, we are planning on playing a lot of shows all over the place. Hopefully in places we haven’t played before, and hopefully not just in Australia. But nothing is set in stone yet.

MO: Lord is arguably one of the biggest metal bands in Australia, what advice do you have for younger bands?

T.Y: Play pop music and make some money haha

MO: On a similar note, what Australian metal bands do you recommend our readers check out?

T.Y: I wouldn’t really call them metal, but sleepmakeswaves from Sydney are fucking awesome, I can’t praise them enough. For those into the darker side of things Austere is slow, melancholic blackish metal. Also I heard on the grapevine that one Andrew Dowling may have a new project in the works, that’ll definitely be something to keep an eye on!

There’s a shitload of great bands in Australia though, my advice to people wanting to discover new local bands is to just go to gigs! Even if you don’t know the bands playing go check ‘em out, you might find something that blows you away.

MO: Any last words for the readers?

T.Y: Hope to see you all at some shows later in the year. Cheers.

Name – T.Y
Band – Lord (Drummer)
Website – http://www.lord.net.au
Interview by: Mitchell Booth
Date – 8th April 2008