Interviews : A pint and a chat with Claim The Throne

Folk metal isn’t exactly one of the most widespread genres in this country, however Perth’s Claim The Throne are definitely proving the quality over quantity rule to be a good one. And it’s not long until they hike over east on their Triumph and Beyond tour, including a few Bastardfest appearances.

But before they do that, we caught up for a quick chat with guitarist Dysie about what fans should expect when the band hit their town.

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First things first, for those who have never heard your music before, explain Claim the Throne in a nutshell.

Claim The Throne are a bunch of excessive booze guzzlers who play Melodic Death with huge Folk Metal influences

There is very little “folk metal” in this country, do you think that makes it easier or harder for you guys to succeed as a band?

A bit of both. Easier in the sense that there is very little competition for us over here so we have done well in Australia. Harder because internationally people don’t take us seriously as Australia is not renowned for producing high quality Folk Metal bands.

You released your most recent album “Triumph and Beyond” late last year. Now that it has been out for a while, how has the response been to it?

We are really proud of the album and response has been excellent. We’ve enjoyed huge gigs, new fans, high merch sales and nice reviews from it’s release.  We are lucky ducks.

Has there been any work on a third album yet?

Only a small amount. Triumph & Beyond is still fairly new so we’ve been focusing most of our energy on promoting that and organising the upcoming tour. We’ll be working our tooshes off to get a new one out next year.

I’ve been lucky enough to witness you guys live, back when you supported Alestorm, but for those that haven’t, what should they expect?

Anything can happen at a Claim The Throne show. We plan very little and take everything that the night throws at us in our stride. Amidst the milling and shredding it’s not uncommon to see a lot of beer funnels on stage and in the crowd, feasts, blood, armour etc. Exciting live performances mean everything to us, so we’ll always do our best on getting the crowd involved and keeping it fun.

Do you have any particular live favourites?

The songs from the Aletales EP always go down well live, but my personal favourite at the moment is Through The Rage Of The Storm – Good headbanging moments as well as quiet parts to fit in a sneaky beer bong or two.. or ten..

What are the band’s plans post-tour?

Writing a new album will be the top priority once the tour is done. We’ll also be working on a DVD to put out next year.

You’ve got a competition going at the moment, asking people to send in their best “ale tale”. What’s yours?

Dysie drank a beer out of a frozen chickens ass, but my favourite is Ash getting mega drunk one night on tour and didn’t want to be late for the flight in the morning, so he checked in at the airport in the middle of the night without telling us he was going. He woke up at the airport by himself with all of his drums not knowing what happened.

For those of us living on the other side of the country, how is the Perth metal scene at the moment?

Local gigs regularly have big turnouts and the vibe amongst the crowd is always great. The bands are good and we are seeing more international tours coming our way.

Is there a stronger sense of comradery amongst bands and fans because of the isolation?

Absolutely, bands are always keen to be helping eachother out to better the scene as a whole. At the same time isolation can turn into Big Brother, so its important to always be supportive and not start with any slagging or bitterness etc.

What other bands from your home town would you recommend people look into?

The bigger names at the moment are Voyager, Chaos Divine and Malignant Monster. However we urge you to check out our other bands – Jim’s band Entrails Eradicated (Brutal Death), Cabba’s band Red Descending (Melodic Death), and Dysie’s band Cuntscrape (Porn Grind).

Any last words for the readers?

Please come along to one of the raids and help us plunder your local venue!

For more information and to give them a listen, head over to their Facebook page.