Interviews : Bane of Isildur – 17/08/2008

Epic and powerful, BANE OF ISILDUR‘s aural and live attack on the Australian metal scene with their brand of black metal infused ‘war metal’ has taken parts of the underground by storm both here and abroad. And now with a new recording due out, and headlining festival appearance on the horizon, I caught up with Ray (Bass) for a chat about the band’s music, influences and future.

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MetalObsession.net (Brendan Amos): First of all I would like to thank you for taking part in this interview for www.metalobsession.net, and now could I please get you to quickly introduce yourself and Bane of Isildur to the readers of MetalObsession.net.
Bane of Isildur (Ray): No worries, my name is Ray and I do bass and backing vocals for Bane of Isildur. We are a melodic death metal band from Sydney with a norse/viking/pagan feel.

MO: The band has been around now for a few years, how did you guys get started up and ready to gig. And also tell us about the reaction to your first EP, released in 2006.
BoI: We start about 3 or 4 years ago with Aaron (vocals and guitar) and myself having been in the black metal band Malice together. Malice disbanded and I guess we wanted to do something a bit different to what we had been doing. Our current guitarest, Valnostt was also hanging around in the early days but he went his own way focussing on his other band Sefira Drakonis (then known as Chapel). We spent a long time without a drummer but TY (Dungeon etc) came in an did our EP, learning the songs on the day and recording in no more than about 3 takes per song which was excellent, thanks Tim!

We had a few people come and go until about a year and a half ago Andy joined on drums and we at last had a full line up and started to work towards the live scene. We did our first live show just over a year ago. Pete, our guitarest at the time moved to Europe after the second show so Valnostt came back into the band about two weeks before we headed down to Melbourne for our first gig there supporting Denial of God (Denmark). So it really has been a long process getting to a stable line up and playing live but it has been worth the wait.

As to our EP, the response has been really good with positive reviews on the net, including one on www.metalobsession.net, thanks guys! We originally pressed 100 hand numbered copies which sold out pretty quick once we started playing live and word got around, since then we have reprinted it and the feedback has still been good.

MO: I guess the general consensus is that any band with a sound like Bane of Isildur has taken a great deal of influence from Sweden’s Bathory and Amon Amarth, to what extent is this true for Bane of Isildur, and what other music do you think has influenced the band’s music and song writing techniques?
BoI: Obviously those bands are an influence, Amon Amarth were probably a pretty big influence when we first started but less so now as we have progressed. We have a pretty huge range of influences through black and death metal as well as power metal and heavy metal and beyond. I would say probably some of our main influences, if I had to pick, would be Immortal, Bathory, early In Flames, Emperor, Enslaved, Moonsorrow and I could go on but I wont. We try not to limit ourselves to only listening to certain bands or certain styles to encourage a broader influence and hopefully that results in music that is unique and a little harder to pigeon hole.

MO: At the beginning of 2008, the band got a support slot in Sydney for the Amon Amarth tour. How did you enjoy that experience, and how do you feel the crowd reacted to your set?
BoI: For me I would put it as a real highlight of my life, getting a chance to play in a venue as nice as Enmore Theatre to a big crowd and along side an international band was a fantastic experience.

Unfortunately for us our sound guy got wasted before we played and a three year old would have done a better job, the sound on stage was ok so we didn’t notice too much, every now and then I would think ‘I wonder if the bass is this loud in all the fold backs’. As soon as we came off the first thing people said was how bad the sound was. We had the night filmed and watching it back it really was unbelievably bad. Arise Triumphant was essentially just drums and bass, I think only one song had ok sound through the whole set… and that was just ok, not even good.

Aside from that the crowd seemed to enjoy it still and we got a lot of good feedback from people and a lot of people came up and had a chat with me at the merch desk after so it was good. We have had a lot of people on forums and Myspace etc say ‘hey I saw you with Amon Amarth’ so it was good for getting our name out, especially to people who might not really go to local gigs very often.

Oh and Amon Amarth played well too haha.

MO: What’s next for the band? I hear there will be a new release in the not too distant future…
BoI: Yes. A 4 track demo called ‘Stormlords‘ is ready to be pressed, just waiting on the art work. The release will sort of give an update of where the band is at and will be released in a very limited number and very soon I hope. Also we are planning to record a full length album this year with writing for it almost done, just got to finish some lyrics but you will start hearing the songs played live at our shows. This will hopefully bring us up-to-date so all the songs we have are recorded and released and then we can start writing again.

MO: How do you think the band has improved since your debut release?
BoI: Well the band now is a band, we have a stable line up and we all like each other (well I like them at least) so we have a really good feel at the moment. I think the new songs are better than the old ones; they are more aggressive, more interesting and more challenging and enjoyable to play. Our live show has improved as we have gotten more experienced with playing the songs live and building our set. We are always looking for things we can improve on and we are working really hard in the rehearsal studio to nail stuff. As far as I am concerned we haven’t taken a backwards step, which is what is important.

MO: What gigs have you currently booked, and also have you any plans for touring Australia in the near future?
BoI: We are headlining a 10 band bill, Slaughter at the Lewisham, at the Lewisham Hotel in Sydney on the 30th of August which we are really looking forward to as it is our first headlining show and also it is a really good line up of bands, with bands coming from Brisbane, Melbourne and Canberra so it should be a great day/night.

There is also a harbour cruise thing in Sydney being lined up at the moment for early October which I am really looking forward to as well.

We have also been talking about doing an east coast tour, maybe with Dred, towards the end of the year, going to Melbourne, Canberra, Sydney and Brisbane with a few places in between. Nothing has been really organised yet though. Hopefully if nothing else we will head back to Melbourne at least, just because it’s a good excuse to go there and we always have a great time. But yeah if you book gigs in those cities give me a yell.

30th Aug 2008
Bane of Isildur @ Lewisham Hotel, Lewisham
w/ Kill for Satan (ACT), Defamer (QLD), A.D. Massacre (VIC), Backyard Mortuary, Chaotis Impurity, Cunt Butcher, Paradigm and Thundasteel
Tickets available at the door 8pm, $20.

MO: What hopes and/or expectations do you hold for the future for the bands music?
BoI: Well I hope that music to constantly improve, obviously no one wants to start writing bad songs. It would be great to be able to take our music to the European market in the future, even better to be able quit my day job to play music… I’m not quite drafting my resignation letter yet though. In the short term we are really looking towards cementing a reputation in the Australian scene and keeping active.

MO: Given your experiences in Bane of Isildur, what is the best advice you yourself could offer to any aspiring bands and musicians in Australia?
BoI: If you find a drummer lock him away with his drum kit and don’t tell anyone about him – they’ll want to steal him for their band!

I think the best advice for any band is to practice regularly and hard. I only know a couple of musicians who can get away with playing live or recording without practice – and they have at least 10 years experience so go figure. You never get worse from practicing.

Also if your going to be in a band at least go to the effort of looking like a band, if your going on stage have some cohesion about you, don’t be one of those bands where the singer is wearing corpse paint and a Burzum shirt and the bass player is wearing blue jeans, white t shirt and a trendy hair cut. It’s fucking stupid.

MO: The Australian Metal scene is producing some killer new talent, so we would like to ask which bands you think we should check out?
BoI: Well I’d be a fool not to plug Metal (www.myspace.com/burnthefalse), even if I wasn’t the bass player it’s hard not to like a band called Metal. Daemon Foetal Harvest are also always good to see, on stage and off… just watch out for Rod!

MO: And to finish up, any words to the readers of MetalObsession.net and where can they get a hold of your music and merchandise?
BoI: Merchandise is available from these places in these cities:

Sydney: Utopia, Red Eye Records & les Cabinate de Curiosities
Melbourne: Metal Mayhem

Failing that you can contact us via the Myspace (www.myspace.com/baneofisildur), baneofisildur@hotmail.com or you can contact me on the Metal Obsession forum (Username: Ray).

At the moment we have 2 different shirt designs, hoodies, badges and copies of the EP but keep an eye out for ‘Stormlords’ because it won’t be around for long.

Thanks to everyone who has supported us, whether it be at shows or grabbing the cd or whatever, there have been some people go to extraordinary lengths for us and we wouldn’t have had a lot of the opportunities we have had without it. Thanks for getting this far through the interview, see you at Slaughter at the Lewisham and I hope you enjoy Stormlords!

MO: Thanks alot mate, and I look forward to catching Bane of Isildur live again, aswell as hearing the new recording!!
BoI: Thanks Brendan, my pleasure. Hopefully we will be able to get down there sooner rather than later!