INTERVIEW: Brady Deeprose & Conor Marshall – Conjurer

CONJURER are one of the hottest bands in UK metal right now. After blowing the world away with 2018’s stunning debut album, Mire, which actually landed them on the cover of one of our digital issues last year, the band have continued their meteoric rise. In the months since Mire, CONJURER have exploded in popularity including touring the US and booking in a second tour for later this year; not bad for a band who have just one full-length record to their name. Before levelling The Dogtooth Stage at this year’s Download Festival (read our review here), we spoke with Brady Deeprose and Conor Marshall to reflect on the band’s surge in popularity, the health of UK metal, hints towards the next CONJURER album as well as getting an insight into the upcoming collaboration with PIJN, Curse These Metal Hands, and Peep Show.

So, it is your debut appearance at Download Festival, what can we expect?

Conor: 25 minutes of CONJURER songs! [laughs] If you expected anything else, I don’t know what you’d think!

Brady: Imagine if it was just ABBA on repeat whilst we just stand there and stare at you? We don’t tend to do anything special for any occasion, we tend to just turn up and play.

Conor: It sounds really cringey but we try and play the best set for each gig we play. That’s what we’ll be doing today.

Coming here to Download is on the back of Mire which dropped last year and was received so well. Has it blown you away at just how well it was received?

Conor: A little bit. It was one of those things where we never expected it to go down as well as it did. And it wasn’t like after a few months nobody cared any more, we were kind of expecting that, like we were like “this is going really well, after a tour or two we’ll have to move onto the next thing”. But no, people seem to still care over a year on! It’s mental.

Brady: I think it’s been way better received than we ever could have expected. It just doesn’t stop, it never stops. I’m never going to go to bed!

It’s opened up the door to get into America as well, you’ve already confirmed a second US tour which is astonishing off the back of a debut album.

Brady: We were talking about this the other day.

Conor: No one as far as we are aware from our sort of scene or anything like that. When we got the first US tour off the back of the album, we were like this is beyond where we should be. When we got the second, it’s stupid! That’s the word.

CONJURER are coming at a time where British metal is doing so well. Do you think our healthy scene has helped you grow to where you are now?

Conor: I think we’re responsible for that! UK metal in 2019 owes everything to us! [laughs] No, you are very much right. It does feel like right place, right time. There happened to be enough of a buzz around the scene that we were able to be a part of. Other bands like EMPLOYED TO SERVE, PALM READER, VENOM PRISON, all those bands are doing so well.

Brady: We’re happy to be along for the ride!

It’s nice that it almost feels like a team effort?

Brady: Yeah but it doesn’t feel forced either. The fact that there is all these really cool bands who are all looking out for each other, it’s a naturally developing scene. It’s not located to one city or area, it’s just the UK. I think that is so cool.

Even though the album is just over a year old, have you started working on album two?

Conor: So recently, up until very recently I should say, this answer was technically a yes but it was barely, we just about maybe had like one song. Now, we have a little bit more, but it is still no way close, it’s not like it is coming out in the next month or anything. The ball has started rolling on album two, the idea is that we will do as much as we can now then, like we’ve said, we’ve got another American tour. We’ve just announced a UK and European headliner, so those will close out our year. Probably have Christmas off then the plan is next year, we’ll hit it hard. We’ve got a fucking album to write otherwise someone is getting fired!

Is it too early to ask where you are hoping to take your sound on the next one?

Brady: It’s going to be very different to Mire.

Conor: It’s weird. Everyone seems to describe Mire as there’s so much going on, there’s so many different genre crossovers so really, we can’t really say it’s different. Everything we’re doing is not similar to what we’ve done before, say we’ve done doom bits, on the new album there will probably be more doom bits, that sort of thing. It’s not going to be Mire two or anything like that. Dan [Nightingale, vocals/guitar] was explaining it as it’s less directly riff based. There’s still riffs on there of course, but it is less about “here’s a riff, here’s a riff, put them together with a clean bit”, that sort of thing.

Brady: I think our listening habits have changed. When we were writing Mire we were listening to GOJIRA and bands like that, now, I’d say it is going to be way more Roadburn than Mire was as a listening experience.

Conor: I hope it will still have all of the key elements that we really liked with Mire, I hope it still carries those over.

Brady: It’ll probably be less immediate, a little bit more difficult of a listen. But, at the end of the day we’re just going to write songs. It’s what we always do.

Conor: Yeah, we can tell you this now, and then come back to us in two months and we’ll be like “we’ve actually wrote a hardcore record!”

In August, there is a collaboration with PIJN, so where did the origins for Curse These Metal Hands come from?

Brady: So at ArcTanGent Festival last year got in touch. They had been speaking to Holy Roar Records, Big Scary Monsters and a few other labels and they wanted a day or a stage with at least a few collaborations. In the same way that Roadburn does. We were like “cracking, we’ll do it” and of the 15 that were planned, only two made it to the festival. There was ours and another one, which I didn’t see because our sets were clashing! But yeah, it went really well and we decided to commit it to a record. We we really conscious of the fact that we didn’t want it to sound like “here’s the PIJN bit, here’s the CONJURER bit”, we wanted to do something new. The first track, High Spirits, Dan had a lot of it written and no one really knew what we could use it for, it was never going to work with CONJURER. So we brought it to the collaboration and it kind of took it forwards.

I’ve listened to it and it is uplifting rather than crushing. Was that something you always wanted to do with this?

Brady: The friendship we have with PIJN is a mixture of wholesome and complete banter. That environment, being in the studio and the practice room, it didn’t lend itself to making horrible music. Joe from PIJN especially was so fucking fed up of his band at that point, he didn’t want to do anything like that. So when we started bringing in all these major riffs, it uplifted us. It felt like the right thing to do. There’s a couple of heavier bits, more obtuse and angrier moments, but for the most part it is really upbeat. I don’t know if anyone is going to notice it, but there’s a melody line that’s ripped off from PARAMORE in there as well. It’s a lot of fun.

I have to ask, but is it named after a Peep Show quote?

Brady: Absolutely. There’s actually a Peep Show sample in there. I think it’s Mark saying something really depressing.

And now a fun one to close on, what is your favourite Peep Show episode?

Conor: There’s a couple. The wedding one is good, the Mummy episode is the best!

Brady: I was thinking that! There’s also the party episode where Super Hans has the rental snake!

For me, my favourite is where they get stuck between the flat and the door, the nether-zone.

Brady: [laughs] Yes! Trying to eat pizza through the letterbox!

Well, thank you both so much for taking the time to talk to me.

Conor & Brady: Thank you very much.

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