BLOODSTOCK INTERVIEW: Evil E – The Heretic Order
Bloodstock Festival always has a lineup that covers every nook and cranny of the heavy metal world. As the festival has grown in size, the number of peculiar and intriguing acts has increased. London based act THE HERETIC ORDER are one of the more visually entertaining acts to grace the Sophie Lancaster Stage at this year’s Bloodstock Festival. Donned in robes and historic fashion and occult imagery of witches, black magic and Satan, the band tick all the boxes of themes for heavy metal. After just finishing their set on the Sophie Lancaster Stage we had a chat with THE HERETIC ORDER‘s drummer, Evil E, about their performance, their upcoming new album and what’s next for the band.
So you guys started bright and early on the Sophie stage how do you think your performance went?
Evil E: That was good, the only thing that the problem was, was sleeping tonight. I actually tried to go to bed last night at 9 o’clock which I have never done in my life and it was impossible til 12. I live on a main road in London so there was traffic all night, but yeah it was good!
You seemed to have quite a big turnout as well, were you surprised to see so many people?
Evil E: Yeah, I was, we always expect the worst that way you don’t get depressed.
The theme of the band is sort of horror and that theme very much goes into your live stage presence, what preparation do you take for performances?
Evil E: Well, not much really just the time we have in the dressing rooms I guess, to put the make-up on and all that. It’s just the singer Lord Ragnar Wagner is the one with the make-up and the girls, sometimes we take the girls but not all the time.
What sort of inspiration do you look for, do you look at sort of horror movies?
Evil E: Yeah, to tell you the truth I’m not really a great fan of horror movies but the idea is the singer Lord Ragnar Wagner, like his conception of everything and I like all the imagery and all of that but I’m not a great fan of horror movies but he is.
So you just sort of go with it. Your debut album All Hail The Order came out last year, how did you find the reception for that record?
Evil E: It’s pretty good, we sold like I think nearly 400 records and that for nowadays it doesn’t sound much but nowadays nobody is selling anything. For us it’s good, we’re still presenting the album in a way, we’ve got the new album ready by the way, well not ready but we’ve got it composed, we still have to do the pre-production and stuff but hopefully start recording in October.
That actually leads onto my next question on work towards the new album, when do you expect to release the new album?
Evil E: That’s pretty difficult because we’re going to record in October and time flies, we always set a time and then time flies and then you can’t really. I guess in October we’ll start recording, so hopefully the year after it will come out.
You’ve only really been a band for about two years and you have already accomplished so much, have you been surprised at how quickly?
Evil E: Yeah, we always want more, that’s the truth. We’re really happy, I mean the thing is that the background of the people in the band they all come from another band that’s quite known and this has nothing to do with that other band, we’re here for THE HERETIC ORDER, and everybody knows [laughs]. Yeah, we’re really surprised and today we were really surprised because we didn’t expect that many people, it wasn’t rammed but there was people.
What’s next for the band in terms of natural growth?
Evil E: We have a tour in September, a British tour with a band called HELL PUPPETS I think they’re called and then we’re going to end that with the Mammothfest in Bristol? Brighton?
Yeah Brighton!
Evil E: Yeah, that’s where we’re going next and hopefully something comes out because we’ve got guys of interested in working with us and stuff.
My last question for you is what bands are you going to see across the weekend, are you camping?
Evil E: Oh there’s loads, I’m really interested because I was in Barcelona at the Rockfest so I had already saw ANTHRAX and SLAYER, I’ve seen them so many times I could tell you like 15 times but I really want to see METAL ALLEGIANCE, SATYRICON, I really like SATYRICON and what else? Today I’m looking forward to PARADISE LOST, MASTADON of course, GOJIRA and yeah, SLAYER you know.
Just see everybody [laughs]
Evil E: [laughs]
Thank you for taking the time to talk to me and congratulations again on the set, it was really really good.
Evil E: Thank you very much man, I’ll see you around next time!
All Hail The Order is out now via Massacre Records.
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