INTERVIEW: Alan Averill – Primordial
Alan Averill has fronted Ireland’s premier extreme metal act PRIMORDIAL for nearly three decades, and in that time they have built one of the most dedicated and adoring fanbases in metal’s underground. Ahead of the release of their ninth album, Exile Amongst The Ruins, we sat down with Alan to talk black metal purism, geographic isolation, and the collapse of Western civilisation.
The new album Exile Amongst the Ruins is out soon. Coming out of Where Greater Men Have Fallen, did you have general feelings on where you wanted to take things?
Alan: Not really. We don’t really work like that, we don’t sit down and plan that much. Some bands will have a six month or twelve month plan, we’re a bit vague and unprofessional and all over the place. When you start working though it lights a bit of a fire under you and you start to work towards that goal, but for whatever reason we were very bad at getting into the rehearsal room, just life stuff. This album was done a bit more on the fly, a bit more spontaneously. We’ve recorded around our lives rather than taking time off to do it.
Would you say that this is a more brooding and atmospheric record this time around for you compared to something like To the Nameless Dead or Where Greater Men Have Fallen which have more obvious instant anthems?
Alan: Yeah I think you might be right. It’s not that this isn’t anthemic or epic or anything. Half of the album maybe is a sidestep, there are some unusual things in there for us, but it has a doom and gloom air to it. The singles we’ve put out aren’t chest-beating rabble-rousers so people were quite surprised with that. It’s dark but in a different way. It has more of an air of resignation perhaps. It’s a doomed album.
The obvious example of the singles you’re referring to is Stolen Years which is an interesting song for PRIMORDIAL in its simplicity but having such an obvious and raw heart to it. How did that song come about?
Alan: It’s a mistake of a song, Ciaran meant it as an instrumental between songs. He really didn’t want me to sing on it, but I did, and the singing that you hear is the first take. We argued to the bitter end about it. The bonus disc of the album has the instrumental version he meant on it, but that’s part of the compromise of being in a band. When I heard it I just had a feeling it had potential to be something special, and had the words and sentiment in mind I thought should go with it.
Was releasing it as the first single a conscious attempt to subvert expectations?
Alan: Yes to an extent but there’s also some banal reasons. We were in the middle of Romania and had a massive bus journey across the country. We were supposed to get there in time to shoot a lot more that was going to be for another song, so we were just left with the live footage that you see in Stolen Years and I added the face-painting shots. It partially got chosen just because it was the shortest song really, and it didn’t have a specific overarching narrative to the song that would require a more elaborate video.
PRIMORDIAL have a unique and distinctive sound that it feels like you have continued to grow into with each album becoming more and more distinct from your peers. How much easier does it become to create something that sounds so distinctly you?
Alan: It’s partly by accident, part geographic isolation. Back in the day we were in a position where we did have our peers, whether they be CRUACHAN or ABADDON INCARNATE, but they didn’t sound like us, so it’s not like we were part of a local black metal scene where you have an identifiable style. We couldn’t always trade gigs with people in other countries, these things that could have formed us more, so we just mutated on our own. We weren’t orthodox black metal, we wanted to take the template of the big epic BATHORY albums, Ciaran started introducing traditional Irish music. We had strange ideas and the impetuosity of youth.
Do you ever write something and think that it’s too far away from the classic PRIMORDIAL sound?
Alan: Sometimes but it doesn’t discourage us too much. The main riff in the song Nail Their Tongues is like an old ROTTING CHRIST riff, the Last Call riff reminds me of something from BURZUM’s Det Som Engang Var. There are riffs every now and then where you think “really?” but remember we are products of our upbringing as well so it’s natural every now and then to have a bit of IRON MAIDEN, a bit of Master of Puppets, a bit of THIN LIZZY. We’re in a strange position where if we rip off ourselves too we feel entitled to do so, because we created that sound, and if we have a riff that sounds like old METALLICA then that’s the unusual part because we’ve not made a career doing that.
It feels like in extreme metal a lot of the time, compared to the mainstream where bands can peak three or four albums in, bands in the underground just continue to up their game, look at a band like ROTTING CHRIST for example. Is that something you agree with and why do you think that is the case?
Alan: I would actually disagree with you. I think ROTTING CHRIST are the exception, not the rule. Their early albums are stone cold classics, they had a dip, then they came back. Most bands don’t do that. We are also different in that our first albums are not really what you’d call stone cold classics. They’re not pillars of their genre. Our most popular albums are our last few, which is unusual because let’s be honest, heavy metal is a young man’s game. Usually when you’re young, dumb and full of cum is when you make your best albums. It must be unusual for bands who are locked in a cycle of touring an album that’s 20 years old. It seems to me to predominately be a death metal thing, death metal bands run out of steam. If you can sidestep where you can from maybe like KATATONIA did it can give you some breathing room, and some bands get a second wind as well, but I think the bottom line is that for music that’s linked to aggression in a visceral and primal sense, that’s a very hard thing to recapture as you get older. PRIMORDIAL was never about that though, so maybe we have a bit more scope. No one comes to shows demanding that we play songs from Imrama, and if we do it’s just a nice surprise for people.
Does that mean that these bands who can maintain the quality are able to better transcend generations too and continue to bring in different and younger people?
Alan: Some can. Some can’t. If you look at DEICIDE or ENTOMBED or whoever, no one really needs a new album from those bands. It depends on a multitude of things really. ROTTING CHRIST worked so hard to claw back their own reputation after Sleep With the Angels and all those albums. A lot of other bands too tour relentlessly where we don’t, and they have to hope that they find another run of form in that environment.
You guys have managed to maintain a very stable lineup as a band with no major changes for a very long time. How do you think you’ve managed that and does that strengthen the band as a unit when it comes to playing live and writing music?
Alan: Yeah, sure. Bands like MARDUK or whoever, they need to change the machinery from time to time because life gets in the way of being that well oiled machine. Look at ROTTING CHRIST, there are different members on either side of Sakis and Themis over the years. We never had that problem so much. PRIMORDIAL wouldn’t feel quite the same now missing one of us. The band is like a dormant volcano in our lives, every now and again it does something but most of the time you have your life to get on with, and if we don’t have anything to do, we just don’t do anything. We don’t rehearse every week, we might not see each other for three months. This actually increases stability for us. We say terrible shit to each other and argue to the bitter end about things that would probably damage other bands, but we’re just stubborn Irishmen. There’s very little ego attached too. We get pissed off but we’re not precious. Ciaran wasn’t that precious to not let me sing on Stolen Years. If I do a take and everyone thinks it’s terrible, I might be a bit pissed off but ultimately if everyone tells me that, the ego gets left at the door.
Your albums always feel very organic in the way they always feel like they’ve put together by real people in a room, and in the tone and production.
Alan: No one can convince me a drum sound from 2018 is as good as a drum sound from 1978. We have no time for any of the modern approaches to making a recording. Nothing is perfect but flaws give character. I would be more interested in having the drum sound from ISENGARD’s Vinterskugge than the drum sound from an album that’s perceived to sound good today, because it has character. We still meet in a room, argue, play. There are no metronomes, there’s no cut and pasting, there’s no autotune. Rock and heavy metal should be a human thing. Enough of our lives are spent being distant from each other with technology playing a part in keeping us together, that we like to keep the process the opposition to that. We don’t trade files or mp3s, just doesn’t happen.
As always there’s some striking lyrics too. Nail Their Tongues is one of the most metal song titles in the PRIMORDIAL canon. Where’s that coming from?
Alan: That’s about Martin Luther and the reformation. I became interested in this middle age European history, 15th and 16th century. The reformation, enlightenment, the rosicrucians, Isaac Newton. The separation of science and magic. I became interested in these enlightenment values from the Europe of 500 years ago, and rational debate, empiricism, the separation of church and state. All of these things are very important values that it strikes me that some of the modern West is doing their best to turn their back on. It feels like there is an intellectual and spiritual sickness in the West.
A few years ago you were talking a lot about the collapse of institutions in Ireland. Things like the financial crisis were in full swing, cases of abuse in the Catholic church, things that have found their way into PRIMORDIAL lyrics. How does the state of things in Ireland compare now in your view?
Alan: Ghosts of the Charnel House was about the Catholic church abuse cases and there are a few references to other things here and there but PRIMORDIAL has never really been about being Irish. The themes here to me relate to the West as a whole more than just Ireland. Ireland is a microcosm of some of these things of course, but again we are a small geographically isolated island off in the Atlantic. There’s a nihilism and misanthropy that seems to exist in the West, the end of community. There’s a sense that nothing means anything and if nothing means anything then we might as well tear it all down. That strikes me as an incredibly stupid and suicidal thing to do. It’s observing a much bigger problem. I realised my relationship with Irish history has changed too. I used to say I was against the church and against the state but for the people, but then I discovered I was against the people as well. People hid the abuse cases, the abuse of institutions. People committed horrendous crimes in Ireland in the 20th century. I also started PRIMORDIAL when I was 16, I’m now 43. Life changes. And I am just a singer in a heavy metal band. There’s a certain drama and poetry that is injected into these things to make what seems like mundane subjects to others have more romantic traction. At the heart of it though is that art doesn’t need justification. People need to think very carefully about their views and how they relate to all these things. We have to defend the right to offend. We have to defend the right of those we violently disagree with because consensus and rational debate are integral to the structure of Western society, and without this we will descend into authoritarian tyranny. Censorship is the cornerstone of tyranny, and bad ideas need to be challenged openly. Push them underground and you just make those people martyrs for those who support them. I’ve stood in the killing fields in Cambodia and seen what actually happens during a Marxist revolution, and some kid in California will just tell me that I don’t understand Marxism and that wasn’t real communism.
Do you guys still consider yourselves to be a black metal band?
Alan: We never did really. My opinion on black metal hasn’t evolved a single iota in 27 years. I’m not interested in it evolving or adding things to the mix, what I want is just the same thing that I wanted when I was 18. And on those terms, PRIMORDIAL was never orthodox black metal. We had elements but I wouldn’t consider us a black metal because I respect what black metal is and treat that in a sacred way with reverence. We’re part of the lineage but no more.
Exile Amongst the Ruins is set for release on March 30th via Metal Blade Records.
Like PRIMORDIAL on Facebook.