INTERVIEW: Karl Willetts – Memoriam

Spawned to the world of heavy music as a tribute to the late BOLT THROWER sticks-man Martin Kearns, MEMORIAM wasted no time in putting themselves on the map. Barely half a year after forming, the quartet released their well-received The Hellfire Demos before smashing out an intense album-a-year schedule. 2019 sees the outfit release their third full-length in as many years, Requiem For Mankind (read our review here). Last month we caught up with frontman Karl Willetts to discuss the new album, the formation of the band and what the future holds for MEMORIAM. 

Hey Karl, thanks for taking the time to talk with me tonight. As we’re getting closer to the release of Requiem For Mankind, how is everyone in the MEMORIAM camp doing?

Karl: We’re over the moon with the with the way it’s all come together with Requiem For Mankind. We’re very excited about releasing this album upon the public as well, over the past few weeks we’ve given people a bit of a taste by releasing couple of tracks which have gone down phenomenally well. It’s been said before, we are working as a ferociously fast pace, and creating a lot of music in a relatively short space of time – this is our third album in three years! We’ve all been involved in the genre for many years, I’ve been doing music for 30 years for Christ’s sake! [laughs] But we as MEMORIAM are a young band, though not young in age! [laughs] But I think this third album is a product of our learnings and experience, we’re still learning, still experiencing. The first album For The Fallen was our debut, it was our first time working the studio together so that was quite an interesting experience, I think we had a pretty strong opener there. Then with The Silent Vigil we tried to make it a bit different, we tried to do something a bit more disjointed, a bit more jarring. That’s how we felt we wanted it at the time and we were happy with what we’ve done in the past.

But with Requiem For Mankind, we were aware that the third album is always crucial for a band, it’s make or break really. What we’ve done on this album is we’ve actually got somebody else involved to help us for a change, which is something we didn’t contemplate doing before but it’s made a massive difference to us. I think we’ve found the missing element, the missing ingredient, what we were searching for. We spent a couple of years searching and trying to define ourselves but with this album we can safely say we’ve made the definitive MEMORIAM album, we have discovered ourselves and we now have the blueprint for which we can now move forward. That missing ingredient is Mr. Russ Russell, getting him involved was amazing, really. His input into the new album cannot be understated. He’s almost become the fifth member of the band because he is in the studio and a joy to work with. I can’t really underplay what he’s done. He has made the album what it is. He was very much involved with the songwriting process when we were writing new songs, which was pretty much straight after last album. We were sending them to him in their really early rough embryonic stage from the home studio so he knew what we were trying to achieve. When we went actually went to record in February, he was pretty much set up and knew what he wanted was to add to it to make it work. He’s given us that that big, epic sound which really defines what we’re about, really. That’s the major difference for this album. Now we’ve got that on board, we fairly confident we can roll forward that into the future.

As you said, Requiem For Mankind is your third album in as many years. Is there a worry in MEMORIAM that you’re going to burn out with such a rapid turnover, or is everyone still as enthusiastic and creatively energised as they were when creating the first Hellfire demos? Can we expect you to keep up the album-a-year pace?

Karl: Definitely, we’ve got that fire still, we’ve still got a creative spark. Scott [Fairfax, guitar] has still got a hell of a lot of riffs there. But I think we’ve gotten to the point with this third album that we’re really very happy and defined. Now, we want to stand still a bit and take stock of what we’ve achieved to this point. So, maybe there won’t be another album next year, maybe it will take take 18 months or two years to get a new album. We want to try to appreciate what we’ve achieved over the last three years and make the most of what we’ve done to this point.

Scott‘s working on a little side project and Whale [Andrew Whale, drums] is also doing a side project too so that’s probably going to keep them a little bit occupied and keep their creative juices flowing in that respect. Now, after the three years, three consecutive albums, it’s time for us to maybe slow down the pace and just really enjoy the moment for what it is. We’ve got plenty of songs now in our repertoire to fill our set out which is a nice position to be in – no need for us to do cover songs anymore! [laughs] This is just an absolute joy to do, we intentionally write at a fast pace because that’s what you do when you’re first in a band. When we first started out in the mid to late 80s, the pace of writing and putting out albums was a pretty fast, ferocious kind of place. That’s what we’re mainly trying to emulate that, we’re trying to get back to that feeling and not dwell too much about what we’re doing and just move forward. We are also quite aware of our advancing years within the genre as well, so we want to try to achieve as much as we can in the time that we have available to do that. I think we’ve achieved that. We’re really happy with where we got to with this third album, and I think maybe now it’s time to ease the throttle a little bit and appreciate what we’ve done for what it is and have a bit of fun with it.

Are there any plans in place for more intense touring on the Requiem For Mankind cycle? 

Karl: No, we’re inherently very lazy! [laughs] I think we’re a band that’s made a conscious decision that we’re not a band that was ever going to jump on a tour bus and go on a six to eight week jaunt around Central Europe or South America or North America or wherever. We’re never going to go out and do a major tour, it’s just something that doesn’t really have any appeal to us at this point in our lives. We’ve done that in the past, and it was great fun, I would never decry that. It’s an experience that any band has got to do. But I think we’ve got to that point in our lives, we’ve all got day jobs, we’ve got responsibilities, I’ve got two young children so I like to be around them as much as I can as well and I also look after my mother who has dementia. There’s lots of other responsibilities we’ve got outside of the band. It’s a question of maintaining our work/life balance. MEMORIAM is our outlet, our piece of joy in life, and almost escapism from the realities of normal, everyday life. Call us weekend warriors if you like.

We like to just do it on our own terms and play shows at weekends, that’s when the best shows are. I really have no interested in playing Falkirk on a Tuesday night to 30 people. That really doesn’t hold any glory for me at this point in my life. It’s quite nice to be able to pick and choose what we want to do, and I think because of that we enjoy it more as well. Our performances are a lot more special. To a certain extent, there’s that ethos that we developed with BOLT THROWER, they never were a prolifically touring band either. The energy levels aren’t the same either, I think if I jump on a tour bus and tour for eight weeks it would probably kill me! [laughs] I haven’t got the stamina anymore!

Which songs from Requiem For Mankind are you particularly excited to perform live at the release show in London?

Karl: Yes, our debut show in London. We’ve avoided playing London for the past three years. [laughs] But it’s time that we did actually go down there and play. So June 22nd, the day after the album’s release, about three weeks time from now, we are looking forward to debuting probably about six of the tracks from Requiem For Mankind. We can’t really play everything because there’s old songs to play, so unfortunately two or three songs off the new album won’t be played. I’m really looking forward to playing the song that’s been just released last week, Undefeated. We played that a couple of weeks back at ManorFest, it went down really well. It’s a bit of a fist pounding, anthemic song, so it’s always good to play. I’m looking forward to playing the title track and several other songs from the new album, we just need to finalise them. We’re rehearsing them now at the moment, because recording the album is one thing, learning how to play them live, that is a completely different thing! [laughs]

Once the one song we won’t be playing, which is one of my favourites off the album and we won’t be playing it because is probably a little too much going on with the guitars to translate into the live show is The Veteran. We’re actually in the process of putting a video together for that song. Obviously The Veteran continues that war theme that I’m known for doing, that’s my comfortable safety zone, I’m always going to write lyrics which have a war theme to them. But this one has a nice little angle to it. It was actually inspired by the last two lines the song, the phrase “A message to the government, honour the military covenant.” That’s the crux of the song. It’s all about honouring and paying tribute to the ex-military servicemen that have actually experienced horrors beyond our belief, served the country fighting wars in faraway countries and come home and try to rehabilitate to city streets and civilian life and finding it very, very difficult. If you look around us on the streets in major city in the country, every town these days as well, the amount of homeless people is increasing and very, very noticeable over the past five, ten years the amount of homeless people has increased tenfold. Really, it’s a song about the way that these people have been ignored and hadn’t had any help from the government to reintegrate with society after suffering, and a lot of them have PTSD and have experienced horrors most can’t imagine.

We’ve got an ex-servicemen who served in Iraq, did tours of duty over there, came back home and suffers from the whole experience. He’s a photographer now, and he’s put a video together which features a lot of footage from him actually doing his tours of duty, personal footage, and then him coming home and trying to reengage with society. It’s a very personal video that he has put together. We’re finalising that at the moment, it should be released probably about a week after the album comes out to maintain the flow of coverage. But yes, that’s one particular song I’d like to point out, I’m quite proud of that one. Lyrically it was very interesting, it was quite hard to write from that perspective and to do it justice, not to be patronising, but to write about the realities of that situation. Musically, it’s an oddball one for us as well. It’s got almost a PANTERA kind of riff going on at the start of it. I’m quite proud of that song… So proud, we won’t be playing it live! [laughs]

It’s very personal, and it’s from a personal perspective. We did that before on Nothing Remains, the song about dementia on the last album. It’s quite nice for me as a writer, as a creative individual, to write something with a personal meaning, it’s quite nice to get away from writing songs generically about the psychological aspects of war but now I can write lyrics that have some personal meaning to me directly, which is very rewarding. Also I’ve been throwing a bit politics here and there, which is an interesting aspect. It’s something I find quite rewarding and it’s something that needs to be done and said in the current political climate that we live in. Some people criticise me and say “You need to keep politics out of music.” For me, that’s absolute bullshit. My musical traditions are from the crust punk scene, which is highly politically charged. So for me to actually be able to do something at this point in my life, which relates to what inspired me to make music in the first place. If you’ve got that position and privilege to be able to do that, you should do it. If I didn’t, I’d be part of the problem, I’d be burying my head in the sand and doing myself and issues a huge injustice. There’s a lot wrong with the world that we live in today, and I have a platform to say something about it.

I enjoy that element of MEMORIAM and that ability to actually write about stuff that I feel is important. Specifically on the new album, there is the track Austerity Kills, we will be playing that live for sure. It’s about what it says, austerity kills, it’s about the 25 years of cutbacks by conservative parties or right-wing ideology that just basically have stripped away the rights of the most vulnerable members of our society. The poorest are getting poor, people being in poverty in this day and age is obscene in this country. It seems that the richer corporations and the bankers seem to be doing okay, they have been since the 1980s, and those on the outskirts of society, the disabled in particular, are having their benefits stripped from them. The mentally disabled, the poor, the most vulnerable are the ones that suffering the most. It’s obscene. I feel it’s important to make a stand and say something about it.

Then, of course, we’re back to the old issue of good old Brexit. It’s a constant thorn in my side and something I’ve touched upon on all three albums refused to be led. In particular, it’s specifically about the dichotomy of “Project Fear” has divided the whole nation of the United Kingdom. [The country] is totally split down the middle. It’s something I find quite disturbing. But it’s reflected across the globe, fear and hatred and nationalism, white pride, or whatever you want to call it has been taking over people’s ideals. It’s totally polarised the arguments, there’s no middle ground, there’s no room for a compromise within the two mindsets at all. You’re either are racist or you’re not, cant be a part time racist. [laughs] It’s something I feel really strongly about, something I do take pleasure in – putting myself out there and jumping on my little platform, my soapbox and making a statement about it. I’m quite happy to get criticised for doing it because I think it’s important to do something or say something about it. Everyone’s got the equal opportunity to type something into their keyboard and make an opinion and make a statement. I’m quite happy to stand up for what I think is right. I don’t expect everyone to agree with me, but I have to do it because it’s being true to myself, basically.

The cover art for Requiem For Mankind – like For The Fallen and The Silent Vigil – is stunning. What was the concept behind the artwork?

Karl: When we first got the record deal from Nuclear Blast it was for one album with two other options – so a three album deal basically. It was great getting Dan Seagrave involved – it’s been documented before but Scott, one of the only things on his bucket list for what we wanted to achieve with MEMORIAM was to have Dan Seagrave do an album cover. So when we approached him, we gave him a pretty vague design brief. We said we wanted a funeral procession over an ethereal, ravaged battle-scape, with the coffin of the fallen leader being carried across the battlefield. And he delivered it, fantastically. When I saw that, I thought it tells such a strong image there that there’s mileage to tell a story. I imagined the triptych story being told from three album covers. The second album, The Silent Vigil, was the next phase of the procession of the funeral. So the first album was the march of the coffin, and then the second album was the laying in state stage of the funeral process, with the mourners all standing around in tribute to the fallen leader. Requiem For Mankind is the last in the trilogy that I foresaw at that point, it’s the final part. It works really well as a triptych because Nuclear Blast have done these absolutely fantastic canvas prints as well, so the artwork fits together really well. The last cover is the coffin being taken into the ground. The artwork follows the journey through the death process through the funeral process, so in Requiem For Mankind the cover shows the coffin being interred, being taken into the ground and enveloped by the by the earth in the final requiem for mankind. It just works really well, the colours and the details that he puts in there are amazing. Each time I look at it, I still spot things in there that I haven’t seen before. So it’s great to work with Dan.

However, we kind of backed ourselves into a corner because this triptych idea worked really well. Now we’ve finished that, and we’re at the point where we have got another extension, we’ve got an extension of the contract, so there will be another album at some point in the future – I’m not saying it’s going to be in a year’s time, it might be a bit longer so we can take stock of where we’re at. But this triptych is now going to be four, a quad-tych or whatever it is! [laughs] We’ve got two ways we could go with this coffin and I don’t know which way to go. Either it’s going to be resurrected, or it’s going to go on a journey through the ground. This is the early stages of development, but again, I’d really like to use Dan to proceed with the  story. It works really well as a story.

One of the things we’ve been discussing just recently, is the fact that when we first got together we wanted to do cover songs. That was one of the things that motivated us to want to do another band, get together, have a bit of a laugh and jam out some covers form bands that inspired us to be in bands in the first place. We’ve never got around to it, three years on and we still haven’t done it. So that is on the cards as well, we may at some point, before we do another album, just for ourselves – maybe released through Cosmic Key Creations or something on a very limited scale – do an album of songs that inspired us to be who we are. I think that’s something we could be doing probably think about doing maybe next year, before we concentrate on doing the next album. We’ve got plenty of options at this point. And it’s a really, really nice place to be in.

There’s actually no pressure on us whatsoever, our relationship with Nuclear Blast is really good in that respect, they give us the creative freedom to go away and do that if we want to. I think it’s something we’ve got to do, because it was one of the things we wanted to do in the first place and we haven’t done it yet. So I think at some point we’re going to be doing that, just really for ourselves. Without being too egotistical, really, this whole project is about us, our social bonds. We started the band to create a bit of joy, we were in a dark place at the time as has been documented about what happened in the past, and we just wanted to have some fun. That’s still what we want to do, really, we just want to have a good laugh and enjoy creating music with some old friends. And we’ve achieved that tenfold for the past three years, and we still are. Long may that last!

I think that’s come from our experience and being a bit older, really. We’ve been through the mill and done lots of things in the past and we’ve got to that point where we think “Well, now, we’re just going to do this on our terms.” Now we can go and enjoy it for what it is. The music is one aspect of what we do and is obviously an important aspect to what we do, but the main driving motive of what we do is the social element of it. I started the band because I wanted to have some fun with some friends. And it still remains that as well, going down to the rehearsal room every week and the joy of playing gigs, the chemistry between us… You can’t really buy that. Our relationship has evolved and developed through us knowing each other for 30 years, and I think that really shows, in live performances in particular. We have fun doing it and we appreciate it as well. We are only in this position because of the people that support us, you know, without the support of people who understand and get where we’re coming from and have followed us on our journey in their own lives [we wouldn’t be able to do this]. Having these friends, family, followers, whatever you want to call them, follow our journey through our lives and being part of that and to know that they’re out there still supporting us, getting what we do, and understanding why we’re doing it is really rewarding, it’s really very, very life affirming. To be able to do this for 35 years is phenomenal. If you asked me when I first started in BOLT THROWER when I was about 20, 21, if I’d still be doing this in 30 years time on I’d have laughed at you! But 30-odd years down the track, I’m still having a great time doing it even more. I realised from life experience that life is short, as we get older, you do tend to lose a lot of people around you. So try to grasp it and enjoy it for what it is and don’t take it too seriously, have some fun with it and appreciate what it is.

For years after releasing Those Once Loyal, there were rumours of a ninth BOLT THROWER album. Did you personally start working on that album, and if so, did any of your ideas from made their way into MEMORIAM’s work?

Karl: No, there was never a ninth album and there was never going to be a ninth album. I think creatively as a band, working within the strict formulas and parameters that made BOLT THROWER what it was and made it successful… We’d been doing that for 30 years. Creatively, I think the band hit hit a wall, where whatever we wrote, it just sounded like a poor version of something we’d done previously. It just didn’t work. We weren’t happy with it. We wrote a few songs, but they never got further than Baz [Barry Thomson, guitars]’s computer, they never got recorded in the studio. They were just a lot of disjointed riffs put together on a computer, there was never an album worth of material to record, it never went further than that. When Kiddie [Martin Kearns, drums] died, that was the final flame of creativity really being extinguished from the band. There was there was never going to be a ninth album once Those Once Loyal was created. That was it for BOLT THROWER. That was great, we probably could have carried on going for another ten or 20 years, just going out there and playing the old classics, what everybody wanted to hear from the eight albums that were out there. But creatively, there was nothing new. There is not, there has never been a fabled ninth album. I think it’s been built up to that status of the Holy Grail of death metal! [laughs]

I think when you start a new band, having done things to such a such a level as BOLT THROWER and BENEDICTION, there is always going to be a comparison of “are they going to sound like BOLT THROWER?” To a certain extent you’re going to get criticised either way. You’re going to get criticised for either A) sounding too much like BOLT THROWER, or B) not enough like BOLT THROWER. You can’t win with that kind of dichotomy. We worked over the last two or three years to try and develop and establish our kind of own identity and move away from the shadows are always going to be there. Ironically, with this third album people have said that it sounds more like BOLT THROWER – but that’s just the two songs that have been released. That’s really because we’ve achieved that big, epic sound using Russ as a producer, that’s the similarity in the style, the epic sound which BOLT THROWER are known for because production money was there and the budget was there. The lyrical themes, the war theme, that’s another angle that’s always going to be same.

But in terms of music writing, it’s a totally different process. We’re a four-piece band, so the dynamics of the music are totally different. Of course, I can’t really go on without mentioning Scott‘s influence on what we do. He’s the major riff writer, he’s the one that comes up with all the songs to be perfectly honest. He writes all the riffs, he draws the riffs from these million dollar riff vault! [laughs] His sphere of influence is very different from mine and Whale‘s. There’s maybe a generation between us, so our sphere of influence is very much punk, grind, late 80s metal, death metal when it came out, but he’s influenced by the mid to late 90s more technical, progressive death metal. I think that comes across, blending the different styles within what we do as well. It’s a very different process, a very different sounding band to anything we’ve done previously. That’s what we’re trying to achieve, we’re not really trying to copy a blueprint has been done in the past. I think that with Requiem For Mankind, we finally got to that point where we’ve achieved what we needed to and what we set out to do two years ago.

Thank you once again for taking the time to speak with me Karl. Finally, do you have any parting messages for Distorted Sound Magazine’s readers?

Karl: Yes, I would like to say, thank you to you for taking the time to talk to me about my life, MEMORIAM and Requiem For Mankind. I’d also like to thank all the discerning Distorted Sound Magazine readers. It’s good to see a magazine such as this doing so well, and covering all aspects of the this disparate, disparate, underground scene that we’re all involved with extreme music. It’s a glorious scene to be involved with so many different things happening. Thanks for your support now and throughout the 30 years of my career in this and it is appreciated. Hope you all enjoy the new album as much as we did recording it. And hopefully, we may even get to see you at some point in the not too distant future!

Requiim For Mankind is out now via Nuclear Blast Records. 

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