INTERVIEW: Mark Greening – Dead Witches

If there’s two things that Mark Greening can be considered an authority on, it’s doom metal and horror films. His time behind the kit with DEAD WITCHES has allowed him to combine these passions, most evidently on their blistering second album, The Final Exorcism. We had a chat with him about the record, the band’s second lineup, and whether he thinks the future looks doomy.

You’ve just released your second full length, The Final Exorcism. How has it been going down with listeners? Are you pleased with the response?

Mark: I’m pretty pleased, it’s been going down pretty well. Obviously there’s always the odd few that are not going to like it, you’re always going to get that with everything, really. I’m chuffed with the response we’ve had so far, a lot of people seem be digging it. A lot of people seem to like it a lot more than the previous album, Ouija. The majority of reviews have been positive, and people have said that they really enjoy this album. The problem with doom is that ‘doom is doom’; it’s not everyone’s cup of tea, a lot of people say stuff like ‘it’s all been heard before’ but it is what it is. It’s up to people to make their own decisions as to whether they like it or not. It makes it worthwhile when people enjoy what you do. If everyone was saying it was shit it makes you wonder why you bother.

 Can you talk us through some of the themes and inspirations behind the record? Is there a concept or narrative flow, or is it a collection of thematically linked tracks?

Mark: The whole thing surrounding the album, the concept, is about exorcism. It came because of my obsession with demonic possession and horror movies and The Exorcist. It was just an idea I had in my head of how I wanted the album to be. A lot of the songs were written and Soozi [Chameleone] would write the lyrics, and I’d say to her can you base this on this specific category or theme. Not necessarily all the songs are about exorcism, but 80% of the record was themed around demonic possession because of my obsession with horror and my favourite film being The Exorcist. I had the idea that I wanted to call the album The Final Possession, and Soozi is great with writing lyrics, so I gave her a few ideas about what a song should be about or how I’d envisioned it, so she’d write the lyrics. It’s not necessarily a religious thing, it could just be a battle between good vs evil or whatever you want to make of it.

What was the writing and recording process like? How long did it take to put the record together?

Mark: We were all involved in the writing. Oliver [Hill, Guitars] would write some riffs, Carl [Geary, bass], even myself. It came together pretty nicely. We’d rehearse and go through the tracks until they were how we wanted them to sound and the best we could make them. It was quite easy to get together in a rehearsal room and for Oliver to show up with ideas, and everyone to have their input. Sometimes if Soozi wasn’t there we’d send her what we’d done and she’d write the lyrics really quickly. It all came together pretty easily; there were a few tracks that we’d written a while before, before we’d thought about doing a new album. We had a few songs already in the bag because we needed new tracks for gigs. Ouija is quite a short record, so we needed new material to add to that to play live. It wasn’t stressful, we weren’t running out of ideas, it was all relaxed. The album was recorded at Chuckalumba Studios out in the New Forest, we recorded it around the end of August, and we banged it out in about three days. We knew the sound we wanted, everyone knew what they were doing, so within three days we had an album. Sometimes it can be a struggle to write songs and to make things sound good, but with this record everything seemed to run quite smoothly.

 There’ve been a few changes to the coven since your debut – how did you come to welcome Oliver and Soozi into the fold? 

Mark: After the passing of Greg [Elk, former guitarist] we weren’t really sure whether to continue with the band. Obviously at this time Virginia [Monti] was still the vocalist, so we took a bit of time out for a while, and through the magic that is social media I put a post out. Because I live in Bournemouth there’s not really very many guitarists who are into this sort of old school doom. I’d known Oliver anyway, I’d played gigs before and his band had supported us in the past. He got in contact and said he would be up for a jam, he came down to Bournemouth, we got together and it all locked in. Later down the line Virginia left to concentrate on PSYCHEDELIC WITCHCRAFT. I did struggle to find a female vocalist, because again there aren’t many musicians in the area where I’m from. To cut a long story short, I was out drinking one night with an old school friend, and he’s friends with Soozi so he mentioned her and put me in contact with her. We arranged a rehearsal which she came down for, she fitted in really well and she joined the band that day. It did take a while to find a female vocalist; a lot of the vocalists I contacted were in other bands and lived miles away. But with Soozi everything just sort of fell into place, everything felt right and felt like we were back as a band.

 Your live show is very intense and loud as hell. Do you prefer playing live to on record? Do you think this is the ‘true’ DEAD WITCHES experience?

Mark: I don’t know. I do prefer to play live. I find sometimes in the studio there can be a bit of pressure, and I do tend to make the pressure worse in my head than what it actually is. But in the studio there is the pressure to get the songs right, especially when we record on analogue reel to reel, no computers involved. Basically what we’re playing is what you get. I do prefer to play live because everything’s loud and you can feed off the audience more. I do love to go to the studio, but I do sometimes feel under pressure and it can be a bit nail biting. Live, you can just crank the amps up and drum as hard as I can. I think people do like the live shows. They’re both different experiences. I have always liked to play gigs, to get the music out there, people seeing what you’re really about.

 If you had to describe The Last Exorcism in one word or short phrase, what would you use?

 Mark: ‘Horrific’? That’s probably not the right word! ‘Mind destroying’, something like that. I don’t know! Either one of them will do. Probably, not the first one. A few people have probably called it horrific!

 What three films should every horror fan worth their salt have in their film library?

Mark: Obviously The Exorcist. Probably the first Halloween, and probably Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I would hope so, anyway. If not they’re not really into horror. I am into recent stuff as well, there’ve been a few possession or exorcism based films that have come out like The Last Exorcism and The Exorcism Of Emily Rose. Other stuff like The Conjuring and The Nun and The Devil Inside. Some of the newer films are a bit of an anti climax but you get the odd little gem. I do prefer my older stuff but I do check out the newer films, which are a bit hit and miss. I think with horror films today, some films rely too much on gore and special effects. I prefer a horror film to make you scared or put you on edge. I’ve always liked the more sinister ones that make you jump rather than the ones that see how much gore you can get into an hour and a half. I think also with horror films today they try to appeal to an 18 or 19 year old who is viewing them, whereas back in the 70s and they 80s I think they were more directed at everyone.

Doom has been a massive force in underground music over the last decade or so. Do you think it’s here to stay for the foreseeable, or do you think the wheel is set to turn and another sub-genre will take prominence?

Mark: I don’t know. To be honest when I was doing doom music with ELECTRIC WIZARD in the mid 90’s I never, to this day, would have thought that people would still be listening to doom and it would have a bigger following now than it did before. It’s quite weird to think that there are people still listening to stuff that I did back in the mid 90s, when we were just having a laugh. Three blokes stoned out of their minds just making music. I never thought about it lasting the test of time. Obviously doom music today is really really popular. There’s so many doom bands out there now. I’m surprised that it’s lasted this long really, but it’s not something I really think about. It’s something I just do. As long as people are appreciating it, it will carry on. I don’t listen to a great deal of metal and doom any more, it’s weird to say. As long as there’s bands out there, like DEAD WITCHES, making this music there’s always gonna be an audience. In the music industry now there’s so many bands and so many different types of metal music, there’s so much going on these days. It’s hard to say whether doom will still be going in five or ten years time. Everything’s sort of been done, it’s sad to say, it is really hard to invent something that doesn’t sound like something these days. Whether someone will come with something totally off the wall that’s never been done before, I’ve yet to see it really.

What’s next for DEAD WITCHES? Do you have touring and festival appearances in the pipeline to support the album? Are you working on any follow up material?

Mark: We’re not planning on taking over the world or anything. Obviously we would love to record a third album, we’ve been messing around with riffs at rehearsals, coming up with ideas for new tracks. I know next month, April, we’ve got four dates in Ireland. Two of those are festivals. We’ve got another festival, End Of The World Festival, in July in Plymouth and the Doom vs Stoner festival in September. I find it hard, what with everyone’s work, to get out on tour. We haven’t got any plans to tour, as yet. It would be great to try and tour around Europe for a couple of weeks. We’ll just see what happens. I prefer to play festivals because the atmosphere’s great, there’s a lot of good bands there, you have a lot of fun. If you’re stuck in a van touring, well, I’m getting a bit too old for that. There’s no massive plan where we want to conquer the world or anything, we just want to have some fun with it.

The Final Exorcism is out now via Heavy Psych Sounds.

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