Hailing from the northeast and parts of Scotland, RISEN PROPHECY were one of the heavier bands to hit the stage at POWER METAL QUEST FEST this year. Influenced by both thrash and power metal, Megan spoke to the band after their set about how their early childhood friendships impacted their sound and how they prepare for shows.
Hi guys, first of all really great set. I don’t know how you guys keep up with that amount of energy on stage as it looks really intense—but yeah well done, and great response from the crowd. First question, many bands are either based in Europe or the black country. You guys are based in the North East of England, right?
Dave: Those guys are. I recently joined the band and made the trek from Glasgow to the godless north.
Oh wow, that’s quite a big space between you guys.
Ben: Yeah, we’re sort of disbursed all over the place now. We originally started in Sunderland but we’re based in Newcastle now. It seems to be a good middle point for everybody.
Dave: I still don’t understand how we make it work if I’m honest.
Yeah, it’s quite a big distance. But obviously, you guys made it today. So I spoke to The Black Hounds who are from the black country, but metal is also important to the North East. A lot of influential bands like Venom came out of there so, how would you say being part of that scene has influenced your career?
Ben: Predominantly we just focus on what motivates and drives us musically. Firstly, we were all teenagers in school and we all had this vision and thrash influenced us but so did Judas Priest so it’s been a lifelong endeavour to try and combine the two. But then a turning point, when you discover a band like Bathory, you know there’s no turning back when you dissolve a band like Bathory, so we wanted to capture this underlining epic element while still being fast, traditional. We didn’t want to go you know here’s the fast song here’s the epi song, we all wanted it to blend coherently together. So that’s taken time. When we first started the band we were both 14, 15, and our original singer was in the same year as us so it’s cool when we see people from school and they ask, are you still in that band, and we go Yeah we’re still doing it.
That’s really cool to hear, how has known each other for so long made it easier or harder to sit down and start the creative process of making music?
Ross: It’s pretty organic now because of that I think. We first really learned how to play together. We always knew the sort of music that we wanted to play but, we couldn’t play it, so, we spent a lot of time fine-tuning technique and all of that stuff and now we’re sort of like at that stage where we feel pretty good about you know. If we want to write something, we can actually play it now. But I think we’ve sort of developed into getting to know each other’s abilities and stuff and when we’re jamming in the room it doesn’t feel like you know we’re hitting it just flows.
Ben: It’s like we both know if it’s just me and Ross jamming we both know what we want to hear from each other. If one of us just has an idea, a lot of the time we’ll come up with something very similar or exactly what we were both expecting from each other.
Ross: Yeah it’s almost gotten to the point where to do a lot of demos in the room we’ll go away and then come back. It’s not like, that’s the song and we have to keep it. So, it seems stupid not to take advantage of that kind of connection.
Cool, and moving on slightly but I noticed you guys are obviously very active on stage and that must take a lot of physical and mental toll after the show. So I wanted to ask you guys when you guys do perform how you prepare for that?
Dave: Well, for example, today’s like a one-off gig and you’ll pour all your energy into one show, as opposed to if you’re playing a few gigs in a row and you have to give it your all but you also have to save some energy otherwise you’ll burst. So I think it does depend on the type of gig but for me personally, today was just get in the zone and I think it was good that there were a couple of bands on before. That’s good as it gets you to see the energy of the crowd and it allows you to anticipate how the crowd will be and then how you’re going to be on stage and how they’re going to respond.
In terms of routines do you have any specific things that you do to make sure that you know how to communicate with each other on stage?
Ben: I think it’s just bouncing off each other and playing off with each other.
Ross: It feels pretty organic doesn’t it? I think it’s a very vague answer again, but I guess that some bands who have a bit more choreography may have rituals but we will never ever be like that. You know what certain things are really cool but I think it’s even cooler when those things happen when it’s in an organic way.
I guess obviously we talked about you guys knowing each other for so long, but in terms of the music and looking at your influences, one thing that really struck me about your sound was that it was very much a mix between thrash and power metal, which I feel like a lot of old school power metal is deeply routed in thrash because it came out at that time, so were you guys influenced by power metal or by thrash metal and how do you guys kind of manage to create such a coherent sound?
Ross: I think at that point that we started the band a lot of our influences were influenced by thrash but I personally was influenced by a lot of stuff like Helloween, you know that kind of thrash metal. The more modern style, I guess. So we were more influenced by that sound. I guess power metal it’s kind of like a natural progression of what thrash metal is. It has all the same elements but it’s just a bit more epic. You know it’s speedy. It wasn’t necessarily about the happy sing-a-lot vibe, you know, that does make me feel good, but at the same time, we didn’t want it to be a parody of itself. For me, it’s heavy metal first and foremost, but it’s an extension of it.
Moving on nicely from that, we’re here at Power Metal Quest Fest today and I’m seeing a lot of people dress up in LARP stuff this kind of style is a huge part of power metal imagery. So, as a band where there are a lot of logistical things that you need to consider, how do you sit down and think about the creative direction, also, as you said you don’t want to make it a parody of itself, so how do you balance that to make sure that your artwork and lyrics and themes are staying true to the sound but also is your own?
Ross: I think for the most part, at least on stage, we mainly just wear shirts because the majority of band shirts I have are too nice to rip up. But following on from what you said about stage presentation, bands like Blind Guardian don’t have the dress up or the visual aspect, but musically they definitely do, and if they can just go on stage in plain clothes then we can.
Ben: Yeah I think there’s a natural coherency between us so someone’s not just standing there like a spotlight but at the same time we’re very minimal from that side of it. From a theatrical point of view, it doesn’t really exist for us.
Ross: Yeah I think we’re still of that mentally that well, it’s the band, it’s the music, and everything else can kind of be secondary.
Dave: Yeah I think with metal in general, you sort of need to be able to strip away everything and the music has to be able to stand on its own. If that’s good then play around with whatever you want. But if you’re using a gimmick to carry the music then it can come across as being disingenuous. And I think we’ve always been very music-focused first. I think if we dressed in something like a suit then it would take away from what we say.
Ben: I guess it’s like that kind of theatrical side is in the lyrics so it’s kind of there but it’s more in the music than on stage.
And what kind of media impacts the themes that you explore lyrically and artistically?
Ross: For me I mean we have like quite a lot of biblical themes and things like that. It really kind of heavy, themes in that direction because it feels huge. It’s a flood of biblical proportions if you like. That’s always been our approach. I remember when we were listening to stuff like Dante’s Inferno, I remember being like, how can you get more epic and more like you see visions and images from it like that’s how good the writing is. And also classic literature, things that fit alongside that, I mean also the media as well we all like Tolkien and other kind of fantasy, and sci-fi. We’re consumed by a lot of that and I think it impacts the way that we approach music in the fact that we want our music to feel like a lot of what we watch. We want it to feel epic.
Dave: There’s definitely a feeling of low fantasy with Risen Prophecy, instead of high fantasy.
Ben: Yeah, there’s a hint of it like the dark expanse of fantasy. It definitely strikes images in your mind. Like stuff like Dante’s Inferno and Lucifer, that type of media produces exactly the sort of imagery that we want to create with our music.
Ross: Yeah like even I went round Dave’s a few months ago and brought round and illustrated version of Dante’s Divine Comedy and sometimes even the artwork alone can be something influential in the writing in the lyrics.
What’s next for you guys in terms of recording and touring, and what do you want to do with the band moving forward?
Ross: I think the next big thing we have is the next album. So yeah, get that recorded. We’ll take more gigs in the meantime but yeah, focus on getting the next album recorded and then we can look at more tours. We’ve always been one of those bands that have struggled getting gigs, probably because we’re half thrash and half power metal. And, that’s something that people think well, you’ll appeal to everyone because the thrash fans will like it and the power metal fans will like it but that’s not normally what happens.
Dave: It’s a really terrible ven diagram.
Last question, what bands are you looking forward to seeing today at Power Metal Quest Fest?
Dave: Two for me, I’ve already seen The Black Hounds. I had really high hopes for them and expectations after hearing their recordings and I thought they were excellent. And, Dynazty, I’d never really listened to them before they got announced but I stuck them on and thought, this is the fun power metal so I’m quite excited about seeing them and Dragonland.
Ben: Yeah I remember seeing Dragonland support Malmsteen in 2005 or something like that and that was a good memory for us so looking forward to reliving a bit of nostalgia.
Thank you for talking with Rock Out Stand Out today and enjoy the rest of the festival.
