Hecate Enthroned is a band that a lot of people have heard of, but few have actually heard. Endless controversy surrounds the band with every action they make; yet they strive forwards regardless of the unrelenting intent of the majority to downplay their talent and relegate them to a mere rip-off band. Some say they rip-off off Emperor, more say of Cradle of Filth, it appears the sceptics can’t even agree on who they are ripping off , and let’s face it, the Cradle of Filth and Emperor are not exactly similar. The band is currently recording a new album with, once again, a new line up. I went to the studio in Liverpool with Frosty (web-page producer) and Michael (ex keyboard player) to discuss such matters with what once was a Welsh band, and see how the album’s shaping up…

You have been plagued by line up problems since the formation of the band, do you feel you have finally overcome these problems?

Nigel: At last, yeah. It’s taken a while to get it but…

Why did Jon leave?

Nigel: Where do you want to start? Haha.

Dylan: Conflicting opinions and personalities.

Nigel: Personality conflict, I’d say.

Did he leave or did you kick him out?

Nigel: Kicked him out.

How do you feel about the progression of Hecate Enthroned with each album?

Dean: This is even more different.

Nigel: This is the way we’re going to go.

Dylan: Nasty, aggressive, heavy stuff.

Nigel: Traditional style death metal.

Dean: There’s a lot less atmosphere and more brutality.

Dylan: It still keeps the old keyboard parts, we spiced it up with heavy guitar riffs.

It’s quite like the first album, ‘Upon Promethean Shores’.

Rob: Yeah, it’s rawer (than recent material) isn’t it?

Dean: There’s a lot more Death Metal vocals.

You’re gonna love this one: how do you feel about being referred to as 'Cradle cop-outs'?

All: Haha.

Nigel: Oh, fuck off!

Dean: Here we go. This fucking new one, right, there’s absolutely no one on this earth that can compare it to Cradle of Filth.

Rob: They’re gonna find somebody else.

Nigel: They’ll fucking find something.

Dean: They fucking won’t!

Nigel: We’re cursed, man!

Dylan: Jon was in Cradle, we’re both British and both play black metal. They’re bigger than us, so…

It was Jon’s vocal’s that did it I think.

Dylan: He was like Dani.

I found one person on the Internet that agrees with me that the material, and the feel of the actual music aside from the vocals, is more like Emperor. Since I first heard the comparison with Cradle, I disregarded it.

Nigel: I have to agree, it fucking pisses me right off!

Dylan: I don’t know why they choose Cradle more than any other black metal band. It’s just because we’re British and we’ve been stuck with it, that’s it.

What is your relationship with them like?

Dylan: We don’t really know them.

Dean: There’s no bad blood. It’s just media rivalry.

Dylan: It’s just fucking silly. All the Norwegian bands after Emperor, chances are they are going to be labelled Emperor clones.

Did any of you have any professional tuition?

Rob: Everyone’s self-taught.

In each album, the composition is attributed to Hecate Enthroned as opposed to any particular members. How do you actually write material? Do you just get together and say "We’ll put this riff here and this keyboard part here…"?

Nigel: Yeah, pretty much.

Dean: I think Nige and Bob probably work together the most.

Rob: That’s because we’re the only two that are awake all the time!

Dean: Somebody comes up with a riff and we play about with it.

Dylan: We’ll have a big keyboard part.

Do you aspire to do more than the average metal musician? For instance ‘Spell of the Winter Forest’ was pretty complicated.

Dean: I think, like with most bands, whatever happens, happens. If it sounds good keep it, if it doesn’t… There was some riff Andy that sounded like jumped up (Guns N’ Roses) ‘You Could Be Mine’ or something!

Nigel: It was fucking ‘Live and Let Die’!

Dylan: The thing is it sounded good in the song, but it was fucking ‘Live and Let Die’!

What’s your approach, Dean, to writing lyrics?

Dean: Instead of being like fucking poetry, it’s more like Satanic death metal, like Incantation and shit like that. I’m coming from that angle rather than any ‘Storms of Avalon’ shit.

(Laughter all round)

Don’t get me wrong his (Jon’s) lyrics are okay, but they’re not the kind I write.

How long will you have spent in the studio by the time you leave?

Dean: Too long. Haha.

Dylan: It’s about two weeks isn’t it?

Dean: It’ll be two weeks on Wednesday (when the band are due to leave).

Are you experimenting with any ideas, using any technology to enhance the music?

Dylan: Keyboard-wise, Daz has got a new module, so we’re trying to get as many effects in, like different choirs and different orchestras and stuff.

Nigel: A new guitar sound as well.

Dylan: We’re trying to get different orchestras on different songs. It’ll sound a bit fresher, won’t it?

Rob: There’s new influences now as well, like Daz is new on keys, Andy’s a new guitarist, new singer; so it’s changed with the new members, really, different ideas come out.

Nigel: It’s cos we got rid of Mike!

(Laughter all round, including Mike)

Mike: Is that why it’s gone really badly?!

Dylan: When we recorded the drums, we put a few mics in this little room, for extra ambience.

Are you taking a different vocal stance to Jon, Dean?

Dean: Yeah…

Nigel: You’re not going to sound like Mr. Cadbury’s Parrot!

Dean: It was not intentional, but when I was recording I noticed a lot of similarities between what we’ve just done and the first Deicide album. It wasn’t intentional but it’s turned out like that.

Have you got any ideas for song titles, or even an album title?

Dean: Song titles, off the top of my head, ‘The Downfall’, ‘I am born’, ‘Deceiving the Deceiver’, ‘Perjury’ but that might change, I can’t remember the rest. I thought about (for) the album ‘Reborn’ but I don’t know.

Dylan: Because it’s changed, Hecate Enthroned is like a new band. It’s so much better now, it’s a milestone.

Dean: I can’t think of anything else, unless anybody else can. What about you, Nige?

Nigel: ‘Twat’.

Why did you choose to record this album at Parr Street Studios (previous artists including Phil Collins, Genesis and The Beatles) as opposed to The Windings?

Nigel: Because The Windings is shit!

Rob: Because it’s not in Wales!

Dylan: We wanted Pete (‘Pee Wee’ Coleman) to do the production, and he teaches just down the road so we left to him which studio.

Dean: It’s a better sound though here, isn’t it?

Dylan: Pete knows the studio and he only lives down the road. He knows all the (mixing) desks and that.

Dean: I like the studio, it’s quite comfortable.

Nigel: As long as they take the planks out of your fucking bed. Ha.

Dean: The first few nights it was just fucking chaos. Andy went to bed before all of us, so we got handfuls of Cornflakes and Weetabix and put them all over his pillow while he was asleep.

Dylan: Chairs on top of him… It’s good here, it’s the best sound we’ve had!

Why was it such a short stint at The Forge?

Dylan: That was supposed to be for a digipack of ‘Dark Requiems and Unsilent Massacre’ they (Blackend) told us, I don’t think they had any intention of doing it, they just re-issued ‘Upon Promethean Shores…’.

Nigel: That was a bag of shit that, wasn’t it?

Rob: We did that ‘Altar of Sacrifice’ (Slayer) for the Slayer tribute.

Dylan: It hasn’t come out yet, has it?

Nigel: Good, because the production’s shit.

Dylan: It’s like Darkthrone. It was a really good studio but it’s (the extra tracks on ’Promethean’)got a really shit sound.

It grew on me. Now I like it.

Nigel: It’s got no power. There’s fuck all in it.

Rob: It’s a rawer sound though, innit? We’re gonna kind of get that here, it’s gonna be raw but it’ll be better produced.

What did you think of the production on ‘Dark Requiems…’? I was a little disappointed.

Nigel: It was too lacking, too weak.

Dylan: I like it. It’s more organic, more human.

Nigel: It’s not heavy enough.

Rob: It’s the guitar sound, I think.

Nigel: It’s always been the guitar sound, it’s never been strong enough.

Have you used different equipment this time?

Nigel: We’ve got a new sound, new cabs.

Dylan: The bass drum’s got a different sound.

Rob: Yeah. It’s a lot fucking rawer, I think, a lot rougher.

When you play live, you don’t play much old stuff. Why is that?

Nigel: What do you class as old stuff?

‘…Promethean…’ and some stuff from ‘Slaughter of Innocence…A requiem for the Mighty’

Dean: When we were in Europe the ‘Slaughter…’ stuff went down fucking brilliantly. I thought it went down better than the ‘…Requiems…’ stuff.

Nigel: We haven’t got the fucking lyrics for it.

Dean: There’s lyrics for two songs on the album so I had to make my own lyrics up for ‘Beneath a December Twilight’. It didn’t sound like it should.

Was the European tour good?

Dean: It was fucking, oh Jesus Christ yeah, I could fill pages on Europe. All the fun we had, and bad sides. I’d love to do it all again. There was a lot of waiting about, a lot of boredom, you’re drinking and smoking all the time, sometimes you won’t get fed properly. There were no bad feelings…

Daz: Apart from Masturbator.

Dean: Ha. The guitarist out of Enthroned, we called him Masturbator. He’d be there on the bus, it was fucking disgusting, he’d just start wanking.

Nigel: We were smashed out of our heads, can’t be arsed moving then that starts happening you‘re like ‘Oh, Fuck off!’

Dean: Then he had a fucking wank on the bottom of the bus, he’d cum all over this mag and his mate came and brought it up and showed it.

Dylan: He was having a posh one on his bunk, he took his johnny off and cum dripped on to his meal below it. Haha.

Dean: It was a good fucking tour. There was a slight language barrier.

Dylan: It was like ‘Metal, wahhh!’ and that was it.

Have you got any ideas to make the live shows a bit more interesting?

Nigel: Lots.

Dean: All we had in Europe was us playing, cos we didn’t have any time to get prepared, I’d only been with the band less than two months.

Nigel: We’re bringing the fire breathing back.

Dean: We’re dropping the corpse paint. We’ll probably get a bit of stick for that.

Dylan: But it’s been about a year for us, since we dropped it. We might do it for the album.

I think you‘re buggered either way, because there will always be someone to scorn you.

Have you got any live plans?

Dean: We’ve got another Hallowe’en one, Bristol.

Dylan: We were approached for the Vampyria festival in London, but we’ve not heard back from them.

Dean: There have been a lot of things that were supposed to have been, but they just haven’t happened.

Like the Venom tour.

Nigel: The promoters are being twats.

What do you think of the ‘marvellous’ ‘Ode to a Haunted Wood’ video?

Dean: I’ve not seen it.

(cue lots of mimicking Nigel blowing the flame from the rose…)

Nigel: It was fucking terrible.

Have you got any plans for a good video?

Dean: We haven’t got plans for a video really, have we? I don’t think they’re cost effective.

Dylan: Kerrang! introducing the new Hecate Enthroned video doesn’t bear thinking about. It’s not a video market, black metal.

What do you think of modern day black metal? The likes of the new Emperor release, the new Satyricon EP etc.

Dean: I don’t like it to be honest. I prefer the older stuff, like when I first got into black metal, like the first Emperor EP, I think that’s better than the stuff they’re doing now, same with Satyricon. It’s too progressive for me, but that’s just personal. They’ve not stagnated, which is fair enough.

Dylan: You’ll always have the bands that do the old stuff.

Dean: Like fucking Gorgoroth.

Have you found your new direction then?

Dean: More up front and in your face.

Dylan: We’re going a bit more experimental as well.

Dean: There’s a lot more energy, in the new one.

What influenced you while you were writing the album?

Dylan: (Carcass) ‘Heartwork’, for the guitars.

Nigel: Top fucking album.

Dylan: The girl that engineered ‘Heartwork’ engineered this.

All of these Norwegians talk about their deep philosophy, what about you?

Dean: I don’t think half the Norwegians are (really involved). I think they’re like us. I’d say there’s about ten percent that are Satanists, the rest are playing up. They’re probably just Atheist.

Dylan: This stuff is more anti-Christian than out and out Satanism. Everybody’s a Humanist really, if you don’t like something you do something about it.

Dean: You don’t have to be a Satanist to be evil.

Do you hold any personal views?

Dean: Yeah, but it’s not a lifestyle. It’s not my lifestyle, anyway.

Dylan: We might get some stick after this album, there’s some quite extreme lyrics. Whatever you say someone’s going to read whatever they want into it.

Dean: Exactly.

How do you all get on outside the band?

Dean: We don’t really socialise, me and Rob live close, so do Dyl and Nige, and Andy and Daz. We don’t really see each other. We should get out more.

Nigel: We should do, I haven’t seen you for fucking months.

Dean: The first time we went out as a band since we got back from tour was last week. That was about six or seven months.

Nigel: Every time we go out we end up doing something fucking stupid anyway.

How does the band pay off?

Dean: I can’t complain, I’ve not recorded a note and I’ve got royalties, so…

Dylan: We get a bit now and then.

Dean: It’s not about the money, really.

Dylan: Enthroned and that don’t work, do they? I don’t know how they survive.

Any final messages?

Dylan: Metal war!

Dean: Necrocult!

By Paul Roberts