Irish metal band Primordial released “To The Nameless Dead” in 2007 to critical and popular acclaim. Combining Black Metal and elements of Irish folk music, the band have carved out a reputation with an individual sound and accomplished musicianship.
Four years later, the band are releasing their seventh studio album, “Redemption At The Puritan’s Hand”, and UG caught up with guitarists Ciaran Williams and Mick Flynn to talk about the evolution of the band, their distinctive sound, and their future.
UG: First of all, what's your background with Primordial? How long have you been with the band? When did it start?
Ciaran Williams: Myself and the bass player and his brother started jamming when we were about 14 in 1987, so that was just kinda punk covers and odd bit of Iron Maiden and anything we could play basically, we were a bit shit then. I think it was until we were about 18 and we gradually got into death metal, particularly Swedish death metal.
We decided to advertise for a singer and Alan picked it up and we started off doing gigs in Dublin, just covers, Death, Leprosy, Cannibal Corpse.
Mick Flynn: What were you called then? I wasn't in the band...
Ciaran: For a while we were called “Forsaken”, we recorded a demo in '93 in the Skerries and we were going to call it “Primordial Beginnings” but there was a band in Malta called “Forsaken” so we said, alright, we call ourselves Primordial. Worst mistake we ever made (laughs). We recorded the first album with that line-up and then just before recording the second album Pól had a big row with his brother and they don't speak since. O'Laoghaire (the current drummer) joined the band then. After that Mick joined for the next album.
Mick: Yeah, I joined nearly ten years ago, it was about 2001.
Ciaran: We were playing gigs and there were harmonies and stuff which just sounded crap when I did them on my own.
Mick: From that album, from Spirit The Earth Aflame on, there's a lot of layered guitars and harmonies so they really needed a second guitarist for it to work live.
So you just learned the stuff for the gigs by ear then?
Mick: As much as I could, Ciaran was always there to show me as well.
Ciaran: He knew most of it well enough, and it added an extra dimension and the live shows were a lot better. We've actually gone from the point where we started layering things up too much, so that we couldn't play them live, where there were three or four harmonies, that it started getting muddy, we've gone back now to the basics, for clarity's sake. That was a long story. (laughs)
So this new album we recorded last November through to January for a few days.
Mick: We recorded it at Foel Studios in Wales, it's a great place.
Ciaran: It was unreal this winter, 2 foot of snow!
"Just keeping it simple and we can recreate it live."
Ciaran: (laughs) We think Alan, the singer, actually got swine flu over there. He was just knocked out with the flu. He doesn't remember some of the vocal lines.
Mick: It's a great studio, it's out of the middle of nowhere, with no distractions. The recording went smooth enough but we ran out of time on the mixing. It turned out alright though, I think. Chris Fielding, he engineered the last two, he's the resident engineer there and he really knows his stuff.
You were saying, you've gone from more and more layers to something simpler, was that a conscious choice?
Ciaran: Well, the sound wasn't improving as a result of more and more fuckin' guitars. If anything, the drums and the bass were suffering. There was no space, which was what we were aiming for.
Mick: You know, like those old-school recordings like Sabbath were you've got drums, bass and just two guitars, left and right.
Ciaran: There's a few more layers, a few overdubs. But the drums came out better overall as a result.
And just left and right panning?
Mick: Usually, yeah. We'd record a rhythm track each and then do overdubs for harmonies and leads. We're happy enough with it. We used the ENGL Powerball and the Peavey 5150 and kind of blended the two sounds.
Ciaran: We were aiming for the kind of sound we get in rehearsal, but that's not the result of trying out thousands and thousands of amps and picking what's best, it's just what we have. (laughs)
Just keeping it simple and we can recreate it live.
And guitar-wise?
Mick: We both have Gibson SG standards, and we both have Les Paul Customs.
Ciaran: The SG's are really good for live shows, they're so light and you can get right up the frets. Some of our harmonies are high up the neck and I've just been using the Les Paul to get used to it. When you're trying to get the kind of silly harmonies we do they're just hard to get to.
Mick: The only other thing is we always use guitars with a hardtail, because we do a lot of songs in drop D and if you have a tremolo system it's a nightmare.
And anything in Dadgad or Irish traditional tunings?
Ciaran: No, basically just drop D. There was one song, DAGDAE or something like it. “Dark Song”, on “Journey's End”, it's an acoustic tune.
And some other quick questions, how did you get into playing guitar?
Ciaran: Well, my brother had a Hondo – a Les Paul Hondo. And a vox bass amp. A few lessons from the local place – Dire Straits and Walkin' on Sunshine. Just for chords and that. From the Death Metal thing, around '91, and Black Metal and all that. After that it was more of a cultural kind of thing – my family's always been into Irish music, hurling, gaelic football. I was into Irish music as a bit of a national thing. Around then bands starting including their national heritage in their music. It wasn't so much a lyrical influence as a musical influence. Trying to get a bit more of a tribal kind of thing. That's where I got the drop D thing from, the low D ringing out like an uilleann pipe drone. That's kind of our hallmark thing, the bass player's not happy though.
Mick: Well, my uncle played bluegrass so that's where I got into picking up an acoustic guitar and trying to pick out chords and stuff. After that, Guns and Roses and then about 88, 89, got into Megadeth, Metallica, Slayer. Then heavier stuff, Death Metal, Grindcore, then Black Metal. That's about it really.
"Myself and the bass player and his brother started jamming when we were about 14 in 1987, so that was just kinda punk covers and odd bit of Iron Maiden."
Ciaran: Lots of really fast strumming, kind of repetitive kind of... (laughs).
Mick: Yeah, and a lot of it's in 6/8. That'd be the timing that kind of gives it the Primordial signature. That's the traditional Irish influence, lots of jigs in 6/8. It's what gives that kind of folky feel.
Ciaran: I used to be influenced by the Irish trad guitarists accompanying the melody with all these weird chords. A lot of the riffs are influenced by Arty McGlynn – as a guitar player you listen to it in the background and try and pick things out. And the constant low D droning, it's to kind of build up something epic. All our songs are a kind of build up, a climax, and then a long ending. So it's fairly formulaic at this stage. (laughs)
Although there's more breaks from that on this album, more instinct. A lot of it happened in the studio when we thought about structure and tried things out.
And the harmonies, how do you go about writing them?
Ciaran: Well, we never used to do this, but after a verse – something like “Empire Falls”, which has a definite verse and a definite chorus – we'd leave two harmonies at the end. It felt natural and it's the way it should be. When you're playing a riff for a minute or so and it's building up, we add the harmonies to it build up. And it seems to work.
Mick: It's usually just minor harmony, usually thirds.
And how much of it is worked out and how much is by ear?
Mick: Oh, it's all by ear – you know the scale structure, you're used to playing it. Some songs we'd throw in discordant harmonies or stuff like that. Like on Gallows Hymn. It's basically one riff and we built it up and up through the song, turned out all right.
Ciaran: Yeah, we're the masters of dragging out something.
Mick: Milk the riffs for all they're worth.
Primordial's newest album - “Redemption at the Puritan's Hand” is released 23rd April.
Interview by Daniel Crawford
Ultimate-Guitar.Com © 2011
