Nottingham, 3rd September 2010.
First published by New Rock Music, September 2010. www.newrockmusic.co.uk
Photos copyright © Sue Paterson 2010 www.suepaterson.co.uk
Currently ripping up venues across the UK with their distinctive sonic assault, British metal titans, Beholder, will be approximately half way through a gruelling eighteen-date tour by the time you read this. That’s 18 dates in one calendar month, by the way.
Given that just a scant twelve months ago Beholder was a covers band, it’s some achievement to have written an album, inked a deal, released said album to positive critical reception and then to tour it with the vigour the band currently display.
Maybe a clue there as to why they dubbed it The Edge of Insanity Tour…
Just one date into the tour, I spoke to front man, Simon Hall, about the tour, the album, Sophie Lancaster and what the future holds for the standard bearers of traditional British Heavy Metal.
The front man smiled gently. He’s a big man with a formidable presence. With his rumbling basso profundo tones and articulate enunciation, it’s easy to imagine him equally at home with Shakespearean theatre or wielding a broad sword in a medieval period drama as he is fronting the band that Iron Maiden legend, Bruce Dickinson, asserted was “Well worth checking out”
“Beholder was primarily put together as a side project to what I was doing with The Handsome Beasts” said the bearded singer. “That particular brief, obviously, restricted what we could do so we stuck a covers band together and went out doing the full nine yards from your old school Sabbath to Pantera, Lamb of God and everything else you could think of. We went through several different line ups, for a variety of reasons, and then twelve months ago we arrived at, not necessarily the line-up we have now, but, nevertheless, a line up we felt was good enough, was strong enough to go ahead and write an album. We just thought, ‘ok, sod it, we’ll put an album together and see how it does’, and it’s done extremely well. We’re very pleased indeed”
A contention supported by the fact that Amazon had just one copy of the album left in stock an hour before we spoke.
“Really?” queried a slightly surprised Hall, before responding, “Fucking excellent!” with a marked wolfish grin.
How the album came into being was something we had to find out and Hall was quick to oblige.
“We’re one of those collectives where everybody brings what they can to the table, we’ll put it in a melting pot and, if it works, we’ll go with it. If not we’ll keep moving as a unit. There’s no hierarchy”
A benevolent dictatorship, perhaps?
That wolfish grin again, “More of a malevolent dictatorship, actually!”
A distinguishing feature of the album is its quintessentially British sound. Was that something the band had consciously strived for?
“It’s not contrived; it simply is what it is, at the end of the day. The fact of the matter is I love American bands, we love American bands and each of us has American bands in our top ten favourite albums but it’s absolutely the case that the sound we create harks back to old-school British metal. It’s got the riffs, the technique and the intensity of the newer metal but we always tip our collective hat to the old school, without a shadow of a doubt, because that is where it all started”
Hall continued, “We’ve never been afraid of melody. Ever. Even if it’s aggressive, the melody, we hope, still comes across strongly. I think, too, that has a lot to do with the lyrical content; there are throwaway tracks like Kiss My Arse but there are, too, deeply serious songs like Brave Shall Fall, which while not referencing any specific conflict is clearly about the Iraqs and Afghanistans of the world and that, to an extent, dictates where, melodically, a song might go. There is, I hope people will agree, light and shade on the album and, to an extent, that’s also a result of a communal way of working where we just threw the best of everything into the pot and deliberately didn’t take a lot of time to consider a concept or central theme. It came together really quickly, actually. Took about six weeks to write which gives the material a freshness, an energy, a certain spontaneity even, which we hope people will respond to”
Interestingly, too, the sound of the album has a definite vintage quality to it.
“The recording took about five months and that process was very important to us. We wanted very much to get it right. We definitely didn’t want a Pro Toolsy sounding kind of album, so everything was done through an old analogue desk. A processed, synthetic sound was something we did consciously strive to avoid. After all, if we have an old school sound we thought we may as well go the whole hog and try and reflect that in the sound of the album as well as the songs”
When played back through a quality hi-fi, the impression was very much that of an old analogue album, with classic traits like sharply defined stereo imagery and hard left and right panning.
“Bloody fantastic!” exclaimed Hall. “That’s exactly what we were aiming for! We even considered having the crackle and scratch of a needle dropping onto vinyl at one point” he laughed.
The band’s support for, and involvement with, the Sophie Lancaster Foundation was well known, with Never Take Us Down being something of an anthem for the charity. How did the band’s involvement occur?
The singer’s jaw immediately straightened into a grim line and the eyes went cold and hard as he spoke with a quiet intensity.
“That is a corner which we will fight for ever more, without a shadow of a doubt. I wrote a track called Never Take Us Down, which was on the E.P. we did before we recorded the album. It sprang immediately from seeing the news report, sitting with a thirteen year old daughter and thinking this could happen to anyone of us, at any time. Lets not beat around the bush here but we’re living in aggressive times. Lawless times. Violent times. Very angry times. When we played the song live the response was incredible. Kids jumping up and down but also, literally, others were shedding tears. We thought, wow, we can’t keep this to ourselves we need to throw it out there so I got in touch with Sylvia Lancaster, Sophie’s mum, of course, and said, ‘look we’ve written this song, I hope you’re ok with it. Some of the lyrical content is a bit hard as it reflects very much the anger we felt at what happened to Sophie.’ Sylvia came back, and, well I wouldn’t want to go into the details of the conversation we had but it was a beautiful and moving moment. So we agreed we’d put it out everywhere we could, itunes and so on, and get as much as we could and get it all to the Foundation”.
There followed a moment of not uncomfortable silence as we both reflected on the singer’s account, before moving onto the band’s relationship with their label, Lime Records.
Hall sighed, “It’s difficult for labels at the moment, I have to be brutally honest. For anyone trying to put out an album at the moment, it’s hard fucking work. Don’t get me wrong it is selling but it’s also being downloaded left right and centre. From our point of view, we try and be philosophical about it and at least it means people are interested and listening to it but for the label, of course, as they’re the ones having to stump up the cash to get it out there and into the market, it’s, understandably, a little harder to swallow. It’s a good, little boutique label. There are only a couple of bands on there as they do care about the music and want to have the time to devote to their acts. They’re supporting us so we’re supporting them”
So, assuming the band is still alive at the end of the punishing schedule that is The Edge Of Insanity Tour, what next?
“Norway!” responded Hall, quickly. “A promoter got in touch and took care of the flights, the backline and so on, which was fantastic so we’re going out there. That’s our first step into Europe and in January we’ll be doing a three-week tour. The whole nine yards; Germany, Holland, Switzerland”
Presumably next year will see the band, with their resulting increased profile, appearing on some festival stages?
“Festivals next year, for sure” agreed Hall. “We’re definitely looking at three or four, both here and in Europe. They’re a great showcase for us. We did Bloodstock at an 11.00am slot and it was conceivably the best show we’ve ever done”
Those of you that have seen the band live will no doubt concur that a festival audience will respond extremely positively to their ferocious and committed metal. And for those of you that haven’t, well, what are you waiting for? With still approximately seven dates left on the tour, there is ample opportunity to rectify that appalling state of affairs.
What? You still here? Go on, sod off and buy those tickets. Trust me; you’ll get your money’s worth. And more. Just don’t mention the Pope…