British metallers http://www.metalmusicarchives.com/dark-forest.aspx" rel="nofollow - Dark Forest took the world totally by surprise when they released their sophomore full-length album http://www.metalmusicarchives.com/dark-forest--dawn-of-infinity.aspx" rel="nofollow - Dawn of Infinity in early October. We had a chat with guitarist and Christian Horton and, in the following interview, he gives us insights into the Dark Forest songwriting process and reveals some of his own sources of inspiration. He also discusses the use of twin guitars and the role of melody in metal music and comments on the relation between the sci-fi themed cover artwork and the lyrics of the album-
First of all, congratulations on Dawn
of Infinity - a truly incredible
heavy metal album - which came out in the beginning of October. How
has the album been received so far?
Thanks a lot, yeah the
album has been doing very well so far. Nearly every review we've seen
has been really positive and the feedback we've had has also been
great!
How would you describe the
music on the album?
I'd say it's very sincere,
honest and heartfelt for sure. We're not trying to simply copy a
certain genre or style, we just play whatever naturally comes out of
us and let it go in whichever direction it takes, that's all we've
ever done. It's a very melodic form of heavy metal and I like to
think the songs have a fair bit of power to them. As well as
traditional heavy metal influences, there's also the occasional
essence of folk or sometimes classical on the album, but always done
in a subtle way. I would also say that the music can be quite
dramatic at times especially with Will's operatic singing style.
One of the things
that I really like about Dawn of
Infinity is the emphasis on melody. How
important is melody in heavy metal music?
Well it depends of what
kind of heavy metal you're playing. Even back in the http://www.metalmusicarchives.com/nwobhm%28subgenre%29.aspx" rel="nofollow - NWOBHM days it
wasn't all melody, you got bands who prefer to concentrate more on
the heaviness, but for us it is very important, yeah. Most of the
bands we're into, their music is based around melodies and it's the
same with us. Everything we write is extremely melodic, that's just
the way we like. I do appreciate some metal bands which aren't too
melodic but I must say the vast majority I'm into are.
One major element in
the melodic side to Dawn of Infinity
is the use of guitar melodies - especially twin guitar leads.
Personally, I am a big fan of twin guitar leads, and I love the way
that you guys use twin guitars on the album. Why did you choose to
incorporate twin leads into your music to the extent that you do on
the album?
It wasn't a conscious
choice really, again that's just naturally the kind of stuff we
write. I guess a lot of it comes from the bands we've been listening
to since we were young, like http://www.metalmusicarchives.com/iron-maiden.aspx" rel="nofollow - Iron Maiden , http://www.metalmusicarchives.com/judas-priest.aspx" rel="nofollow - Judas Priest , http://www.metalmusicarchives.com/thin-lizzy.aspx" rel="nofollow - Thin Lizzy
etc. I know some bands out there might only choose to put a twin
guitar in there to try and recreate an old school sound or something
but it's not like that for us. Nearly all our songs have twin guitars
or sometimes even three or four leads going on at once. It's just
about building the music up. Sometimes I find that one guitar lead
can do the job, but more often than not I feel that it could do with
more going on, so why keep it basic when it can be built up to be
more melodic and powerful?
Another important element
in the melodicism of the album is, of course, the singing. Will
Lowry-Scott is a really amazing vocalist and he has a very unique
voice. How would you describe his singing, and what is his
contribution to the Dark Forest sound?
Yeah we were lucky to find
Will, he is a great singer. He definitely has a very operatic style
and takes a lot of influence from Bruce Dickinson. Having said that I
think he still has his own unique tone and doesn't really sound like
a rip off. He has been compared to a lot of different vocalists in
reviews from http://www.metalmusicarchives.com/bayley-blaze.aspx" rel="nofollow - Blaze Bayley to Rob Halford but they all say that at the
same time he keeps his own identity. I think he has made a huge
contribution to the band, without him we would not be able to write
the songs that we're doing now. I used to handle the vocals myself as
well as guitar and we were very limited with what we could do but now
those restrictions have gone and we're much more free with our song
writing.
How do you come up with
all those catchy and big melodies?
Haha, I couldn't say, it's
just whatever we like the sound of. For example with 'Hourglass' I
had written the music and we were playing it in the rehearsal room to
Will for the first time, then he just started singing the chorus
melody off the top of his head and we thought 'that will do let's
keep that!' I mean sometimes we might spend a bit of time developing
a chorus if we don't think it's strong enough because we want every
song to be as good as possible, but when certain tunes come out of
nowhere I can't really say how, they just happen.
It seems that a major
source of inspiration lies in the type of heavy metal music which was
popular in the 80s in Europe and in the UK. Which bands serve as the
main inspirations for Dark Forest?
Definitely Iron Maiden,
http://www.metalmusicarchives.com/deep-purple.aspx" rel="nofollow - Deep Purple and http://www.metalmusicarchives.com/black-sabbath.aspx" rel="nofollow - Black Sabbath . There's loads of classic bands though
which we're into, http://www.metalmusicarchives.com/saxon.aspx" rel="nofollow - Saxon , http://www.metalmusicarchives.com/rainbow.aspx" rel="nofollow - Rainbow , http://www.metalmusicarchives.com/angel-witch.aspx" rel="nofollow - Angel Witch , Judas Priest,
http://www.metalmusicarchives.com/witchfinder-general.aspx" rel="nofollow - Witchfinder General , http://www.metalmusicarchives.com/pagan-altar.aspx" rel="nofollow - Pagan Altar etc, but we also enjoy more recent
bands, from the 90s onwards. Stuff like http://www.metalmusicarchives.com/blind-guardian.aspx" rel="nofollow - Blind Guardian , http://www.metalmusicarchives.com/skyclad.aspx" rel="nofollow - Skyclad ,
http://www.metalmusicarchives.com/gamma-ray.aspx" rel="nofollow - Gamma Ray , early http://www.metalmusicarchives.com/elvenking.aspx" rel="nofollow - Elvenking and even stuff like the early http://www.metalmusicarchives.com/children-of-bodom.aspx" rel="nofollow - Children of
Bodom albums have had an influence on us to a certain extent.
Some reviewers also
point out that there are elements from http://www.metalmusicarchives.com/power-metal%28subgenre%29.aspx" rel="nofollow - power metal and http://www.metalmusicarchives.com/folk-metal%28subgenre%29.aspx" rel="nofollow - folk metal in
some of the tracks on the album. Do you agree, and, if so, is the
inclusion of power metal and folk metal elements on Dawn
of Infinity a conscious choice?
Yeah, there are definitely
those influences on there. For some reason a lot of people seem to
have been ignoring this fact and insist that we are completely retro
NWOBHM and nothing else. It isn't true, we do have a big influence
from that era, yeah, but there are also other influences going on like
I mentioned in the last question. Again, it's not really a conscious
thing to include anything, it's just the bands you listen to will
often come out subconsciously in your music. I mean I've been
listening to power metal bands for years now, probably since the late
90s so there's obviously going to be some influences going on there.
The cover artwork seems to
suggest that sci-fi is a major lyrical theme on the album, and there
also seems to be a number of references to fantasy and myths. Can you
tell us about the lyrical contents of the songs of the album?
Yeah there are a number of
songs that have sci fi themed lyrics. There are things like time
travel and alien abduction which to be honest I wouldn't really class
as fiction myself but that's another subject! Yeah, we've always had
songs based around legends and folklore as well, there's not as many
on this album compared to our debut, which consisted almost entirely
of those themes but you have songs like 'Under the Greenwood Tree'
which is about the great English folk hero Robin Hood and also 'The
Tor' which deals with the folklore surrounding Glastonbury Tor. Some
of the other topics on the album include historical battles, peoples
past memories and the idea of taking back control of your own life.
The reason why we gave the cover artwork a sci fi feel was basically
because of the number of songs which share a sci fi theme.
Your debut album
http://www.metalmusicarchives.com/dark-forest--dark-forest.aspx" rel="nofollow -
was released in 2009, and before that you released a couple of EPs.
Does Dawn of Infinity differ
from your debut and EPs, and, if yes, how?
I think Dawn of Infinity
differs from our other releases mainly because it shows the progress
we've made with our song writing and musical ability. We haven't
changed our style in our minds, it's just a natural progression. The
songs on this album are more complex and sophisticated compared to
the debut and I think they have more depth to them. At the same time
the songs on Dawn of Infinity are quite old themselves now and we
already have a wealth of new material already written for future
albums which I think are more developed yet again. You have to
remember that the debut album was pretty much a re-recording of the
songs from our first self produced EPs which were written when we
were quite young, so this new album definitely brings you more up to
date with the bands song writing.
For those of our users who
are not familiar with the band, who are the members of Dark Forest
and what is the history of the band?
I founded the band back in
2002 with our first bassist Dave Batham. I was handling guitar and
vocals and the only other member we still have from back in those
days is Jim the other guitarist. We recorded a http://www.metalmusicarchives.com/dark-forest--succubus%28demo%29.aspx" rel="nofollow - demo in 2004 and
shortly after that we found our current drummer Adam. We were a four
piece for a number of years and built our way up inside the heavy
metal scene recording two EPs and playing first local gigs then
bigger ones around the country, supporting bands like http://www.metalmusicarchives.com/cloven-hoof.aspx" rel="nofollow - Cloven Hoof . By
the time we came to release our debut album we had lost Batham and
recruited Bill Clough on bass. That line up didn't last very long and
we soon found ourselves seeking another bassist and proper vocalist.
We then got bassist Paul Thompson on board, discovered vocalist Will
and then recorded another EP called http://www.metalmusicarchives.com/dark-forest--defender%28ep%29.aspx" rel="nofollow - Defender with this line up in
2009. That brings us up to where we are now, same line up and just
released our second studio album.
Can you describe the
general writing process of Dark Forest?
So far I've written most
of our material and the idea for a song usually begins with an
atmosphere or theme in mind. Once you have that it's a case of coming
up with riffs and melodies that sum up to me that original atmosphere
I was trying to capture. Once the main bulk of a song is laid out I
usually show it to the rest of the band and between us we build it
up, adding bits here and there or scrapping parts which don't live up
to the rest of the song. If I had a certain lyrical theme already in
mind I also come up with the lyrics and present them to Will but
other times I might give the whole song to Will to write lyrics for.
Now that Dawn
of Infinity has been released, what are
your future plans?
Well first of all we have
the vinyl edition due out hopefully sometime before Christmas along
with some merchandise like t shirts and patches. We're currently
booking gigs into next year and we're also constantly writing new
material. We will be releasing a further two albums with our current
record label Cruz Del Sur for certain in the coming years and after
that, whether we're with the same label or not we aim to keep gigging
and releasing our music!
Are you going to tour in
support of the album?
We've got two festival
booked up so far next year. Metal Assault festival in Germany in
January and Up the Hammers festival in Greece in March. On top of
those we're going to be booking as many gigs as possible to support
the album, yeah. There has been talks of a tour with other bands from
our label, nothing is confirmed yet but it would certainly be a great
idea.
Which formats is Dawn of
Infinity available in and where can it be purchased?
At the moment you can buy
the CD format from a number of places. From us directly if you want
to support the band email us at mailto:[email protected]" rel="nofollow - [email protected] or from the
record label Cruz Del Sur Music. Otherwise I believe it's being
stocked by websites like http://www.amazon.com/Dawn-Infinity-Dark-Forest/dp/B005IGZVLE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1320709302&sr=8-1" rel="nofollow - Amazon , http://www.play.com/Music/CD/4-/23884279/Dawn-Of-Infinity/Product.html" rel="nofollow - Play.com and a bunch of underground
metal stores. Then, like I sa,y the vinyl edition should be out this
year sometime before Christmas.
Where can those who are
interested in learning more about Dark Forest go for more
information.
Here are the links to go
to:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Dark-Forest-UK/155861227763625" rel="nofollow - www.facebook.com/pages/Dark-Forest-UK/155861227763625
http://www.myspace.com/darkforestrealm" rel="nofollow - www.myspace.com/darkforestrealm
http://www.cruzdelsurmusic.com" rel="nofollow - www.cruzdelsurmusic.com
Thank you very much for
doing this interview, and, once again, congratulations on a really
great album.
Thanks very much I
appreciate the opportunity! Cheers to everyone out there who has
supported us so far and continue to do so!
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