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Ground of Ruin
Ground Of Ruin are a crushing death/black metal band and after hearing the bands music I knew I had to interview them. I sent band member Dom Brennan some questions and here i his answers and check this band out, they kill.
This interview was done by Dom Brennan.
MC: Let's get the typical question out of the way, how did the band form and
what are the current members?
DB: The band officially stared
in 2003 when it was decided to change the name to Ground Of Ruin, but some of
the members had been playing together for a while under different guises. Rob
(guitar) started the band and had Fran (guitar) and Derek (bass) playing with
him since the start. Everyone was quite young when they started playing together
so their has obviously been big changes in the bands sound over the years. Dave
(vocals) was next to join the band after the other guys put up an advert looking
for a vocalist. Shortly after it was decided to change the name to 'Ground Of
Ruin' and approach the songwriting and presentation of the band in a more focused
manor. I (Dom: guitar) was the last one to join the band, they had been looking
for a second guitarist for quite a while but finding it hard to solidify the
line up. I knew most of the members as we grew up in the same area. I seen them
playing a gig in Dublin and we got talking again. Shortly after they asked me
to try out for the band. We all were confident soon after that this was a solid
line up for the band and since then have came up with a sound for the band that
we are completely satisfied with. Unfortunately we are now back down to four
members again as our vocalist left recently. The writing is continuing as normal
and we have a temporary vocalist helping us out, but we have not found the right
person to join the band full time.
MC: How would you describe your music to someone who has never heard it?
DB: There's quite a mixing of styles in there due to varying tastes within the
band. I would say essentially it's a mixing of Black and Death metal with a
dark melodic atmosphere. A lot of people have called us "Blackened Death/Trash"
which is OK by us, sums it up pretty well.
MC: How did you come up with your band name and the title of the new CD?
DB: The name Ground Of Ruin came from a lyric which was in an early song written
by the band. We don't play the song anymore but the name certainly suits the
band and we feel it sets the correct tone. We chose the name 'Cloaked In Doctrine'
for the CD after we had all of the material written. We felt it was a very powerful
name which summed up the overall tone of the music. It also suited the artwork
and presentation we wish to put forward for the CD.
MC: The songs on the new CD, did they come together pretty easy or were a couple
songs here and there a bit harder to write and come together?
DB: It was definitely a difficult
process getting the songs together. We we're not pleased with our previous EP
and felt that major changes needed to be made to our sound. We felt that this
latest release had to be the blueprint for the future of Ground Of Ruin, a release
that we would be truly proud to put our name to. So we spent a lot of time working
on our overall sound before we got the songs together for this EP. We were writing
material and then scraping it for the first while, this was frustrating but
essential as we knew there was no room for mistakes. The first song we wrote
for the EP was 'Burning the Olive Branch' and this was the song which led the
way for what we wanted the EP to sound like. I think it is probably the weakest
song on it now but it was still a very important song to us. Once that was written
the material seemed to flow a lot better, we had more direction. The last song
'Beneath Contempt' was very enjoyable to write, the ideas were flowing non stop
and for once we were not feeling the need to scrap our ideas.
MC: How do you plan on promoting this new CD?
DB: We are working with Adrian Butler from 'Lugga Music Productions' on the
promotional side of things, and he is doing a great job for us He is the ex-
bass player for Irish band 'Mourning Beloveth' so we knew we were in safe hands.
Dave (vocalist) left the band shortly after the CD was released which meant
we have not been able to do much gigging since. We now have a temporary singer
on board so hopefully we can get some more gigs now and get it out there some
more.
MC: How does a song come together? Does someone bring up a riff or melody and
you go from there?
DB: Yeah that's essentially how it starts. It will usually start with a guitar
riff and we take things from there. We start jamming out the riff and adding
parts to it as it progresses. This is a very satisfying part of writing music
when everyone is learning a part and coming up with new parts to add to it.
Usually once we get started with a riff then a burst of creativity will usually
follow, a new riff tends to spark a lot of new ideas. The hardest part for us
is knowing when to stop, you have to be careful to not finish prematurely or
saturate the song with too many riffs.
MC: Have you got to play live much and how would you rate yourselves as a live
band?
DB: The live show has always been a major priority for the band. We established
ourselves as a quality live band first and got some great gigging opportunities
because of it. We gigged very often while we were developing our sound and I
think this stood to us. Of course nowadays, we have to be a bit more selective
as it doesn't help to play too many gigs around Ireland. It's different when
you're first trying to get your name out there. We have to concentrate more
on getting shows overseas and spreading the word. We played a couple of festivals
in Germany last year so we're hoping to secure some more shows around Europe.
MC: I know you must have a website and/or My Space pages. Please plug them
here and what will people see when they long onto your sites?
DB: Our MySpace page is: www.myspace.com/groundofruin
We will hopefully get an official website up soon. It has been down for
quite a while. You can listen to our music and find out any updates on our MySpace
page so it does the job perfectly for now.
MC: Does the band have any short or long term goals?
DB: On the short term, the main
priority is to find a new singer and work towards finishing our first full length
album. We have a lot of new material wrote but the vocalist situation is holding
us up a little. Also we will be looking for more gigs to promote the latest
CD and hopefully secure a good label to help us with the release of our first
album. On the long term we are hoping to get our music to as many countries
as possible by letting our music and live performance do the talking. We hope
to continue to write uncompromising extreme metal which always keeps the true
spirit of metal at heart!
MC: Tell me a little bit about each band member.
DB: There's not much to say really. We all have our separate lives but come
together with collective goal when it comes to Ground Of Ruin. Other than that
we all have pretty normal jobs, etc. I won't bore anyone with the details.
MC: About how much time each week is spent on doing band related stuff?
DB: We practice on a Wednesday evening and Sunday morning. The band in generally
takes up a lot of our time but it's worth it. It is difficult for everyone to
be able to commit so much time and effort into something that doesn't make any
money. Playing underground metal certainly doesn't pay the bills!
MC: Are lyrics important to the band and how do the lyrics for a song come
together?
DB: Yes the lyrics are very important to us. Every factor which goes into creating
a record is very important to the overall tone of it. For us the lyrics say
a lot about the band. One person usually writes the lyrics but they would not
be allow pass through if they did not suit or if there was any major objection
by another member.
MC: If you could do one cover tune, what would it be and why?
DB: That's a tough one, I can only speak for myself here really. We have thought
about doing a cover before but we couldn't agree in the end. I would quite like
to cover a 'Dissection' track such as 'The Somberlain' or 'Where Dead Angels
Lie'. We talked about doing this before as well as the possibility of maybe
covering the likes of 'At the Gates' or 'Dismember' but it never got done due
to mixed opinions.
MC: Somebody should buy your CD because?
DB: Because if you like metal with atmosphere and an underlying sense of darkness
then we may be of interest to you. It's just good honest metal that's not part
of any passing trend, we will continue to strive for excellence and continue
to step up a gear with each release.
MC: Do you plan on putting up some videos of the band on say a site like You
Tube in the future?
DB: There's a couple of videos up there, not very good ones though. We'll get
some more up in the future if we can get our hands on them!
MC: What are some of your favorite bands and concerts that you have seen?
DB: We played a gig in Germany alongside Dismember and Naglfar. Two bands we
are all very fond of, so that one sticks out in my mind. Seeing the reunions
of 'At the Gates' and 'Carcass' last year was really great too. Also a bit closer
to home, Mourning Beloveth, Primordial and Mass Extinction have had some extremely
memorable shows around Ireland, always great to see quality bands from your
home country.
MC: Any last words Horns up for the interview.
DB: Thanks for the interview and good like with your zine.