interview: Allfather

Allfather

Bless the Earth with Fire

Static Tension Recordings

Release: 29 April 2016

This is an interview with Allfather, a UK band that plays a doom mixture of extreme components on their album Bless the Earth with Fire. It's not pretty, and it's not nice, it's abrasive, obnoxious and loud. Listen for yourself at the link below.

INTERVIEW

Greetings, gentlemen! You are in the U.K., correct? What’s up with your band there?

Yes, we’re from the UK. All of the band live in parts of Kent, in the southeast. Metal life here is pretty good, we’ve just played a local all-day festival with some great bands. Sometimes it seems like there’s not much of a scene here, but our best local metal bands are pretty fucking good.

Do you have a bio? Who is answering this interview?

This is Andrew (bass). We started out as a four-piece with a couple of practices in late 2013 / early 2014. Since then we’ve had a few line-up changes, with only Tom (vocals) and myself remaining from the original members. We’ve now got Alan and Joe on guitars and Kieron on drums. With those guys on board the band is the best we’ve ever sounded. We have a longer band bio, but we like to stick to the short version, which is ‘Beards. Metal. Fuck you.’ It’s our way of saying we riff hard, play hard and then get the fuck off stage.

With so many darned genres nowadays, what do you call yourselves? And the name, what does it mean?

Allfather’s sound comes from what everyone’s into. We’ve all got different tastes, but hardcore, sludge, doom, thrash and death metal are all touchstones for us. From my point of view, when I started writing songs for the band I was trying to combine the sound of bands like Nails with Iron Monkey and Electric Wizard. From insanely fast, to insanely slow and trying to get that to make sense. Basically we’re a metal band that plays punk rock, or vice versa, which means at a purely hardcore or metal show we’re always in danger of losing half the audience. We don’t mind what people call us, or if they like us, as long as we’ve put on a good show and written some good riffs. We’re always thrilled when people do like what we do though.

In terms of the name, we chose the name Allfather because Odin, the Allfather, was god of wisdom and creativity*. Some seriously ignorant fascists (Sons of Odin, etc.) have co-opted Odin as some sort of Nazi symbol, but he was a dude so committed to wisdom that he literally killed himself to learn more. I’m pretty sure Odin would tell the knuckle-dragging fascists that use his name to fuck right off. As a band we’re antifascist, so if there are any racists out there who like us for any reason then our message would be “fuck off you dick. This ain’t for you”.

We also found out soon after choosing our name that there was a black metal band who were also called Allfather, but we drank a lot of beer and had some serious arguments in the process of choosing our name so we’re sticking to it until someone tells us we can’t use it.

*We also chose Allfather because two of us are fathers, but that’s not very metal is it?

Can you tell us about your recordings? What will people hear when they play your music?

We’ve released and EP (‘No Gods. Masters.’) a single (‘Blood Red Sunset’) and our latest EP/LP ‘Bless the Earth With Fire’. The best place to listen to us is our Bandcamp. Our two EPS were recorded by Jason Frye at Son of Sun Studios and ‘Bless the Earth…’ was mastered by Brad Boatright at Audiosiege because his name always seems to be on the back of the best metal and hardcore releases. Jason is an excellent producer and is also in Harrowed (https://harrowed.bandcamp.com/) who are an awesome blackened crust/d-beat band.

If you’re listening to our music, then firstly thank you, you’ve made a load of grumpy bearded old dudes from the UK very happy. You can expect to hear some big riffs, songs that move between hardcore pounding, sludge nihilism and crawling doom, as well as fierce vocals and a bit of melody here and there. We cover a lot of bases, hopefully well.

How did you form a band? How did you recruit people for your plans of world conquest? How was the beginning of your band in the U.K.?

There’s a bit of a split in the band here. Alan, Joe and Kieron are metal/hardcore lifers and have spent years perfecting their craft. They’re the guys that were in their bedrooms as teenagers learning to play along to Ride the Lightning. Tom’s relatively new to the style of vocals he uses., but he’s mastered the ‘metal roar’ in a really short space of time. I’m an amateur who willingly moved to bass from guitar because the bass had fewer strings to worry about. I write a lot of the songs though so the other guys are stuck with me.

It’s not as easy to find band members who can play and are into the same bands here in Kent, at least compared how I imagine it would be in a big city like London or Birmingham. That said I’m glad the band has progressed as it has because we’ve ended up with a really strong, settled line-up.

The beginning of our band involved playing on a lot of mixed bills and hardcore line-ups, a lot of mistakes and a surprising amount of people enjoying what we did. We’ve been on a steep learning curve, but we’re in a good place right now.

What can metal people do to support your music?

We’re grateful for any support we get. There are a lot of great bands out there so it’s always good when someone pays attention. However the reality of being a smallish metal band is that it’s impossible to break even after paying for practices, recording, making CDs etc., so it’s a huge help when people are willing to pay for our music and merch. It’s a cliché that paying for music ‘puts gas in the van’ but it’s also true.

Do you have plans to tour?

For the time being we’ll carry on playing whatever shows people are willing to offer us. We’re always up for travelling and playing with like-minded bands though. Which is my way of saying “call us”! Especially if you’re running Desertfest.

How do you explain your perseverance in making music? What is “success” for Allfather?

For me, I love music and this is going to be the one and only band that I’m involved in. I’m in my thirties and I have three children so Allfather is it for me. I’m not the most mentally healthy of people so writing and playing our music is a huge release for any negativity I’m experiencing. It’s not an outlet I’ve had before and it’s too valuable to put a price on.

I think as a band we’re not concerned about making money so much as being able to reach people and continuing to record music. We’re not unambitious, but we’ve all got jobs and a few of us have families so the plan is to get as far as we can without going broke or losing sight of our other priorities. I think that’s the same for most bands these days though. One thing we would like to do is get our current or future albums put out on vinyl. There are a limited amount of labels out there though and they have limited scope for putting out new bands, so we’ll see what happens.

What type of lyrics is important to your band and what type of lyrics do you think work well with your music?

One thing we don’t and will never do is that awful mid-nighties scream/sing metalcore thing. You know where there are barked or guttural verses and a sung chorus about how girls are awful? Fuck that. Tom’s vocal style goes really well with what we do and adds to the intensity of our songs.

Lyrically we started out as overtly political, but we’ve started blending that approach with more of a mythical / story-telling style. That keeps the lyrics interesting and stops us from going ‘CAPITALISM IS BAD!’ over every song.

What other Allfather news do you have? Would you like to clarify anything about your band’s name? Does your band promote certain political ideas in your music, lyrics or concerts?

We’d like to clarify that our band’s name is Allfather and that fascists, racists, homophobes, misogynists and transphobes everywhere need to get the fuck over themselves or die.

Also to the other Allfather – we’re sorry, we didn’t know about you and we’ll buy you a pint and change our name to Allfather AD/BC/666 or whatever if you want.

Our new album ‘Bless the Earth With Fire’ is out now and you can download it or buy a CD via our Bandcamp. We also have shirts with Rasputin and swearing on them. You can keep up with our new shows and band news via our Facebook and Twitter.

Andrew

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MORE INFORMATION. Official information.

About Allfather: The light is dying and if you’re going to rage against it, you’ll need all the furious volume you can muster. Dealing out titanic riffs and lacerating vocals since 2014, Allfather combine sludge metal nihilism with hardcore punk aggression and full on metal stomp to forge a harsh yet defiant soundtrack to the darkest of times. From humble beginnings, Allfather have honed their line-up into a hard-hitting five piece, channeling heavyweight song craft through a classic dual guitar assault. Allfather’s members come from a variety of musical backgrounds and draw on a range of influences, but the band’s sound coalesces around riff-driven metal, with the likes of High On Fire, Nails, Black Breath, Iron Monkey and Electric Wizard forming musical touchstones. Lyrically the band’s concerns spring from a burning frustration at the times we live in, with occasional forays into the tortured minds of Dostoevskian madmen and vengeful gods. When they’re not locked in the Allfather practice bunker summoning up riffs, the band’s members work day jobs and raise families, but have still found time to share stages with the likes of Cold World, Venom Prison, Title Fight and The Moth. The mix of punk and metal encapsulated by those bands informed the sound of forthcoming release Bless the Earth With Fire. This new EP, the follow-up to Allfather’s debut release No Gods. No Masters, signifies a significant step up in intensity and ambition, marking the next step in the band’s journey into the gathering darkness.

www.allfather1.bandcamp.com

www.facebook.com/allfathermetaluk/

www.twitter.com/AllfatherUK