Ah, Conan. Lords of heaviness and thunder. With Blood Eagle still pounding in our ears, and gigs on the way, we managed to grab a little email time with guitarist/vocalist Jon Davis and took stock of what the view looks like for them from Crom’s eyrie.
AN: Hello, Jon, thanks for offering your time for the interview as the rest of the world recovers from the earthquake that dropping Blood Eagle on us created. Really appreciate it.
The first and most urgent question that has to be asked is…. That video for Foehammer? (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-of5C1OHX_8 if you haven’t seen it yet)
Wonderful video and shows what can be achieved even with limited budgets but what the hell had you all and whoever was involved eaten the night before??! Even for a dyed in the wool H. P. Lovecraft and R. E. Howard fan it may have put me off calamari for life…
Jon: The video was made by some guys who are friends with Phil Coumbe. Basically we gave them the track and some lyrics and I met them to discuss influences and some movies that we all liked. They took all those influences and ran with it. I was a bit surprised by how the video turned out to be honest, I didn’t realise how good it was going to be. I think it does a really good job of representing the song, it works great with the lyrics, we’re really happy with it.
AN: Seriously though, Blood Eagle is a spot on follow up to Monnos. As you seem to be real road dogs, how did you carve out some time for writing the songs? Do you go away and think separately, or just bring ideas and jam until the shape falls out?
Jon: We started writing really early on actually. We had a few songs ready to demo by December 2012 and even though we had a bit of touring to do, we did give ourselves quite a lot of time to get the tracks ready through 2012 and 2013 and we basically just dipped in and out of the tracks over the year when we had time. We didn’t tour much beyond May 2013 and this gave us a lot more free time to really concentrate on writing. Most of the time I would bring an idea or a short section of a song to practice and we would just toss it about between us to get the track from it.
AN: I thought there was a slight, but distinct shift in aspects of the Conan sound this time around: A little more of a sharper edged focus in the lower end sound which, to me whilst perfectly keeping to Conan’s sound has made those riffs even harder and heavier. It’s also noticeable that there’s a little turn of speed by Conan standards in Foehammer and Gravity Chasm. Is this simply a product of the production, was it something that the band decided on as they wrote or simply the way the chemistry worked out this time around?
Jon: The slight increase in low end is probably to do with a different studio. We recorded in our own studio (http://www.skyhammerstudio.com ) and Chris Fielding (our regular producer) is the resident engineer there – he has some great equipment and we gave ourselves more time (10 days) than we did with Monnos (5 days). As a result we were able to focus on the small details a little more and I think this has manifested itself in a slightly more rounded, heavier, sound.
AN: I always reckoned it took serious balls to use the name Conan and you’ve carried it off with ease, of course. I get that it’s about the perfect name for a band playing your style of music, but lyrics mostly fit in with it too. Is this just a neat fit, or are the kind of sword & sorcery/psychedelic Sci-fi a real interest of yours?
Jon: Yeah, that stuff is a real interest. I love playing Skyrim, I love movies such as Krull or Clash of The Titans and Conquest – crusty old sword and sorcery films. These films were what I was most into growing up and even now I love when a decent new movie comes out that follows these sorts of themes – there aren’t enough of them!
AN: I’ve seen you live a couple or so times and often wondered how much of the show is strictly set and how much the pull of those huge great riffs tugs at you to just go off on a jam.
Jon. It’s all set man, we would probably get lost if we just started jamming stuff randomly :). We’ll leave that to Earthless who are king of that domain.
AN: Are you all looking forward to playing Temples in May? Apart from the headliners who are we likely to find Conan watching if you get the time?
Jon: Yeah we can’t wait actually, it’s a very good line up and we are excited about being there. As for who we’ll be watching, I haven’t given it a great deal of thought to be honest with you bud. I’ll probably get there and have a beer and then see a few bands throughout the day. I’m hoping we can meet up with some of the regular gang who we see at shows, share a beer and have a chat to them.
AN: In my review I had a miserable mini-rant about my opinion on some of the sludge end of the musical pool at the moment but to balance that and from a different and much more positive angle Conan get out so much you must get to play with a lot of excellent new bands. Do you get time to seriously check them out? With the state of the music industry very much being in flux with some people questioning the very need for record companies, and merchandise being ever more important for keeping the tour bus in petrol, do you ever talk about this with newer bands? How do you see the band/label dynamic changing, of course bearing in mind your own Black Bow Records now up and running with the debut from the superb Bast out.
Jon: I think the current landscape is pretty good for new bands. There are less big labels and more small / medium sized ones – Blackbow being a very small new starter. My aim, when setting up black bow, was to give some bands a platform for their first release, if I grown into a label capable of supporting bands with higher aspirations then that is great news too – I am just going to let it grow organically and see what happens. I give the bands a pretty good share of pressings and they can seek them at shows. I remember when Conan recorded Horseback Battle Hammer and Throne Records took us on for a vinyl release. It was a huge moment for us, a real turning point, and hopefully I can help other bands get their foot on the ladder in the same way. I think this is definitely true for Bast who have had some excellent reviews for their first album Spectres. We are really lucky in that we can play shows with bands from all levels in the music scene. it’s really cool when you play a show with a band you were previously unaware of, and then you discover a new cool band – that’s a music fan’s dream and we love nothing more than unearthing great bands in this way.
AN: Napalm seemed initially an odd home for Conan. How did the deal come about? What made you go with them as opposed to the other offers I’m sure you had? Is there something particular you hope they can do for the band (and if so does this mean you have a plan)?
Jon: You’re right I guess, they weren’t the obvious choice at all but for us it was actually a pretty easy decision to make. You’re right in saying that we had other offers. One of these offers was from a label that most people would have expected us to sign to without question. However, we really liked the whole vibe we got from Napalm. They are a label that, if you look at the business stuff for a minute, have a lot of advantages – they are based in mainland Europe where we have a really strong presence, they have really good worldwide distribution (so our music will get out there far and wide) and they have a really nice friendly team in the office. Since we took the decision to join up with them they have been instrumental in helping us with several things. One of the things they helped us with is linking us up with Sound of Liberation as our booking agent. SOL have been great with us so far, helping us to get really good tours and festival slots. This is pretty weird for us because we’ve never had help with this sort of thing before, it was me (quite happily might I add) arranging our tour and shows with promoters. The first show they helped us get onto was Hellfest…… Says it all really….. We would never have been given that opportunity if it was me emailing Hellfest directly begging for a show. We have no particular plan by choosing Napalm, we simply thought that our business relationship with them would be clear, direct and simply and this would allow us to not worry about the ins and outs of recording / releasing music – we can just concentrate on writing and performing, it’s perfect match for us.
AN: As I’m not a musician, one thing I’ve always wondered is what is it like and what do you think when an album you’ve spent so much time and effort on is released and gets universally good reviews (at least from what I’ve seen)? Apart from obviously being chuffed, do you feel the need to examine why it’s been so we’ll received or do you just hope that if you play what you want it will continue to hit the right chord?
Jon: I think that it is a much better idea for a band like us to simply not worry about it. We’ve never really pushed ourselves or courted good press. We’ve never really been into the whole PR game that you see bigger bands playing at. Yet, with this release we have had a more intense spotlight shone on us by the media so we have had a lot more attention and reviews, interviews and features. We really enjoy reading what people think about the album and really enjoy the positive reviews we have had so far but I think the main reason why we enjoy it so far is because we worked so hard with the recording and touring so far. We didn’t start out as an already well connected band, this whole doom / sludge / whatever the fuck it is ‘scene’ was TOTALLY alien to me when we started. We had no big master plan, we weren’t cynically created to sound like an already popular band, we didn’t try and ride on anyone’s coat tail, we simply did what we did but have got better at it as we went along, we have ‘grown’ into what we are, we weren’t created this way – because of this we just let the positive reviews wash over us and we enjoy them, but we don’t worry about it really – we will just carry on as normal, because that is what we have been doing so far.
AN: In a world where attention spans are ever shorter and our time to indulge ourselves is ever tighter too, how do you explain the rise in popularity of the long, tonal driven riff machine? Do you think it it’s in some way a reaction to the light speed blur of life?
Jon: I think it is because most of the bands who produce this type of music are doing it honestly and diligently. Conan, and our peers, come from the underground music scene. We all started with nothing and whatever accolades we get, we earn the right way. Our network starts out as some hard working online music blogs, and the other bands that we play shows with, and it grows from there. The level of hard work put in by the bands will dictate how much they get out of their time together and that is the life and times of a hard working band from the underground heavy music scene. I think there is something cupelling about that and when people make something good out of nothing at all, people will sit up and take notice.
AN: Thanks very much for putting aside some time for this, Jon, we really appreciate it at Ave Noctum. All the best for the rest of the year. See you at Temples.
Jon: Cheers Gizmo, thanks for the questions.
There you are. Calm, down to earth heads on huge riff bearing shoulders. My thanks again to Jon for his time and thought (and for stepping away from Skyrim – I know myself how hard that is!) Get out and let them crack your skull for you when they come through. You will never regret it.
Questions by Gizmo
https://www.facebook.com/conandoom
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