INTERVIEW WITH THE PROPHECY

Luci: You’re playing a couple of gigs in Wakefield and Bradford, so would you say these are a warm up for your European tour?

Matt: Pretty much. It’s always nice to do a few gigs before we go to Europe where the gigs are a lot bigger.

Greg: We haven’t played since November, so it’s at least four months since we last played a gig. It’s nice to get back into playing live again.

Matt: Basically since we played in Bradford I’ve had to prop my chin up because I’d forgotten what headbanging was about!

Greg: I just bought a new guitar and it didn’t make sense at that gig. It’s all a learning curve.

Matt: That’s the thing, cause every time we go out on tour we’ve got a load of new gear, or bits and pieces to fit in, or new songs. You go out to Europe and they’re not quite tried and tested, so we need to get used to them first.

Gavin: You gotta get used to your new boots and stuff like that.
Greg: And shoes!
John: Underpants, Socks…
Greg: New trousers!

Gavin: I mean, it’s not just the actual make up of your clothes, it’s the psychology of the clothing that you wear. (Laughter breaks out around the table)

Greg: It’s true!

Gavin: Everyone thinks that their clothing identifies what trend they are a part of, what gang they are in - you know, whether you’re a mosher, an emo, a rocker, or whatever else. But it’s not just about the gang, it’s how you feel yourself when you’re on stage. I mean, the new promotional underwear we’ve got – they really do cut! You know, I’ve got balls like cheese.

Luci: A lot to think about when you’re in a band!

Matt: It’s not as clear cut as it looks! It’s not as clear cut as my balls are, wearing our new promotional merchandise.

Luci: This really isn’t a good advertisement for your merch!

Greg: Yea, but they’re not designed for men. We don’t want men wearing our underwear.

Luci: Strictly for the groupies then?

John: There’s only really Gavin and Matt that get groupies.
Gavin: True. It’s the hair and beards!

Greg: The groupies in Bradford are different to the ones in Holland. I always had a thing for Abba. Maybe I was born 30 years to late. But there was that stalker who stalked that blonde one…I should have been in, but I was just too old so I ended up just having to look at pictures and masturbate that way, rather than being face to face.

Luci: Okay, so you’ve played a mixture of small gigs like this one, and bigger ones, like when you played Bloodstock in 2004. Do you prefer the intimacy of small venues, or do you like playing to big crowds?

Matt: I think the intimacy comes after the shows to be honest.
Greg: Band hugs!
John: I think the smaller shows, my hair gets very intimate with Gav’s headstock.
Matt: Bigger stages are nice cause you can actually move without getting hair tangled.

John: I think it’s nice to play the smaller gigs where there’re fewer people but they’re more enthusiastic. But at the same time, it’s good playing the bigger gigs, it always builds our status.

Matt: You can have a good time playing to 10 people, or to a couple of thousand. I think what we’ve found is that we like a medium stage (laughs). A medium stage is about right.

Greg: Too big, too personal, too small – it’s a bit…

Matt: We’re a very close knit unit, like a jumper, but we don’t wanna be that close all the time.

Greg: So, big stage…sometimes it’s a bit sparse, because I do like a bit of touchy-feely between me and the rest of the members, but a mid-sized stage means we can have a bit of movement, a bit of rock star stance!

Gavin: The two gigs, the best one and the worst one we played on the same tour. There was London Astoria, which was absolutely great, then we played another gig and it was an absolute nightmare. A lot of it is about crowd reaction, so no matter how big the crowd is, if you get a good crowd it’s good fun to play. You got a bit of crowd banter. You go somewhere and something goes wrong, or the power goes out…

John: Sabotage!

Gavin: Yea, whatever. The soundguy’s a cock and you’re not getting the right sound out on the stage and that’s just a nightmare. First thing you wanna do is get off the stage as soon as possible.

Luci: So any dodgy soundguys you wanna warn other bands against?

Gavin: We don’t wanna name and names. We don’t wanna alienate people.
Greg: I think that’s just a no, because we don’t actually know any names.

Matt: Like I said, we’re a close knit band. We have a circle of truth going on and I think you are now a part of it. It’s just other people, you know. We don’t want to name names because their families will find out.

Luci: They might come after you!

Greg: They’re not as big as me!

Gavin: You do get some cracking soundguys.
Greg: Like German man!

(Lots of indecipherable banter)

Yea, the short guy, he iced the cake.

Gavin: He used to direct porn movies then he went into sound. He was a great guy, he didn’t only give us a sound on stage but he gave us somewhere to stay, he fed us…

(sirens sound in the background)

John: Shit! Who called the cops!?
Gavin: They found me!
Greg: We must run!
Matt: Later ladies!

Gavin: But yea, he was a great guy. He gave us a great sound, and he was a brilliant host as well. So to answer the question, there’s a lot of people out there you have to be weary of, but there’s a lot that actually really try to help you along the way. To be honest, there’s more good than bad.

Matt: I think the worst thing is when you talk to a sound guy and he doesn’t understand…
Gavin: It turns out he’s a lighting engineer.

John: I think it’s worst when you go up to the desk and ask the guy to do something and he’s like “Oh yea, we’ll work it out as we go along”. Basically rushing you off…

Matt: They think you don’t know what you’re on about, and it’s like, well actually I know how we’re supposed to sound.

Greg: Basically, it’s those goddamn pen-pushers at City Hall. And like we all know, you can’t fight City Hall. So sometimes you’ve just got to battle on. (Spontaneous laughter erupts for no apparent reason. Hey, everyone’s drunk!)

Luci: Okay, moving on. You met in the Empress, which closed down a few years ago. It’s a sad loss, as venues like this and Rios hold a lot of memories to Yorkshire metal fans.

Matt: They hold a lot of shoes as well!

Greg: From the sticky floor…

Luci: Do you think the closure of these venues has affected the metal scene in Yorkshire?

Gavin: Absolutely. Because it narrowed down the places where you could play, or go watch bands…
Greg: Or find out what bands are playing, and what bands are cool.

Matt: When we went to America there was one guy who said “Oh you’re a metal band from England. Where are you from? London or Bradford?” and that was his question. It wasn’t Manchester, or Liverpool…but London or Bradford.

Luci: Well Bradford was central to the metal scene.

Greg: It was the epicentre. We rumbled…a lot of people.

Matt: It’s like Halifax. There used to be so many rock pubs and metal pubs. They’d change doors from time to time, one would close down, another would open. Now there’s not even four.

Gavin: There used to be a monorail. There was that many metal pubs they had a metal monorail. We just got on Monorail number 666, and it took you to 12 metal pubs.

John: By monorail, we mean that your mates would just carry you to the next pub.
Gavin: The Sportsman Hotel; great beer and traditional family cooking!
John: What? A packet of scratchings?
Gavin: We were brought up different!

Greg: They have a toilet, but they never give you the keys when you ask first time…Yes, it has impacted.

Gavin: The answer was yes!

Luci: What do you think to the scene in Yorkshire right now? Are there any bands that you really love or hate? John: Honey For Christ! I don’t like Yorkshire!

Matt: I’m slowly teaching him how to be Yorkshire. He’s got quite a good accent, it’s coming on now. He’s now drinking beer after drinking a lot of cider.

Gavin: We drink cider anyway. Cider’s a Yorkshire drink.
Greg: Cider, is from Halifax.
John: Not from Somerset?
Greg: Tesco’s! Apples! Get your feet out for the lads. Sainsbury’s 2 ½ apples per bottle.

Gavin: Sainsbury’s do in fact now sell a 3 ½ litre bottle of cider which contains 2 ½ apples…from concentrate. Juicy bits!

Gavin: What’s the real answer? I don’t know to be honest…Conquest. They’re great, and I like swords. I’ve been questioned in the past about swords.

Luci: Swords are great!

Gavin: Swords rule!...Conquest are probably the most active metal band going really.

John: In terms of promotion, and tours, anything like that. They do a lot, not only for themselves, but they do a lot for other bands. We’ve done gigs with them, they’ve done gigs with us.

Matt: They put plasters on your knee if you fall over.

Luci: That’s really nice!

Gavin: They’re quite disaster prone. Wrestling incidents.

Greg: Yea, I mean if you fall over and hurt yourself they’ve got a magic sponge that helps you get better.

Gavin: There used to be the big brotherhood of metal which was the entire point of it. You wear a leather jacket and no matter where you go, if you see someone else in a biker jacket they give you a nod as you walk past. It’s that entire brotherhood which used to be really strong in Bradford and Halifax. Now it’s dying on its arse because everyone lost their shoes at Rios and they can’t go out anymore.

Greg: You can’t go out if you’ve got no shoes.

Gavin: Well you don’t see as many bands. I mean I’m not seeing all the bands I saw years ago cause there’s less places where they can play. There’s Gasworks, and that’s kind of about it. And the Snooty Fox obviously.

John: There’s some gigs at Leeds Rios but not many to be honest. A lot more bands come from further a field to play Leeds Rios than local bands. If local bands play Leeds then they’re gonna play somewhere a lot smaller, like the Fenton. Leeds Rios are trying to challenge Manchester Academy, they’re geared up to bigger bands now.

Gavin (interrupting): Gentlemen’s Pistols, they’re good!
Greg: Gavin, stop getting your side projects in!

Gavin: Gentlemen’s Pistols, I’ll say it again. They’re a good band. They’re from Leeds. A kind of retro rock band. They’re good.

Luci: Before signing with No Face you had a deal with Black Doom records. I can’t find much info on the label at all so…what happened?

Greg: They are gone! They basically have closed down.

Gavin: We sold too many records, and they couldn’t cope with the amount of people saying “Can we buy this? Can we buy that” so they decided to shut shop.

Luci: And from there, how did you sign with No Face?

Gavin: Pen!
Greg: Pen and paper…and semen.

Gavin: I don’t know if you remember, but it was like a Bon Jovi/Skid Row thing. Skid Row signed to Bon Jovi’s record label and Bon Jovi were huge at their time. Biggest thing in their sort of scene. Skid Row got an absolutely terrible deal but everybody respects Skid Row far more than Bon Jovi. I like to think of No Face and The Prophecy as being something similar.

Matt: We were looking for a label after we recorded Revelations and like all bands do we start sending out demos and basically, you pick the best deal. No Face gave us the biggest advance, best deal…

Gavin: Boxes of toys, new guitars.

Luci: New shoes!?

Gavin: New shoes!
Greg: New underpants!
John: Fucking Rios!
Gavin: We just went round the shoe shops and nicked all the left shoes.

John: Get a call from No Face and it’s like “Right you’ve got a gig at Rios. You’ve got four pairs of trainers ready – go!”

Greg: What’s on the rider? Sneakers.

Matt: No Face are quite a local label so it’s quite easy to get in touch with them, we’re not communicating with someone from America or Germany or somewhere…

Greg: And they paid for a decent sized advert, CD promotions and stuff which makes all the difference.

Matt: They’ve put a lot of money into marketing. We’ve had full back page spreads in Terrorizer and allsorts, so it’s definitely helped to raise the profile of the band. They’re very nice people.

Gavin: We’ve got the distribution with Plastichead as well.
Matt: Yea, that’s fantastic. People will be able to buy our records anywhere.

Greg: There’s nothing cooler than walking into a record shop somewhere miles away and thinking “shall we actually buy our own record?”

Gavin: Just because we can!
John: Shall we frame the receipt?
Gavin: No but we can take our friends in and say “Ooh, what’s this?”

Matt: It’s great when you’re entertaining young ladies, when you go on shopping trips during the day. “Oh, let’s go see if there’s any CD’s around”.

Greg: Some shops put it under T, for The, but I’d put it under P to be honest.
Matt: Yes. It’s awkward. I think in Metal Zone in Belgium we’re under T.
Greg: See I prefer to be under P.
Gavin: Can we have a vote? Who’s for T and who’s for P?
Matt: I’m personally for…well, I don’t know.

(Lots of P’s and T’s are muttered out)

Matt: You need a pee?
Greg: I gotta get outta here! I gotta take a pee!
Gavin: So that’s three for a P. Matt?
Matt: I gotta be different. T.
Greg: It’s 3-1 to the P.

LH: You’re working on a new album I believe. How’s that coming on?

Gavin: Fantastic!

Greg: It’s coming along really, really well. A lot of the material is pretty much complete. We’ve got some working ideas, they’re still developing but they’re taking a lot more form now. We did our first demo, then we did Ashes, which was a step up, then we did Revelations which was a big step up. Now in terms of songwriting and where we wanna be in terms of recording quality and everything, it’s always a step up, so we’re continually going to better ourselves.

Gavin: It’s going to be ready in the inconceivable future.

Matt: We always get people asking when is it going to be ready and we’re always saying soon. Revelations was one of those that dragged on for ages and we just couldn’t get it done. This time we booked a fair amount of time at Priory studios in Sutton Coldfield. It’s Greg Chandlers studio from Esoteric. We’ve been there to do a demo and it sounded fucking ace. So basically we’ve got a good month in August to get it finished, followed by hopefully a European tour and ideally we’ll have it released by the end of the year.

Gavin: In the past we’ve played all the songs from Revelations for months and months and months before we actually recorded it. Right now were playing some of the songs live, but there’s probably 3 or 4 songs out of the 8 or 9 that no-one’s ever heard so for the first time we’re actually gonna bring a product out and there’s gonna be a few surprises on there, so I’m excited about how people are going to react.

LH: When it comes to writing lyrics what inspires you?

Gavin: You have to ask Matt because he writes all the lyrics himself. Greg writes the guitars, he brings it to us and we sort of…

John: Ruin it.

Gavin: Figure out the drum and bass and spoil it for Greg, so he can’t do solos. Matt then hears the song and adds the lyrics from there.

Matt: I don’t know really. I like to listen to the song and see what the song says to me. Greg’s really great at writing emotional music.

Gavin: You brought us together!

Matt: So Greg inspires me to write the lyrics basically. Obviously the lyrics are gonna contain a lot of the general stuff around this area. I think there’s a reason why there’s a lot of doom and gloom coming from Yorkshire…

Gavin: Yea, the price of a pint. £2.60 for a pint!

Matt: Cause it’s fucking miserable. Having to walk around Yorkshire…

Luci: Yorkshire is miserable!

Matt: Yes it is.
Gavin: Discuss for 20 points!

Matt: So in some ways the music is a product of our surroundings and our location. I can’t really pinpoint where inspiration comes from because each song’s different. But really, it’s just translating the music into words. Something pops out. I mean, we’re all quite retiring, introverted chaps.

Greg: We don’t like to talk to people. I prefer to make gestures.

Matt: When we’re sat together having a professional discussion in our musical forum which is held in our reclusive practise room, John is so involved with the music that he prefers not to speak, or drum, but he actually uses sign language, because he feels he can be more expressive with his hands (John flips Greg off). He’s like a conductor in a way. He doesn’t like to use a stick or a baton, as I believe the call it, he just likes to sign. I think that brings out a lot of his personality.

And as the interview draws to a close I am given a lesson in sign language, although this proved a little too difficult to translate into words. Who knows; perhaps they will some day release an instructional DVD on sign language? With that, I grabbed my pint and headed indoors and the band disappeared to get ready for their performance.

Visit The Prophecy online at http://www.myspace.com/theprophecyeng