Ramesses Interview

Fresh off the tour bus from their successful European tour, Adam Richardson of UK Doom monsters Ramesses fronts up to discuss touring, recording and what lies ahead down the doom trodden path.


Hi guys how are things with you? The band has just finished a short UK & European tour. How did it go?
Yeah cool considering what we have just been through! It's been a lunacy trip to hell and back. It's been amazing. Totally overwhelming success at the end of it, but we've had more than our fair share of doom. The tour went really well, we are quite overwhelmed by the crowds and response really. It's been amazing, especially when we went into Holland and Belgium. The fans are so enthusiastic, as well as such cool people. As I said overwhelming, people were digging into the merch like it was going out style. We're very grateful to have gone out there.
Was this the first European adventure?
This was the first time Ramesses have played outside the UK. We did a two week tour at the end of last year, but that was all UK.
How was it out on the road with Unearthly Trance?
Absolutely amazing, earth shattering. I think the whole package created an unholy atmosphere which is really reminiscent of a really good Black Metal gig. Of course with only hints of Black Metal in each band, it had a really grim nasty atmosphere, in a good way, at every gig. This fucking mist just came down and stayed until Unearthly Trance left. We couldn't have gotten on better, both bands. We had a driver we've used before on the other tour and Unearthy Trance had brought a merch guy with them. We just got on so well.
I’d like to go back a way, if I may? After Mark & Tim left Electric Wizard, what events lead to the formation of Ramesses?
As you said, Mark and Tim left the Wizard and just wanted to do another band, which Mark had already titled Ramesses. Mark and Tim had been jamming together, which is what they do all the time anyway because they live near one another. They came up to London one weekend and they were staying here, they started talking about this band. To which I said "sounds cool", they then asked if I fancied it and I was yeah! Then 3 days later we have our first rehearsal. From there on we rehearsed every week.
What is next now for the band?
We're going to have a break now as our new EP is coming out. I've just seen it now, and we're very excited. Unfortunately we were playing stuff on the tour but no one could buy it. Slight problem that! So that is out on Invada and should be in the shops in 3 or 4 weeks. We recorded a full length album and an EP together last October with Billy Anderson in State Of Art studios. Which is owned by Invada, which is Geoff Barrow from Portishead's label, it is also his studio and where both Portishead albums were recorded. When we did the recording we were absolutely buzzing, as was Billy. There was a great photo in there of him (Geoff) holding the Mercury and NME awards. As a result we have an whole full length album unmixed ready to release. These tracks on the EP were recorded at the same time, in fact some of EP tracks were to be on the album but we swapped them at the last minute.
How has the bands latest release “We will lead you to Glorious Times” been received?
We couldn't have wished for any more as far as the success of that goes. It's seemingly selling really well, which I suppose is the ultimate proof. But also we have had some really good reviews for it. I haven't read a bad review of it to be honest and I think there is something in the region of 30 or 40 reviews of it. Including the major metal magazines both here and America. We are very happy with how it has been received. It has been the same when we played those tracks live, people knew those tracks, which was cool.
How did Billy Anderson become involved with the project? And is it true he appears on the record?
Our Manager, Cris, who handles everything we do; she is the silent partner of Ramesses really. She pulls all the strings really and sort out everything as none of us have the time to do anything on that side of things. I'd would like to do myself but I just can't. I have to work and play music basically. But she got in touch with him or he got in touch with us through the website and said he really liked the band. Which for us was like "fucking hell we can basically retire"! Then suddenly it went a little bit further than that as he was coming over to record an album in Ireland, and he said he'd love to do it. When we told him where we were going to record the record and who was behind it, I don't know who was more excited him or us? It was a mental time, he is a really nice guy and a very hard worker. He (Billy) also does some backing vocals on one of the album tracks, which I invited him to do. It's a mental chorus bit, it's screaming at the end of the day, I've taken the bottom and high end and he put the middle change in. Sounds really great. It crops up twice in a track. We had to get him on there some how, he was really keen to do it. After he did that though he went on to tour with Men Of Porn, who are now called Porn in the States for a month.
How do you find being in the studio? Is this an environment the band feels comfortable?
Yes and no. You always have to make a compromise in a studio whatever anyone tells you. You can't just set up your amps crank it up and play altogether without making any allowances for recording. Working with Billy made a lot more sense, he wasn't into us having to use headphones or any of that crap. There were restrictions, but volume wasn't one of those. It did pan out well and the way we do our tracks are all jammed out when they are written, we get a structure in inverted comers then go into the studio. Then it will change, nothing will stay the same. That is what we embrace, everything we record is a one off. That is the song that got recorded, it may not be the same the next time we play it live or it might be. At a rehearsal, for example, we'll play for 5 or 6 hours but only play 2 or 3 of our own tracks and they will be wildly jammed out. The rest of the time we just jam, any good bits that come out we record onto mini disk to catalogue the riff.
	How do you find this style of writing, as it appears to be a break from the traditional style of writing / recording?
	It's how we all do it naturally. It's how Tim and Mark wrote stuff in the Wizard, not that there are to many sonic similarities between the two bands anymore other than a few bits bobs.
	Has it been a conscience effort not to sound like Electric Wizard?
	No not really. If what we were coming out with naturally was sounding like Electric Wizard we'd all have of an issue. It hasn't been an issue though, none of the stuff we have come up with sounds anything like it. It's a lot more malevolent, riff orientated technical chops up fast, mid paced slow, ultra slow and then go to bed and kill yourself slow. What ever comes, as we do make an effort to swoop tones that match the grotesque subject matter. Tim especially arranges the riffs and how we get from one riff to another. He always pulls it out of the bag of how to get from one riff to the other. There is an endless way we approach writing a song. When we are in a studio, we start a song with a jam and finish it with a jam, in some cases it can go on for 15 to 20 minutes after the song has ended. There is a track like that on the new EP called "Unholy Outburst", basically it's us putting
out some of our unedited jams. From now on every time we put out a record we'll release some of the jam stuff as we want people to hear the live side of our music.
Is the new material still in the same vein as “We will lead you to Glorious Times”?
It is still as brutal as hell and it is still psychedelic jammed out. There is some fast riffing on there too, there is stuff that has a Pentagram style riffing and we have used a lot of samples on the record. We take footage in there and plant it down randomly and see if it fits, we then build the samples around that. There are a few tracks where we have used dialogue samples, virtually exclusively from British Horror Movies as the vocals almost. It evolved as we were doing it and we liked how it came out so we have gone with it.
What are the plans in terms of record deals, are you looking to move at some point to an "established label"?
That is what we would like to do with this album really, that is what we are looking for, a semi permanent home. Somewhere we can put out the next couple of records, the next of which is ready pending mixing. This was last October we recorded this, so as you can imagine we have probably got another album ready now once we go through our jam tapes. One track we came up with the rehearsal before the tour we've been playing live on tour. We liked the sound of it so we threw it in. We want to put this album out with some one we can put other records out with.
Given the historical connections with Electric Wizard do you feel there is a level of expectation when it comes to Ramesses releases?
We just don't think about, that's the honest answer. We haven't had a chance to really worry about it, it's good luck to tem from us. We're going to do our thing and they're going to do there thing. It's all cool as far as we are concerned.
How do you best describe yourselves musically?
It's a tough one really, as we don't really ever think about it. The honest answer is I don't have an answer for it, the criteria for our sound is extreme volume and being able to be free with it with crushingly heavy riffs. Me and Tim's two favorite bands are Autopsy and Winter, that is the sort of heaviness we like to play, but also we like the sound of blues and psychedelic rock. We do whatever we like really and that is our style. Some bits are doomy and in the same breath we'll play something really chilled; which is what we have been doing on tour. Our statement is we do what we want to do. We're not one of those bands that just say's that. If you like you like it, thank you very much and if you doing FUCK OFF!! Obviously we would like people to check us out as there is a lot of stuff in there for a lot of people. Some of the stuff that people hear in it is wild. Last night a guy said it's just like Hawkwind, but really fucking heavy. The night before a guy claimed to hear Godflesh in there.
Heavy music is going through a resurgence at the moment, do you feel the scene is in a healthy state?
It does doesn't it. It seems to be taking over other areas of music, bands like Isis; that cult of Neurosis sound as we call it. What is that, post rock? It's fucking massive, it's as big as pop almost. I can't listen to that music anymore as it all sounds the same, if I want to hear that I'd but the new Neurosis record. I recently went to see Isis and Jesu, and Jesu were just destroyingly amazing, I didn't know whether to cry or pass out. I heard one track of Isis and left as it was tainting my evening. Jesu just destroyed Isis.
You mentioned earlier Autopsy and Winter, do you find yourself being drawn back to the older school of metal?
Those 2 bands have been my favorite bands since I heard them back in '87 / '88. There is nothing I want to use that is new.
How did you guys come to settle upon the name Ramesses?
It's Mark, he came up with the name. He has an obsession with Cleopatra, he is actually named Mark Anthony Greening. He just came up with it. When you start reading about Ramesses the Second, then you realise it is a very appropriate name as the guy was a
power mad ruler who ruled for 2 generations and had a 100 children. It never happened in Egyptian history to have a reign that long. He was just insane, he would think nothing of loosing ten's of thousands of men in battle, and he'd lead the battle; he'd be in there. Once you know a little about the guy the name seems so natural.
What is next for the band?
The EP will be out in the next 3 or 4 weeks on Invada. Also out on limited edition picture disk, limited to 666 copies of course. Exclusive art work from Gasface and the EP artwork I've done myself, which was a first. We'll recover from this tour and then straight into the studio to mix the album. We want to get the album out as soon as we can as we have more material to record.

All images used with the kind permission of HCP Industries.