After years in the wilderness veteran UK Thrashers Sabbat are back and boy are they back with a bang! Reigniting tales of yore and all things mystical. The Chaos spoke with main-man and Thrash producer extraordinaire Andy Sneap to reveal what the future held for one of the UK's forgotten gems. 

OK. We've got Gizz involved with us now who is playing bass and that has worked out really well. It has added a fresher approach to things and tightened things up as he is a great guitar player so with him on bass it has added a solid low end to the songs that they have no had for a while. We are definitely better players and more mature musicians that we ever were in the past and if we were doing tours and rehearsing regularly we'd be deadly really.   

If we're doing shows we'll get one or two practices in before the show. One thing we're doing now, Gizz, Simon and myself is that we go through the entire set as a warm up before we go on. Simon and I will get together to get our stamina up, but all of us playing together doesn't happen except for the gigs really but we're all practicing in our own little way. It keeps everything exciting. I mean we're pretty tight players so it does gel really easily when we do get together.

The initial reunion of Sabbat was supposed to be a hand full of dates to support Cradle Of Filth on their UK tour and that was it. You've then since gone on a bit of a run and the shows have become more wide spread, how did all this come about?

Well we just got offered it really. When the Cradle thing came up we were aware certain festivals would be interested in us this summer like Wacken and a few others, so we kind of expected to do a little bit more. It was quite apparent that Frazer's interest in the band had waned after the Cradle shows so we knew we would have to sort that side of things out but I don't know how much longer we're going to do it. Of course we've got these US shows which we're going to be doing next year (2008) and the Black Winter Day III in Bradford in December, and so long as we can keep our heads above water and not loose money doing it and have a bit of fun along the way....why not?

Well he hadn't played for like twenty or so years and there were a few issues at home which weren't good for him, also we could just tell he wasn't into it. He wasn't rehearsing, he wasn't focused on it. I mean we've all put the time and effort into getting the playing back up to scratch again and it was obvious he was the weakest link. There was no falling out, we all still get on with him. He has a lot of work commitments with his t-shirt company and it just became apparent that he didn't have either the time or the inclination to put the effort into it. As far as his replacement Gizz, I've know him since about 1987. Sabbat played with his old band Wardance years ago and I've stayed good friends with him since then. He even crewed for us on the Cradle dates so he knew what the band was about. He is such a talented player he just came in tabbed the music out and went away and learnt it. It was no effort for us and he fits in great as a person aswell.

Given that you've all been off doing your own things for well over a decade, you with your producing and Martin with Skyclad how difficult was it to come back as Sabbat and be a band again?

It's odd as you have to put yourself in a head space where you were twenty years ago and try to relearn the stuff all over again. A lot of the stuff I could remember but a lot of the solos I couldn't and actually since I was in Sabbat I've learnt music theory and a lot of it doesn't make sense. You've got all sort of different scales thrown together as I didn't know what I was writing back then I mean I was a fifteen year old kid when I formed the band. I was only eighteen when we did the first album and I was playing whatever I wanted. Now it is the age old question whether we will do another album, and it just wouldn't be right? My playing has changed since then and trying to learn all this old stuff means you have to forget all the rules. We've managed it Simon, me and some dodgy rehearsal tapes. We've managed to piece all the songs back together. We're going through all the old Dreamweaver now. We've got Wildfire all worked out and the only one we've not worked out is Mythistory but we'll get there and we're in a pretty good place to play all the songs off Dreamweaver.

From the outset you have always maintained that Sabbat would never record new material, is that still the case?

To be honest with you to do it properly it would take three months. Six weeks to two months to cobble some new material together that we'd be happy with, then another six weeks to record it and that is three and a half months out of my time which when you add that up financially with the work I am doing now, I can't afford to take four months of production time out of the equation. There would be no income from Sabbat, I guarantee that if we did an album the advance would be so small that it just wouldn't pay for itself. So it is just not feasibly possible to be honest and I've always thought that when bands try to go back and rediscover themselves. Which usually means that they just go back and copy what they were doing originally as their isn't that hunger there. We're putting a DVD together of all the Cradle shows and a lot of the festivals we've done, so there are a lot of new recordings of the old material so I think that is the way to go; a look at the past rather than taking this forward.

There hasn't been a bad word said against it to be honest. It has all been positive, all the magazine reviews of our live shows for the festivals we did in Sweden and Norway had us as the band of the festival. I'm quite surprised, of the performances we've done we do look very competent as a band, just the experience we've had over the years has meant we all know where each other is on stage and how we hold ourselves. Especially as we've not done that many gigs since we got back together.

Well Sabbat never played the US before. I've played out there since and obviously spent a lot of time out there. I think all the other guys have been out to the US at some stage, but as a band we never got out there. It should be a laugh though. It is just us and loads of supports, we'll be playing 600 to 1000 people places. I have no idea what sort of size crowd we'll pull out there but having never played there who can tell. If the emails are anything to go by then there has been quite a lot of interest about the tour. It is going to be a bit of a wing and a prayer and see how it comes out. Again finically it is a good offer to do these 4 shows, so why not even if no one shows up we'll have a laugh.

No I don't think so. It happened the way it did and it was the natural way of it ending to be honest. I don't think we'd have gone much further even if we had stayed together if you look at the way the music scene changed in the early 1990's. Even the biggest Thrash bands from America ended up splitting up because the way the whole grundge thing came along. I have got friends who say 'what if you'd stayed together you'd have been massive'? I just don't think so. It ran it's course and even now getting back together there are still the old gripes there it's just we're a bit more grown up and are able to give each other some space. That is another reason why a new album would be a good idea, we can be friends now but if we tried it on a bigger scale I think it would be a tough one to keep going. I think we couldn't spend all that time in each others pockets. There are certain members of the band that I get on really well with and other I get on with. It is not like we're all shouting at each other but in a all good bands there is a chemistry where there is a push and pull. We all come musically come from different areas and that is what gives Sabbat it's uniqueness but also it is a difficult thing to keep it's balance. It's not somewhere I want to go as it's just nice we're all getting along now so writing stuff would damage that.

You guys never made any secret that your Noise Records contract financially was a crock of shit for the band. With the your two first albums being re-issued have you guys been taking charge of this?

Sanctuary Records own the rights to the records as Sanctuary bought Noise. I took charge of the artistic side of it and remastered the records and complied it all. Financially there is little to gain from it, we might get some publishing from it but we're having to chase that now as we never got any publishing out of Noise. That has now gone to Warner Chapel which we found out the other day, so my lawyers are onto Warner Chapel to find out where my publishing money is. The actual contract wasn't a rip off. The long story is that we went to the musicians union when we got offered this contract as we didn't know what to do and their lawyers looked over it quickly, gave us some pointers and then we just signed it. We renegotiated the contract when we realised we should have gone into more detail before the second album. The reason we didn't make any money was because of band management. Producers taking a lot of time in the studio with management spending the money for us and running up huge debts with tour budgets and recording costs. There was a lot there for the record label to recoup and when you are on 12 or 13% of sales which was the standard offer for bands back then it was never going to come back that quick. As a band we probably sold 50,000 of each album but when you add up the costs to pay a recording budget of 53000 pounds, which is what Dreamweaver cost it is going to take a long time. It never really recouped, so it wasn't a rip off it was just our finances where badly managed.

On the topic of Sabbat albums. You guys recorded three albums but you have made no secret that you believe "Morning Has Broken" should never have carried the Sabbat name. What makes that record a non-Sabbat album?

It just didn't have Martin really. Martin is such an integral part of the band. I wrote those songs with Martin in mind and we were put in a situation where he quit the band, I was there with all the debts to pay and also still contracted to do an album as Sabbat so I didn't have much choice. Looking back we shouldn't have done it as Sabbat but we didn't have a lot of choice as Martin had gone and done his own thing (Skyclad) which sounded more like Sabbat than Sabbat did. We tried something different and it just didn't work.

You've said not a great deal has changed since 1988 from a personality perspective, so what do you all bring to the band?

I think we are more worldly wise, I certainly understand how the music scene works more. I have spent a lot time in America and I've got a good idea how the big picture works there. I was always the guy who was the organizer and pushed the band in certain business directions. I think the rest of the band now realise what I was trying to say was right and there was a lot of naivety back then. With these shows they have sat back and let me take control a little bit more and these shows have worked out really well. So a lot of things I have told them are for their own good. I have had so much more experience than the other guys in the music business on the business side of things that they are prepared to listen to me a bit more. I'm not the bossy guy who tells them to do this or do that but I do know the way things work having done a lot of touring and a hell of a lot of recording. It is easier for someone like me to do it vs. say Simon who has not been in the business for 20 years.

On the topic of your producing. You have and are producing for bands who were around back in the day and are now, like Sabbat back for a second stab at things. What is your take on this renewed interest in the Thrash scene?

I think that most of them have been working day jobs and realised it actually wasn't that bad back then. They all still enjoy music, once you have it in your blood it is hard to get rid of. It is such an adrenaline rush to playing live and playing live when you are all tight and those guys back then were good musicians. There wasn't all these studio tricks back then that people use today so you had to be a good player. It is just cool, why not get back together and have a jam. Exodus and Testament still have a valid musical contribution when you listen to the songs they're writing and putting out.

Testament strangely enough! I fly out to San Francisco and then we're straight into it. We have 10 days of drums out there, then the tracking they are doing themselves with an engineer and I mix it I think in January. I have a Soulfly mix in between that also. And this is why I what I was saying about a new Sabbat album, I just couldn't fit it into the schedule I have got now. When I have bands like this knocking on my door I'd rather be doing this rather than trying to record a new Sabbat album. Playing live is fine as it is a weekend away, just like a stag party every time we go away except we get paid for it. That is great because it isn't to much time and effort. 

Ummmmm.....It has been great with this reunion seeing all the fans and getting the comments we've gotten. Just the fact we did mean a lot to some people, I get people writing to me saying how integral Sabbat was to them in their teenage years. It is strange that we could have had that impact on people and that the myth of not playing for 20 years makes the band seem bigger than we actually were. It is nice that people remember us with such fondness and hopefully if they're coming to see us on this next run of shows we won't let them know. I want to get a decent London show sorted out as we haven't done a headline show there yet, one idea was to play the whole "Dreamweaver" set and try and do it a bit more theatrical. We'll have to see if that comes off or not. I definitely want a headline London show in there as we've not actually done any headline shows as yet.