Time to be Pagans again!

Tickets to the hugely popular Black/Folk Metal tour went on sale yesterday (7 March) via Ticketmaster.

This year’s line-up reads like a virtual Who’s Who of the world’s most popular bands in this growing genre:

Korpiklaani (Finland)
Eluveitie (Switzerland)
Primordial (Ireland)
Moonsorrow (Finland)
Blackguard (Canada)
Swashbuckle (USA)

PaganFest North America Part II Tour Schedule:

Apr 28 2009 8:00P
The Opera House Toronto, ON - CANADA
Apr 29 2009 8:00P
Le Medley Montreal, QC - CANADA
Apr 30 2009 8:00P
Imperial Quebec City, QC - CANADA
May 1 2009 8:00P
The Palladium Worcester, Massachusetts
May 2 2009 8:00P
Crocodile Rock Allentown, Pennsylvania
May 3 2009 8:00P
Jaxx Springfield, Virginia
May 4 2009 8:00P
Irving Plaza New York, New York
May 5 2009 8:00P
Peabody’s Cleveland, Ohio
May 6 2009 8:00P
The Mad Hatter (Cincinnati) Covington, Kentucky
May 7 2009 6:00P
Chicago Powerfest Mokena, Illinois
May 8 2009 8:00P
Station 4 St. Paul, Minnesota
May 9 2009 8:00P
The Zoo Winnipeg, MB - CANADA
May 10 2009 8:00P
The Exchange Regina, SK - CANADA
May 11 2009 8:00P
Starlite Room Edmonton, AB - CANADA
May 12 2009 8:00P
Warehouse Calgary, AB - CANADA
May 13 2009 8:00P
The Commodore Ballroom Vancouver, BC - CANADA
May 14 2009 8:00P
Studio Seven Seattle, Washington
May 15 2009 8:00P
Hawthorne Theatre Portland, Oregon
May 16 2009 2:00P
DNA Lounge San Francisco, California
May 17 2009 8:00P
House of Blues Hollywood, California
May 18 2009 8:00P
TBA TBA, California

Make sure you get your tickets today!

Use this link.

Greg: With each new release, it seems your songs continue to grow more and more epic. The last disc (Viides Luku: Havitetty) was two songs, which combined, run nearly an hour. Do you see yourselves continuing to evolve this style or do you see yourselves returning to a more traditional song format?

Ville: Well actually, we’ve never planned anything. Even when we did these long songs, it happened accidentally. We just make songs. The song kind of tells us, in the process, if it’s ready or not. And it just happened that we made these long songs. What we do in the future, might be anything. We have been discussing with the band that we should try and do some shorter songs so we won’t have to make compromises in live situations.

Greg: I didn’t get a chance to catch you on your most recent tour. Were you able to perform either of those two songs live?

Ville: On the last tour we didn’t play either of these songs. But in 2007 we played the second song on the album (“Tuleen Ajettu Maa”). We shortened it to something like 20 minutes.

(laughter)

Ville: It’s still quite long.

Greg: So if you move towards a more traditional song length, do you think you’ll end up with a similar style, just shorter, or do you think the style will change if the song lengths change? Or is that something you won’t really know until the writing process begins?

Ville: All the material we have done has surprised us. When we start to do something, we just have a rough idea. The songs develop in their own direction. And I think everything we do still sounds MOONSORROW… certain characteristics.

Greg: It seems to me that bands like you, and maybe someone like ENSLAVED, have a lot in common; an intriguing blend of Black Metal and less traditional Metal elements. And both bands seem to be slowly moving further away from their more traditional Metal roots. Could you see your sound evolving to the point where Metal isn’t the primary element?

Ville: We will never get completely away from Metal. If we were ever to do something like that, it would be under a different name. We have different projects for different kinds of expression already. I think this development, with us and many other bands, like ENSLAVED, it’s because the people behind the music have been growing up. And I’m not saying that Metal is immature. But growing up in the sense that they realize there is much more to employ when expressing themselves. The progressive music, for example, has been with us since childhood. Our fathers used to listen to progressive music, so we got used to it as kids. I think I heard KING CRIMSON before I heard any Metal bands. But we just didn’t employ it in our music until some years ago.

Greg: Your first U.S. performance was at Heathen Crusade I. Was playing the U.S. any different? Did you feel any additional excitement or was it just another date on the tour?

Ville: When you go to a new place you haven’t been to before, it’s always exciting. We were really looking forward to it because it was our first time out of Europe. So it was completely different in that sense. Of course, it was also somewhat different to play there, because of the exhausting flight and the jetlag and everything.

Greg: I was at that show and I recall talking to you guys the night before the performance. If I recall correctly, you had been up for something like 54 straight hours?

Ville: Yeah. We woke early in the morning to catch the flight. We had already been traveling for a whole day when we got to the states, and it was afternoon. And we had a party at the hotel. So we didn’t even go to sleep when it was evening in U.S. time. So we had been up for a quite a long time.

Greg: Well, it didn’t show at all in your performance the next day. That performance was excellent.

Ville: Thanks. Well… we’ve been practicing that, so that partying the night before doesn’t show in the performance.

(laughter)

Greg: Your next U.S. performance is going to be at Heathen Crusade III, did you expect it would be so long between U.S. performances?

Ville: We had hoped to be back. But we realized, it’s a whole different world, booking-wise. It’s really expensive to get bands there. You have to build up a name. So when we were making plans with our booking agent we decided to concentrate on Europe.

Greg: You did Paganfest in Europe, and ENSIFERUM, TURISAS and TÝR did a U.S version of Pagan Fest. Do you expect the success of that tour will help to open doors for a band like MOONSORROW?

Ville: Definitely. The point is, you have to do a lot of touring to prove yourself. We’re trying to get on a U.S. tour… maybe next year, but I don’t know if it will be possible or not. I hope it will be, because that’s the only way to get a name somewhere.

Greg: In 2007 and 2008 you guys did a lot more touring than you’ve ever done. Is this a trend fans should expect to continue?

Ville: I hope it will continue. What happened, two years ago, we hired an actual booking agent. Before, we did most of that stuff ourselves. When you have to play in the band and take care of everything else as well, you really don’t have the right resources for booking your band. So we decided to hire professionals to do the work for us and that’s why we got a lot more shows. And I hope that will continue. Of course, there will be a point when we have to concentrate on the new album.

Greg: With all this touring, have you played a city or a country where you were just blown away by the crowd response? Where you had no idea there were that many MOONSORROW fans in a given place?

Ville: (laughter). Always. All the shows surprise you. But the most recent was Mexico.

Greg: Really?

Ville: We kind of knew that it would be insane, because we’ve been talking with fellow bands who have played in Mexico. We kind of knew to expect it, but it still surprised us how insane it actually was there. At one of the shows, security escorted us to the stage and there was a reason. Because we would have been ripped apart if security wasn’t there.

Greg: That’s interesting. I’ve always wondered about musicians in a position like yours. To a certain segment of the population, you guys are a rock stars. You play the big Euro festivals, your last CD was #2 on Finland’s charts. But as I understand it, you work normal jobs. And I would suspect when you’re not touring you have a fairly normal life. Is it ever strange moving between those two worlds?

Ville: Yeah. Actually, it’s very strange. Because most of the time, we’re living like any other person. But during the weekends or on tours, we can let that go for a while, and hang with our good friends and play in front of a lot of people who are interested in our music. It feels a bit strange, of course. But it’s very rewarding and a welcome break from every day life.

Greg: Are you surprised, at how successful you’ve become, given the genre of music you play and given that you write 30 minute epic songs? Obviously you’re not a radio-friendly band, you don’t try to be. But as I mentioned earlier, your last album went to #2. Does that ever surprise you?

Ville: Yeah. Even the first chart entry… I think it was the 3rd album (Kivenkantaja), went to #16 or something. It was one of those, “what the fuck” moments.

(laughter)

Ville: But… we’ve been working for it. And in a way, I’d like to think that we deserve it. It’s exactly this kind of music that should be sold to people.

Greg: I couldn’t possibly agree with you more.

(laughter)

Ville: Then again, when it’s not commercial at all, it’s kind of surprising… how can it actually sell and hit the charts? Then again, in Finland, we have Metal on the charts and that doesn’t happen anywhere else in the world. So when you’re talking to a Finnish Metal band, you could easily think that they are something special in their own style. But you just have to look at the charts and there are ten other bands on the charts in the same week.

Greg: You mentioned the commercial aspects of it. And I know you’ve been asked this question forever… the question about writing lyrics in English. And you’ve always said, “No”. And I understand why. So my question is, do you almost feel that at this point, if you were to consider transitioning to English lyrics that you wouldn’t be true to the idea of MOONSORROW? Has it gotten to that point? Do you feel, almost as if, you’d be “selling out” if you wrote your lyrics in English?

Ville: Especially at this point… when there is some success. I mean, we’re still not talking about big numbers but… we can see that the band is kind of breaking through from the underground. It’s basically at this point, if we changed the language of the lyrics it would be so obvious that we were trying to get more commercial and make the music easier to access. We’ve never thought about it anyway. But if we did it, especially now, everyone, including ourselves, would think that the whole thing is a sell out.

Greg: In past interviews, you’ve expressed a strong appreciation for PRIMORDIAL, and specifically Alan. Could you ever see a collaboration between some of the folks in MOONSORROW and some of the folks in PRIMORDIAL? Has that ever been discussed?

Ville: It would be interesting. I think, some years back, there was some kind of talk about doing something with Alan and some other Pagan Metal people. But, there wasn’t anything, because we live in different countries and there’s so much to do for each of us. It would be fun. But it would be just for fun.

Greg: It seems that Metal musicians are just as likely to be listening to Jazz as Metal. What kind of music is your CD player or MP3 player these days?

Ville: Half the stuff I listen to is Metal. Mainly because of my work… I work with Metal music. The other stuff I listen to could be anything. I listen to a lot of Progressive Rock, as I already mentioned. I have stuff by MICHAEL JACKSON and JOHNNY CASH.

Greg: You’ve been asked a lot about your influences, and obviously BATHORY is one where there will always be a strong association. However, is there any one album… I know you said you grew up on a lot of Progressive stuff because of your parents. But is there any one Metal album, that you heard that first time and were like, “Wow, this is it for me?”

Ville: The first Metal album I think I ever heard was Seventh Son by IRON MAIDEN. I was eight years old and I was completely struck by it, because I obviously didn’t know about anything harder than KISS. So it was a real experience. And I still have that album with me. It’s a very important part of my musical identity.

Greg: In my last question, I mentioned MP3s. Do you feel that digital music and the internet has helped or hurt MOONSORROW?

Ville: Helped… definitely. I think this whole MP3 thing is mainly hurting big bands, like METALLICA. Or not even Metal bands, because the Metal audience still likes to buy the albums. For instance, the new METALLICA album sold 50,000 in pre-sales in Finland. I think it mainly hurts these big commercial Pop artists like BRITTNEY SPEARS. For us, it’s definitely positive. The people who download the albums, if they like it, they buy the album anyway. And even those who don’t, they come to the gigs, buy t-shirts. So it’s a good thing that people can access the music through the internet.

Greg: So… you and Henri (Sorvali ) began MOONSORROW in 1995, is that right?

Ville: Yes. A long time ago.

Greg: Looking back on it all and knowing what you know now, is there anything you wish you had done differently? Is there anything that makes you think, “I wish we had turned left, where we turned right?”

Ville: No. Definitely not. It’s really been a good ride with this band. I can only speak on my behalf of course, but even outside of music I got a lot of good experiences. Even when I was starting, I was learning to play and I really got a lot from it. When we were in Mexico, it struck us, all of us again, when we were starting out playing our first shows in 2000, there was no way we thought we’d be in Mexico in 2008. So it’s definitely been a good ride. I think everyone only has positive feelings about it.

Greg: If I understand correctly, Henri writes a lot of the music, correct?

Ville: Yeah. Most of the music, yeah.

Greg: But he does not tour with MOONSORROW outside of Finland, correct?

Ville: That’s correct as well. He’s always been like that… also with FINNTROLL. He just doesn’t like to tour that much. He has work, he has a little kid at home. And I think he enjoys being in the studio, making music.

Greg: And Janne (Perttilä), who tours in Henri’s place, is he involved at all in the recording process or is he purely a touring musician?

Ville: Well, he’s in the studio when we’re recording choirs. Other than that, he’s not involved in the actual process of making music. But on tour, he’s the 5th member of MOONSORROW, or the 6th member because Henri plays sometimes. And he’s really invaluable in what he’s doing.

Greg: So you mentioned earlier, that when you started this all, you never thought it would bring you to where you are in 2008. Do you have any goals or anything you’d like to accomplish with the band, with the music, before you guys call it a day?

Ville: I don’t know what the correct saying is in the English language, but it’s something to do with “appetite growing wet when you’re eating”. Of course, we always have some sort of new goals. If we look back on it… where we were in 2000… if someone would have asked me, “What will you be doing with MOONSORROW in five years time?” I would have said, “We are going to be a big band. One day we’re going to play the biggest club in Finland.” Which we already did. We didn’t have an idea how it would turn out. Well, we achieved a lot, and now the goals we have are not related to sales or anything, but we want to go to those parts of the world we haven’t been to before; to be everyplace people want to see MOONSORROW, at least once. That’s the goal, but it’s not really realistic, because there are so many places and it’s really expensive to go anywhere outside of Europe.

Greg: Have you begun the writing for the next album?

Ville: We haven’t actually even discussed it. We had some rough plans about maybe making it towards the end of 2009 or something like that. We’ve been talking about sitting down with the band, and going through all the plans and making some sort of schedule, because we never have… we just went with the flow. Now we have pressure from the booking agents, from all the labels we have in Finland and in Germany. They’ve been pushing to at least make some sort of plan… to set something in stone.

Greg: Has there been any discussion about shooting a DVD?

Ville: We’ve also talked about that, but we don’t know about that either. It’s going to be an expensive project, because we don’t want to do anything half way. If we’re going to do something it has to be the best we can offer. So we’d have to invest a lot of money and we’d have to plan it very carefully. It might happen.

Greg: The Heathen Crusade III set list, will it be similar to the festival dates or will you be able to do some additional songs because you’re the headliner?

Ville: There are a lot of possibilities. The biggest advantage with MOONSORROW is we’re always changing our set list, according to the show we are playing, according to our feeling at that time. So, we might even surprise ourselves. I don’t know what we’re going to play there.

Greg: So you guys don’t rehearse what you’re going to play? You just show up on stage, have someone tack a set list to the monitors and just play?

Ville: Mostly, it’s decided one hour before the show, someone decides the set list. With the festivals this summer, we made an exception and made the set list when we were rehearsing. I don’t know why we did it that way or why we used to do it a different way. This band doesn’t really go with any long term plans, we just go by the feeling. And the strongest example of that is the set list, which changes almost every night.

Greg: Well, that’s all the questions I have. I really appreciate your time and I wish you guys nothing but continued success.

Ville: Thank you very much. I really didn’t even notice the passing of time. Thank you as well. All the best, and see you at Heathen Crusade III.

Greg: Definitely.

Heathen Crusade III is November 13 and 14 in St. Paul, Minnesota. Tickets are still available. But going fast. Be sure to get yours now to avoid disappointment!

If you’re a fan of folk-metal, black-metal, viking-metal, doom-metal, and darn near everything in between, Heathen Crusade 3 is the place to be. Tickets are still available from Ticketmaster…but they’re going fast!

Keith, founder and head honcho for Irish folk-metal legends Cruachan, is a born raconteur. The best kind: passionate and witty. Totally engaging. Maybe it’s the Irish blood coursing through his veins. Or perhaps its because in his relatively short life, he’s already traveled to places most of us will only dream of. Whatever it is, Keith Fay brims over with anecdotes, most of which left me laughing and wishing I could sit across from him in a pub somewhere, tossing back an inky Guinness, just listening.

Frankly, I think the same creative energy that birthed Cruachan — thereby helping to start an entire genre of music called folk metal now known and loved throughout the world — fuels Keith’s unique gift for storytelling.

But he needs to write a book. Because his stories are priceless.

For the record, Cruachan was formed in Dublin, Ireland, in 1992. Like most bands these days, they’ve had a few personnel changes over the years. Today, Cruachan is a sextet consisting of Karen Gilligan (vocals, percussion), Keith Fay (electric & acoustic guitar, keyboard, vocals, bodhran, mandolin, percussion), John Clohessy (bass), Colin Purcell (Drums, Percussion), John Ryan Will (Tin Whistle, Violin, Banjo, bouzouki, keyboard)…and – according to Keith just two days ago – the return of Keith’s brother John O’Fathaigh!

Cruachan has released five albums since 1995, the most recent of which is the superb The Morrigan’s Call (2006). According to Keith, they are hard at work on another album to be released in the very near future.

My interview with Keith took place in May, 2008.

Our interview was conducted in three parts over a span of about 90 minutes. The first two “parts” took place over a dodgy Skype connection that kept cutting out on us. Finally, we gave up and just used a landline – and that’s when the interview really got rolling. I edited the interview into one cohesive unit, removing all the interruptions due to the poor Skype connections.

When I finished reading this transcription, I realized that it is the most comprehensive interview with Keith Fay available anywhere. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

KF: Hello?

BM: Hey, is this Keith?

KF: Yeah, can you hear me?

BM: Yes, I can hear you fine.

KF: That’s cool. Hang on a sec as I move into a different room. I was in a bit of a panic there.

BM: Yeah, I was trying to get a hold of you, and it said on MySpace your page is down for maintenance.

KF: Yeah, I was like, oh fuck, all the details to get in touch with you are there. So in a panic, I was just writing in Keith Fay, all my details, stuff like this in case you were going to do a search for me.

BM: [laughs]

KF: But it worked.

BM: Yeah. That’s great.

KF: The wonders of modern technology, you know.

BM: [laughs] Yeah. It’s a wonder that we’re still alive because of it all.

KF: That’s true. [laughs]

BM: Well, I appreciate your time tonight. How you doing over there?

KF: No problem.

BM: How’s the weather?

KF: It’s absolutely beautiful today. It’s 24 degrees Celsius, maybe 70 Fahrenheit.

BM: Yeah, wow.

KF: Really, really nice.

BM: Yeah, we’re getting some of that too. It’s a beautiful day today. Very good. Well, I appreciate your time. How did the gig go with Waylander and Runecaster?

KF: [coughs] I have a bit of a cough, you’ll have to excuse me. Both gigs, we played Belgium last week and Dublin here on Saturday. Both of them were absolutely fantastic. We always enjoy playing Ireland, because it’s just kind of a weird, you know, unexpectedly, there’s not much of a folk metal scene, but their eyes are well and truly opened. Saturday we packed the place out, it was brilliant.

BM: Oh, that’s great. [laughs] That’s great. You say there’s not really a folk-metal scene there. What’s the music scene like, then?

KF: By the way, is this, the interview is started now, Bill, has it?

BM: Oh yeah, yeah. We’re well rolling. [laughs]

KF: Cool. Yeah, I mean, the folk-metal scene here has always been really small, which is strange. There’s a lot of, most people here are in bands, and they’re all, already know people in bands, so they’re always looking at you subjectively, you know, looking down their nose at you.

BM: [laughs]

KF: So folk metal just never took off. Because we grow up with folk music here, I suppose a lot of people, you know, it reminds them of their childhood and their mothers and fathers might be listening to folk music, but they’re not really interested. I don’t really know, but it’s, I think it’s bizarre. I love folk music, and my family loves it. It’s what I grew up with, so I think it’s the most natural thing in the world to mix it in with the other music I love, heavy metal.

BM: Yeah. [laughs] Well, reading the forum, the Cruachan forum, it looks like your fans are just extremely excited to see you, and they all clamor to see you outside of Ireland. Do you have plans to get anywhere else in Europe or the States?

KF: We’d play anywhere, anytime, it’s just a nightmare. The band is an absolute pain in the ass sometimes.

BM: [laughs]

KF: You know, I’ve two children, and I see them at weekends. If we play a show, we try to make it weekends, so that’s complicated for me. That’s just one member. Then the rest of the band [members] have children, mortgages, full-time jobs, you know. If you look at the lives of Eluveitie, who’ve just like, sprung onto the scene, they have no commitments that I am aware of. No commitments. So they can go where they want for as long as they want, and I’m so envious of that situation. It’s something I’ve always wanted, but because of our own circumstances, we are very limited in the amount of time we can get out there. But when we can, we go to Russia nearly every year. We would go anywhere if they’re willing to bring us.

BM: Yeah. You know, Eluveitie, I was talking to Rafi probably the first of May. A few weeks ago they played a gig in the States and we – my wife and I – hung out with them. Actually, Rafi is worried about extended tours too, because he has a full-time job, and he’s worried if he can take any more time off to do any more tours. [Rafi and his brother Seven have since quit Eluveitie to concentrate on making music with folk band Red Shamrock.]

KF: Really, yeah.

BM: Yeah.

KF: I’m not alone then. [laughs]

BM: No, no. [laughs] Well, what is your full-time gig? Is it music, or do you work in a so-called day job?

KF: Yeah, my day job I’m an IT Engineer, so I work with DHL here in Ireland, and you know, it’s a very small IT team looking after 30 different sites around the country. So it’s really hectic.

BM: Wow.

KF: I’m nearly 10 years with the company.

BM: What have you guys been doing since The Morrigan’s Call? What’s been happening with Cruachan these days? Any chance for a new album in the near future?

KF: Very little as far as new material, because I’ve had so much stuff going on in my life, the band really came down to touring, that’s all I could put my time into. I’ve had a lot of personal things, which I’ve told you about before.

BM: Sure.

KF: They’re more or less sorted now, so we can get our heads down and start looking at getting the new album and getting the best album ever. I feel really driven to make this the best we’ve ever done. I’ve almost two years of bits and pieces sitting in my brain, waiting to come out on paper, waiting to come out on the guitar, so I’ve a great feeling that when I do sit down and start writing, it’s going to be something really, really special. But we haven’t been quiet, we’ve still been touring. We always get over to Europe whenever we can, and it’s mainly weekends, festivals, this type of thing. But we keep the interest there. We’re always getting fan mail, we always reply to our fans, we do whatever we can. But yeah, it’s been a quiet enough year and a half, but that’s apparently going to change now in the next month or so.

BM: Oh, that’s great. You seem to average a new album about every couple of years, 2000, 2002, 2004, 2006. So I guess 2008 or 2009 would be right on par for the course. [laughs]

KF: Yeah, yeah. I mean, we’re not the most prolific of bands when it comes to releases, and when they do come out, we’re never happy, we always have trouble with production and record label trouble. It’s a real, real challenge to keep this band going and keep the music coming out.

BM: Yeah, I was going to ask you that. One of the things I really like to as musicians when I do all these interviews, like for ProgPower USA, is I name one of their albums and ask what they remember most about making it. Most vivid memory. What it was like in the studio. Favorite songs. Most difficult to record. Stuff like that. So, if I ask you about your first album [Tuatha Na Gael], what do you remember most about recording that?

KF: Geez, it was a long time ago, but I do remember. I play it a lot. It was recorded at night, so we were really tired. I remember on the, I think it was four nights. On the third night, just before we started the mixing, I got a really bad migraine headache, I had to be driven home.

BM: Oh no.

KF: Yeah, I spent some time in bed. What else? I remember the producer saying to me, “I put this effect on the guitar, do you think it’s ok?” So I listened on the headphones, couldn’t hear a thing. And all these years later I can hear this strange effect on the electric guitars, and I wish I had fucking said no to that producer.

BM: [laughs]

KF: But it was the first time in there. And it’s become a major cult album, so even though I hear all the imperfections, I’ve always said I want to re-record all the songs, I can’t really fault it at this stage. It’s nearly, the songs are just getting close to, is it 20 years? No, it couldn’t be 20 years.

BM: ’95.

KF: The songs were written ’93, ’94, so you could say 14, 15 years ago. Wow.

BM: [laughs] Well, so it’s true. In the liner notes, where it says, “Recorded from the 8th to the 12th of February in the dead of night.” That’s actually true?

KF: Yeah, exactly.

BM: Wow.

KF: See, it was cheaper. Because we got such a small amount of money from [label] Nazguls Eyrie, we could record it for three days or four nights. And we needed as much time as we can, so we said, “Fuck it, we’ll go and do it for four nights.”

BM: [laughs] God, that’s a hard way to make an album.

KF: Aah.

BM: But to record it in four days, how much prep did it take before those four days you were in the studio?

KF: Of course we’d done a couple of rehearsals, we knew the songs inside out, but the album was recorded live like fucking Johnny Cash in the old days. The band set up, they mic us up, and away we go.

BM: [laughs]

KF: So we recorded live, and then we put the folk instruments on top and layered what we can. That’s why one of the main reason it’s so raw, you can hear click tracks.

BM: [laughs]

KF: Before “Brian Boru” you can hear us kind of talking, if you put the volume all the way up, you can hear us saying something, like we hit a bum note on the keyboard. You can’t hear it on normal volume. But it’s all part of the fun. [laughs]

BM: [laughs] Yeah, it’s true. Well, your next album, then, came out quite a few years later, actually [2000]. The Middle Kingdom.

KF: Yeah.

BM: What was going on between that time, and what do you remember most about recording The Middle Kingdom?

KF: Well, after Tuatha Na Gael, I can’t remember why, we broke up, because a load of things were happening. My brother left the band for the first of many, many times.

BM: [laughs]

KF: And what else, we started going down to some weird…hmmm, eventually it was just myself and John Clohessy [bass guitarist], were the only original members left, so we just called it a day. The music was gone to crap, so we broke up for about a full year. It’s like, I don’t know, when you have music inside, it’s very hard to just suddenly stop playing music, so within six months of the breakup, I knew I had to get the band back together. And within a year, we were back together with the new lineup. And wrote the songs. Tuatha Na Gael kicked off around the world, you know, it started these ripples that became folk metal as we know it. So a lot of labels were hot to sign us right away without hearing a single note from the new stuff. Maybe they regretted it when they heard how different some of it was. [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

KF: But we started writing songs, we went into the studio, and we were very, very, you know, from the record deal to finishing songs, it was only a couple of weeks. So we were very unprepared. And Karen [Gilligan] was only meant to sing one or two songs, and I was going to sing a lot of melodic vocals. When I went to record them, I realized I was absolutely terrible at singing melodically, so in a panic I said, like, “Karen, please sing a lot more songs. But hey, will you join the band?” She said, “Oh yeah, I’ll join. No problem.”

BM: [laughs]

KF: And that’s it. I mean, The Middle Kingdom, when we recorded it, I remember the feeling we had was, “Wow, nothing like this has ever been done. We’re going to break into so many new territories. We’re going to be huge success.” But that wasn’t the case. The metal scene had moved on with a lot of new, avant garde bands mixing everything from bleeding brass sections to weird punk noises. But it came out, doing ok, and it got our foot well and truly back in the door.

BM: Yeah. [laughs] Yeah. What is your favorite track off of The Middle Kingdom?

KF: Uh, that’s a tough one. I think it’s actually “The Fianna” that’s the instrumental one.

BM: Yeah, oh yeah. Great.

KF: Really happy with that one. A few years ago, we went to see, we were playing in Russia, and some guy dropped us off this DVD, we had no idea what it was. He told us it was his band, we said “We’ll play it, thanks, nice one.” We go home and we watched it. There’s a little note saying, “This is the Russian, official Moscow Irish dance troupe dancing for President Putin.”

BM: [laughs]

KF: And it looked like Riverdance, you know, they’re dancing away, la ta da ta da. And it was our song. They were dancing to a Cruachan song.

BM: Really, god, that’s great. [laughs]

KF: Putin, the leader. You know, I listened to the mellow stuff’s playing, you know, there’s fucking electric guitars set to come in, what are they going to do? And they’re there dancing away to the heavy little riffs and stuff. It’s brilliant.

BM: [laughs]

KF: Absolutely brilliant.

BM: [laughs] Well, the next album, Folk-Lore [2002]. It seems the majority of fans on the Cruachan forum consider it their favorite album. What do you think about Folk-Lore? What was going on at the time? What do you remember about being in the studio?

KF: That was actually the same studio, Tuatha Na Gael, The Middle Kingdom, and Folk-Lore were all at the same studio.

BM: Really? Sun Studios?

KF: Yeah, and I don’t know if you’ve seen the movie from Ireland called Once?

BM: Oh, love that movie, yeah.

KF: Yes, they won an Oscar for that.

BM: Yeah, we actually had tickets to go see them. They [Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová] were touring here in the States, they played in our state.

KF: Really?

BM: Yeah.

KF: Well, that’s Sun Studios that they’re in in the movie.

BM: Oh really? That’s cool.

KF: Yeah, I only watched Once about a month ago. I was a bit unhappy with the end, and I wanted a nice, happy, sloppy romantic ending which didn’t really come.

BM: Oh yeah.

KF: But I watched the movie and, “Oh, holy shit, there’s Sun.” I was telling the people I was watching, “Oh, I used to be in there, and come out and there’s the control room.” It’s exactly as it was from Tuatha Na Gael right up to today.

BM: Oh, that’s cool. I didn’t know that.

KF: But yeah, all those first three albums were recorded at Sun. I think The Morrigan’s Call is our best album to date, but before Morgan’s I would have said Folk-Lore myself. It was a bit more polished, and some of the songs are really good. It still has the imperfections that Cruachan seems to always have. I always listen back to the stuff and regret certain song structures. You know, we don’t spend enough time on our songs, and maybe we’ll sort that out now. But I still think there’s some crackin’ tunes on it. And obviously one of the main memories of having Shane MacGowan [ex-Pogues singer] in the studio with us. It was just bizarre, a totally abstract, weird time.

BM: [laughs] Well, what does the liner note mean when you thank Shane MacGowan “for all the help, advice, for working pro gratis and for enduring the usual media lies while working with us.” What is that all about?

KF: Oh, I can’t remember, to be honest, I can’t really remember. But the stuff’s in the paper, about, it was something that we, he was taking the time to give us, to get his career back on track, and all this absolute rubbish. You know, he’s a really lovely bloke. Ok, he’s got a problem with alcohol.

BM: Yeah?

KF: You know, what can you do? Apart from that, he’s an absolutely nice guy, have absolutely no problem with him at all. It was shocking to see the way he drinks pints of vodka, you know, it’s not normal to see a human being put that into themselves, but really, really nice bloke.

BM: [laughs]

KF: He’s so…he just lives for music. There was one time, it was half way through the album. He’d do this, that, and the other thing. He wasn’t there pressing buttons and twiddling knobs, so to speak. But this one day, he didn’t show up. We said, “For fuck’s sake, what are we going to do?” So we went up to the hotel he was staying in, and he’d been up all night writing songs and lyrics, pages all over the hotel room. It was almost like something in a movie, it was poetic to see this.

BM: [laughs]

KF: Yeah, I mean, there’s obviously some great memories. [laughs]

BM: [laughs] Well, how about the next one, Pagan came out in 2004. It looks like you’re at a different studio, Sonic Studios.

KF: Yes.

BM: What was that like?

KF: [With] Pagan, we were so happy with the songs, we knew, like we sorted out the problems we’d had with sloppy song structures, we were really fucking happy. We knew this was going to be a fantastic album. But again, the Cruachan curse, there’s always shit going wrong. If it’s not the studio not getting paid, it’s albums with shit production. So we were not happy with the sound engineer. I still listen to it now, the sound is absolute crap. I mean, there’s things like he put the drums through four different channels.

BM: [laughs]

KF: You know, when you’re recording an album, you have each different part of the drum kit on it’s own channel, so you can get it exactly right. This had one mic overhead, and one mic in front. It was absolute crap.

BM: [laughs] During the time, did you say, “Uh, Al [Cowen, producer], ‘scuse me. Shouldn’t you be micing this differently?”

KF: Did, I mean, we’re very naïve ourselves when it comes to studio, all that technical equipment. We know fuck all about it, so we were saying to the sound engineer, “What’s the story, you’ve only got four microphones here?” He said, “Oh, trust me.” “Ok.”

BM: [laughs]

KF: What else can we do? At the end, it turned out fucking diabolical.

BM: [laughs] So of that nightmare that was the recording in the studio, what do you remember most about the songs in it? Do you have a favorite one? Which one was the most difficult to lay down?

KF: Oh, they all had major difficulties, because we weren’t used to working in a crap studio.

BM: [laughs]

KF: The song “Erinsong” should have been one of our epic masterpieces, and that came out crap, really terrible. We had a Uillian piper come in, and that was good for once. The pipes sound good on a lot of songs, but even still, it was all nightmare. We had that guy [Chris Kavanagh] from The Luke Kelly Tribute Band singing on there, “Some Say the Devil Is Dead.” I think that came out brilliant as well. Again, we felt, “We can do a hell of a lot better than this.”

BM: Yeah, that’s actually got some great songs on it. I mean, in spite of the problems you had, “Some Say the Devil Is Dead” is a crackin’ tune.

KF: Yeah, I am happy with that, definitely.

BM: Well, that brings up The Morrigan’s Call, 2006. Different, completely different producer this time.

KF: Yeah.

BM: How did you end up with this Gale of God guy?

KF: When we’d done one of our European tours, we had him as sound engineer, and we just got on really well with him. And we didn’t even know he was producing albums in the off times, because he was so good. He got an amazing sound for us live. His name was actually J-O, pronounced yo. I said, “Yo, Yo, what’s the story? You produce albums?” He said, “Yeah, I do.” And he sent over a couple of trash metal bands he’d done, and they sounded brilliant. So it was like, “Right, we’re going to pay the money. We’re getting him over.” We were signed with Black Lotus at the time, and were getting a lot of money to record, so we said, “We’re not going to make any mistakes on this.” Went back to Sun Studios as well, and yeah, I mean, it did start off well. That’s where Jo came from. [We] were really, really happy with the way he worked.

BM: Well, what was the most difficult track with that? What was the easiest to lay down, and which one gave you the most trouble?

KF: The most trouble was “Diarmuid and Grainne,” definitely.

BM: Really?

KF: Really, really technical. There’s a lot of stuff going on in it, and trying to get, you know, a lot of times I write the vocals without realizing someone else has to sing these. And I go to Karen, you know, she never sang the song before going into the studio, and I’m like, “Ok, this is the way you sing it. [sings]” She’s like, “Fucking hell, where am I supposed to get a breath?”

BM: [laughs]

KF: It just doesn’t work. So yeah, we had a lot of trouble, but we got it to work. I think “Diarmuid and Grainne” is my favorite track on there.

BM: I love that songs. The Morrigan’s Call is a really good album. And it reminds me of something I want to ask you about folk metal lyrics in general. [sirens in the background]

KF: Yeah. Wow, there was a big cop-car chase going on there, is there?

BM: Yeah. [laughs] I don’t know what’s going on. You can hear that, can ya? [laughs] Yeah, I don’t know what’s going on here.

KF: [laughs]

BM: Tell me, is there such a thing as a happy folk-metal song?

KF: [laughs] That’s what I was actually saying before the call dropped. The regret that I have is putting “Shelob” on right at the beginning.

BM: Yeah.

KF: I think we should have put that right at the end, because it caused so much controversy. People going, “What the fuck are these guys doing?”

BM: [laughs]

KF: Yeah, I mean, I don’t know. Folk music is happy. And yeah. [laughs] I don’t know, “Shelob” certainly is a happy folk metal song.

BM: Well, yeah, but the lyrics, when you look at the overall theme of even just The Morrigan’s Call, there’s a lot of death and dying, great hunger, an old woman in the woods. [laughs] It’s a strange -

KF: Well, folk music has loads of happy tunes. You probably know that. We don’t chose to really sing about too many happy things. That’s the theme we’ve always done, is either Celtic history, Celtic mythology, or just you know, recent Irish history, and it’s not the most happiest of times over the last couple years, last couple hundred years. So what can I say? [laughs]

BM: Yeah. [laughs] Well, your, the lyrics and the notes in the CDs really indicate that you must be a student of history and mythology and you must put an awful lot of thought into each song. Is that a correct assumption?

KF: I’m not a student. My brother John [O’ Fathaigh], who helped in the early days with Tuatha Na Gael, he also wrote liner notes, actually I don’t think they were ever printed, now that I think about it. But no, we’ve never been students, it’s just very interesting. It’s like a hobby, it’s nice to read about this stuff. I mean, it’s all out there in books. Someone could just walk off the street, buy a book, and write a song, and copy right out of the book. [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

KF: If you’re passionate about it, yeah, you will. I’m very proud of my lyrics.

BM: They’re great.

KF: A lot of the stuff I put into poetry to tell the entire story, and it’s stuff that’s never been put into poetic form or lyrical form. Well, Michael Collins [Irish revolutionary leader], pretty much his life story. And there’s not many poems out there telling his life story in what, three verses or something?

BM: [laughs]

KF: But no, I’m not educated in regard to Irish history in any way. I just read the books about it and find it very interesting.

BM: Well, you know what appears educated – and you can say that it’s not – but your notes describing each song are often as long as the songs themselves, and very detailed.

KF: Yeah.

BM: Does it take you a while to write those liner notes?

KF: No, I mean probably half the liner notes you see there would probably come from some book or something I remembered from reading.

BM: Yeah. I understand.
BM: Yeah, yeah.

KF: It’s telling it the way it is, whether it’s from a book or from my head, that’s the way it happened. But I find a lot of the more complicated lyrics, you know, I might breeze over a very important point, but for the sake of making a nice lyric, or a nice tune, I can’t go into great detail. Or I can’t add like 10 words at the end of one line, whereas all the other lines have five, for example. So I’ve always said, right, I need to give notes to explain what this guy has done here, and why this is happening, and this, that, and the other. And I find out a lot of Irish ballads, yeah, the ballad starts abruptly. They always do. That’s one of the things that makes a ballad a ballad. It’s the law, or something like that, of ballads, but they start abruptly and just go straight into the story.

BM: Yeah.

KF: And a lot of people look at a lot of Irish ballads, [and] wouldn’t really know the whole history. And if you want to find out, the information’s there. I just think it’s nice to have it in the booklet, ready to go, to pique your interest. If they’re not interested, they don’t have to look at it. But it’s there.

BM: Yeah. [laughs] Is the theme, let’s say, you mentioned Irish history. Like some of the songs on The Morrigan’s Call such as “The Great Hunger,” “Coffin Ships,” or themes like the great potato famine. Is that type of history, and I don’t know how to phrase this question, is that so much a part of Irish culture that it’s thought about often? Or do you write about it because it needs to be thought about more?

KF: No, I mean, it’s definitely ingrained in everyone’s mind. You know, as a Republic country, we’re barely 50 years old. Before that, we were a province of England, so to speak, you know, so it’s really ingrained in all the people here, what we’ve gone through.

BM: Yeah.

KF: The main thing, we suffered a famine, and that’s a fact, and the reasons behind it are in all the history books. And it’s because the British, the government, we were a province of England up until about 50 years ago. I mean, in 1922, we became a free state, but it wasn’t until the late ‘40s, ’49 we became a Republic. And you know, there was a time where we were, the country didn’t, in the late ‘80s and ‘90s, the country didn’t have much recognition of what had happened, but in the last five years, 1916 has become an official recognized time by the government. Before that we were like, “Oh, do we acknowledge that we fought the Brits while they were fighting against the Germans in 1916? Is this something to be ashamed of?” And then we realized no, no, no, we were an occupied country, occupied by a foreign force. We fought them, and eventually through political means as well, we got our freedom back. And it is something to celebrate. So yeah, you’ll see all over Ireland. There are monuments everywhere.

BM: One of these days I’m going to have to visit there, because I think I have family that probably goes back, my last name is Murphy, so I know there’s gotta be someone there somewhere. But the picture people have of Ireland are a feisty or a passionate kind of people.

KF: Yeah, I definitely agree with that.

BM: Is it true, where does that come from? Why the passion? Why the fiery spirit?

KF: The fighting Irish, as they say.

BM: Yeah, yeah. Why is that?

KF: I don’t know. It could be, again, we were rebelling against the crown when everybody else was just being subdued. It could have come from there.

BM: Yeah.

KF: It could just be an American thing as well, the fighting Irish, you know.

BM: Oh yeah, yeah.

KF: I don’t know, I really don’t know.

BM: [laughs]

KF: I mean, we’re nice people.

BM: [laughs]

KF: [laughs]

BM: Yeah, I don’t doubt that.

KF: I don’t know if you’ve seen, if you watch Family Guy at all, Bill, do you?

BM: Yeah, yeah.

KF: Oh, there’s one classic episode where they went to Ireland 2000 years ago, and it was the most futuristic city with spaceships flying around. And like, Shawn O’Shaunessy comes in like, “Cheers, lads. I’ve just invented alcohol.” And the whole society crumbles and we’re gone.

BM: [laughs] Yeah, yeah, the pictures we get of Ireland are from Hollywood movies like “The Devil’s Own.” Remember that?

KF: Yeah, we are heavy drinkers. And that’s probably where it comes from as well. What can I say? Jeez, we were on tour last week in Belgium, I mean, talk about living up to stereotypes ourselves and Waylander. We drank all the support band’s beer, we drank our beer, and by the time the show’s coming to end, we’d started to affect the bar itself. You know, for the people that were there, we were drinking the bar dry.

BM: [laughs]

KF: At last we said to ourselves, “Fucking hell, this stereotype really is true.” That’s only when we’re on the road. When we’re at home, we’re normal.

BM: [laughs] Normal. Well, you mentioned something earlier, that’s quite a fact, that you can read, whether or not you believe Wikipedia or not, but you and Skyclad are credited as being the fathers of folk metal. Is that a true statement, and if so, does that give you any sort of weight on your shoulders?

KF: It’s hard to believe. And I was a fan of Skyclad before Cruachan really became a band. But the reality is Skyclad was doing…Yeah, I’m very proud of it, and it is probably true. Maybe there were other bands out there, but we were, I haven’t heard of them. You know, Waylander were probably a year after us, so in fairness, they could be credited as well. But it was Skyclad that influenced me. I thought, “Wow, I could try folk metal.”

BM: Your place in music history seems like quite an honor, a responsibility, and something to be proud of.

KF: Yeah, it is. I mean, obviously when I was getting Cruachan together, I thought, “I’m just doing this for myself. It’s music I like to do.” I had no idea a year later, you know, I’m responsible for creating a whole genre of music.

BM: [laughs]

KF: Yeah, except for Skyclad, there really wasn’t any other bands doing it.

BM: The question I have is kind of one that has to do with all the folk metal bands. I’ve never seen a genre get so big so fast.

KF: Yeah.

BM: Does it bother you to see bands like Ensiferum or Turisas or Korpiklaani, or all these other bands spring up out of nowhere and get really huge, when Cruachan is kind of sitting back thinking, “Dudes, we created this kind of genre. How come we’re not up there with you guys?”

KF: Yeah, I mean it is frustrating but I know the answers why, we’re not out there touring week in, week out. You look at Turisas, for example, they’re always on the road.

BM: Yeah.

KF: And that’s what sells CDs, that’s what sells merchandise, when you’re out on tour. We can’t do that. We just simply can’t do that. And it’s absolutely frustrating. I mean, I would love to put all my time and effort into Cruachan and making every album as perfect as can be, and we do, we absolutely do. We’ve just got so many commitments, so many children, we’ve nearly a football team worth of children.

BM: [laughs] Yeah.

KF: Children in the band. These are the reasons we can’t get up to that level, we can’t, you know, and that’s the reasons why we’re not.

BM: Is, the problems you have with the record labels are legendary now, too. Black Lotus, Century Media. Is part of success not just the talent, there has to be some element of luck involved.

KF: Yeah, I definitely agree with that as well. I mean, within a couple weeks of signing with AFM we were offered a huge 2 month tour with Moonsorrow. But we had to refuse it. That’s too short notice, their jobs won’t allow it, blah, blah, blah. Since then we haven’t been offered anything from AFM. I can see their point.

[At that point, our Skype connection died again…this time for good. I called Keith 30 minutes later on a landline…and the interview really took off.]

KF: Bill.

BM: Hey, how are you?

KF: Not too bad. [laughs]

BM: Hey, you’re not all modulated and phased and dropping off.

KF: Fantastic.

BM: [laughs]

KF: That’s brilliant. The wonders of old, plain old telephone, analog long distance. [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

KF: It must be, I’ve got a fucking 2MB line in my laptop. It had to be coming from my side.

BM: Oh, it’s possible. We got it fixed. I appreciate your time, and thanks for enduring the hassles.

KF: No problem.

BM: Well you know what? I think we left off with a couple of thoughts. You and Skyclad being one of them. But it was also kind of the luck of the draw, and all these other bands rising out of the ashes and almost overshadowing Cruachan. And what are your thoughts about that?

KF: Yeah, I do find it frustrating, definitely. And I’ve always wanted to be, obviously sell a lot of CDs, get a lot of recognition playing the type of concerts that I see them playing. And yeah, absolutely it’s frustrating to see, but I can see why that is the case as well. And it is our fault, it’s completely our fault because of the circumstances and the situations that Cruachan have, mainly the families, the jobs, the mortgages, all this kind of stuff. Most of those bands that are out there touring can go out and do three months at a stretch. And every band that’s doing that type of touring are going to attract many, many fans. We’ve only done one gig here in Dublin on Saturday night. We got twice as many people as we expected, and I’d say about 20% of the people there never heard of us, and left amazed, talking about us, buying merchandise. And that’s just one gig, how many years later. If we were doing what these other bands are doing, every day like for months, we would be up there with them, definitely. But circumstances don’t allow it, so there’s very little we can do.

BM: What does that do for your Cruachan game plan, then? Does it make you want to try harder and do more? Or does it frustrate you too much to think you could never reach that level?

KF: We’ve always tried hard, and we’ve always wanted to better ourselves as well. I mean, I’ve got over 15, 18 years now, nearly, doing this, so we’re probably at our peak. We’ll probably never get any more, but having said that, we’re getting more offers to play festivals than we ever have before. We’re getting more offers to do tours than we ever have. So it’d be fair to say that we could become that little bit bigger. We’re getting some really good recognition in the likes of UK MetalHammer, these types of things are recognizing what we’ve done, and the achievements that we’ve done. So we’ll always try harder, we’ll always try to outdo ourselves. As I said about the new album, when we start work on it, we’re going to make sure it’s groundbreaking. We have to, the bar’s been set so high by these other bands, you know.

BM: [laughs]

KF: It’s not just stick a tin whistle on top of some metal anymore, no one accepts shoddy music these days, because these bands are so good. So it’s good as well, it’s competition, at the end of the day as well.

BM: Well, what do you think you’d have to do then? What would you consider groundbreaking for a Cruachan album? What would it have to sound like or include? Would it be lyrically or musically, strange instruments brought in, or what? [laughs]

KF: Yeah, it’s a good question. I mean, we’ve always had our own unique sound, no matter what these other folk metal bands do. Some of them do Irish traditional music, but you know, they’re not Irish. So there’s always that kind of unbelievableness about them, for want of a better word.

BM: Yeah.

KF: We’re from Ireland, you know.

BM: [laughs]

KF: It’s like listening to doom metal, listening to bands from northern England playing doom metal, and rain, and it’s believable. It’s the same comparison. We’re from Ireland, we’re steeped in Celtic heritage and culture. It is real. I mean, there’s a Brazilian band, Tuatha De Dannan. It’s a great band, I mean, I know them really well. But they’re Brazilian, and they’re singing about all these Irish myths and legends.

BM: [laughs]

KF: It’s brilliant, it’s a great homage, and it just goes to show you how deep the Irish culture goes around the world. But at the end of the day, one thing goes for us, I’m not trying to take away from any of these bands, I’m trying to say one thing going for Cruachan is we’re genuinely Irish, we’re steeped in the culture, we’re steeped in the heritage. Where we were doing the interview in my mothers house in Tallaght, I was at the foothills of the Dublin mountains looking up to where rebels were taken up and shot. And the land is called Tallaght, which is an English abbreviation of the word Taimleacht, which means plague graves. And the longer name is Taimleacht Muintir Partholon, which means plague graves of the people of Ireland, or of the people of Tartalan. You know, they came to Ireland long before the Celts came to Ireland, they died of a plague. And that was where my ass was sitting at the time of that interview. That’s where I was, Tallaght. You know, certainly with all that on board and the determination, yeah, I want to do something groundbreaking. What it is, I don’t know. Fucking techno dance beats or something?

BM: [laughs]

KF: No, that’s a joke. [laughs] Never in a million years. No, it will be the music. It will be just the music, but over the years we’ve gotten the more harder, kind of black type of vibe back in. We’re going to have a bit more of that in the next album. And incorporate Karen into that as well, like have her sing melodically over some more extreme parts. I have some brilliant ideas, but we’ll see what happens. I haven’t said, I have no idea if AFM are going to want to keep us on the record label, because of our inability to tour.

BM: Yeah.

KF: They want bands constantly on the road. The one tour we refused with Moonsorrow, and we haven’t got one single offer of a tour since then. So, not necessarily bad, but I would not be surprised if we approached them and said, “We’re ready for our second album.” And they said, “No, not interested.” And we’re searching for another label again. Possibility. That might not happen. Who knows.

BM: What does it take, cost-wise? I know Heathen Crusade here in the States was interested in you guys?

KF: Yeah.

BM: What does it take to bring you over here? Would it be paying for, obviously, plane fare, visas, the whole works?

KF: Yeah, I mean when we play, playing Russia is much more expensive than playing the States, and we play there every year. It’s very economically viable for the promoters that bring us there, they make a nice bit of money out of us, and all we’d expect when we do any tour or festival, depends on the festival as well, we expect our flights to be paid. We don’t expect to have to spend any of our own money to go and do tours. A lot of smaller bands pay for the privilege of touring, and that’s fair enough. We’ve gotten to a stage where it’s great to be in Cruachan and do what we’re doing, but we don’t earn enough in our day jobs to have to pay and go and play a gig. Luckily, that’s not the case. Promoters are more than happy to bring us over and pay a nice fee. Every show we do, we get a very nice fee on top of all the expenses. So it’s great. There’s always that little bit of extra income coming in. Now, I’d never say we’re doing it for the money in a million years, but it’s very nice at the end of a very successful show to have a bit of cash in the back pocket and spend it on a few drinks. So it would be the same going to the States. We would expect flights, visas, accommodation, and you know, we’re not rock stars, we’re not prima donnas, we’re very reasonable, ‘scuse me. [coughs] Still have a bloody cough the last week. The festival in Belgium, we were sleeping on blow-up mattresses in a friend of the organizer’s house. So you know, you adapt and you survive.

BM: You’d mentioned something earlier, that I was going to ask you anyway, and you kind of said it. Celtic metal bands in the States or anywhere else in the world…is that real Celtic metal, or is that some kind of pseudo-Celtic metal? Can it only be Celtic metal if it comes from your region?

KF: And the funny thing is, according to Wikipedia, you’re asking the most authoritative person in the world on the subject, because I created Celtic metal.

BM: [laughs]

KF: But I don’t know, genres, it’s all heavy metal at the end of the day, isn’t it? There’s too many genres. I mean, we’re pagan metal, Celtic metal, folk metal, I don’t know. I mean, look at your second name, Bill Murphy. You know, there’s obviously Irish roots back there. You don’t get that being born in a tribe in South America.

BM: [laughs]

KF: But a lot of people, a lot of fans when we were in Belgium, I don’t know what it is about Ireland, just a lot of people seem to have some sort of affiliation with the place. I think it’s amazing. I tour all over the world, and no matter where I end up, I find an Irish pub to go in and have a drink.

BM: Well, there’s something about, it’s the whole culture. It’s the bagpipes, it’s the tin whistles, it the drinking songs. Everybody wants to be Irish for some reason. [laughs]

KF: [laughs] It’s mad. But no, I mean, Celtic metal, you could describe it musically as Irish, you know, traditional Irish folk tunes mixed with heavy metal. That’s Celtic metal. And if that’s what you’re playing, you can call it folk metal, Celtic metal, pagan metal. It’s too hard to say do you have to be from Ireland to play Celtic metal.

BM: Yeah.

KF: And that’s not what I was getting at previously when I was saying about Cruachan, we’re Irish, so only we can play it. I’m not saying only we can play this kind of music, I’m saying it gives us much more credibility and believability over a lot of our—

BM: Sure.

KF: But they do what they can, and they play some very convincing Irish music even though they’re as Brazilian as, I don’t know.

BM: Rio De Janeiro. [laughs]

KF: Exactly. [laughs] Thank you.

BM: [laughs] Well, is it possible to define folk metal, then? As a genre, it’s exploding. Everybody, every country’s got their folk metal bands, and it all sounds different.

KF: If you really wanted to, you could define it. Say, you know, folk instruments and traditional bits. But pick out the first two Iron Maiden albums, and listen to how many folk tunes are on there. A lot of Iron Maiden stuff sounds like traditional Irish music. There’s no fiddles, there’s no whistles, and it’s as heavy metal as a spandex, fucking cod piece.

BM: [laughs]

KF: You know, a lot of heavy metal sounds folky. And you go back to the earlier stuff like Black Sabbath, I can hear folk music in it. [coughs] Sorry, I’m sputtering here. This is a nightmare.

BM: [laughs] Isn’t it ironic, now that we have a good connection, now you’re failing. [laughs]

KF: [laughs] Yeah. It’s amazing. I’d just shaken the cough last week, and then I did a concert here in Dublin. Fuck, it totally destroyed me.

BM: Well you know what, I don’t want to make things worse for you. We could try it a different day.

KF: Oh no, no, no. No, no. I’ve been coughing for the last couple of days. It’s not going to make it worse, if you can stand the sputters down the phone line.

BM: Oh sure. You know, I’d read interviews where you said bands like Horslips were important to the sound of Cruachan. And when I listen to that band, I hear a lot of Jethro Tull, circa Songs from the Wood.

KF: Oh yeah, definitely. Yeah, Horslips, they were another, definitely an influence. And just one of my favorite bands, still one of my favorite bands. I haven’t listened to them in a bit, but that’s how it happens with music, you come in and out, you dip in and out of things.

BM: Yeah.

KF: I haven’t listened to them in a few years, but they’re definitely one of my favorite bands, and always have been. And again, very, very groundbreaking in their day. They were playing rock probably as heavy as what was out there. With a lot of help from the Rolling Stones here in Ireland, they recorded with the Rolling Stones. And again, pure Irish traditional music mixed in with the rock of the day. And it was just very heavy. Yeah, they are a very big influence on me.

BM: You know what I haven’t read much in interviews with you, is how did you get your start? When did you first realize that you wanted to be a musician and could actually play and write and sing?

KF: It was when I got into metal, I suppose, at the age of 16, 15. Actually, it was 14, what am I saying. My first metal band was a kind of grind core, Jeez, I’d been through all the early heavy metal stuff and got into grind core for some reason. We started up a grind core band and I was doing vocals into an old fucking stereo, with Jay O’Neill on drums and Steven Anderson, two of the original Cruachan members. And we’re just blasting out, you know, two-note riffs and we just had the drums and the amplifier. And we’d record the practice, but I’d be kind of sitting beside the tape recorder, so you wouldn’t hear anything else, except, “Raaugh, raugh, raugh.” They wouldn’t hear anything. But then we played the tape back and there’s a perfect vocal track over the two guys.

BM: Really?

KF: So that’s where it started. We were called P.U.S., it stood for Pure Utter Shite.

BM: [laughs]

KF: After that, my sister’s boyfriend, Martin, was in a death, trash metal band in 1991 called Crypt, C-R-Y-P-T. They needed a vocalist, and they could hear what I was doing. And PUS, I started doing this scream sort of vocal, no one I knew was doing screams in those days. This was before the black metal ever took off. I was doing screams because I liked what I heard from early Napalm Death, early Carcass, and early Creator. They were the screams I heard. “Oh fuck, that’s brilliant.” This is long before black metal really, really took off. Ok, Venom were doing it, Battery as well, but I wasn’t really listening to them at the time. And I started doing the screams exclusively in Crypt. Screaming my head off, the band members were a little bit older than me, fantastic musicians. And there’s a demo out there somewhere which I’m trying to get my hands, trying to get a hold of, but John Clohessy played bass in that band. And then I kinda started messing about on guitar at that time as well. I used to play with my thumb. You know, I thought I could just up and down the fret board with my thumb, stringing Napalm Death riffs together. Eventually started picking up power chords and getting into other stuff. I was about 15 or 14 still. And big into Lord of the Rings. And I decided to get the band Minas Tirith together as sort of a tribute to Lord of the Rings, a concept band. A we’d done a couple of rehearsals, a couple of songs, and then I just started getting back into folk music, which I’d always liked. Started to listen to it a bit more, and then literally heard Skyclad, Wayward Sons of Mother Earth. “The Widdershins Jig,” that real English folk music, I was like, “Holy shit, this is what I need to be doing.” And yeah, the rest is history. [laughs]

BM: [laughs] Yeah. What is it about folk music? What kind of person—I don’t even know how to ask this question. To what kind of person does folk music appeal? I mean, do you have to be a sort of romantic? Do you have to be filled with wanderlust, sadness, melancholy. What is it?

KF: I don’t know, it’s hard. I mean, listen to some of our stuff, Finntroll, Korpiklaani. It’s funny, you know, someone with a sense of humor as well, you could throw in there.

BM: Yeah, yeah.

KF: But is there a certain type of guy that only likes folk metal? I don’t think so. I look at the people that come to our gigs, and I see, sometimes, like the Dublin gig, I see cross-sections of society. I’m going, “What the fuck is going on here?” When we play Europe, it’s usually a metal crowd, but you know, you get your fucking Nazi skinheads coming who think, “Yeah, you’re singing about European paganism, this is for me.” Then you get your liberal left wing who love the trees, and say, “Oh, sing about nature. This is for me.”

BM: [laughs]

KF: So that’s as broad a selection of people as you can get.

BM: Yeah, that’s true. You’re right. [laughs] As you said, Minus Tirith, the Lord of the Rings. Did you grow up liking fantasy, sci-fi books?

KF: Oh definitely, yeah, definitely. And I mean, Lord of the Rings has been, even as an adult. I know they say Lord of the Rings should be your favorite book when you’re a kid but definitely should not be your favorite book when you’re an adult, it’s still one of my favorite books. I absolutely love it.

BM: Yeah.

KF: I’ve read it nearly 13 times. I think the movies are brilliant, even with all the fucking liberties that were taken, I think they’re fantastic. I’ve always loved fantasy stuff as well. And I’ve always read the fictionalized versions of Irish history, with the extra bits of romance thrown in, this kind of thing. Yeah, I’ve read a lot of fantasy and sci-fi, and I love it. I’m a huge Star Wars fan as well, and Transformers fan. I’ve huge collections of all these action figures and everything, you know.

BM: Did you ever play Dungeons and Dragons growing up?

KF: Oh yeah, we did.

BM: [laughs]

KF: Around the time of Crypt, the members of Crypt, we played. It was actually Middle-earth Role Playing (MERP).

BM: Oh yeah.

KF: We’d laugh at Dungeons and Dragons, you know, “Oh, that’s basic, with their one-to-10.”

BM: [laughs]

KF: It’s just, we’re playing with a 100-sided dice. Yeah, we were big into the fantasy role playing.

BM: [laughs]

KF: To be honest, I look back at some of the memories, and I think, you know, I’d like to start it up again as an adult, get back into it. Jeez, I have some great memories of those days.

BM: You know, I thought of that myself, and it just doesn’t seem like it’s possible now. I’ve mentioned to my wife, “Why don’t we get some people together and play these games?” She’s like, “Are you nuts?” [laughs]

KF: I was on a site recently, and I found the rulebook from Middle-earth Role Playing, and I was like, “Holy shit.” Downloaded it, all the fucking nostalgia just came flying back. I know my younger brother would definitely be interested, but again, it’s time. I’m an adult now and I’ve got so much going on in my life to fit in a whole night to do it. But I’m determined. I’m definitely determined to slot that in and get that back.

BM: [laughs]

KF: You know? If I can get some sad, geek individuals like myself to join in.

BM: [laughs] Yeah, I know. I was talking to Elvenking’s guitarist, Aydan.

KF: Yeah.

BM: And I was asking him about fans of their band, they’re sometimes, and I said, “I don’t mean to use this term, but ‘nerds.’” [laughs] And he and laughed. He laughed his ass off. He said, “Yeah, that’s exactly what they are. They’re nerds.”

KF: I tell ya, Bill, I’m the biggest nerd you’ll ever meet.

BM: [laughs]

KF: I collect Star Wars toys, I collect Transformers toys. I collect games consoles. I’ve over fucking, I’ve close to one and a half thousand different console computer games, you know.

BM: Yeah.

KF: I’m a sad, hording, collecting, fucking geek.

BM: [laughs]

KF: But, you know, whatever keeps you happy. That’s my motto.

BM: You know what that indicates, though, is an imagination. I mean, creative imagination. I’m that way too. I’ve got more books and things than I can possibly read. I hung onto all my D&D stuff until just recently.

KF: Oh really?

BM: Yeah, so I know what you mean.

KF: Yeah.

BM: But, the record label woes, Century Media, Black Lotus, and all that kind of stuff. When you look back on your history, in Cruachan, what lessons have you learned? Have you learned to do something, or not do something? What have you gained after all this time?

KF: We had some really nightmarish experiences with studio payments and record labels.

BM: Oh yeah.

KF: At the end of Pagan, for example, Karmageddon Media weren’t happy with the end project. And that’s what they were saying, in reality, they were in the middle of bankruptcy. They said, “No, we’re not paying this.” I said, “Ok, hang on a minute. The studio is booked under my name, Keith Fay, so I’m in debt to the studio.” So I went through fucking a few months of solicitors, courts, being threatened with courts, this, that, and the other, until eventually they agreed to pay bit by bit every month. Doesn’t sound so bad, but if you’re going through that and if you could hear the whole story, it was a nightmare.

BM: Oh yeah.

KF: Exact same fucking thing happened with The Morrigan’s Call. Black Lotus fucking closed the doors, couldn’t pay it. So it was the exact same thing. Different studio, Sun Studios, where we love to record, and we know, the owner of the studio’s a good friend of Karen’s, and he’s fucking on the phone, “I need the money today. I need the money. I need the money.” “Sorry, there’s no record label, the label’s gone bankrupt.” “I need the fucking money, you’ll be brought to court. Need the money. Need the money.” Like fucking Fat Tony on the Simpsons, “Where’s the money?”

BM: [laughs]

KF: “Why aren’t you getting the money now?” So eventually, what was it that fucking happened? The guy said, “Can you not all get bank loans?” Cruachan, individually get bank loans to pay the studio. It was just, “Would you fuck off.” Then, AFM, I think we were very close to signing with Nuclear Blast. But when AFM came along, it was just, “Brilliant, where do we sign?” So within a week of signing, they paid the studio costs. But you know, that was the last two albums, and that was two very stressful periods in my life. You can imagine my friends and family are saying, “What the fuck is going on, Keith? I don’t like you being threatened with court. This is supposed to be something you’re enjoying. You’re not making a living out of the band. This is something you’re enjoying, why the fuck you being threatened with court?”

BM: Well, what you’re describing is15 years or more of extremely difficult, slogging times, in which you were threatened with court action, labels gone bankrupt, less than stellar sounding albums (at least, in your opinion)…and yet you’re still here. You’re still doing it. How is that possible? [laughs] Why haven’t you just pitched it all?

KF: Well, it’s a total cliché, but it’s for the music. I absolutely love the music. I love playing live. If I had it my way, things were different, we would be that band out there playing for three months. We would be the band going all over the world. You know, that’s my dream. That’s always been my dream. Reality turned out a little bit different, and it’s a shame, but it’s purely and solely for the music, and I love it up on stage, and you see a few people, nowadays you don’t know who the fuck they are, and they’re singing every single word of a song that you wrote two years ago, you know, I’ve written that song two years previously in my kitchen, over a cup of tea some night. And here I am struggling over the words. Two years into the future, I’m looking at some complete stranger passionately singing my lyrics. You know, you can’t pay for that stuff. That’s just amazing.

BM: Is that a dream come true? Do you feel like you’ve arrived? Are you a success now? Or is there still more out there for you to accomplish?

KF: We’re definitely successful, and you know, we sell a lot of CDs, we’ve got a lot of fans. We get an amazing amount of fan mail. We’re successful in that sense. Ok, financially, we haven’t made a single penny out of CD sales. That’s because HammerHeart were a corrupt share of assholes. And we still, we could bring them to court and go looking for money, but you know, I can do without the stress in my life, I’ve got too much going on. But our length of time on HammerHeart, we have not received one single penny in royalties. And AFM, they’re a professional label. We haven’t received any royalties yet, but I’m sure we will in the future. But shit, what was I saying? I completely forgot the question, Bill.

BM: Are you a success, have you arrived?

KF: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. So you’re saying financially are we successful? No, not at all. From fans and music getting out there, yeah, we are definitely very successful. One of the most successful metal bands to ever come from Ireland.

BM: What does it take for a band to make it these days? Do you need a great manager? Do you need a great label? Do you need distribution? What does it take? What would it take for Cruachan?

KF: Again, you know, it’s hard to say. Success is something that’s subjective anyway. But if you mean like having CDs on store shelves in the US and having fans, it would be a combination of everything. Like we’ve gone through periods of having a manager and having no manager. 90% of the time we’ve had no manager, I do all the management. It’s, a lot of it’s to do with luck and a lot of it’s to do with the music you do. You know, I have friends that often say, friends that don’t like metal, say, “What the fuck is this music? Geez, why are you wasting your time?”

BM: [laughs]

KF: “If you got rid of the folk music and played decent metal or decent music that everyone likes, then you’d be a success.” I’m like, “Hang on a minute. If we get rid of the folk music, play music that everyone likes, suddenly we’re competing with over two million bands in the world. What we do right now is absolutely unique. There’s no competition.” So you know, this is what we do. It comes down to the type of music you play. If you’re going to be another trash metal band, with no hook and nothing different, you’re not going to get anywhere. I think nowadays it really, really comes down to uniqueness and something different. And that’s what a lot, especially folk metal, every folk metal band has. Listen to Korpiklaani, Fintroll, Turisas, Eluveitie, Waylander, they’re all completely different, yet they’re playing folk tunes with heavy metal backing. And as well to be successful, you need a good record label. Not necessarily a big record label, as we’re finding out. You know, AFM are huge, to the point where they can overlook some of the smaller bands. You know, they’ve put a lot of money into Whitesnake, but who the fuck is Cruachan on their roster? You know, when we go to a smaller label and suddenly Cruachan is the biggest band on the label and we get really well looked after. So it’s about picking the right label as well.

BM: Well, wow. Yeah, that’s all too common, unfortunately. I’ve talked to so many bands where it always comes down to the record label, either going bankrupt or not paying. That’s unfortunate.

KF: Yeah.

BM: Do you have a favorite road story, anything that happened out there that was the scariest or most fun or most memorable?

KF: We’ve so many road stories, Bill. It’s shocking.

BM: [laughs]

KF: We tour Russia every year, and what can I say. The last time we were over there, I’ll give you one. I love this one. This one I tell people, like “What’s it like on tour?” “Well, listen to this.”

BM: [laughs]

KF: We were on the night train between Moscow and St. Petersburg. It’s a fantastic train, it’s literally a straight line. The story went whatever Czar wrote a line on a map and said, “I want a train line from St. Petersburg to Moscow.” But when he drew the line, his thumb jutted out onto the page and he slightly traced over this bump. There’s a curvature over a few hundred miles in the train track. But that’s beside the point. Anyway, we’re coming from St. Petersburg to Moscow on the night train. And we were a bit loud. So the security guard came over every now and then and said something in Russian. “Yeah, yeah, whatever.” Eventually, the carriage stopped. We didn’t think anything of it. So the door opens up and two Russian police with AK-47s, like full-blown fucking assault rifles, come through the door at Cruachan. “For fuck’s sake, what now?” So, something in Russian, our tour manager gets up, goes out the door, explains what’s going on to them. Little did we know he’s explaining that a top man in the Russian mafia brought Cruachan over on tour, and he’d be very upset if there are any troubles. So, the police are, “Oh, no problem. It’s good, it’s good.”

BM: [laughs]

KF: So that was that. The police were now under Cruachan’s control. [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

KF: While all that was happening, Russian bandits stole the engine from the train.

BM: [laughs]

KF: The actual car. Where the fuck are they going, it’s on tracks? But, “Choo choo!” They were gone.

BM: [laughs]

KF: So 20 carriages left without an engine. In the middle of nowhere.

BM: [laughs] Oh man.

KF: So all this, the information’s filtering down to us, and we’re going, “That can’t be right. Where are they going to go with the engine from a train?” So we got off the carriage, we went out for a piss, it was in the middle of nowhere. You know, we’d been drinking for the whole journey, we needed to go to the toilet. And armies of old Russian women descended upon us, selling us dried fish. [laughs]

BM: Dried fish?

KF: Yeah, how the fuck did they know, like, we’re going to get off and piss here, and that the engine … Yeah, we’ll buy your disgusting dried fish. Took it onto the train. You know, the tour manager said, “Oh, we always do this. The women sell us the dried fish. We love it.” So, I don’t like fish anyway. So that was the main thing that happened that night. Then, later on, an engine was returned. We were still there about an hour, and somewhere, another engine came and took us on our merry way. We were fine.

BM: [laughs]

KF: Later on that night, myself and my brother, John, were in, you know, going up and down the train a little bit quieter than we had. And we met an old Russian army, retired army guy. We’re like, “Oh, hello.” He’d seen an Irish flag, “Oh, hello.” Our tour manager was translating for us. And my brother and I are big into army stuff, we love everything having to do with fucking army, and military. So we were talking away. And I had a bottle of scotch. One of the band supporters gave us a bottle of scotch, and he was toasting Ireland and toasting Russia. He gave John his white camouflage sniper’s gear. He gave me a knife. We kept toasting and toasting, and then I have no memory until waking up in my bunk in the carriage absolutely in agony from the drink. And my brother was telling me at one stage I was on my knees on the rail crawling back to my bed. I’ve no memory of it. It was just a total blackout.

BM: [laughs] Oh man.

KF: From that squalor on the train, we’ve got our gig in Moscow. It was an acoustic gig we’d done in Moscow. We had three gigs in Moscow, and that night we were taken to, you know, some nights you stay in a five-star hotel, sometimes we stay in the place we stayed that night, which was a communist commune. So we’re driving up to it, and we’re told, “Ok, this is a communist commune. You can’t speak English here.” We’re like, “What? You fucking bring an English-speaking band to a fucking place you can’t speak English?” And then my brother looks, he’s wearing United States army, desert storm combats. He’s going, “I’m fucking wearing an American combat, what the fuck are they going to think of me?” So that was it. I mean there’s no big story. We went in and we slept, and we picked up at 8:00 the next morning. But that’s one of so many bizarre tales from Russia. Every time we go, we just come back with the most outrageous stories you can imagine.

BM: Did you ever like worry for your lives? Or did you just believe everything would work out okay?

KF: No, it’s weird, there’s a lot of time the year before. You know, the tour manager always makes sure we’re back. Ok, back in the hotel, he’s off the hook. He’s got us back to the hotel, we’re fine. But we arranged to meet up with the guy from the support band. So the tour manager was gone half an hour later, we’re in reception in the hotel, giggling like, “Hoo, we’re escaping.” But then, we’re brought out onto a fucking 10-lane motorway, and the guy in the support band, he’s from Moscow, starts hailing down any car, and that’s what they do in Russia. Any car will just stop like a taxi and just bring you where you want to go.

BM: Really?

KF: I’m like, “Is this fucking normal?” “Yeah, it’s ok. It’s ok.”

BM: [laughs]

KF: So we’re all piled into this little fucking car, going to the pub. This mad guy in the front, he looked crazy, he says, “Yes, I’ll bring you there for whatever rubles.” But no, there’s never, oh, there was. We were doing a press conference in the Moscow Hard Rock Café. We weren’t fearing for our lives, but apparently there was cock up with our Russian record label who distributes our stuff in Russia to license stuff, and the promoter. So we’re doing a press conference, the Hard Rock Café thought we were doing an unplugged set, and there was a crowd there. But we were playing a proper concert in Moscow that night, so we were like, “Look, we didn’t know anything about it. It was a cock-up between the label and the tour manager.” And the manager of the Hard Rock Café in Moscow was saying, “I cannot fucking accept this. Tomorrow I will ring my bosses in Florida, and Cruachan will never be allowed into Hard Rock Café.”

BM: Oh man.

KF: I was like, “Eh, ok.” [laughs] I mean, a few weeks ago I was in the Hard Rock Café in Dublin going, “I’m not meant to be here.” You know, laughing with the girl. It was funny.

BM: [laughs]

KF: But no, we’ve never been in fear of our lives.

BM: Wow. Do you ever think about writing a book about all these stories and what it’s like on the road?

KF: We talk about it every time. You know, every time we go away, all we do on the road is talk about the stories we’ve experienced, the crazy characters that we’ve met. Yeah, it always comes up. We need to write this down, because we’re going to forget it.

BM: Yeah, you really should. It sounds fascinating. I’d read it. [laughs]

KF: [laughs]

BM: Well, the last thing I’ll ask you is about the Internet, YouTube, MySpace, things like that. Do you mind at all like when fans take video clips of your shows and post them on YouTube? Is that a good thing or a bad thing?

KF: No, not at all. It’s a great thing. I love it. I always come back from a concert and you know, good friends back in Ireland will always be waiting for the YouTube video to come up to see how we got on if we’re gone for more than a week. I think it’s brilliant.

BM: Cool.

KF: The gig in Dublin on Saturday, you know, by Sunday afternoon there was videos up on YouTube. I think they’re fantastic.

BM: Well, it’s definitely a pleasure to chat with you.

KF: Yeah, it was great talking to you too, Bill.

BM: We’ll have to keep in touch. And let me know when you’re write that book. [laughs]

KF: [laughs] I sure will. Bill, it’s been an absolute pleasure. We’ll definitely keep in touch.

BM: Thanks, Keith. Take care.

KF: If we’re ever in the States, we’ll meet up for a drink, I reckon, yeah?

BM: Yeah. Definitely, or we can get over there.

KF: Where are you from?

BM: I live in Michigan in the States. My wife and I are talking about doing an Ireland trip sometime either late this year or next.

KF: Oh, you definitely should.

BM: We’ll stop by and you can show us where you go drinking. [laughs]

KF: Oh yeah, Geez, we’ll show you a really great time.

BM: [laughs] Alright, Keith. You have a really good evening.

KF: You too, Bill. It was nice talking to you. Bye bye.

BM: Thank you.

And so ends one of my all-time favorite interviews.

Special thanks to Keith Fay for his time, patience, photographs, and great sense of humor.

If that was all it took to make it big these days, you couldn’t walk six feet without tripping over a successful Pagan-Metal band.

So, for me, the true worth of a band is measured in the notes it doesn’t play, in the volume it withholds, and in the variety of styles in which it renders its creative visions.

In other words, a band has to wow me with its musical virtuosity before I will embrace it and return often to its music.

I wasn’t familiar with the quintet Helfahrt prior to Trollzorn sending me a promo copy of Wiedergang, which is scheduled for release July 4th. But after hearing the album a half dozen times over the past couple of days, I think I’ve found another band that I’ll turn to often. And not necessarily because of Wiedergang, either. Although Wiedergang is good, I think Helfahrt has the talent to, in time, create Opeth-like masterpieces. So when I listen to Wiederang, I feel like I’m getting in on the ground floor of something that has the potential to become much bigger in the future.

There are 10 tracks on Wiedergang. I used an online translation web site to come up with rough, literal English translations (which are in parentheses):

1. Halja (”The underworld, i.e.; hell”)
2. Nu Distel, Nu Dorn (Possibly “New thistle, new thorn” or, maybe, a reference to Spring)
3. Irrlicht (”Will-o’-the-wisp”)
4. Altsommer (”Old summer”)
5. Die Erde birgt den Tod… (”The earth rescues the death…”)
6. Wiederganger (”Ghost - a departed person who returns to earth at certain times”)
7. Perchta (From Wikipedia: “Perchta or Berchta [English: Bertha], also commonly known as Percht and other variations, was once known as a goddess in Southern Germanic paganism in the Alpine countries. Her name means The Shining One.”)
8. Auf Nagelfars Deck (”On Nagelfars deck”)
9. Herbst (”Autumn”)
10. Winter (”Winter”)

Since the lyrics are in German, it helps to seek out translations, even rudimentary ones, to get a general idea regarding the meaning of the songs. Once I did that, I gained a deeper appreciation for what Helfahrt tried to convey in their music.

Wiedergang appears to be a very earthy song-cycle about seasons and those (alive and dead) who celebrate them. As such, it’s perfect thematic material for a Pagan Black-Metal band.

The music runs the gamut from pretty instrumental interludes (”Halja,” which sets a spooky tone for the rest of the album, “Altsommer,” a nice acoustic guitar piece, and “Winter,” an emotive piano and guitar composition) to pile-driving, triple-time riffing and Black-Metal growling. My favorite songs are all of the aforementioned instrumental tracks, plus “Wiederganger,” “Perchta,” and “Herbst” — all of which feature a slowed-down pace and songs with more riff-oriented guitar work. (Five minutes and fifty seconds into “Herbst” is a passage of music with a perfect balance of dark and light — heavy riffs give way to gentle flutes, acoustic guitar…and then back to crushing riffs.)

When Helfahrt mixes it up, they’re truly powerful. And dark. This is genuine Pagan Black-Metal for those who want to feel connected to the earth and all its magic — for good and evil. But for them to break through and stand taller than other bands who play this type of music they’ll have to explore the light side, not the dark. It’s easy to be dark. It’s extremely difficult to mix the two to create textures that compel listeners.

Think Tumnus, the faun, in C.S. Lewis’ classic book The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. Tumnus couldn’t have lured Lucy into his cave had he appeared like the devil himself, all loud and scary. No. He was soothing, and gentle, and quaint. Lucy couldn’t help herself. She was drawn in.

For Helfahrt to draw in fans around the world, I recommend they work to strengthen their acoustic chops. Explore folk instruments, tunings, and arrangements. Work those into the blackness and — voila! — Tumnus the faun, luring listeners into the music…and making them fans for life. Metal Wyrd rating: 7.5/10

Frankly, I haven’t heard anything this darn fun in a long time.

Everything about Journeys is first-rate (with the possible exception of production, but I’ll get to that in a minute): The glossy, multi-fold CD booklet is very well designed, with lyrics printed black against a lighter parchment-like color (so they’re easily readable), the fonts chosen — although from a faux-Celtic font family — don’t hinder readability, either. Kudos to new Ohio-based label Farvahar Records for the TLC.

The music (”Ale-Swilling, Trollslaying, Angry Celtic Metal,” according to their MySpace page) isn’t what you’d typically expect from a band in this genre — even an angry, trollslaying one. “Cookie-Monster” growls are kept to a minimum. Clean vocals reign in Journeys…as do big, fat guitar tones and crystal-clear solos. Not to mention lots of harmony vocals reminiscent of proud warriors running, swords drawn, across a battle field.

Who’s responsible for the music on Journeys, Fables & Lore? According to the CD booklet and web site:

Cinnead Loreweaver – Lead Vocals, Guitar, Spear
Rygon Riffaxe — Guitar, Vocals, Battleaxe
Jarloc Darkstar — Bass, Vocals, Claymore
Justyn “Blade” van Stokken — Drums in the deep, Vocals, Battle Staves

But they could just as easily have named Frodo, Bilbo, Merry and Pippin. They’re pseudonyms, of couse. All good, clean fun, fully in keeping with folk-metal bands (see Elvenking for example).

The 15 tracks on Journeys, Fables & Lore run the gamut from battle cries to battle songs to battle victories to battle, well, you get the idea. In all that metal mayhem, one song particularly stands out: “Ale,” which is an ode to rowdy drinking and carousing (a la Dropkick Murphys) complete with Irish accents straight from County Cork.

It really isn’t possible to take this music seriously. But I don’t think we’re supposed to. This is well-crafted, tongue-in-cheek metal for people who want to laugh bawdily, down tankards of ale, and imagine what the Celts must have felt when they marched off to war. It’s music made by passionate people for passionate people. For that reason, whatever production flaws there may be (and there are some) are quickly forgiven and forgotten amidst the sheer enjoyment of it all. It’s obvious these guys are playing their hearts out, sincerely diggin’ every minute of it. And, as listeners, so are we.

My only gripe (aside from somewhat cheesy lyrics) is the length of this recording. Clocking it at nearly 65 minutes, it feels about 15 minutes too long. If ever there was a case to be made for less is more, Journeys, Fables & Lore makes it.

Still, for a debut album, Journeys, Fables & Lore is a noteworthy achievement. Lunarium can stand tall and proud, swords bloodied but unbroken, heads unbowed, knowing they’ve given fans of this genre an album as much fun to listen to as their stage show must be to watch. Metal Wyrd rating: 7/10

NOTE: Lunarium will appear at this year’s Heathen Crusade metal fest in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Eluveitie recently signed a deal with Nuclear Blast and released its third album, Slania, this year.

The interview was conducted via Skype. I called Rafi, who had just recovered from a bad case of the flu. NOTE: All photos, except for album covers, were graciously provided by Rafi.

RK: Hello Bill. Can you hear me? [laughs]

BM: Hi, how are you?

RK: Fine, fine. [laughs] How are you?

BM: Great. Doing well, thank you.

RK: Great.

BM: Are you feeling better now?

RK: Yeah, really. I’m feeling fine now.

BM: Good. I appreciate your time today. It’s great to talk to you.

RK: Yes. No problem.

BM: By the way, your English is great. I don’t know what you were worried about. [laughs]

RK: [laughs] Thanks a lot. I hope it will be good for a whole interview. [laughs]

BM: [laughs] Let me ask you a few things about Slania, specifically, and then some things in general about your background.

RK: Yes.

BM: It’s a great album. It really is. It sounds fantastic. What looks like the single, the music video for “Inis Mona” is a lot of fun to watch. Did you guys have fun making it?

RK: [laughs] Well, it’s also a lot of work. Sure, it’s fun but I had neck problems for a whole week after it [laughs]. You have to bang the whole day long and it should always look the same, you know. Sure, it’s fun. We had to get up at four in the morning and made shooting until five pm in the evening. So there’s a lot of time invested in it.

BM: Wow. Yeah. You know what’s interesting is you guys are an eight-piece band.

RK: Right. Yes.

BM: When you play live do you, like, ever trip over each other?

RK: No. We have all our regions on the stage and we appreciate the places the other use and we try not to kick each other. [laughs]. But sometimes it happens. Chrigel [Glanzmann], the singer, he [laughs] he certainly has the problem to not look at other people. [laughs] But it works. It works.

BM: My favorite part of that music video is watching [laughs] watching your brother play the bagpipes –

RK: [laughs]

BM: And he’s got that heavy-metal scowl and he’s just crankin’ away on them. [laughs]

RK: [laughs] He looks really grim, doesn’t he? [laughs]

BM: Yeah. [laughs]

RK: Well, it’s a goat. He made it on his own. It’s not a pipe you can buy this way. It’s a Galician bagpipe. He just put the fur on it and the skull on it his own. It’s custom made.

BM: Let’s start with the cover of Slania. Who’s that little girl with the sword on the cover? [These next couple of questions were asked because at the time of the interview, all I had was a promo CD from Nuclear Blast. The answers to my questions are found in the CD booklet. Sorry!]

RK: I have to be honest I have no idea. Wait, wait, wait. I guess it’s the daughter of a friend or something like that. But I don’t know the name. Sorry.

BM: No problem. Who did the artwork for it? What it Travis Smith?

RK: No. Not at all. The artwork was done by Manuel Vargas Lepiz.

BM: I see.

RK: Yeah. He also shot the picture [on the cover]. But not the booklet pictures. But not the booklet pictures. These pictures were shot by my girlfriend, Astrid [Marquardt].

BM: Oh, really?

RK: Yes, she did. She’s a photographer. She learned it. But now she works something else. In marketing.

BM: Oh, really? In marketing.

RK: [laughs]

BM: What do you remember most about recording Slania? Did it come together pretty easily for you? Were there really difficult tracks?

RK: Yeah, I have to tell you how it works, the recordings for Eluvetie albums. [sighs] We didn’t have much time to learn these songs, particularly, because everybody’s [laughs] thinking, “Oh, they have two years time for writing these songs.” But the most part of the songs were written in maybe the last three months prior to the recordings. So I think about eight songs [laughs] were written in three months. I didn’t even know two songs in the studio. I had to learn them then. So, “Samon” I [laughs] heard it the first time in the studio. And I had to learn it in the studio. “Elembivos,” too. I learned it all in the studio. So it was kind of rushed. I had just two days for my recordings.

BM: Wow.

RK: Yeah. I took a weekend.

BM: Are you saying the entire album you had only two days to record?

RK: No, it’s just me. It’s just my part.

BM: Yeah, your part. You did in two days?

RK: Yeah. Right, right. It’s just bass. It’s not hard. [laughs] But you have to be concentrated, I’ll tell you that. You start in the morning at ten o’clock and you will do five or six songs each day.

BM: So that’s why that guy was yawning in your picture? [laughs]

RK: [laughs] Maybe, yeah. It’s hard. You work until two or four in the morning and the next day you start at ten o’clock or something. [laughs]

BM: Which song was the most difficult to play, then, in that two-day time when you’re really cranking to get them all done? Was there one that gave you a particularly difficult time?

RK: Well, let’s see. I don’t know. I started with the hard ones. The speedy ones. I have to tell you something. Normally I play with my fingers, picking style. [laughs] These songs were so fast for me and [laughs] I really had to learn to play with the plectrum, the pick, prior to the recordings. Normally, I just play with the fingers. But some stuff was really fast and I couldn’t make it in this time. But, hard songs? Hmm. “The Somber Lay” was hard because I didn’t know it exactly. “Bloodstained Ground,” which was a really fast song. But all in all, yeah. It was about the same.

BM: Have you had a chance to play any of these songs live on stage before people yet?

RK: Yes, we did. We had a CD release party two weeks ago. Prior to the influenza. [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

RK: [laughs] I guess this was the reason I got sick.

BM: [laughs]

RK: Yeah, yeah.

BM: Which songs were the most fun to play live?

RK: Yeah. I dig “Gray Sublime Archon.” This is just a kick-ass song and the people dig it, too. [laughs] You might think it’s “Inis Mona.” That’s a great song. It is. But, to play, it’s really an easy song. And you can’t go down really deep and dig it. Because, well, it’s not that fast and, well, the people dig it. But, to play, it’s not the big son. “Gray Sublime Archon” kicks ass. Really.

BM: I would have thought it was “Inis Mona” because it seems like it’s such a really upbeat, catchy song that the audience would go nuts for that.

RK: They did. They did, yes. [laughs] But, for us on the stage it’s not the best song to play.

BM: I see. That’s cool to know, yeah.

RK: I can send you a YouTube link from the last gig, two weeks ago. Just wait a second. [sound of Rafi typing: http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=uH4zb6jqMzI]

BM: [laughs] Yeah, that would be great.

RK: [laughs] If you want, people are [laughs] singing the song as if they knew from the first day. Just a second. It was great. [more typing sounds] Yeah. You can ask me.

BM: The audiences for Eluveitie seem to be really wild and into it. Are you finding that’s the case, that they’re totally diggin’ you guys?

RK: Well, yeah, they are. [laughs] And the audience always gets younger from concert to concert.

BM: Pretty soon you’ll be playing for a bunch of babies, eh?

RK: [laughs] I don’t think so.

BM: How did you guys land the Nuclear Blast gig? From what I’ve found from reading a lot of posts because some fans are critical of that because they think you’re going to sell out and Nuclear Blast will call the shots.

RK: I think it’s not true. Because Nuclear Blast has really been great to us. I think they’re trying their best and it hasn’t been the same way with Fear Dark. Well, Fear Dark hasn’t been that great. It was our last label. They had done quite a lot. But they didn’t have the money for big tours or big advertising or all that stuff. Everything. Nuclear Blast make everything, you know? [laughs] Advertising here and there and they know every magazine, Internet e-zines and everything.

BM: Yeah, Nuclear Blast is huge. Were you guys surprised when that happened? Did you think, “Wow, I can’t believe they’re interested in us”? Or did you think, “It’s about time”?

RK: Well, not exactly because we had a lot of interest. We had Roadrunner. We had Metal Blade. We had Napalm Records. We had quite a few big labels but we settled down with the best, I guess. Nuclear Blast is the best. [laughs]

BM: They have a good reputation.

RK: Yes, they have. They have. Especially here in Europe. I don’t know how it is in America. But in Europe it’s huge.

BM: Is it because of Nuclear Blast that you hooked up with the Pagan Fest tour? Or did you hook that up before the gig with Nuclear Blast?

RK: No, it’s nothing with Nuclear Blast. It’s with our booker, Rock The Nation. We already had the tour since about summer last year. We haven’t been with Nuclear Blast since summer.

BM: Pagan Fest is a major gig. What do you guys think about it? What are your anticipations for it?

RK: [laughs] Oh, man. I’m looking forward to it. [laughs] I’ve been once in America, it was 1988 [laughs]. I’ve been in New York, Manhattan, and also on the Twin Towers with the uncle of my mother. He lived there, and he had also his office in the building, which was quite interesting. He was an architect.

BM: So you’re looking forward to your tour of the States?

RK: Yes, yes, right. [laughs] I guess people are going nuts in the States.

BM: Yeah, they are.

RK: Also, I don’t know how big the venues are, so I checked out some venues, and I guess, well, they will be great.

BM: Yeah, they’re pretty good size. It looks like they’re anywhere from 500 to perhaps a couple of thousand. Maybe more.

RK: Really? Really? Oh, this will be great.

BM: Yeah.

RK: I think this will be great.

BM: Well, what is your plan, as a band? First, what can audiences expect from your show? And second, are you going to go out there and try to absolutely blow the other bands on the bill away? Is your plan to totally upstage them? [laughs]

RK: [laughs] I don’t want to be cocky or something, but I guess we will. [laughs]

BM: Yeah. [laughs]

RK: We will prove this, because we always did. And we played lots of shows, already, with Ensiferum, or I don’t know if you know Haggard? Or Cruachan? You know Cruachan?

BM: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

RK: They’re great. But we kicked their asses.

BM: [laughs]

RK: I guess it will be hard for all the bands to play after us. [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

RK: So we are the opener, but the sad part is, we just get a half hour, I guess, every evening.

BM: Yeah.

RK: Which is very sad. It could be more.

BM: Yeah.

RK: I guess we will only play about six songs each evening, which is less. Not much.

BM: Will it be mostly, obviously, from Slania, but will you play a couple favorites from Spirit or Ven, maybe?

RK: Yes, I think it will maybe be just one song from Ven, because we’ll be “Lament.” I guess it will be “Your Gaulish War” [from Spirit]. It will be, maybe, “The Song of Life” [from Spirit]. It will be for sure “Inis Mona” [from Slania], I hope. “Gray Sublime Archon” [from Slania]. “Uis Elveti” [from Spirit]. And, yes, its’ about that, I guess. We’re not sure yet what we’re gonna play. But I think it will be some of these songs I told you now.

BM: Wow, that would be great.

RK: Yeah.

BM: Where did the title come from, by the way? Why call it Slania?

RK: Well, Slania’s the name of the girl, and it was Chrigels’s idea, the singer’s idea, and like that. The idea of the album is the big wheel. And the big wheel is part of the four main times in the year. So it’s spring, fall, summer, and winter. And she leads us through these stages. Kind of.

BM: I see. Yeah, I knew about the four seasons of the Celtic calendar, I did not know about Slania leading you through that.

RK: Yes, she leads us through the red line, through the whole album kind of.

BM: That is cool. According to, I don’t know where I got this information, but you guys have two more CDs coming out, Evocation 1 and Evocation 2. Is that correct?

RK: Right.

BM: They seem to be acoustic.

RK: Well, it’s like that. [laughs] People think we already recorded everything, and that’s not the way. [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

RK: [laughs] To be honest, we don’t have just one song. We don’t have anything. We just have lots of ideas. I already made a song on my own, a year ago, which will be part of an album. And yes, the first part of this, The Arcane Dominion, will be a full acoustic album.

BM: Wow.

RK: Yeah, completely. [laughs]

BM: But you haven’t recorded it yet?

RK: Nothing, no. No, no. Nothing.

BM: [laughs]

RK: Nothing. And the second part [Visions] will be a mixture of normal Eluveitie stuff with metal and part acoustic, I guess. It’s not clear yet.

BM: Let me back up to something. You said you played with Cruachan. That’s Keith Fay’s band, right? The Irish Celtic group?

RK: Right, yeah.

BM: When did you play that, and did Cruachan think, “Gosh, they blew us away”? [laughs]

RK: Yeah, we did. We did. I just have to check the date we played. [sound of Rafi typing] I can’t remember. It was two years ago or something. Let me check the old page.

BM: I’m supposed to interview him in the next month or two. I won’t mention this to him. [laughs] I won’t say —

RK: No, no, no, don’t say. [laughs]

BM: — Eluveitie said, “We kicked your ass.” [laughs]

RK: [laughs] You can ask him about it. He should know us. He’d say, “Whoa, you guys have been so rad. I don’t know how to go on stage now! Waa-waa-waa.” [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

RK: I guess they had a hard time. Well, the gig was great, of course, but… [laughs]

BM: Well, you know what I’m interested in? Your passion for this kind of music. When people think of Switzerland, I’m not sure they think of Celtic Irish music. But is it very popular over there?

RK: Well, popular? Hmmm. The people dig it, ok? You know, I’m playing in Red Shamrock too?

BM: Oh yeah. I’m gonna ask you about that.

RK: By the way, by the way, I’m going to send two CDs, I guess it’s better so you have them sooner, ok?

BM: Oh, that would be great.

RK: Would you send me your address through MySpace, ok?

BM: Sure, yeah.

RK: Great, great. Where have I been? Ah yes,. So yeah, the Irish or Celtic folk, how you name it, people like it from all the ages. So if you’re a young kid or an old grandfather or something, everybody’s coming to our gigs. Not Eluveitie, but Red Shamrock, you know? And I guess, people are missing the old folk stuff. Because Swiss folk music was kind of a two-sided sword, you know? There is folk music, and there’s modern folk music, how it was invented maybe 100 years ago, with accordion or something, and people don’t like it. People don’t like the accordion style of music. They say it’s kind of old, and well, just old people listen to this songs, ok?

BM: Yeah, yeah.

RK: But there is Swiss traditional music which is way older, with bagpipes, and strange instruments, well, like the hurdy-gurdy or something else. They are different instruments. Also yodeling.

BM: Yeah, yeah.

RK: Nobody knows this kind of music, you know? But it’s very much, it’s kind of the same like normal Celtic music. And people are missing such music, and I guess that’s the reason, because they do like Celtic music, Celtic folk music. And they come to Celtic or Irish music concerts all the way.

BM: That’s really interesting, because I don’t picture that. When I think of Switzerland, I don’t picture Irish Celtic music being played. Yeah. It’s such a different audience. You mentioned Red Shamrock. Let me ask you about that a second. The music is similar only in that it’s Celtic Irish in its tone, but it’s nothing like Eluveitie. Do you have audiences that don’t go to one concert, but go to another? Are there some who go to both bands? Tell me about the audiences for both bands.

RK: Yes, there are people which do come to both concerts. And there are also people that just come to one or the other concert. It’s like we have some kind of hippies, you know, [laughs] that like to do both. They like both bands. Because it’s really danceable stuff, and they dig it.

BM: Yeah. I like it too. Yeah, my last name is Murphy, so I enjoy Irish music.

RK: [laughs] Great. You know, Anna.

BM: Right, she plays the hurdy gurdy.

RK: Her last name is Murphy. Yes, right. Did you check our electronic press kit on YouTube?

BM: Oh, I saw the EPK, yeah.

RK: Yeah, that’s her.

BM: Yeah, yeah. I watched that video, it was great.

RK: It’s her voice, the English one.

BM: Oh is it?

RK: Right. And the English-speaking male is the father. Mr. Murphy. [laughs]

BM: Oh really? [laughs] That’s great.

RK: Yeah, right. They are from Ireland. [laughs]

BM: Oh yeah, I wondered why they had an Irish accent. I was wondering about that.

RK: Absolutely, yes.

BM: Who’s singing then in Red Shamrock, because somebody who’s singing has an Irish accent.

RK: Yeah, well kind of. It’s Robert [Kreimel, vocalist].

BM: Is it? Ok.

RK: Yeah. He just became a father. [laughs]

BM: Oh really?

RK: Yeah, a week or so ago. And I’m the godfather.

BM: You’re the godfather of Robert’s, is it a son or a daughter?

RK: Yeah, it’s a son, called Marwin.

BM: Marwin. That is cool.

RK: Yeah, right.

BM: So how did you and your brother [Sevan Kirder] get interested in the same kind of music, and appear in the same bands together? You must get along with him really well then, don’t you?

RK: Yes, of course. He’s my twin brother, man. [laughs]

BM: Yeah, I noticed that. [laughs]

RK: Yes, we live together, by the way.

BM: Oh really? Cool.

RK: Yeah. He’s just, he’s in the living room, and playing Nintendo Wii. Or watching TV or something, I don’t know. [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

RK: Yeah, yeah, it’s just a game, guy. I don’t play. I hate it. I don’t like it. I did, when I was 16, and I started music with 16, and my brother did to. So we played together in the first band, but it was nothing like metal or folk, it just was pure blues rock or something, or that British invasion stuff like maybe Jethro Tull or something.

BM: Oh yeah.

RK: So that’s why my brother became involved with the flute. So in 1996 he started playing flute just because of Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull.

BM: Yeah.

RK: And I started singing and playing blues harp, like I mentioned before.

BM: Yep.

RK: And out of this band from 1996, was called Downstairs. I left the band after two years, maybe, because they wanted to play grunge stuff, and I didn’t like it then. I do like it now but I didn’t like it then, and I did my own stuff then. I played with other bands as a guest musician, and in 1998, Robert, the singer I told you, joined that band. But I wasn’t in that band at this time, ok? But my brother was still in that band. And two years later, they broke up. They split. And they want to make more folky stuff, more Americana or more folk-oriented music. And they offered me to play bass then. Because I just started playing bass guitar, and they asked me to join the band again, and we started Red Shamrock that way in 2000. Yeah, eight years ago now.

BM: Wow.

RK: And this is still the core. It’s Robert, brother, and me. And the other guys came and went. We have six lineups since three years now. So we came together. We rose together this band, and we always made together the music.

BM: Well, tell me, I like both bands, really. Red Shamrock is very more acoustic, there’s nothing metal going on there. Tell me about the difference to you as a musician, being in both bands. What does each one feel like? Is it different, or is it the same?

RK: Well, yes, in a way it is different, because I do play also the double bass, and the bouzouki in Red Shamrock. So I have to be much more concentrated because of it. So I have to take care of all the instruments and have my head together, “Oh, what now? What now? Which instrument comes next?”

BM: [laughs]

RK: [laughs] Not that it would be hard or something. You have to get your head a little bit more together. In Eluveitie, it’s like that, I’ve got my bass on, and I can rip the stage, you know. I can play with a wireless, and I can run around, and I can bang, and it’s just plain fun. It’s not like I don’t bang with Red Shamrock, I do, but I have to have my head a little bit more together to play in Red Shamrock. It’s a little more difficult stuff to play, to be honest.

BM: That’s interesting.

RK: Yeah. I guess the same goes for Sevan too.

BM: Yeah. Let’s see here. Tell me about folk metal a second. What do you think is the first folk metal band? And why is folk metal becoming so popular all over the world? Do you have any explanation for that?

RK: [laughs] The first band to play folk metal. Well, I don’t know. I guess it’s been around a long, long time. Cruachan just made a good start of it. It’s been around for a long time. I’m not sure. And I have to be honest, I don’t listen to much other folk metal bands.

BM: Really, that’s interesting.

RK: No, well, to be honest again, I don’t listen to much folk, and metal, I don’t listen to much metal. Not at all.

BM: Ok, here’s my question then, Rafi.

RK: Yes.

BM: You’re playing in all these bands. But you don’t even listen to the kind of music you play? [laughs]

RK: [laughs] Yeah, yeah sure.

BM: What do you listen to — country western music?

RK: I do like it, yes. And bluegrass, man, I dig bluegrass.

BM: Oh yeah.

RK: I also play the mandolin, and the dobro, and I like to sit…[laughs] you really have to believe me, man. [laughs]

BM: I believe you. [laughs]

RK: You have to see my CD collection’s just full of this stuff. Old stuff with Bill Monroe, or new stuff like Blue Highway. Man, dig Blue Highway. Great stuff.

BM: What did you think of the Robert Plant and Allison Krauss CD? Have you heard it?

RK: Not yet. I heard of it. But I haven’t heard it yet.

BM: Yeah.

RK: [ringing] Oh shit, it’s my phone. It might be my brother, just a second.

BM: Ok. [more ringing in the background]

RK: It was my sister, not brother.

BM: That’s interesting that you don’t necessarily listen to folk.

RK: No. I listen also to Motown or old funk stuff from the ‘70s. I really dig the stuff.

BM: Do you really?

RK: Because, you know, it’s really bass-oriented.

BM: Oh yeah, it is. Yeah.

RK: That’s because I do dig those Motown stuff with James Jamison, Bob Babbit, Carol Kaye, and all this old stuff. Or funk stuff like Bootsy Collins, and so on. They have really mastered this instrument, so it’s because of that, you know? If you listen to metal, there is maybe one or two bands you can say, “Well, they have really great bass lines.” Just like Iron Maiden.

BM: Oh yeah.

RK: Steve Harris is truly a god for me, because he really built up the songs just from the bass.

BM: Right.

RK: And, well, he is truly a bass god. But you haven’t got that much in metal. You just have guitars and the bass plays the same like the guitars, and well, I don’t. I don’t. Well, sometimes I have to, but normally I like to play melodic bass lines. And well, there isn’t much place in Eluveitie to play melodic bass lines. I have some melodies. I have a big part in “Slania’s Song” [from Slania], which bass is featured there. And I do love melodic bass lines. And normal metal can’t give me that. [laughs]

BM: Oh yeah, I know. Do you ever listen to Paul McCartney’s bass lines in the Beatles?

RK: Yes.

BM: Yeah, I never knew that. A friend of mine named Ian McDonald who used to be in Foreigner and King Crimson use to tell me, if I really wanted to hear great bass playing, some of the best in the world, I should listen to Paul McCartney.

RK: Yeah.

BM: And then I started to, and I thought, “Holy cow, this guy is brilliant.”

RK: [laughs] Brilliant. Yes he is, yeah.

BM: [laughs]

RK: That’s for sure.

BM: So it’s interesting then, you play this music, but it’s not necessarily your favorite music to listen to. You prefer Motown and funk and bluegrass.

RK: Absolutely, yeah.

BM: Do you get to play any sort of bass solos on stage when you guys do a concert?

RK: No, I don’t like to show off, because it’s not necessary. We’re a unit. Nobody makes any solos in our band. I think it’s not necessary.

BM: Yeah, yeah. In the EPK on YouTube, you were quoted as saying, “We really enjoyed recording our album, Slania.” But you just told me kind of that it was a really intense couple of days for you. [laughs] That it was difficult.

RK: [laughs]

BM: So what is the deal here? [laughs]

RK: [laughs]

BM: Should you have put that in the EPK? Should you have said, “Man, it was a pain in the ass for two days”?

RK: [laughs] Well, it’s always a joy to be in the studio, you know?

BM: Yeah.

RK: You learn so much, and you always see how they work. And in each studio it’s something else, because they have different approaches for different stuff. And it’s fun. Because they have been really funny guys, so Jens [Bogren] or David [Castillo], [laughs] funny stinkers, you know? [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

RK: But nonetheless you have to work too, because time is money and you know we have to pay everything on our own. It’s not cheap, so we have to travel to Sweden, we have to pay to fly, we have to pay the studio time, and you see that we had just two weeks in Sweden. So I think about four days for the drums, about three days Ivo [Henzi] lead guitars, about two days with Sime [Koch], I took two days, and another maybe two days for the vocals of Chrigel.

BM: Wow.

RK: And the other part, the folk part, was recorded in our rehearsal room in Zurich and in a little studio in Liechtenstein, it’s a little country at the border of Switzerland, at the eastern border of Switzerland. It’s a really small country. And the clean vocals had been recorded prior to the mixing, also in Sweden. So Anna [Murphy] and Meri [Tadic], they flew also to Sweden just for the vocals.

BM: Yeah, wow.

RK: Yeah, that’s hard work. It’s hard work. But sure, it’s fun. [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

RK: It’s fun too.

BM: Tell me how you first got hooked up with Eluveitie. On the first album, there’s another bass player listed as playing. When it was re-recorded, did you come on then?

RK: No, I am featured on the album, but not on bass, just on background vocals. [lauhs]

BM: Oh, I see, yeah.

RK: Yes. [laughs] I tell you something, it’s been since 2002, maybe. And Chrigel had his marriage, and he was looking for musicians for an Irish session at his marriage. And he just, we didn’t knew each other at this time, and he just sent out mails, and said, “Yeah, come to my marriage, we are in the forest, and we’re gonna play some tunes together.” And there we got to knew Chrigel. Yeah, six years ago. My brother, one year later he asked my brother to record stuff on Ven. And he didn’t ask me for anything, because he did not know that I played bass at this time. He just knew I played bouzouki, and he had another bouzouki player right then. So I wasn’t, unfortunately, in this record, just backing vocals on the remastered stuff.

BM: What is your most vivid memory of that album? What do you remember most about recording?

RK: The re-recording, or Slania?

BM: The re-recording of Ven.

RK: Oh, well it was just the one evening. We just sang something together [laughs]. It took a few hours, nothing more.

BM: Yeah, that’s kind of stuff people wouldn’t normally know though. I’m glad you’re saying that.

RK: Absolutely, yeah.

BM: How about Spirit? A lot of fans still think Spirit is the better album of the three. But I’ve read on some boards or forums, they say, “Well Spirit rocks, and Slania is more commercial or it’s too metalcore.” But tell me about Spirit. What do you remember most about working on that album?

RK: Well, it was practically the same. [laughs] We didn’t have much time for it. It’s always, it’s Eluveitie stuff.

BM: Yeah.

RK: We didn’t have much time. I also had to learn two songs in the studio.

BM: [laughs]

RK: I will send you a picture gallery here. [sounds of typing] You can check it right out so you can see the pictures from the studio there.

BM: Yeah, that’s great. [laughs]

RK: Got it?

BM: Yeah.

RK: First it’s Merlin on the drums, and then you see me on bass. [laughs]

BM: So was that a lot of fun? Did you guys have a good time in the studio with that one, or is it just really hard work?

RK: It was hard work too, of course. [laughs]

BM: Yeah.

RK: You see maybe the sixth picture or something? We are in our flat and are writing stuff together. Because I didn’t know the songs back then. We are working together. Wait a second. [pause]

BM: You’re playing your bass with your John Deere pink shirt on?

RK: Yeah. [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

RK: Absolutely.

BM: Yeah.

RK: But I don’t wear glasses anymore. I just made a laser operation two years ago.

BM: Oh, and that worked out really well? What were you, nearsighted or farsighted, or what was it?

RK: It was nearsighted, sorry, farsighted.

BM: Have you toured a lot? Have you played a lot of gigs on the road with Eluveitie?

RK: Yeah, we did.

BM: Do you have a favorite road story? Is there something that happened that you thought was the funniest or the strangest?

RK: Yeah. It was last year, we’re at the concert in Switzerland. Well, we had a lot of great gigs, much of them in Switzerland, but this one was really, oh man, hard. Because we always have to rent a car, or bus. And Melanie, you met her in the forum I guess, she just came from the car rental and during the time from the car rental place to the rehearsal, the car broke down.

BM: [laughs]

RK: Nothing went anymore. And she called and, [speaks in a high voice] “The car is broke, I can’t come, nothing works anymore.” [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

RK: And we had to make 1000 phone calls just to have another car back.

BM: Yeah.

RK: And she called her father and they drove back to the car rental and they got a new one, and we had to organize the car which pulls the other one from the street, and it was really close, because we thought we would come late to the gig. And we just had 10 minutes, we came in, get our stuff on the stage, and we just were sweating all over the body, and, “Go, play, now, now!”

BM: [laughs]

RK: And we just had to start, and we didn’t tune our instruments. Yeah, but the gig was great, so we have been I guess the second band on this evening, and people liked it, so.

BM: Wow.

RK: But this was a really close second. We called and said, “They have to change the order of the bands.” They were like, “No, this is your problem, we don’t care about it. If you don’t play, you’ll have to pay.” [laughs] And we were like, “Shit, come on!” [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

RK: Yeah.

BM: Wow. Are you a full-time musician now, or do you have a so-called day job?

RK: Yeah, so-called. Well, I work 100%.

BM: Yeah?

RK: Yes, because we don’t gain nothing with Eluveitie. Yet, yet.

BM: No income? So what is your full-time job then? What do you do?

RK: I work in an office as an electric engineer.

BM: Oh, I see? An office as an electrical engineer. How long have you been doing that?

RK: Since I had my apprenticeship from 1996 to 2000. And since year 2000, I’m working at the same office.

BM: Wow.

RK: But I think, I think I have to quit the job this year, because now I have to take unpaid for two months for this tour.

BM: Oh yeah.

RK: We’re this month in Europe, and in two months we are in the States, and well, they let me go for this two months, but I don’t think they will pass another [laughs] demand for something. And it will be more. We already got another offer in autumn this year.

BM: Yeah.

RK: It’s not worldwide, but it’s with In Extremo. Maybe you’ve heard about this band?

BM: Yeah. Yep.

RK: It’s [sound of typing] this band.

BM: [laughs] Yeah.

RK: And they’re great. In German-talking regions, they’re big, they’re really big. And this would be a co-headliner gig. We could play about an hour and this would be our breakthrough, I guess.

BM: You think the place where you work isn’t going to go for letting you off for three months?

RK: No, no way, no way. So I have a new boss since last year. My last boss was such a gentleman. He bought all my CDs, he always came to the concerts, and he really dug what I did. And he appreciated it. And he was really a man, a person, much as for work, also on the friend side, you know?

BM: Yeah.

RK: And the new one isn’t that way. I don’t like it anymore. So it’s not a good position for me, because I need to have some steady income. Because living in Switzerland isn’t cheap. It’s quite expensive. And I need to have some income.

BM: Yeah, the taxes are pretty high there?

RK: Yeah, they are. I just received my taxes, it’s about, last income, about $4000. [laughs] I just had to write my taxes for the next year today. [laughs] This evening.

BM: Isn’t it because you guys have a lot of like, government-run healthcare and all that kind of stuff?

RK: Yeah.

BM: Ok.

RK: Yeah, that’s great. In Switzerland, that depends. So like, I saw the film of Michael Moore.

BM: Yeah.

RK: What’s the name again? I forgot it.

BM: Sicko.

RK: Right. Exactly. It was really scary to see such problems in America or someplace else. We really have a paradise when you compare it with the States. I don’t know if it’s true what he showed there.

BM: Yeah, Michael Moore is considered to be a pretty liberal guy who just likes promoting himself, really. He’ll say outrageous things just to get a lot of attention.

RK: Yeah, right. I heard of it. I heard of it. [laughs]

BM: [laughs] Yeah.

RK: I had old schoolmates who hated him. [laughs]

BM: Yeah. [laughs] One of the things I like to ask people from these other countries that I speak to is, is there something from your country that I’m hearing in your music? Do you know what I mean? What is unique about the music you play, where I can listen to it and think, “Yeah, that’s Switzerland”? Is there something like that in your music?

RK: No, I think it’s nothing in the Swiss way, because if you wanna play good music, [laughs] it doesn’t have to be Swiss at all. [laughs]

BM: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

RK: [laughs] Sorry, Bill, if I criticize the accent, it would be Swiss/English or something like that. [laughs] You wouldn’t like it. [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

RK: I know regular bands in Switzerland, and they are so bad, because they have this Jamaican slang in it, but speaking with a Swiss accent, [laughs] and it doesn’t work. It sounds silly.

BM: [laughs]

RK: So [laughs] it would be really bad thing if we had some Switzerlandish stuff in our music. [laughs]

BM: Is there something, like when I talk to Tony Kakko of Sonata Arctica, it’s not necessarily—he said that Sonata Arctica’s music is kind of bleak or dark because Finland is that way. Is there something about how your music feels?

RK: [laughs] It just sounds great. I think all the Finnish people say that they have to play music because they have darkness all over the winter and it’s depressive music because of it. [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

RK: And I think this is bullshit. [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

RK: [laughs] Now, I don’t know. There’s nothing which is that way. Maybe our music is joyful or something, but it’s just because we are that way, not our culture. That’s what I think.

BM: Yeah. I can hear, you sound like a really happy guy, a really nice, happy guy.

RK: Oh, thank you.

BM: And like a lot of people might not think that if they listen to folk metal. It sounds really aggressive and heavy and dark. Like that face your brother’s making when he’s heavy-metaling on the bagpipes, you know, like everybody’s got to scowl. But that’s not how you are in person, right? That’s not your personality.

RK: Not at all. And also not the way I am on stage. I’m really funny on stage. I’m laughing all the time and grinning and smiling all over the place. [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

RK: People are really overwhelmed when they see our shows, because they think the music is much grimmer when they’ve heard our CDs. And when they first saw our concert the first time, they think, “What the fuck is going on? They’re smiling and jumping.” [laughs]

BM: Yeah.

RK: It’s really a joy to see us on stage, I heard. I heard. [laughs]

BM: Yeah.

RK: And just a second, I’ll send you a picture where I’m smiling. I always do or screaming and something else. Yeah. But nothing, it’s never grim or something. It’s always fun on stage. Have you already received Slania, the CD?

BM: No, I downloaded it from Amazon. You can buy the mp3 of it from Amazon. But I haven’t received my physical copy yet.

RK: Ok. Did you received the DVD, there’s also a concert from the last Ragnarock concert, and there are four songs played live. You’ll see how it’s going on on stage.

BM: Is brother like you, too? Are you both really happy kind of people?

RK: Yeah, I would say so, yes.

BM: Yeah.

RK: So I always tell he is my evil twin, but he isn’t. [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

RK: I’m also evil.

BM: [laughs]

RK: [laughs]

BM: You mentioned that Eluveitie is not making money for you guys yet. Does it worry you that you see a lot of illegal downloaders for Slania online? Is that a problem for you?

RK: Yeah, well, I don’t like it if people download the stuff. But, I know that a lot of people download it because they couldn’t buy it.

BM: Yeah. [laughs]

RK: And that’s absolutely ok with me. I don’t have any problems with it. But if you have the chance to buy it, why not? So I never, ever downloaded an album. I never would do it, because it’s not fair against musicians. Sure, there are musicians out there who get millions and something else with music, but they made something.

BM: Yeah.

RK: They made this record and they paid for it, and I think it’s nothing. What, about, I don’t know what a record costs in America, about $20 maybe. What’s that, $20? It’s nothing. Go out, get it, you have a booklet, you have a CD, with a print on it, it’s something to hold in your hand, it’s something to read, you know, there are many background informations in the booklet, also in our booklet there is many things written about all the songs you will see. There are translations from the Gaelic text in our booklet, and I think it’s something to hold, something to see, and I think people should buy an album, not just downloading it for free. That’s my opinion.

BM: How about YouTube, which seems to be really helpful, because like, your record label puts out these official videos and all that. Is it a problem if fans like, videotape your concerts and post clips, or is that ok with you guys? You like that?

RK: No, it’s not a problem at all. We like it. So we always [laughs] take the videos and send it to each others and say, “Hey, look at that what you are doing, it looks silly, stop it.” [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

RK: And it’s always kind of materials for us to check out how is our acting, are we doing too much or too less, or yeah. No, we encouraged people to record our stuff. I already have written it in the forum. I don’t know how it is in the States, if it’s legal to make it, so I don’t care at all. So they can take their cell phones and record the stuff. Sure, it’s not a problem.

BM: I don’t think it’s illegal, I think a lot of bands don’t allow it or the venues don’t allow it.

RK: I don’t get it why. I don’t have a problem. Because I don’t think people won’t come to a gig because they saw it on YouTube. It’s hilarious.

BM: Yeah, yeah. You mentioned that both of your last couple of albums with Eluveitie was very hurried, very rushed, kind of. You didn’t have a lot of time.

RK: Right.

BM: What would you guys do if you had a lot of time? How would it sound different?

RK: So if we had a lot of time, and we had a lot of studio time, especially.

BM: Yeah.

RK: Oh man. [laughs]

BM: What would you do? Would you go nuts and make double albums or something, or what?

RK: Well, in fact, next time it will be a kind of double album, but it’s sold separately. [laughs] Like System of a Down’s last album, you know? [laughs]

BM: Yeah.

RK: I think they belong together, but they will be sold separately. And I guess they will be a little bit cheaper in price as two, because, well, I mentioned just an acoustic album, the one, and the other is just a mixture of both. I guess they will be a little bit cheaper.

BM: Yeah.

RK: Yeah. They will come short after another. Well, if we had more time, well, I don’t know. It won’t happen. [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

RK: Really. [laughs] It won’t happen, because right now we’re rehearsing the stuff for the tour, and we will be on tour for two months, and I guess we won’t have time to write any major stuff on these tours. Maybe we will, but I don’t think so. [laughs] I guess we will be drinking most of the time.

BM: [laughs]

RK: [laughs] Not me, but all the bus, and at six am in the morning. [laughs] Well, and after that we have the summer gigs, summer festivals, and then we should have all the songs for the new albums, you know? [laughs] “Oh fuck, we don’t have any time!” Rush, rush, rush. [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

RK: It’s the Eluveitie way. We always do it that way.

BM: Does Eluveitie, or do you personally, like to mix and mingle with the fans after a show or before a show?

RK: Yeah, always. Always. We come out. We don’t bunker in the back of the backstage.

BM: [laughs] Yeah, yeah.

RK: Yeah. So, here’s my brother. Say hi to Bill.

SK: Hello, Bill.

BM: Hi, how are you?

RK: Oh, wait a moment, he can’t hear you. Are you there?

BM: Hi, how are you?

SK: Hello, I’m fine.

BM: Good. That’s your evil twin? [laughs]

RK: [laughs] No, don’t tell on me. [laughs]

BM: [laughs]

RK: Just wait a moment, he will leave for the rehearsal, yep?

SK: Yeah.

RK: Ok, cheers.

BM: Ok.

RK: So, he’s leaving. [laughs] He couldn’t hear you because I’m wearing headphones.

BM: You sound like a really busy guy. What do you do in your spare time? Do you watch a lot of movies? Do you read books?

RK: [laughs] Yes, I do. When I have time for it. I just read the old biography of Nelson Mandela. It was my last book.

BM: Really?

RK: Yes, actually, I didn’t know much about the apartheid in South Africa. And it was kinda interesting to me. And yeah, it’s a great book. I can recommend it. I like to read biographies.

BM: What is it about them that you like?

RK: Well, about the person in general. So you get a lot of information about the person, how he lived or what was his life about.

BM: What about movies? Do you to watch movies?

RK: Well, when I have the time, I do like to watch movies. And also go to theater or something. And I dig a lot of English movies, the kind of British humor [laughs] I dig this kind of black humor.

BM: [laughs] Oh really? What’s your favorite movie?

RK: [laughs] It’s an old one. It’s Four Weddings and a Funeral.

BM: Oh really? [laughs] Yeah.

RK: Yeah. [laughs] I can watch this movie 1000 times, I don’t think it gets boring. [laughs]

BM: [laughs] If you could collaborate with any musician out there right now, who would it be? If you could be in a band with this person or just work on a project with this person, who would you want to work with?

RK: Let me think about that one. [laughs] Well, I think it wouldn’t be metal.

BM: Really? Yeah.

RK: I told you about this. [laughs]

BM: Yeah, you don’t like metal necessarily. [laughs]

RK: No. I do like, but I guess it would be something more into rockabilly or psychobilly. Maybe I would join a band with Geoff Kresge from Tiger Army. [laughs]

BM: Really?

RK: [laughs] Yes.

BM: Oh, that’s cool.

RK: Yeah, and well, I don’t know. I think it would be rockabilly stuff.

BM: What’s it like growing up in Switzerland? Tell me about that.

RK: Well, I have nothing to compare, so what should I say? It was kind of normal. [laughs]

BM: [laughs] Yeah.

RK: [laughs]

BM: [laughs] Do you get to travel? Have you traveled outside of Switzerland?

RK: Yes, I did. I visited a lot of countries in my youth, so we spent lots of holidays in France or Italy or Spain. Yeah, I was once in the States, this was 20 years ago now.

BM: Well see, you’ve got some things to compare it to.

RK: Yeah, but I didn’t grow up in any other countries.

BM: [laughs] Yeah, that’s true.

RK: [laughs] Yeah.

BM: Switzerland has a lot of languages. Which language do you naturally speak?

RK: It’s German, but a kind of home German called Schwyzerduutsch.

BM: Really?

RK: Which means Swiss German.

BM: Ok.

RK: Schwyzerduutsch.

BM: Schwyzerduutsch?

RK: I’m gonna write it for you, so you have it right. [sound of typing]

BM: Yeah. [laughs]

RK: [typing] [laughs] Got it? [laughs]

BM: Wow, see, I wouldn’t have been able to pronounce that.

RK: Sure. [laughs]

BM: When is your next CD coming out for Red Shamrock?

RK: We were in the studio in January, and after Easter, we’re gonna mix it, and in summer it will be out.

BM: Oh, I see. I’ll just ask you one more thing so you can get back to your life there.

RK: [laughs]

BM: Stuff like YouTube and MySpace and the Eluveitie forum, gives you guys a chance to really interact with fans like never before.

RK: Absolutely.

BM: Does that put more pressure on you, take up more of your time, or do you see that as a really good thing?

RK: Well, I don’t think we’re losing time, because I like it to talk with fans or with people who dig my music. And I like to run a MySpace page, and I don’t think it’s a kind of pressure or something. It’s something that I do in my free time. I like it.

BM: Alright, it’s so much fun to talk to you. Thanks a lot for your time. I appreciate it.

RK: That’s no problem. Appreciate it too, thanks. I hope you didn’t have any problems with my English. [laughs]

BM: You’re actually one of the better English speakers I’ve talked to in the last few years. That’s great.

RK: Ok, thanks a lot.

BM: Very good, take care. Have a good evening.

RK: Ok, bye, Bill.

BM: Bye bye.

NOTE: You can catch Eluveitie on the road this spring with Ensiferum, TYR, and Turisas. See the list of Pagan Fest USA gigs on page one of Metal Wyrd. You can buy Eluveitie’s CDs from one of the sources listed on my Where To Buy page.

Given the amazing line-up, you shouldn’t delay another minute. Tickets are available from Tickmaster. Order yours today! (Or don’t come crying to me if you miss your chance.)