When Peter and you did interviews for the album “Scriptures”, you described the writing process as feeling fresh while also being deeply rooted in the past. You could say the same about “Ravage Of Empires”.
“Absolutely, yeah! I mean, we only know how to write one way. We only know how to write one style of music. We only want to write one style of music. I don’t want to be the fastest, and I don’t want to be the most technical. I don’t want to be the next new thing and I don’t want to reinvent the wheel. I just want to be the best BENEDICTION, and I think that’s what keeps us rooting. That’s what keeps us happy, and that’s why we still get excited about doing albums and tours. Because we’re playing the music that we feel comfortable playing. It’s also the music that we’d want to hear if we went to a gig.”
The recordings of “Ravage Of Empires” took place in August 2024. What was the atmosphere in the studio like and did you encounter any particular challenges during the recording process?“We had lots of challenges to be fair because Scott was particularly busy this year. We actually started recording in March. We did the drums in March and then we had to take a break as Scott was busy with CRADLE OF FILTH, I think. Then we came back and did some guitar and bass in July and August. And then Dave finished with the vocals in September, so it was like a nine month process. It was difficult to get a flow, but it came out perfectly well, I think. We’re really happy with it.”
You once again collaborated with Scott Askins at Grindstone Studio. What makes this collaboration so effective?
“I think it’s the fact that he pushes us hard. At the time, it’s not always fun. He’s so picky with everything, you have to redo every riff again and again if he’s not quite happy the way you played. In our music, it’s really important you hear exactly what we’re playing. It’s not just a wall of noise. And if he doesn’t think it’s exactly how it should be, he’ll make you do it again even though you think you’ve got it. He will keep pushing, until he thinks you’ve got it right. Scott is critical but he’s also understanding. He’s knowledgeable. He’s a musician himself, so he knows what’s going on. He’s a BENEDICTION fan, as a youngster he was really into “Grind Bastard”. He’s a fan as well so he knows what we need and he just pushes us.”
Bassist Nik Sampson joined BENEDICTION in 2023. He was born when the first BENEDICTION demo “The Dreams You Dread” was released in 1989. What is it like having such a generational difference within the band?
“We’ve not particularly progressed musically. Nik is enthusiastic, he’s really into our music. And let me tell you, Nick is a fantastic guitar player. You should hear that guy shred on the guitar, he is absolutely phenomenal. At first, he just filled in on bass when Dan left. We had like 13 gigs over the summer, so he came and did the gigs with us. At the end of it, we shook his hand and said: ‘Thank you very much, Nik. You’re absolutely awesome and we’ll see you around.’ And he’s like: ‘Are you getting rid of me?’. And we’re like: ‘Well you’re such a fantastic guitar, why would you want to play bass in a Death Metal band?’. And he said: ‘Because I’ve never had so much fun in my life!’ (laughs). So it was a perfect fit really, but you should hear that guy play guitar. It’s just unbelievable.”
The artwork for “Ravage Of Empires”, created by Wolven Claws, has a style reminiscent of Dan Seagrave. What was the vision behind the album cover and how does it connect to the themes of the album?“I think that was intentional. Simon played bass for us in 1992 on the BOLT THROWER tour. We’ve known him forever. He knows what BENEDICTION is all about. When we gave him the title of the album, he started knocking up some ideas and then he said: ‘You know, should I try to incorporate some elements of “Transcend The Rubicon” in there?’. And I think he’s done a perfect job. He’s got that Dan Seagrave feeling about him. But I think it’s fantastic work, I really do. It really draws you in. It’s almost a bit like the old Derek Riggs artwork for IRON MAIDEN. In the old days, I would go to the record store to buy an album, sit on the bus on my way home, and just look at all the details. A lot of people don’t know this, but there’s a few things in there that shouldn’t be in there. There’s a few references to “Doctor Who”, there’s a Liverpool football badge in there and there’s all these little kinds of things that we’ve hidden in there, so that’ll be fun for people to find (laughs).”
What was the vision behind the album cover and how does it connect to the themes of the album?
“It’s just a title. It’s BENEDICTION, we’re not that deep that we have an idea for the whole album. There’s no particular story, all the songs stand on their own. But we liked the idea of “Ravage Of Empires”. The album title was originally “Havoc Of Empires”, Dave came up with that title, but then we decided on “Ravage Of Empires”. We gave that title to Simon and told him to go nuts and see what he could come up with. We wanted to have an empire being destroyed and get sucked into a black hole. And that’s how he came up with that artwork. The rest is history. He nailed it with “Scriptures” and he’s nailed it with this.”
The opening track ‘A Carrion Harvest’ has a very old school vibe. With the shout ‘Hell Awaits’, there’s also a cool nod to the SLAYER classic.“There’s a nod in there to ENTOMBED’s ‘Left Hand Path’ as well. You can’t help being influenced by the elders and by the bands that you were listening to when you were young. We’re still influenced by all the old bands, and we’re pretty much influenced by ourselves mostly, because we have so much history. However, you can’t help but be impressed by the old bands. And if a bit of that comes out, there’s no better band there to give a nod to, really. SLAYER’s been there right from the beginning and they’re still tearing it up nowadays.”
Dave Ingram always writes the lyrics, so I would need to ask him about specific details. However, is there a general direction when it comes to the lyrics of “Ravage Of Empires”? For instance, in ‘Genesis Chamber’, the question ‘Do I have the right?’ comes up multiple times.
“I think ‘Genesis Chamber’ was inspired by an episode of “Doctor Who”. Dave is seriously into this series. ‘A Carrion Harvest‘ is a metaphor for the dark aesthetic. We have but one life, and we should live it to the fullest. The question ‘Do I have the right?’ is in a sense like ‘Do I have the right to question anyone’s living’?’. I believe that’s what he’s trying to say. There’s also a moral dilemma. ‘Would you commit murder to stop a future yet to be warmonger? Do you have the right to commit murder if you think this guy is gonna ravage the world?’. I guess that’s what Dave’s trying to say. On the other hand, I don’t know what goes around in that guy’s head to be fair (laughs).”
Dave has now been back in BENEDICTION for six years. I’ve seen several BENEDICTION shows over the past few years and always got the impression that his return has had a major influence on the overall presentation and energy of the band.“It wasn’t even an intentional collaboration. We only got him in to do a few gigs that Dave Hunt couldn’t do until we got a new vocalist. We thought it would be a nice way for Dave Ingram to say goodbye to the BENEDICTION fans because obviously he never got the chance back in the day when he left to join BOLT THROWER. It was kind of overnight at the time. But as soon as we put the offer to him, he was all enthusiastic. Weirdly, he wasn’t with us for 21 years, but as soon as we did the first rehearsal, it was like he had never been away. Dave just fits, you know. He writes exactly how we want the vocals to go over to music. He knows exactly where to put the vocals. He thinks similarly to me and Rew, so it’s a perfect fit.”
‘Engines Of War’ was chosen as the first single. What made this track the best introduction to the new album?
“It’s groovy, simple as that. We don’t have blast beats, nor female vocals or keyboards. We just do BENEDICTION. We go fast, and we go slow. I’ve seen a million bands playing for 50 minutes on stage, playing at just one pace. It’s just noise to me. 20 minutes in, and I’m bored. BENEDICTION likes to pick it up and drop it down. We like to do fast songs, and we like to do slow songs. When we write songs, we like to visualize them. We kind of imagine what the crowd will be doing while we’re playing this riff or that riff. We don’t want people to just stand there and admire us like they used to with Chuck Schuldiner of DEATH. We want people to feel the riff. ‘Engines Of War’ is one of those songs that picks you up, shakes you about, and hopefully gets people smiling. We’re not taking ourselves too seriously. We take our music seriously, but we don’t take ourselves too seriously. Our music is entertainment. We’re not trying to profess any stories to anybody or make anybody believe this or that. Our music is just entertainment. We want to make the songs as catchy as possible and as visual as possible.”
I recently saw a photo on the Facebook page of BENEDICTION where you were fraternizing with Kelly Schaefer. What are your memories of the tour with ATHEIST during the “Transcend The Rubicon” period?“I don’t remember anything because I was drunk for seven weeks (laughs). No, it was fantastic. We have this kind of connection with American bands that we don’t have with others. Certain American bands come over here, thinking that America’s the center of the world. We kind of diffuse that, because there’s billions of people on this planet. It doesn’t matter where you’re from. No country is better than any other. Once they realize that we’re all friendly and we just want to have some fun, I think that breaks down a lot of barriers. That feeling is bigger with American bands than any other country. I don’t necessarily understand why, but we just seem to have a good connection with American bands. That tour with ATHEIST was awesome. We were on the road together for seven weeks, and we left with such good memories and became such good friends. It was the same thing with DEATH. A lot of people didn’t get along with Chuck Schuldiner, but we clicked straight away and got along really well.”
A few months ago, BENEDICTION opened some shows for VOLBEAT, which is a completely different audience than your usual crowd. How was that experience?
“We were invited as guests by them. It was their suggestion to get us on these British gigs. We weren’t sure whether it was going to work to be fair. I think the first one was in Bristol. We’re up on stage doing the soundcheck, and then the VOLBEAT guys came walking in, and they were super cool. They got me a bottle of blackened whiskey, which is METALLICA’s whiskey, as a gift. We drank a bit of that, had some fun and became good friends. When we came on stage, we purposely did a fast set, just because we wanted to shake people up. I don’t remember with which song we started the set, but I remember it was a fast one. The looks on some of the people’s faces in the front was hilarious. VOLBEAT is obviously more a mainstream sort of band, so you’ve got the school girls and young boys down in front of the stage waiting to see them. And then these old Death Metal guys get up there, ripping their faces off (laughs). They were standing there like they’d just seen a nuclear explosion. It was kind of funny, but by the end of the gig, we got them all rocking. It was awesome!”
There is a fairly well-known fantasy / horror writer named Dan Simmons. In the early ’90s, he published a novel titled “Carrion Comfort”. The Dutch title of that book is “Aasgieren”. I don’t know if you’re aware of this or have ever noticed it, but the front cover of the Dutch version of that novel has the exact same artwork as BENEDICTION’s mini album “Dark Is The Season”.“Really? It’s the first time I hear about this. That’s very interesting, I didn’t know that at all. The artwork on our first releases were all chosen by Nuclear Blast. We don’t know where they took that from. I’ll definitely look that up.”
Do you personally collect your band’s merchandise and all the pressings of the BENEDICTION releases? Are there any rare items that hold a special place in your collection?
“I like to try and get one of every t-shirt we’ve ever made. I think I’ve got about six or seven boxes up in the loft with t-shirts from over the past years, as well as patches and baseball caps. However, I don’t think there’s anything particularly special about them. In the early days, I didn’t keep track of everything. However, I still have one of our first ever shirts. It’s a white shirt with an angry nun on the front, that was our first ever design. I’ve still got that one somewhere, but it’s probably tiny and with the sleeves cut off. It’s also probably yellow by now (laughs). But yeah, I try to keep one copy of everything, just so I can look back at it. Sometimes I’ll get them out, put them on the floor, and just have a look at them. They just make me smile because they remind me of certain gigs or certain people.”
The number of festivals BENEDICTION has played in recent years is huge. Do you still enjoy it when you’re on the road for hours in planes and buses during the summer?
“I am sick to death of airports. I can’t stand them, but for the hour that you stand on stage and for the hours afterwards when you meet the fans, it’s worth it. We live in Birmingham, but sometimes we have to fly from London. Dave lives in Copenhagen, Giovanni lives in Genoa. To get us all to one place, it’s just such a difficult job to organize all the flights and all the transfers from the airport to the hotels. It’s an absolute nightmare, but like I said, once we get to the festival, we have the best time. The best thing about festivals for BENEDICTION, I think, it’s that it’s kind of easy to play a gig to your own fans because they’re willing to accept what you do. However, I still get people coming up to me nowadays, 36 years after we’ve been on the road, and say ‘Wow, I never saw BENEDICTION before. I’ll check you out from now on, you’re really good!’. That’s amazing, and that’s what a festival will also give you. There’s nothing better than getting on a stage when you’ve got a crowd that is half into it, and by the time you get off, the majority of people are into you. That’s when you know you did a good job, and that’s when you can go back and have a drink and enjoy the rest of the day. Also, I get to play with some cool bands. I remember we did a gig in Poland a few years ago. It was just us, JUDAS PRIEST, SAXON and THE RAVEN AGE. It was just those four bands on the bill. When we turned up, all the JUDAS PRIEST trucks were there. SAXON had one truck there. THE RAVEN AGE had one truck and several people of the IRON MAIDEN crew. When we turned up, the stage manager came up and asked where our truck was. We just showed her our guitar cases, and she immediately went like ‘That’s my kind of band!’ (laughs). When I was backstage, I just took a picture of the running order because JUDAS PRIEST and SAXON were two of my favorite bands when I was growing up. So for me, to be able to share the stage with them, that was just incredible. I did the same thing when I met Lemmy at a festival in Milan. You get to meet all these cool bands at festivals. So, to come back to your question, travelling is a pain in the ass, but the gigs make it worthwhile.”You often take Belgian sound engineer Erik Minnen on tour. He always provides the band with an excellent sound. How did you meet him and what makes his approach so special and fitting for you?
“I think, if I remember correctly, he was doing ANAAL NATHRAKH at the time which obviously is the band of Dave Hunt. I think he introduced Erik to us back in the day. Erik is just very good at what he does. He’s a good guy and good fun to have around, so there’s no reason for us to go for anyone else. Unfortunately he’s so good that he’s often very busy, and sometimes we don’t get to use him. Erik’s kind of like the sixth BEATLE. It’s a bit difficult when he’s not there. He kind of understands how we need to sound, but more importantly he understands how we work, how we are and how we act. And I think that’s very important as well.”
“Scriptures” was voted the best album of 2020 by the readers of the German magazine Deaf Forever. Germany is without a doubt one of BENEDICTION’s biggest markets. Why do you think the German audience is so supportive of BENEDICTION?
“I don’t know. Maybe they just get us and understand us. Maybe they realize how true we are to what we do. We never sold out, we never did what anybody else told us to do. We are honest and we enjoy ourselves. Maybe they just picked up on that. I was into all the German Metal bands when I was a kid and I still am, so maybe there’s a connection there. I don’t actually know what it is. However, Germany is definitely our biggest territory by a long margin.”
Just like ASPHYX, BENEDICTION always had the image of the cool, somewhat older guys with whom you can have a beer and a good laugh. That helps too.“Absolutely! I’ve been backstage with so many so-called rock stars which I can’t stand and who just sit backstage. When you ask ‘Are you gonna come out and have a drink?’, they’re like: ‘No, there will be loads of people out there. I’m gonna get bugged by punters!’. I’m like ‘How fucking dare you man?’. These are the people that put you where you are, they are the reason you’re here. You were one of those people once. I hate meet and greets. I hate the fact that someone should queue up to stand in front of me and get an autograph, because we’re very easily approachable people. I hate that, but you have to do it because I want to meet as many people as possible. We’ll always walk around all day at festivals, and meet people and have a drink and a chat. I like that, I also think that it’s massively important.”
“Ravage Of Empires” will be released in April on the first day of your European tour with MASTER and JUNGLE ROT. It’s a relatively short tour of about two weeks. Will you be playing a lot of new material?
“The album is indeed just going to be out for one day. That is a bit of a problem because the album was meant to be out at the beginning of March. It was supposed to be out for about a month before the tour, but it got delayed for whatever reason. We’re going to put three, four or maybe even five new tracks in the set, and a lot of people are not going to know them. That bothers me, because you need to hear the songs a few times first to get them into your head. However, there’s not a lot we can do about it to be honest. So we have to just bite the bullet on that one and just go for it.”
As a band from Birmingham, what do you think about the OZYY OSBOURNE anniversary festival being held in July in Birmingham? Do you think it’s a good and nice initiative?
“I just think it’s Sharon’s way of giving Ozzy a cuddle, because he’s getting old and he’s ill. I think that the festival itself is going to be something like LIVE AID. Everybody’s going to get up to do a few songs. It will be like the FREDDIE MERCURY gig in Wembley in 1991. As for the ticket price, my girlfriend sat on the internet for three or four hours trying to get tickets, and when she finally got there, it was 402 £ for a ticket. I’m not paying 402 £ for a ticket for just one day, as much as I love BLACK SABBATH. I think the line-up is pretty cool and I understand that some of it will go to charity. I get that. But your average man can’t afford to spend 400 £ on a ticket. And then there’s also the travel costs and then there’s the hotel. I think the price is just too much to be perfectly honest. I think the gig will be good. But 400 quit for a gig? Come on! Everybody’s gonna go up there to do a song with BLACK SABBATH, and it’s all gonna be bits and pieces. There’s gonna be no flow. That’s my personal opinion. I’m sure it’ll be a great spectacle, but hey, it’s in Birmingham so it’s definitely gonna rain for a start. You’re gonna be standing there, getting pissed on by the rain and you’re 400 £ down. You’re gonna be paying 10 quid for a beer, 10 quid for a burger and you’ve got to park… It’s the same as football these days. The average fan can’t go to the games anymore because money has taken over, and I hate that.”
www.facebook.com/benedictionband, www.instagram.com/benediction_band,
https://benedictionofficial.bandcamp.com
Live pics: Sabine Thiele
Interview: Steven Willems
https://benedictionofficial.bandcamp.com
Live pics: Sabine Thiele
Interview: Steven Willems