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With Savage Messiah a new thrash band hailing from England is out to conquer the thrash metal world. To learn a bit more I put down some questions which been answered in no time by singer and guitarist David Silver.
Savage Messiah was started in 2007 and quite fast you had your EP Spitting Venom out. Even if there were some songs from Headless Cross on it, you were working quickly. A result of band chemistry and experience? The right people getting together?
Initially I was trying to gather as much momentum as possible as being a new band we had to play catch up with the other UK bands of our scene. When my old band came to an end it presented me with a great opportunity really, I re-located to London and put a band together and just got there and started working. It took me about 4 or 5 months to get the core of the band as it is today and once that gelled we just made plans and stuck to them. We've been patient and focused and also we've been lucky to cover as much ground as we have in just two years of existence.
Why the name Savage Messiah? Got inspired by the movie?
I became aware of the term via the movie, although it's not an homage or anything. I thought it sounded like a great heavy metal name, not too many syllables and a bit of blasphemy that's all you need for a good ol' heavy metal name!
Musically you seem to be inspired by the Bay Area thrash, but you don't limit yourself... Is it getting more difficult to find a band-defining sound nowadays?
I would say that is an element to our sound for sure, although as you say we don't limit ourselves to that. We're quite experimental really, but our main focus is on trying to write memorable songs. We try to mix it up by combining as many extremes as we can, from the most melodic to the heaviest. This means that we don't automatically pigeon hole ourselves as any specific sub-genre but because we're undeniably metal we still have our identity and we're free to continue exploring that. I think it is quite difficult to find a band-defining sound as people seem to stick more to what genre they play, I think its limited also when vocalists just scream, that creates a lot of homogeneity.
How long did you work on Insurrection Rising?
We worked on it sporadically from the time we got together really, because obviously our situation changed quite a lot. There was no guarantee that we were going to get signed and need a records worth of material so we didn't have a particular window or deadline. We actually wrote a lot more songs than will be released, but we adopted a really brutal attitude in order to select the best ones for the record, so a lot of stuff got thrown away.
And what inspires you when you write songs?
Quite hard to say really, we usually always write the music first and that usually always starts with bringing a guitar riff to rehearsal and building on it. Its very guitar driven music, but we've worked a lot on the vocal parts adding more melody and that kind of thing. Lyrically we consider ourselves to be socially aware, yet we're not overtly political really. If it sounds cool, then we're in.
Why did you choose Chris Tsangarides as producer?
Chris has a great legacy and it was really cool to work with him and we definitely learned a lot. He worked really well with me as a singer and had his say in some of the arrangements etc... he's a very traditional producer in that sense. We actually got the opportunity to work with him when we were still unsigned and who's gonna turn that down?
You are now signed by Candlelight Records. A chance to get better promotion and some decent tour, I guess. Have you had any other serious offers?
Yeah, it represents a chance for us to establish the band properly. We had a few other offers and that but Candlelight offered by far the fairest deal and there was no question about it really. We're really happy to be on the label, and they've been really great to the band.
And how satisfied are you so far with the feedback you got for Insurrection Rising?
All the reviews thus far have been really great, and I'm really happy at some of the things people are seeing in the music, it seems to me like most people 'get' what we are trying to do and as a musician that's really satisfying.
Will you soon play some shows? A tour? Anything you can tell us now?
It's our plan to tour extensively, at the moment its dependant on a lot of factors coming together, but the band is ready and raring to go.
What's on your schedule for the rest of 2009?
Just to continue building and moving forward. We've got a lot of plans and we're just going to stay focused and keep pushing on.
Thanks to David for taking time to answer me questions and I hope to catch them on tour and talk a bit more.... Looks like this won't be the last time Savage Messiah enlighten us!
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