DIY darkness

Ireland's dark metal act For Ruin are one of the recent lights, that shine truly brightly in the land's metal community. 2007's debut album 'December' showed a lot of promise, but it is the band's second album 'Last Light', that should put them into the big league. Archaic Metallurgy contacted the band and guitarist/vocalist John Murphy replied.

AM: Greetings from cold and snowy wastes of Finland. How are things in "The Rebel County" Cork now, at the beginning of 2010?

John Murphy: Hey Lane, thanks for the interview. We got some snow in Ireland recently that brought the country to a halt (you would laugh - it was about 10cm or so!) but the country is still in a lot of shit I guess but we try to put that aside and soldier on! The rebel county alas isn't immune to the financial problems of the world although we are otherwise invincible!

AM: For Ruin was formed in Cork, but you have also been to Spain. Can you shed some light over the history of the band?

JM: No problem - the band was formed in 2002 or 2003 in Cork, on the southern coast of Ireland. At that time, it was just a one-man project - just me on my own. I released 3 demos during '04 -'06 which gained some label interest and allowed me to put together the initial lineup of the band, culminating in a deal with Sentinel Records in early 2007. The first and 3rd demos were recorded in Ireland, but I lived in Valencia, Spain for 2 years and wrote/recorded much of the second demo while there before returning to Cork in late 2005.

We released our debut album 'December' in October '07, and it has done well for us - it's well distributed by now (including digitally) and while the production on it could be better for a variety of reasons, it's a good representation of the early sound of the band - all albums are an audio-picture of where a band is at a particular time, and for us it is still early days - but that's the first proper documentation of the band. We've played with some of the biggest names in extreme music since then and now our second album 'Last Light' is out since October last - it was preceded by a digital-only EP called 'Enlightened'. Our lineup now consists of Pete Alcorn on drums, Drew Myers on guitar, Pete Lawlor on the bass and I'm on guitar and vocals.

AM: At the end of October 2009, your sophomore album 'Last Light' came out. How has it been welcomed by metal music people? And how do you see it now, after some months of its release?

JM: Thankfully it has been very positively welcomed. 'December' (the debut) had mixed responses along the lines of "great songs but pity about the production" - and we agree with that. No such problems this time though: 'Last Light' sounds great, looks great and has raised our profile already quite considerably by having it available as a free download. Good press is important but what's more important is that the fans like it as they clearly determine whether or not the band can continue or not - especially in our case since we have left our label and are pushing the band ourselves, without a label (by choice).

AM: 'Last Light' is a stark take of an attitude, both musically and lyrically. You can frankly be called as "old school" when talking about your "melodic black metal". Even though that label alone does not make you justice, because your music is much, much wider, when thinking about all the different styles. How come you came up with this kind of a concoction, that is definitely characteristic?

JM: So many people have tried to stick a label on us and our style and I understand that need - it helps people to identify they style and provides a reference point. I think comparing one band to another in terms of style or sound is probably amore useful benchmark because the genres or categories don't do that justice. I guess what we play just comes from filtering all of the influences that we have (and by that I mean both musical and all the other influences that we have between the 4 of us in the band). We all listen to various styles of music and different bands with some common elements and shared interests between all of us I think.

AM: In the past you have covered Amorphis, Katatonia, Paradise Lost and Rotting Christ. I can definitely hear some similar bits in For Ruin's metal, or how you see it? These bands have mutated quite a lot during the years, Rotting Christ maybe the least. How do you feel about them nowadays?

JM: Yes in the demo days I recorded some versions of songs from those bands, and we used to play Death's 'Spiritual Healing' live quite a bit (but not anymore). All those bands would be personal interests of mine and I still listen to them to an extent (but also to many other styles of metal and non metal music too. All bands must evolve to last I think. I'm not a big fan of the recent Katatonia stuff, I prefer their older style. But the other bands you list above have all been favorites of mine in recent times - I love Joutsen albums from Amorphis, and Paradise Lost are very much on an upward trend since 'Symbol of Life' came out. The new Rotting Christ album has a lot to live up to given that 'Theogonia' was so strong so I'm really looking forward to that.

AM: The Catholic church has a firm foothold in Ireland. You oppose the church in your lyrics. What else do you write about? At least there's a lot of good metal music topics to be found in your country's history alone, right?

JM: Unfortunately yes, the church has had a firm grip in Ireland, but that's declining rapidly. We do not write a lot of anti-church songs - only one ('In Suffering') on 'Last Light' addresses this and it is also what inspired the cover artwork. In recent times the church here have been exposed for what many of their members were over the years - raping paedophiles and brutal abusers. We are not a satanic band or any of that bullshit. Like many people of our generation we are opposed to the catholic influence in Ireland, and I personally wish that religion was outlawed and swept clean from the face of the Earth - it is a poison and the root of all evil for me. There's no need to sing about gore and horror topics when you have such subject matter appearing on the newspapers in the real world on a daily basis. Reality is far more terrifying.

AM: What kind of a creation procedure you take with your music?

JM: In the past I was the only writer both in terms of music and lyrics and I always recorded my ideas on the computer or desk and these became songs. I still work like that, but now Drew and Pete are also contributing which is great. I'm still the only lyric writer and I hope that will change in time too. These days we have riffs and ideas individually that are sometimes developed into a song for the most part, others are just a riff or two here and there so we work through those in rehearsal then and find what works well.

AM: Your debut album 'December' came out in 2007. How do you feel about that album now?

JM: December was the debut for Sentinel records in late 2007. It did ok and has some of our most popular live songs on it, many of them were on the demos. But its production reflects the budget we had and our lack of experience I guess - it's a bit thin sounding, particularly for the style we play which needs a better production. It's a good reflection of where we were then, like any album really - it's an audio representation of a band at that time. We were not the finished article in terms of band members at the time - our lineup had not solidified - and it was recorded around time of the birth of my son which took up a lot of my time understandably. Get hold of it - its worth a listen for sure. We remixed a song called 'Towards an End' from that album for the digital EP 'Enlightened' that we released just before 'Last Light' came out - it's streaming on the MySpace page now at (www.myspace.com/forruinband) and that's how it should have sounded. Maybe we'll record some of those songs again sometime, but not anytime soon - we're looking onwards and upwards, not backwards.

AM: This time around you decided to release the album by yourselves. How did you end up to this? You also put out a digital-only release prior to the new album, 'Enlightened' EP. How did it do? And even 'Last Light' is available as a free download on your site. How has that strategy worked out so far?

JM: Times have changed and our label has had the same problem that businesses the world over has had and while they are still going, we decided we'd keep control of 'Last Light' ourselves - nobody would push the album as hard as we could because we believe in it and really want it to be heard. While we are still a relatively unknown band, we have a lot of contacts and networks ourselves. It meant that we funded the album's costs entirely ourselves and have learned from that and know how to do it now - right through from song writing to artwork, design and merchandising. Everything about the album is under our control and that's a unique position to be in. In means that distribution is compromised a little for sure and that all costs are ours, but at least all the rights are ours and the ball is firmly in our court.

'Enlightened' is just a simple taster for the album and quite a few people downloaded it. I think we will do something similar next time before a full length is released, but with more non-album tracks on it. A band of our underground status needs to get its name out there and since the torrent sites and file sharing sites are going to have it available anyway, we decided to try something new for us - of course its not new in general, lots of bands are doing it nowadays and labels are becoming obsolete - they will eventually adapt I'm sure, or go out of business. The more people that can hear us, the better, and giving it away free helps that. It's not a full quality version, but if people want to check us out, then its perfect. If they like it, they buy either hard copies, or digital copies - and we also have a collectors edition of the 'Last Light' CD available that lots of folks have bought. The free download and controlling our own sales is a little bit more work, but it means we are directly in contact with the band's fans and can offer them something labels can't.

As we grow we will have to adapt of course, but for now, it's working well. I don't know if the next album will be available for free or not, but right now, it's getting our name out there and our name is being seen globally. We sent out a lot of promos and it has worked: Metal Hammer (UK) gave us a featured review slot in their December 2009 edition of the magazine - that's a highpoint for us in media terms. Legacy Mag in Germany and Terrorizer in the UK is also featuring us in their February 2010 edition (the leading "Choice Cuts" article) so that's very welcome too. It is all helping to raise our profile and the mags mentioning the free download also helps of course. The website (www.forruin.com) is busy and well trafficked by people from countries I barely know of!

AM: You've played live with Paradise Lost and Rotting Christ among other big names. How did that kind of occasion feel and did you learn something new?

JM: We learned that we are still able to be star-struck I think ha ha, yes playing with them was great. We have been lucky really, playing with bands like those and Amon Amarth, Decapitated, Napalm Death, Destruction and many other well-known bands. It all helps you to see professional acts at work and gives you something to aspire to in terms of the quality of their live show.

AM: Is there any gigs and tours coming for you?

JM: We're working on a short UK tour now and that's the current focus, then we will look towards Europe later in the year.

AM: How does the future for metal music look in Ireland?

JM: Ireland isn't a great place to be growing a band - it's ok, and has its benefits and drawbacks. There's probably too many crappy bands and a lack of decent venues. There are a lot of metal fans (casual and otherwise) in Ireland, Metallica plays here every year lately it seems and others in the big-leagues do well too. The underground, or lets say "proper" metal shows are much smaller, with a fan-base of less than 1000 people or so I'd say. Festivals here have struggled in the recession (which hit Ireland harder than many other countries), numbers are down at gigs, CD shops are closing, business is down and bands are not immune to this. It's not a great time to be putting out albums in Ireland or anywhere really. But there is a core of fans in Ireland that are pretty decent and loyal - it's just that everyone has extra costs and lower incomes at the moment. We fool ourselves here into thinking we can put on 2-day festivals when we can't, especially at the moment.

There are some decent bands in Ireland from various styles within the extreme metal spectrum and some are fairly well known now abroad. Irish bands seem a little strange to the outside world - metal from an island on the north west of Europe is an oddity to many international fans who know Ireland from a whole range of clichés and from a musical perspective - U2 and many other highly successful radio-friendly artists. We have too many gigs over here at the moment, probably too many crap bands and the local gig-goer is tired of seeing them play week after week so they are selective, and rightly so. Cork has really suffered from this, and Dublin too (although there is a larger pool of people in Dublin). But there are the notable bands from Ireland that have made a mark in the metal scene - many of those draw on their Celtic roots and Ireland's history. While such history interests us, it has not been a source of influence for this band - we sound nothing like the "Celtic" bands I guess. The future of metal in Ireland is as uncertain as it is anywhere really though I guess, there will always be fans here and while they will like different styles and degrees of extremity in their music, I don't see metal disappearing from Ireland by any means - the better known Irish bands are still flying the flag high for us.

AM: For Ruin are still a new band, so to speak. How does it fit into your lives? Does it bring any income?

JM: The band is a hobby/passion and its an expensive one given we are funding it ourselves. There is no money in extreme metal, the best we can hope for is that the band sustains itself. We all work day jobs. In terms of how it fits our lives, it doesn't interfere with our lives but for me personally it's a little more difficult with a young family of my own while the other guys are not divided like that, but we make it work and there hasn't been a major collision as yet - so basically it's a case of income? What's that?!

AM: Can you reveal any other future plans?

JM: We're looking into our touring possibilities as I mentioned and are writing some music. It may seem very soon to be writing new music since the album came out only 2 months ago, but in fact, we finished the recording of 'Last Light' on January 12th 2009 and Alwyn mixed it with our input over the following months, it was mastered in the summer and we got it out there in October. CDBaby.com has it, I-tunes has it and all of the major download sites should have 'Last Light' (and the 'Enlightened' EP that preceded the album) by now too. So while all of that's happening we are writing, I have a few songs completed and Drew has some ideas too that we're working into songs. We have a new drummer, Pete Alcorn, who's probably the best all-round drummer the band has had and we are rehearsing with him a lot over the next few months. Hopefully 2010 will be a year full of live dates for us, maybe with some festival appearances if all goes to plan, and later in the year we will look at our song ideas and start looking at our recording possibilities again. We'll try to organize something with Lugga Productions for mainland Europe if we can.

We are not looking at any labels for now (most labels are screwed right now and sticking their heads in the sand and trying to cope with the bands currently on their rosters - they're not signing new bands!) We might look at licensing 'Last Light' to a label to help distribution in 2010 too (for now it's only available from us or through CDBaby). We'd like to get some exclusive free multimedia stuff up on the website, and record some free versions of songs especially for those registered with the site to keep in touch with people. It's going to be a busy year ahead for us!

AM: Any last words to say, that haven't been spoken out as yet?

JM: Just to thank you for the interview and to spread the word! All relevant info about the band is up on www.forruin.com and with any luck we will get to play a lot of countries over the next year or two!

AM: Thank you for interesting replies! Good luck wth touring and stuff, hopefully we'll meet in Finland soon.

For Ruin (left to right): Peter Lawlor (bass), Drew Myers (guitar), John Murphy (guitar, vocals) and Steve O'Connell (drums).