Interview | For Ruin (02/2010)

 Entretien réalisé par mails avec John Murphy (chant et guitare), fondateur de For Ruin.

For Ruin started like a solo project. Can you elaborate on this beginning and the split demo with Meiche?

Hey there – many thanks for the interview! Yes initially it did, but it wasn’t really planned I think. Meiche is a 2-man black metal studio project that I did with a friend in 2003; I played drums, some guitars and keys on the Meiche part. He helped me a little with some For Ruin tracks and we decided to produce a Split demo and put the two bands on the same demo effectively, with very contrasting styles. The For Ruin part of the disk is some of the earliest songs that I wrote and recorded, some are as old as 1997-98 maybe. Meiche has not done anything since, and I doubt if it will, it was a good time recording the songs though. But that is so long ago now! I was finishing doctoral studies in college while I recorded the first demo so I didn’t have a lot of time to work on it really, only at the weekends.

How did you discover the black metal art ?

All of us in For Ruin have been listening to extreme metal (and other forms of metal and non-metal music too) for many years. As for myself, when I was younger I always listened to guitar-based music, bands like Dire Straits, Iron Maiden, Thin Lizzy etc. were important to me growing up. I also listened a lot to a great Irish guitarist called Rory Gallagher. The music I liked always had a harder edge to it and I think that I followed a similar path to many people, with the thrash bands having an effect on me and Iron Maiden increasingly so as the years went on. Then I started listening to Celtic Frost and more extreme stuff and that naturally leads to the bands that influence us more today I suppose! I have always preferred the dark bands that have a strong sense of melody rather than speed and aggression without something you can remember – and I think comes across in For Ruin’s music on December (our debut album from 2007) and also on the new album “Last Light”. 

What black metal means for you?

I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about genre names and labels that people put on bands…its all metal to me, some of it is great and to my taste, and some of it is shit. Everyone feels like this I guess. The darker side of metal is attractive to me and personally, while our band is neither political nor has a very public stance on religion, each of us in the band is atheist and I personally share a strong dislike for the catholic faith which I was brought up within. So I can relate to that stance within “Black Metal”, that of a shared feeling of disgust with that faith. But more importantly it’s a style of music that I love listening to and enjoy playing passionately and it’s a key part of my life for many years now. 

How could you describe your music? For me, For Ruin make a black metal band with a lot of death influences...

Yes I would mostly agree. We are all fans of the more extreme side of metal music, but also fans of strong melodies and songs that stick in your mind – songs that are memorable are always the best ones. I would describe us as an extreme metal band with a melodic edge and harsh vocals. People can use categories if they wish, I don’t mind. We certainly do not sound like the other Irish metal bands that international audiences might know better – we have more in common with the Scandinavian or Mediterranean styles of extreme metal.

I consider For Ruin a bit different of the other Irish groups. Would you agree?

Yes, 100% agreed. There are some well known Irish metal bands that people will know and we definitely do not sound anything like them – as I mentioned above we sound like we are from a different place by our sound and influences. I’m not a fan of the styles played by the more well known Irish bands really, although I like Primordial now more than I did 10 years ago, they really are a great band (and very nice guys!) and they have been through all of the hardships that many bands have had to go through – and that we have to face!

There is a cross in the artwork of Last Light. Is religion an important subject for you?

In terms of lyrical content, no, it as not been in the past – religion is something that I personally am very much against – I see it is the root of many of the world’s problems. On the Last Light album we have a song called “In Suffering”, which is inspired by both the disgusting and hurtful crimes committed by the catholic church against children in their care in recent Irish history and also by my general dislike for any sort of religion. The Last Light artwork shows a decaying cross – it’s a logo that is inspired by a Christian brothers logo – this is our version of it, showing the cross being fragmented and choked. We wanted a simple, iconic piece of artwork and that’s what we got. 

What is the lyrical theme of For Ruin?

I’m the only lyric-writer in the band at the moment (hopefully that will change some day) and our lyrics at the moment come from my influences, experiences and opinions for the most part. I don’t write horror/gore/satanic lyrics or any bullshit like that – there’s enough horror in the world around us without delving into fantasy. The lyrics on Last Light deal with a range of topics from getting older, loss of freedom, climate and “In Suffering” is a commentary on the fallacy of organized religion and the disdain I have for the catholic church in Ireland. The album’s artwork is also influenced by this repulsive subject.  As for inspiration - inspiration isn’t something tangible or easy to identify but for me personally, I guess its my surroundings, my life and family, hobbies and what music and other media I listen to or read. I spent quite a long time in education and so my professional life also influences me (and in turn our music) to an extent. The drive for the band comes from the love of playing a style of music that we all enjoy and seeing others enjoy our music is also a factor – ultimately if nobody liked our music we would probably still play it for ourselves and our own enjoyment – the fact that others like it is a great bonus and its encouraging. It used to be me on my own pushing the band forward but now we are all in it and there are 4 of us fully behind the band.

The new songs seem shorter and heavier than the old tracks, I think. What's the difference between December and the last album?

Yes I think the new tracks on Last Light are a little shorter in some cases – and they are certainly heavier for the most part and definitely faster. I like a song to get to the point, or the “hook” without wasting a lot of time – with new music people hear so much of it that a new song doesn’t have a lot of time to grab that person and lift them before they loose interest. We have some longer songs on our older releases and we may have some in the future – the length is not that important I think – its more important to get to the point quickly I think. There are so many differences between December and Last Light…mostly the production I think, and general professionalism and the drive and unity behind the band. We are better musicians now and older and wiser I suppose. Last Light got the attention it deserved in all respects I think – that was not the case with the first album for a variety of reasons.

Tell us about your instrumental songs, like "Crawl" for example.

I have always written instrumental songs, since before For Ruin was formed in fact. The first demo has a long doomy instrumental on it called Treading (which I re-recorded on the 3rd demo and the second version is far superior) – it’s a slow building tune. The Shade demo has an acoustic/clean guitar piece on it that I wrote many years ago, and the Obsidian demo has the re-recording of Treading as well as the track “December”, which gave its name to the debut album. I think for me all songs start out as instrumentals, I always write the music first and then I think about them in terms of lyrics, to see if they work or not. “Crawl” is a change for us in terms of instrumentals – its probably the fastest song we have written (along with “Deluge” maybe) and it has a very different mid-section which is sort of like “Arise”-era Sepultura maybe or something. It’s a good song to play live and is a short-sharp-shock! 

You're the leader of the band but FR it is a democratic band?

Absolutely – majority rules in the band and we don’t do something without discussing it first between us and everyone’s opinion is heard. It’s the only way to do things to keep everyone together and behind the band. I would not want to be responsible for all of the band’s decisions alone and its nice to share the band’s successes between the four of us when decisions we make work out well!

How is the Irish metal scene today? Can you recommend some bands?

I wouldn’t say that Ireland is a great place to be growing a band – it’s ok, and has its benefits and drawbacks. There’s a lot of metal fans (casual and otherwise) in Ireland – Metallica plays here every year lately it seems to 30k people or something 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 that 1000 people I’d say. Festivals here have struggled in the recession (which hit Ireland harder than many), numbers are down at gigs, CD shops are closing, business is down. Bands are not unaffected by 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 – its 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). Being a metal band in Ireland can be very tough. There’s a shortage of musicians, venues, and the scene is very small. However this has led to some very unique bands like Primordial, Mael Mordha and others, as our isolation keeps the scene here very fresh. It has pros and cons like any country. In so far a logistics it is obviously expensive and awkward to play abroad. Ireland has always had a very strong musical tradition so that has definitely carried over into the metal scene here.

What are your immediate plans would you like to play in France?

Right now we’re working on some UK tour dates for the Spring and a lot of promo and interviews. We’re hoping to get on a few festival bills too and we’re investigating some licensing possibilities to a few labels in order to get Last Light out there and pushed harder than we can. It’s nice to have all of this under our own control I guess. We’re hoping to set up some European dates later in the year (including France!) but a few things have to fall into place for that to happen first. We’re rehearsing some songs from the new album that we have yet to play live and also have some new songs written and we’re rehearsing them at the moment. I guess we’ll write some more during 2010 and start looking at recording again in late 2010 or early 2011. 

But we have a lot of work to do to raise the band’s profile internationally and to get out there and start playing more. Full details of all of our happenings are at www.forruin.com and that’s where people can support us and buy our music too – we are doing this independently from any label so we need all the support we can get to keep moving. The album is available for free download at the website too for people who want to check us out before buying too – some songs are also on our Myspace at www.myspace.com/forruinband. 

A last question about your study - you have a doctorate. What's study had you follow?

I keep my education out of the band in general (though I guess it has an influence somewhere…) but yes, I studied 5 years to get a degree in applied physics and then another 4 years to get a PhD in physics. My day job is still in this high-tech area and I enjoy it a lot, it keeps my brain going and I am always learning new things. Its not uncommon anymore to find metal-fans that are interested in higher education and high-tech stuff I think!

A big thank you to John Murphy !
Interview publiée pour Music Waves en version française.

Chronique de Last Light.