Thrash metal is NOT dead!

Thrash metal from England... Old school thrash metal, that is! Can't remember too many occasions, that such a thing has happened in last years, can you??? Well, Savage Messiah are here to save the day. They released their debut EP 'Spitting Venom' this fall, and judging by it, they have more goods to serve to us. AM contacted the band's mastermind Dave Silver (guitar, vocals).

AM: Hello Dave, it's Lane from ArchaicMetallurgy.com. How do you do?

Dave Silver: Hi Lane! I'm doin great thanks! Just getting everything ready for the New Year. We're planning to be really busy in 2008 so we're just putting in the groundwork at the moment.

AM: Savage Messiah's debut EP 'Spitting Venom' has been out some months now. How have people received it?

Dave S.: So far the reaction has been really positive. We've had great reviews across the board with people generally giving us really constructive feedback. I'm very pleased with the progress that the band has made in such a short space of time and I think we've surpassed all the expectations that we had when we put the group together.

AM: On 'Spitting Venom', there's quite varying styles heard. What's your main goal with the band and its music?

Dave S.: Musically our goal is to simply to try and write great songs. We're very much a song-oriented band and we pay a lot of attention to the arrangements. Stylistically I suppose we're combining quite a wide range of metallic sounds. I think from the off we really decided that we didn't want to be a clone or a facsimile type of act so we've been fairly open minded in our approach. Our directive is simple: Heavy, melodic and energetic.

AM: Savage Messiah are a very young band, but you have musical history in Headless Cross. 'Spitting Venom' includes some Headless Cross songs, so what happened with that band anyways? Can you also shed some light on Savage Messiah's short history, please?

Dave S.: Yeah, Headless Cross was a project that I'd had for about 4 years and I guess I cut my teeth in that band. Looking back I suppose it was really just about learning. Not just playing and performance wise but getting some kind of grasp on the workings of the music industry. We had a good run and played some great gigs including Bloodstock Open Air in 06 with Edguy, Stratovarious, Metal Church and loads of other killer acts, we also opened for Onslaught and a particular highlight for me was opening for Stress Factor 9 with Randy Rampage.

In the end basically the band went in a direction personnel wise that no longer suited where I wanted to go so I decided to put it to rest and we formed Savage Messiah. We managed to assemble the group quite quickly and everything really just fell into place. We're now working hard to establish ourselves as a renowned UK act.

AM: The lyrics on this EP handle with religions and warring. What influences you to write about this stuff?

Dave S.: Lyrically I've found that most of what I write tends to have some sort of pseudo-religious connotation which is honestly quite strange as I'm fairly apathetic towards religion. I'm a big fan of intelligent lyrics, sort of darkly poetic things that conjure up interesting mental images. I think one thing about metal fans that is often overlooked is the vast majority of people into metal are usually pretty intelligent and there for it gives you the basis to offer something a little bit more aware. I like good articulation basically without trying to be pretentious, stuff like Nevermore, Warrell Dane writes really cool lyrics. There's many great bands that sing about beer and headbanging and all that kind of thing but I've always gone for stuff that to me has more depth so hopefully that comes out in what I write.

AM: The history of English thrash metal goes well back to 1980s. How did your homeland's bands influence you? How about your other influences? By the way, did you get the band's name from the Arch Enemy song with a same name?

Dave S.: I've always liked a lot of bands from that period: Xentrix, Onslaught, Deathwish, Virus, Acid Reign etc... But like those guys I think we're more influenced by American thrash and older British metal acts like Judas Priest. I have a very open mind musically, I'm not just into metal and I think you tend to draw a bit of an influence from everything you listen too.

The name comes from a film, but it's quite an obscure English film with Ken Russell so I understand why people equate it to Arch Enemy. I don't mind, I like their music a lot, if it was a Limp Bizkit song title we might have had to think again! Haha but a nod to Arch Enemy (albeit an accidental one) is no bad thing.

AM: Can you name your favourite albums, and why them?

Dave S.: Anything by Judas Priest, my all time favourite band ever is Judas. Other records that I like would be 'Never, Never Land' by Annihilator, 'Operation: Mindcrime' or 'Empire' by Queensrÿche. I'm really into Savatage, Pantera, Testament, Kreator, Nevermore, Nuclear Assault, Metal Church, Dio!! You name it! The list of amazing heavy metal bands is basically endless.

AM: It's not the hottest news anymore, that the thrash metal revival is happening right now. How do you see this all?

Dave S.: I think it's great, and it's a really exciting time to be an English heavy metal band. I know that there is a lot of great thrash acts happening in America and Europe as well. Any resurgence in a form a music that I believe has a lot of integrity can only be construed as a positive thing for the worldwide music community. I think the metal world has been flooded in recent times with a lot of mediocre acts claiming to be "heavy metal" when in fact they have no genuine affinity or affection towards metal. So one truly encouraging thing about the thrash revival is that for anyone that starts a band playing this kind of music at this stage it can only be for a true love of the music.

AM: How is London's metal music scene? Or is there any scene as such anyways?!

Dave S.: London's doing really well, there's a lot of grass roots support and there are some really good bands as well including Crowning Glory, Damnas, Divine Chaos, Doctor Death, Mutant and Nebukadnezza. I found in London that there's much more of a social community between other bands than I've found in other parts of England. I suppose because everyone tends to go to the same pubs you just end up getting to know people.

AM: If there's something you want to inform, you can do it here.

Dave S.: I hope everyone has a great Christmas and to all the Finnish metal heads that have checked us out! Hope you enjoyed our stuff! And we'll see one day in Helsinki m/

AM: Thank you Dave for this interview, and good luck for your adventures in 2008.

Interviewed by Lane.

12/25/2007 13:13