King Kraken Interview
Lockdown came at precisely the wrong time for South Wales’ outfit King Kraken. One of the brightest bands on the scene, thes boys had worked tirelessly in 2019 and following a blasting show at HRH Metal in February were ready to push on hard through 2020. A pause in proceedings has been a nightmare for them, especially after their recent trip to the studio. I caught up with Karl Meyers, Mark Donoghue and Richard Lee Mears via Skype recently to get some news from the glowing green Kraken camp. Having chatted lockdown and how everyone was coping we got to more important conversation.
MoM: Let’s start with a review of 2019. It was a good year for the band. What were your highlights?
Rich: Last year’s Metal to the Masses.
Mark: Yeah, Metal to the Masses, and there was Highway to Hell. One of the highlights for me for that was watching how many bands had entered and watching them all being ticked down, and we were constantly on the list as it got to the final eight. And to be the only band from Wales as well.
MoM: so that was the gig in Sheffield you are talking about, Highway to hell?
Mark: Yeah, it was a small room, 2-300 capacity, something like that.
MoM: I prefer the Sheffield O2 to the Birmingham venue.
Rich: I think Sheffield is way better.
Mark: Stage 1 is much bigger at Sheffield.
Karl: There were loads of nice gigs that we played last year. One of the best was when we went camping, I can’t even remember where that was …
Rich: Oh, Drunken Monkey Festival.
Karl: That was a highlight for me, where was that?
Mark: Upton on Severn.
Karl: Ah yeah, that was great, it was the first weekend we went away together …
MoM: Was that the biker gig you did?
Rich: No, that was another bonkers gig!
Mark: That was a three-band bill, and the first band and the headliners were the same band.
Rich: Yeah, with us thrown in the middle!
MoM: that’s just a normal gig at Fuel with Sam (Heffernan) playing drums for nearly every band!
Karl: The Drunken Monkey stage was quite big, and we had a good reception from the crowd, and we were pissed all weekend!
Rich: You were all pissed! I’d been working nights on the Friday, we had to be there by 11 on the Saturday. I remember playing Freak and Karl said, “play it a bit faster” and I said, “I can’t, I’ve been up all fucking night!”
Karl: it was like your whole body was trying to catch up with your head!
MoM: Which is the biggest stage you’ve played on in terms of size, metres squared?
Mark: Probably Drunken Monkey because I had my own posing platform …
MoM, Karl, Rich: Hahahaha!
Mark: I was stuck out the front, two lorries deep, this square bit out front and I could walk out into the crowd. It was cool as fuck!
Rich: yeah, two lorry trailers as one big stage and this walkway in front of it.
Karl: The one at the Redhouse was good too.
Mark: Yeah, good stage that.
MoM: This year started so well for you. Coming on to that show in Birmingham (Hard Rock Hell Metal) and you’d lit the thrusters and it looked like everything was going to fly. You were still buzzing about it two weeks later.
Mark: It was crazy because there was also an opportunity if Adam had been there, we could have played on the main stage and the second stage on the Saturday as well as our slot on the Sunday.
Rich: And we were offered the HMC slot on the Friday, but we were only offered that the day before and we were all working. It’s quite funny because I was looking at a post on Facebook the other day and it was saying “busting for 2020, can’t wait” and now look at it!
MoM: Let’s move on to the new ‘album sampler’ as it’s been badged now. You’ve shared it with me and it’s superb. It’s got the two newish songs, Chaos Engine and Castle of Bone, and you’ve gone back to Freak and The Grey. What’s the reason for recording those two again?
Mark: We decided that they were potentially our most accessible songs, especially The Grey.
Karl: Even though we’d recorded them previously, we wanted the quality to be the same as the new ones through Romesh (Dodangoda).
MoM: The quality is amazing on the songs. I’ve been listening to the old and new versions and you can make a clear distinction. I mean, The Grey is about half as fast again, it’s batshit. But where has the bell gone from it?
Mark, Karl, Rich: Hahahaha!
Rich: what a topic of conversation.
MoM: I was listening to it going, what’s missing? Where’s the bell!
Mark: We didn’t drop the bell at all. Adam and Romesh dropped the bell.
Karl: Yeah, we said we’d let Romesh decide whether to keep the bell, and he said no.
MoM: Fair enough, although he’s wrong!
Karl: I prefer it with the bell.
MoM: The other two tracks (Chaos Engine and Castle of Bone) were the two you were going to put on there anyway?
Mark: Yes, that’s right.
MoM: And the running order? It seems to flow well. Was there a natural order or did Romesh decide it?
Mark: We decided, and it was some thinking because originally The Grey and Castle both started with a solo drum beat so we didn’t want to put them together. We knew we wanted Chaos to open and Castle of Bone to finish. To me, Chaos Engine is the strongest song of the four, so it was about where we put Freak and The Grey.
MoM: How easy is Romesh to work with?
Mark: He’s brilliant. He made everything dead simple.
Rich: Such a relaxed environment in there, I remember thinking halfway through the recording, I haven’t been stressed at all.
MoM: Where did you record the first EP?
Mark: Pitch Black Studios in Swansea with Dan Angelo, the guitarist from Dr and the Medics.
MoM: What was the reason for choosing Romesh this time around?
Mark: we knew we wanted something of broadcast quality, something right up there. We were talking about producers and Romesh’s name came up and looking at his back catalogue it was just a matter of if we could afford it.
MoM: You’ve decided not to release it as an EP, is that the plan?
Karl: Yes, we’ve got a few options, but I think what we are looking to do is use the four songs and put it towards an album.
MoM: Is there a timescale for this or are you still sketching it out?
Mark: Hopefully before the end of the year, Covid allowing obviously!
Karl: Ideally, we were hoping for August or September, but it really does all depend on how things are.
MoM: So, what else would you be looking to put on the album? War Machine? Kidnap?
Mark: Both of those and maybe a couple of new ones that nobody has heard yet!
Karl: We do have a couple of songs, definitely one completed, that we were going to be performing in Fuel, but we should have a few new ones to go on it.
MoM: That’s exciting news. So, how many gigs did you have lined up before this pandemic struck and locked everything down?
Rich, Mark together: Up to 15!
Karl: See that? (points to a wall planner behind him) We had loads of stuff booked and I bought that, and it turned up about two weeks before everything got cancelled so I haven’t written a thing on it!
Rich: We lost eight gigs in April alone. April and May were meant to be really busy for us. We had bookings in the Cobblestones and in Hanger 18 with Liberty Lies …
Karl: and a couple with Wayne Mayhew (In Which It Burns) …
Rich: Yeah, the IWIB boys, we’ve had loads of stuff and sadly its all gone to shit.
Mark: M2TM was a kick in the nuts for me …
MoM: Yeah, it was meant to be my birthday celebration gig, so I was totally gutted about that one. What’s the situation with venues and promoters? Is everyone just waiting?
Mark: Yeah. We were getting messages one or two days before saying things were having to be cancelled, and I don’t think we’ve had any rescheduled dates yet?
Rich: Nothing at the moment. But how do you book? It’s ridiculous. I think the best thing a band can do is record if possible. When we were talking about releasing the EP, the challenge was whether to release it in lockdown or after lockdown so that people could at least hear it but if you release it in lockdown it gets forgotten about. It’s a difficult time to release stuff.
Karl: it’s just affected everyone, right across the board, pubs, venues, bands, everyone.
MoM: Are you in touch with any other bands?
Rich: I’ve been speaking to the boys from State of Deceit and IWIB but otherwise it’s mainly through Facebook. The worry is whether people will want to do this and go to gigs after it eases. As much as people want to go back to normal this isn’t going away quickly is it?
Karl: And you hear different stories about what is going to be allowed and what isn’t. Up until the middle of next year. You don’t know what is going to happen.
Mark: and when it does lift, it’ll be chaos. All the practice rooms will be booked, and people are going to be scrambling for gigs, desperate for something. There will be gigs every weekend for months.
MoM: What about the decision to hold back on the EP. Was it unanimous within King Kraken?
Mark: there was a good discussion, the pros and cons about whether to release it or not, there was a lot of differing opinions, but we finally agreed.
MoM: And how are you maintaining the skills, are you able to practice because the key to any band is playing live.
Karl: I was just thinking, can you imagine when you go to your first gig after all this, how shit the bands are going to be. You’ll be standing there going who the hell is this?
Rich: Everyone will be screaming “bring back lock down!!”
MoM: You’ll be like the fat football team that have been on the piss all summer for pre-season and come back and can’t move after 20 minutes!
Karl: We are all practising by ourselves at home. I’m coming up with riffs and I’m posting them for the band to see and hear, and Pete is doing the same. Adam is always on his guitar anyway.
Mark: The boys came up with a riff and I decided to write my part, the vocal parts and I recorded the whole thing so I’m doing a vlog. It’s three hours 15 minutes so I can split it into episodes to post about how I write my parts of the song.
MoM: What’s sad but also good is that the momentum you guys had will only be paused rather than lost.
Rich: Yeah. We were gigging twice a week at least so for us it is trying to get those gigs again. That’ll be the work when everything opens back up. But we don’t know what people will want to do.
MoM: And you don’t want to stand 20 yards apart at a gig. (I think we're using Metric not Imperial)
Karl: I do on stage! If I could do that, it would be at Wembley!!
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