EXCLUSIVE: 21 & Under With…MITHRAS (Issue 12 Preview)
July 13th, 2009 Filed under: 21 & Under With..., Exclusive! by admin
Despite advances in style and technique in extreme music over the years death metal still remains one of the most belittled genres on the planet, oftentimes cited as being one-dimensional and showing a distinct lack of diversity. Those in the know understand that such ridicule is ignorant nonsense and one band that showcases diversity in abundance is UK-based celestial metal crew, Mithras. ABORT Magazine’s UK correspondent John Norby talks to the multi-talented brain behind the band, Leon Macey.
John Norby: Can you just give a rundown of how Mithras formed?
Leon Macey: Yeah sure thing! We formed as Imperator in 1998 after our old band Reprisal broke up. Rayner Coss sang in Reprisal and I played guitar, we also had the same drummer Justin Joyce. We wanted to do much more extreme music really and Reprisal was always a death/thrash band so we felt a total change was necessary and new outlook meaning a new band. We did a few demo CDs as Imperator with Justin drumming but he left and I started drumming as well as doing guitars in about 2000, and we then changed the band name to Mithras.
ABORT: Why did you remain a two-piece for so long?
LM: We often had another guitar player playing my parts while I drummed, or even two session type guitarists but the core of the band was always me playing guitars and drums and Rayner doing vocals and bass. We also had other people drum at times so I could play guitar at shows, which we always felt was much better and closer to the records than when someone was standing in trying to play my guitar leads while I was drumming. We remained a two piece as it simply worked out like that, we didn’t plan it. We never found the right drummer to join the band fulltime so I carried on drumming and guitaring on the records, And as time went on it became harder to replace me on drums as the music became more intricate and downright fast I guess!
ABORT: So, what happened with Rayner? It seemed at one point that you two were musically inseparable, at least when it came to Mithras. It must have felt hard losing him.
LM: On the last record Behind The Shadows Lie Madness the plan was for us to have another drummer and for me to concentrate on the music and guitars, and not have the extra stress of the drums, bearing in mind I do the production and mixing work too, and also considering it was our first proper record for Candlelight Records. It didn’t work out with our drummer at the time (Sean Broster who went off to join Sarpanitum) so I was again landed with the drums. However, I also ended up writing almost everything on the record, all the music, most of the lyrics and doing everything band related. The record took much longer to finish than we expected but came out really great and was released in April 2007, and got great reviews. However the overall process was really disheartening for me and really tested my patience and desire to make music. After the release I decided I’d need significant creative and general contributions from Rayner to continue doing the band in the way we were and told him so. But by late 2008 this simply hadn’t materialised and even though we’d recruited Ben White as drummer we were treading water, if not going backwards and I was feeling frustrated. Rayner had a lot of other stuff in his life he spent his time and creative energy on (his wrestling shows etc) and I realise looking back that had been his main interest for a long time. We decided that it was best to go our separate ways as I wanted to try and take the band up a level and to do that would need really hard working ambitious guys with a real passion for music working with me. It was really hard to imagine the band without Rayner for a while but this time change was for the best.
ABORT: How did you get Sam Bean on board, and will he be a permanent fixture?
LM: Sam was a member of the infamous Australian band The Berzerker for a fair while but moved over the UK a few years ago. When he made it over we hooked up for a jam as we’d talked online and frequented the same forums and whatnot. We jammed some Morbid Angel covers with me drumming and him singing and guitaring which led to me joining Sam’s band The Senseless as drummer in mid 2007. When it became known Rayner was leaving at the tail end of 2008, Sam just came straight out and told me he wanted the job. Ben and me spent time considering a few people but Sam was in the band within a month of Rayner going and is now the fulltime frontman / bassist. We’re ready for shows right now and just booked onto Brutal Assault festival in the Czech Republic, not a bad first show for a new frontman!
ABORT: Are you still ploughing along with The Senseless or is the appearance on The Floating World purely a session thing?
LM: The Senseless is essentially Sam’s baby, I’m “in the band” but really I’m helping him create the record he has in his head and taking orders from him like “play a straight beat dammit” and “can you do that bit again but more like a drum machine,” which isn’t that funny at the tempos the record is at, I love it! I’m actually just finishing up the final drum recordings for The Floating World and it’s a right monster of a record, definitely some of my best drum work.
ABORT: You’re quite the multi-talent: guitarist, drummer, producer, engineer, magazine publisher. How in the hell do you find the time for it all? And what’s the secret?
LM: Well that’s nice of you to say, but maybe it sounds a bit more impressive than it really is. I’m the managing director of the company which publishes Zero Tolerance Magazine (extreme music magazine distributed on newsstands in the UK, Europe, USA, Canada) and that’s my main job really. Sound engineering wise I do some mixing and mastering work in my little studio Dreaming Studios but I’m not recording other bands right now, I simply don’t have the time. I don’t spend as much time playing guitar and drums as maybe I should, but once the drum recordings for The Senseless are done I’ll give the drumming and my feet a break and concentrate on the guitar and Mithras for a bit. The “secret” to it for me is to practice periodisation!
READ THE ENTIRE INTERVIEW IN ISSUE 12 OF ABORT MAGAZINE – August ’09
By John Norby
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