Photos by Robyn Benson / Black Earth Photography
(Last year the British doom band Iron Void celebrated their 25th anniversary and released a stellar fourth album, and in belated honoring of those events Comrade Aleks conducted the following very engaging interview with all three of the band’s members — Jonathan ‘Sealey’ Seale, Steve Wilson, and Scott Naylor.)
Iron Void from West Yorkshire is one of the most focused and active doom metal bands among those that present a “traditional” scene. Being formed in 1998 and disbanded in 2000, Iron Void didn’t hurry to record a full-length album even after their reunion in 2008, but here they are with four albums in the discography now, and the most up-to-date release IV saw the light of day in January 2023.
Yes, it happened one year ago, and we’re a bit late with this interview, but it’s never too late to support the band that deserves wider exposure. After all, heroic, quite old-school, and damn heavy IV was one of the best doom albums of 2023. Also, besides other things, you’ll learn from this interview what “Street Doom” stands for!
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Hi Jonathan! How are you? What’s new going on in Iron Void’s depths?
Jonathan ‘Sealey’ Seale: Hi Aleks! I’m good thanks, hope you are too? We concluded a very busy schedule in 2023 with a special 1.5 hour set to celebrate our 25th Anniversary at Vortex, Wakefield in November. The set spanned our entire career including songs we’d never performed live previously such as “Enemy Within”, other songs we hadn’t played live for a very long time, and of course a selection of classic tracks. We also toured the UK with Orodruin in July last year which was very successful and consisted of 7 dates across the length and breadth of the UK.
We hope to release a split vinyl / CD release with Orodruin, featuring a new exclusive studio song from each band, a Pagan Altar cover each (Iron Void recorded “Highway Cavalier” and Orodruin recorded “In The Wake of Armadeus”), and a selection of live tracks too. We’ll be looking for a label to release this in 2024.
We’ll be making our debut in Greece at Horns Up Festival at the end of March and we’re planning to play in Norway for the first time later this year, as well as planning more UK gigs. We’d also like to start writing the next album soon as we already have a lot of ideas. The album will be entitled Bastard Sons of Mars.
Somehow we skipped the IV release, so let’s cover it, but first of all… Your previous album Excalibur was released back in 2018 and got a lot of well-deserved positive reviews. Did it help you to push the band really further? Or was the moment lost because of the following pandemic?
Jonathan ‘Sealey’ Seale: We did receive a lot of praise for the Excalibur album, which I was very pleased about as it was a labour of love for me and one of my favourite Iron Void albums. We played a few international festivals and I definitely think it raised the band’s profile.
To be honest we played Hard Metal Fest in Portugal in January 2020 just before the plague hit and we had already planned to ease off on the amount of gigs we were booking so we could focus on completing the writing process for IV, and we also deliberately held off booking any international shows due to uncertainty of bands travelling after Brexit. So, when the pandemic hit, we were already in writing mode; when the lockdowns happened it meant we were unable to jam in the same room for months on end, but we started using Dropbox to share our ideas and recorded demos remotely until we could meet up again. So, it was an inconvenience but the situation didn’t affect us as much as it did others.
Steve Wilson: We got a good sense of how well-received Excalibur was with the fans in Portugal. Many knew the words to each of the songs and were singing along. The only benefit of gigs closing down was not having to cancel anything; as Jonathan said, we were ready to start writing after that show.
You didn’t waste your time, and the next album IV was recorded during spring 2021. You worked with Chris Fielding in Foel Studio once again. How was it to work with such an experienced man who knows perfectly what doom metal is about?
Jonathan ‘Sealey’ Seale: We’ve worked with Chris on the last three albums and we don’t intend to work with anyone else for the foreseeable future. He’s our Martin Birch or Tom Allom! Chris is such an awesome bloke and we love working with him. He always brings out the best in us and pushes us to deliver our best performances in the studio. He’s been very instrumental in pushing our vocals too — Steve and I have definitely learned a thing or two from him. He’s always super chilled too, which makes working with him an absolute pleasure.
The band spent just five days there, and honestly after reading all those ancient reports about Iron Maiden or Black Sabbath, it’s hard to believe that the bands should work there in such a strict regime. However, even Pentagram recorded at nights to save some money, and My Dying Bride recorded the lion’s share of their albums in the small Academy Studio… It’s small, right? So, are you satisfied with such a situation or would you prefer to spend more time at the studio working in a more relaxed way?
Jonathan ‘Sealey’ Seale: I live near Academy Studio and Dan Mullins is a friend of the band, but I’ve never actually been to the studio so I can’t say if it’s small or not. This was the first time we’ve recorded at Foel Studio, having previously recorded Excalibur and Doomsday at the now sadly defunct Skyhammer Studio.
We absolutely loved recording at Foel. It’s in the middle of the Welsh countryside and the studio itself is a converted barn with a large live room and a cosy control room in the loft with a massive analogue mixing desk. Chris had the amps cranked up so loud in the live room you could hear them outside even though the room is heavily soundproofed! We stayed in our own cottage next to the studio which had a pool table, TV and DVD player, kitchen and several bedrooms. It was very comfortable and a relaxed environment to record in.
We’d start our day around 10 am in the studio after having some breakfast and we’d work till 9-10 pm some nights and then chill with a few beers and watch some classic horror films such as The Beyond and Twins of Evil. I went for a walk in the countryside while we stayed there too; it’s a beautiful part of the world and I can’t wait to record the next album there with Chris at the helm once again.
Steve Wilson: It was our first time at Foel but we had the advantage of already being familiar with Chris. Everything was written, demoed, and rehearsed with the exception of one or two lead parts, which I had to do a few takes to get right. That helped us work in a relatively short space of time. The live room was a real step up for us. It’s basically a converted barn. As it’s in rural Wales, Chris can use any amount of volume, which means a lot! He warned us not to enter while bass or guitars were playing as it was so loud. It helped us push for a bigger sound without having to fake it. We also watched City of The Living Dead, which I used to like, but we realised it’s terrible and almost like a spoof when we watched it on one of those nights!
Scott Naylor: It was my first time recording with Iron Void, Chris & my first visit to Foel Studios, but it was a smooth experience in all! I learned a lot watching Chris work and being able to experience the studio layout and take a look around the available resources, I feel better equipped to prepare for the intended return visit to record the next release.
You had the complete album in April 2021, but Shadow Kingdom released it in January 2023. Let me guess why… Okay, how did you spend this period? The album is finished, no gigs, a bad story for any band.
Jonathan ‘Sealey’ Seale: Yeah, we had to wait a long time due to delays with pressing vinyl worldwide. It was very frustrating but there’s nothing we could do about it. We played a few shows during this time, mainly in the UK, and Scott and I were busy playing shows with Reign of Erebus and Workshed too. We were happy when the album was finally released in January 2023 and I booked a lot of shows to promote the album and the band’s 25th anniversary.
Scott Naylor: Frustrating indeed… As a number of the songs dealt with perceived “current events”, there was always a chance that delayed release could’ve meant that our new material would be regarded as “already dated”. However, given the extended period of global and domestic madness that was the back end of 2020 through to mid-2023 even, we feel it still stands up and resonates.
As mentioned, other interests served to keep some of the frustration away and the release eventually materialised. Our thanks to Shadow Kingdom Records and all involved in the process for that.
Excalibur was a concept album, but you decided not to hold to the same approach with IV. Did you have another plan from the start or did you have a story on your mind which could bind all new songs with one idea?
Jonathan ‘Sealey’ Seale: We decided some time ago we didn’t want to repeat or write Excalibur – Part 2, we wanted to do something different. The original idea was to write and record a more stripped-down, almost “Street Doom” album with a gritty attitude and outlook with the lyrics reflecting modern life, completely the opposite of Excalibur but ironically this album actually ended up being more produced than any of our previous records! Ha, ha!
Steve Wilson: I remember us talking about stripping down the sound and doing something more like The Obsessed or Iron Man, but in the end, it had to be our own signature Iron Void sound.
Photos by Robyn Benson / Black Earth Photography
IV, in my opinion, continues the line of Excalibur musically but with just a little bit more focused songwriting… Well, I needed to say something, you know, because the albums are equally good, but there’s a sort of development in IV, what do you think?
Jonathan ‘Sealey’ Seale: Yeah, I know what you mean. My Dad is a fan of the band and I gave him a copy of the album to listen to and he didn’t get ’round to listening to it for months but when he finally did, he said he could hear how our sound has matured and progressed and said the song writing was concise, which I agree with. Steve and I have been playing together for 16 odd years and Scott has been in the band over 5 years now too, so we are a solid unit.
It’s funny though cos “Slave One” is one of the earliest Iron Void songs ever written, it dates back to 1999/2000, but I added a third verse and changed the lyrics slightly. Sadly, the subject matter is still just as relevant, if not more so now than when it was originally composed.
Steve Wilson: I think that’s true musically. Things felt more natural with things like arranging songs. We didn’t have to force ourselves to finish a particular song or add on parts just for the sake of filler. Lyrically, we had more freedom than Excalibur. I think it’s more focused and to the point than previous records and deliberately shorter, as listeners are moving away from long albums. Plus, a double LP would be expensive to manufacture and buy these days.
Scott Naylor: IV definitely continues to platform the strong stylistic identifiers established across previous Iron Void releases. There are some additional elements thrown in as a natural result of myself joining on drums, a perhaps more “focussed”/ ”experimental” structure to the song writing that comes with the years of creating, but the core dynamic is present and its undeniably an Iron Void release. That’s something to be very proud of, 25 years down the line of existence as a band.
There’s the “Blind Dead” song among others, so is it your personal tribute to Cathedral or are you a fan of this movie? What do you like the most there?
Jonathan ‘Sealey’ Seale: We’re big Cathedral fans, we absolutely adore their music, and obviously they did “Night of The Seagulls” on The Carnival Bizarre album which was also based on the Tombs of The Blind Dead films. This is kind of our tribute to both of them; this song is very Doomy and it’s become a live favourite which we sometimes purposefully play slower than the version on the album!
We’re fans of classic horror films and we love the Blind Dead films. The atmosphere is chilling, the Templars still look amazing and so creepy! We usually like to include a song on each album influenced by a Hammer Horror film, that’s tradition for us, apart from the last album cos it was a concept record. We wrote “She” for this album, based on the Hammer film of the same name, it was cool to include a couple of songs based on classic horror films alongside the songs dealing with more contemporary real-life topics.
Steve Wilson: It was a tribute to the films, which I managed to find a DVD box set of a few years ago, but Cathedral did originally get us into the films. We’d had the idea of doing a Blind Dead themed track and when I came up with the main riff, it seemed perfectly suited to it and the lyrics soon followed. The mid-section is a bit of a prog rock or Iron Maiden inspired thing with a lead line and harmony but no solo as such. It was a nice departure rather than having a bluesy solo in every song.
Scott Naylor: Every song of IV has a central theme or driving influence, but in the same breath each afforded freedom of opportunity to play with those themes outside of being limited/weighed-down by a “conceptual” anchor. No distinct “favorite” track from me but I think we’re all very happy with the output.
How often did the band play during 2023? What were your highlights?
Jonathan ‘Sealey’ Seale: We played a lot of shows in 2023, more than any other year as far as I’m aware. We wanted to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the band and promote the new album. We started with a UK show in Lancaster at the beginning of the year as a warm-up for two special shows in Holland and Belgium in tribute to our fallen brother, Luce Vee (R.I.P.), singer of Hooded Priest, King Heavy, Witchsmeller Pursuivant and VIIHB. Those shows were very emotional as we toured with Luce several times and he was a close friend and supporter of the band. It was great to be a part of it and perform for his family, friends and fans and share the stage with some bands who are very close to our hearts.
We played a show at The Dev in London with King Heavy not long after and that was insane! There were fans headbanging and screaming in our faces and the venue was absolutely packed — that was one of my favourite shows last year. We then had some bad luck with our flight being cancelled the day we were due to fly to Greece to perform at Horns Up Festival, and that was a nightmare! Fortunately, they have invited us to play at the festival in 2024 and we’re looking forward to this.
We were scheduled to play at Manorfest the same day as Dismember (Scott and I love Dismember!) but the festival was cancelled due to poor ticket sales, which was a massive disappointment. Following this we played a show in Austria but missed our connecting flight on the way there in Germany so we had to hire a car and drive for five hours in a tiny Fiat Panda through the Alps! We nearly ran out of fuel and the car was struggling on the hills and didn’t start at one point but we made it around 11 pm to the venue, had a beer, and went onstage and played a blinder! That was definitely an experience we won’t forget in a hurry, that’s for sure! Ha, ha!
We played an awesome festival in Cumbria called Funeral Fest and we supported the legendary Discharge and hung out with the guys backstage, which is ace cos I’ve been a fan since my early teens. Definitely one off the bucket list! After this we did the UK tour with Orodruin which was amazing. We played 7 shows across the UK taking in some sightseeing along the way, visiting Stonehenge, Mapledurham Mill, Black Sabbath Bridge and Sherwood Forest, amongst other places and I would say the show in Edinburgh was my favourite from that run. Orodruin are an amazing band and really lovely people; we’ve spoken about heading over to the States in the next couple of years to play some more shows with them.
Steve Wilson: The Austrian adventure has put us off connecting flights for the foreseeable future! Thankfully Scott and Jon stepped up to the plate and handled the driving. I try and stick to driving on the left in the UK. It took us a long time to locate and retrieve our guitars and luggage, but we just made it in the end.
Getting to share a stage with Orodruin this summer was amazing, and they were great to tour with. They had a solution to every problem and we got on really well. It was a bit surreal, as I never expected to see them live in the UK, let alone do a week-long tour with them. I think we just about persuaded them that it was an unusually rainy summer!
What were the best metal albums of 2023 for you?
Jonathan ‘Sealey’ Seale: I’ll be honest, I didn’t listen to that much new stuff last year but I really enjoyed the new Metallica album, 72 Seasons, I listened to that a lot and I love Cavalera – Morbid Visions, the re-recording of the Sepultura album of the same title. I love the original and was a bit dubious when I read the Cavalera brothers were re-recording it, but it’s amazing, you can actually hear the riffs properly and they’ve done a fantastic job. The re-recording of “Bestial Devastation” is also killer! I also really enjoyed Nine Altars‘ debut album, The Eternal Penance, old school epic doom from the North East of England. I know it’s not Metal, but I also really dug the latest The Rolling Stones album, Hackney Diamonds; that is excellent, I listened to it every day for weeks on end!
Steve Wilson: I’m becoming very much the same. I tend to listen to classics most of the time and have reached the age where I find it nigh on impossible to follow new, young bands. I’ve also given the new Metallica a chance, mainly for driving to. I must try out some newer bands, especially as I can stream them without spending money on each individual CD.
Scott Naylor: Lucid Sin’s Dancing In The Dark is modern occult rock brilliance; Convocation’s most recent effort, No Dawn… is another slice of exceptional Finnish Funeral Doom; and rumours of a new The Fertility Cult release for 2024 has given me something to look forward to.
What are your plans now for Iron Void’s forthcoming future?
Jonathan ‘Sealey’ Seale: We need to find a label to release the split with Orodruin. We’ve also been speaking to our friends in Strange Horizon about playing a show in Norway for the first time in 2024. I’m sure we’ll also do some UK shows too and we have a lot of material already written for the follow up to IV which we need to refine and work on. As I mentioned earlier, the next album will be entitled Bastard Sons of Mars.
Steve Wilson: I have a complete song that needs lyrics, as well as riffs and song fragments. Practising for our recent 25th Anniversary show took up a fair bit of time over the last couple of months, but the next job on my list is to get back into writing. We expect to get back into weekend shows here in the UK as it’s easier to plan around work. Recording and touring requires more organisation, but we will make it happen.
Scott Naylor: Some new material is in the works. Hopefully we’ll keep pushing onwards into adjacent territories, expanding our capabilities as musicians and have the opportunity to play with great bands in more locations.