Primeval Scream

It’s safe to say it’s been a hell of a year for Irish extreme metal anti-heroes Primordial. Not only did they shift a veritable shed-load of copies of their seventh album Redemption At The Puritan’s Hand (which charted in territories such as Sweden, German, Finland, Belgium and more), they performed a near mythic homecoming show in Dublin a few months ago, which saw fans making pilgrimages from all across Europe to worship at their dark and blood-stained altar. The band they also picked up ‘Best Underground Band’ at this summer’s Metal Hammer hosted Golden Gods Awards to boot.

Currently celebrating their 20th anniversary together, the band have been steadily carving out a name on the world stage as one of the most inventive and uncompromising acts to ever emerge from this island, and this year especially has seen the ferocious five-piece establish themselves as real heavy hitters. It may be a hoary old cliché in the world of metal, but sometimes it really is a long way to the top if you wanna rock ‘n’ roll.
“It doesn’t seem like 20 years since we first started,” begins singer AA Nemtheanga. “We didn’t set out with the ambition of being in whatever position we are in now. It was 1991, we were ‘80s metal-heads as teenagers, and back then Dublin and Ireland was a rough place, and it was our way of dealing with that anger and frustration. When we started the band our sole intention was to make a demo, and then when it we did that it was to make our first album and get out of this burgeoning underground scene which we helped forge. Then when we made one we didn’t think we’d make two, then we made three and I think no-one would’ve said we’d make seven, but time just kept going by. We never thought of this as a career.”
Bonded by a love of black, death and thrash metal, the early days of Primordial were fraught with friction and uncertainty, but there was also an unspoken and unwavering commitment to the path they’d chosen for themselves, as Nemtheanga explains.
“We didn’t start this band as friends,” recalls the frontman. “In ’91 I answered an ad [in the Sound Cellar in Dublin] and it was as straightforward as that. We weren’t a bunch of drinking buddies or anything like that. Back then there was a lot of friction, tension and youthful aggression, and we weren’t friends for around six or seven years. I guess we were a bit more serious about it than most bands at the time.”
“We didn’t fall out because we were all on the same page,” he continues. “It sounds romantic but as soon as I heard ‘Prowler’ by Iron Maiden when I was nine or ten, I knew that was my thing for life. There would be no deviating from the path, no six-month obsessions, no transient phases and here we are now and I think all the other guys in the band would say the same thing. Primordial doesn’t consider itself to have boundaries – but it is metal. One of us never said, ‘Oh I think I like Britpop now.’ We always had a focus and a particular attitude. Back then, if you had long hair and were walking down O’Connell St. on a Saturday afternoon you’d be in a fight every week, but it didn’t alter the fact that you were a heavy metaller. You just went ‘Fuck you’, and it only made you more committed to the scene and we grew up with that attitude. This is what we are and that’s the way it is.”
Very much a band who have been kicking against the pricks and cliques since day one, the first decade or so of Primordial yielded some deliciously dark metal in the form of ‘95’s debut Imrama, 98’s A Journey’s End, 00’s Spirit The Earth Aflame and 02’s aptly titled Storm Before Calm, but they really found their stride when they entered their second decade and created the essential The Gathering Wilderness in ’05 and their “breakthrough” album To The Nameless Dead two years later, which gave them both critical and commercial success.
“Well the old adage of what goes around comes around is fairly apt, and we just kept making quality music for a such a long period of time that eventually people caught on,” offers the singer. “I think part of it has to do with signing to Metal Blade and having bigger exposure and also being able to tour more, be strong live and do festivals. It was all a slow, gradual process.”
Of course, as a result of this success, it seems that these days Primordial have found themselves to be the unwitting poster boys for the Irish metal scene in general and that’s something which Nemtheanga (naturally enough) views with a certain amount of resignation.
“When we first started to get press people would say, ‘How do you feel about being the Irish Anvil?’” he says, whilst shaking his head. “I always say the reason why Anvil never made it is because they were shit and that’s something the movie doesn’t tell you. I admire their perseverance, but the Irish Anvil? Those guys are like 20 years older than us. In general, we view the Irish music industry with a mixture of amusement and mild suspicion. These days, there’s a whole generation of people who have become nauseous, greedy, capitalistic cunts and the music they listen to reflects the safe, comfortable environment they’ve built for themselves and I just can’t relate to that at all. I mean, we have a rock history from Rory Gallagher to Thin Lizzy, Horslips and Therapy? but it’s ended up in this position where this counter-culture has been pushed to the periphery of Irish society. As far as I’m concerned I think we made better music in the ‘80s, when the country was a dark and violent place.”
And while this writer is in agreement that metal has admittedly been pushed to the side by some in favour of safer options, there’s no denying that the Irish scene as a whole is still thriving regardless and Primordial’s ‘Best Underground Band’ win at the Golden Gods (which were voted for by the general public) most certainly helps prove it.
“I think Primordial fans all rounded up and supported us because they wanted to see us win,” says Nemtheanga. “If it was an industry event I wouldn’t even have gone to it. I’m not interested in ligging and back-slapping (don’t get me wrong though, I enjoy a free party as much as anyone else though). There’s an attitude in London that I find fucking nauseating. You can go into a bar and it’ll be full of ‘rock stars’ who aren’t bands. The award was cool because it was voted for by the fans, but I gave the thing away within an hour getting it. I just said, ‘Put it in the Crobar, I don’t want it.’ At least that way people can see it. What else is it gonna do? Sit on my mantlepiece? It was an interesting few days in that environment. I think the rest of the lads were uncomfortable being in those surroundings, as we’re not an emo-fringe neck tattoo sort of band and everyone in London is these days.”
Another “uncomfortable” moment for the band happened earlier this summer when Nemtheanga found himself suffering from temporary vocal chord paralysis while performing at the Bloodstock festival in the UK. Troopers that they are, they stayed onstage to finish the gig.
“I’ve played 300 or 400 gigs and sang in much harsher conditions (like performing in minus 13 in Finland) and I have been fine after spending days staying up drinking whiskey and taking speed, but at Bloodstock I seemed to have an allergic reaction to this incredibly heavy thick smoke on the stage. There was one point where I couldn’t even see the crowd. You have to take it on the chin though. Obviously I was completely gutted. Everyone in the crowd sang my vocal parts and typically my voice came back half an hour later. I do think people appreciated the fact that we didn’t throw a strop and storm off however.”
The show was only a minor set-back though and ultimately 2011 has been a year of huge highs for the band, which has seen their new record Redemption At The Puritan’s Hand once again push the boundaries of their genre while redefining and reinventing the band for the next decade ahead.
“If someone told me we’d make seven albums I wouldn’t have believed it, but saying that, there’s no reason why we can’t make, like ten,” concludes the frontman. “As far as still being together in another 20 years goes… I dunno. I don’t think about it too much. I don’t want to be doing some kind of nostalgia thing in 50 years time where I’m dragging myself around Europe and putting on my corpse paint or whatever. We’ve always operating under the idea that ‘If it feels right, just do it’, and I don’t see that changing any time soon.”