The curse of Ramesses

Interview by Satanlord

Cursed be those who disturb the rest of a Pharaoh. They that shall break the seal of this tomb shall meet death by a disease that no doctor can diagnose. (Tomb inscription, Egypt)

Have you ever been so filled with hatred for someone that you wanted to inflict the most visceral curse conceivable on them? Well, in Egyptian folklore there was a longstanding tradition that those fools who dared to tamper with the sacred tombs of mummified corpses, would suffer just such a terrifying fate. Ancient Egyptian High Priests frequently invoked the darkest, most evil spiritual forces imaginable against those who dared violate the graves of their sacred Pharaohs.

Utter superstitious bollocks, or a fate to be genuinely feared? That pretty much depends on your view of occultism and the power of Hex I guess. But certainly at least some of the archaeologists who initially excavated Egypt’s sacred ancient sites did endure some strange experiences. Early explorers of the Pharaoh’s tombs told tales of strange and unexpected deaths in the family, and of strange dream-visions haunting them once they had crossed the threshold and entered the world of the ancient past. Later, English occultist Aleister Crowley ‘received’ knowledge of The Book of the Law (Liber Al Val Legum) while visiting Cairo with his wife Rose in 1904. His resulting spiritual-philosophical concept of Thelema – based around the notion of Do what thou wilt – encouraged true initiates to seek not gratification, but the raison d’être for their existence. For many, it proved yet another curse; a route to insanity and death.

Ramesses are a band who understand the power of dark forces as well as anyone, including the infamous Killing Joke. Since the original line up of Electric Wizard parted company in 2003 former members Tim Bagshaw, Mark Greening and onetime Jus Oborn collaborator Adam Richardson have been releasing black, intense Doom that is as unnerving to the uninitiated as it is hypnotic. Releases like The Tomb, We Will Lead You to Glorious Times and their debut full length Misanthropic Alchemy rapidly established Ramesses as a musical force to be reckoned with, as a band who sat up there with the very best British doom bands.

But it was most recent release Baptism of the Walking Dead a limited release mini cd ep that came out this spring that suggests bigger, blacker more terrifying things are to come. The first thing that strikes the listener is how ‘big’ the sound has become, how epic the whole experience is. Sitting in the tomb-like architecture of Camden’s World’s End pub I ask Adam Richardson about the progression in their sound:

AR: It is a progression but it’s a natural progression for us, not one that we’ve forced. There’s a lot more stuff going on in the songs, and the arrangements nowadays are much more complicated. It’s not that we’ve suddenly learned to do that, it’s that we’ve always had loads of songs ready from the beginning. It’s the order in which we’ve gone about stuff: beginning with the brutal agonizing birth of Ramesses.

SL: I agree, Ramesses are most certainly highly accomplished musicians.

AR: Yeah, we’ve had quite a few releases, but Baptism of the Walking Dead is a great release for us and we’re really excited by it. As you say there’s a big difference in the material, but there’s also the production side of it. The guy we had producing it (James Thompson) doesn’t know that much about the early days of heavy metal. Having said that he is a big Hawkwind fan, which is basically where this all started. He even records Cuban music, traditional Cuban music and that can be weird stuff that is barely normal music, let alone ‘rock’ or heavy metal or anything like that. The idea was to record this ep in a studio that wasn’t capable of handling a metal band, and usually doesn’t even know what metal is. And that whole idea went into the artwork as well.

For those of you who don’t possess a copy of the ep, it’s worth purchasing as much for artwork as the music. And that, Adam stresses, is the whole point:

AR: That’s down to Jake and Dinos Chapman. Britain’s two greatest living artists I think it’s safe to say, were a huge influence and are big heroes of mine and the rest of the band actually. That piece is called ‘Fucking Hell’ and it’s unbelievable that we were allowed to use images from that because they are very very protective about their work. They’re big fans of Ramesses too.

SL: Let me just return to the question of Hawkwind, one of the most revolutionary bands ever to have emerged from our shores. Which particular branch of Hawkwind do you like? The Lemmy era Hawkwind of Space Ritual?

AR: Pretty much everything up until the late ‘80s. I’m pretty fanatical about Hawkwind; I love pretty much everything they’ve ever done.

SL: It’s fucking amazing they got lumped in with the whole hippy thing…

AR: Yeah. They were just fucking lunatics really. It’s just LSD music in its purest and most obvious form. When I first got into them it tied in perfectly with that. Black Sabbath, Hawkwind and then things like Loop. Just really crazy stuff that got you inside out of your mind. Listening to that type of music is probably a very big reason why Ramesses sound like they do these days. We do like the psychedelic element you know? You’ll hear that both on the Baptism of the Walking Dead ep, but these three tracks are also gonna be on our forthcoming album that’s gonna be out later this called Take the Curse. But they’ll be in a different form, with different arrangements. They’re all gonna be totally different mixes. Then of course there’s the seven other new tracks on the album….

SL: I personally can’t wait to hear this and I know a lot of other people out there will be fucking eager too; it’s gonna be a big release. Can you tell us more about Ramesses’ music and lyrics? I mean I can see all the occultism in there, and terror seems to come across loud and clear. How do you develop these influences into the music? Is it a whole catharsis thing?

AR: A lot of it is introspective. Some of it may start to read like a few lines from H.P. Lovecraft. But in actual fact it’s reality really. Most if not virtually all of it is subconscious and just comes out in weird forms. I do a lot of automatic drawing and writing that comes out before I go to sleep. These are words that I will sometimes look at for days trying to work out what it is they mean. Sometimes I can barely read it because it’s just a scrawl, but I know it’s meant to be a word that will eventually end up in a song.

SL: Where do you think that comes from? Can you pinpoint it?

AR: It goes back to the times of taking copious amounts of LSD. Just getting really full of acid and filling out sketch books with insane visions. I’d start with drawing and sketches and then move onto words. Every band I’ve been in I’ve had charge of the artwork and lyrics as well. So basically it’s just these crazy acid drenched sketch books. I don’t really need to get them out and look at them, it’s all up here. One of the easiest ways for me to capture and unleash it in an unpolluted way is to just have a sketch book in bed with a pencil, not a pen, because then you end up with a few inkspots over the bed! So I just use quite a soft leaded pencil and then I forget about it and find it about a week later. It’s often the missing bit of a song I’m trying to work on. It’s tying weird things in together. Subconscious, psychedelic, fear, terror – these sorts of things.

SL: I’m not trying to put words in your mouth but what I get from that is that you’re reflecting the contemporary environment as certain other bands are doing these days.

AR: In a way sure, there’s certainly aspects of that. The other side of that is completely introverted insanity, self-indulgent lunacy. That’s where a lot of the colourful stuff comes from. But then it will all intertwine and make overall sense. It’s not just randomly rambled down. That’s the hard work, getting the raw materials. And then I end up with bundles of sketch books full of drawings and lyrics and I just go through them and piece them together.

SL: I’ll bet there’s a lot more stuff to come out yet…

AR: Yeah. There doesn’t seem to be a bottom to the well, if you see what I mean.

SL: I notice that over the years you seem to have developed a good relationship with bands like Unearthly Trance. Why is that particular bond so important to Ramesses?

AR: Basically we all know each other very well, and have done for years. So we get on very well even, incredibly, within the confines of touring which isn’t easy. So I guess it’s a case of if it ain’t broke don’t try to fix it types of thing. We do have a very close bond with Unearthly Trance and that’s why we’ve done three European tours together and did make the effort and put out a split 10 inch for the last one to commemorate the third prong of the trident, as it were. A lot of our material, and where it’s coming from, and ideas and attitude shows that we compliment each other really well. And the feedback that we get feels like people really enjoy seeing the two bands together. It’s not always them headlining as well, we sort of do it as a 50/50 tour because it suits us to not always headline because we have to keep it together for longer before we go on and we’re not the band to do that! Not in a bad way mind. We just wanna play earlier so we can just chill out.

SL: You’ve certainly got an awesome live reputation. I mean live you’re an electrifying experience.

AR: Oh yeah. When we’re firing on all cylinders and the chemistry’s right it’s great, although we have bad gigs like everyone else. But when it’s good it feels very powerful yeah.

SL: What about Howling Wind, Pestilence and Peril. I thought that was pretty innovative black metal, but what was your judgment on that because I assume you’re very well acquainted with black metal.

AR: Yeah I do love black metal but like with everything I’m pretty fussy. That’s because I haven’t got the time to get into everything on the level that I have done in the past. So if they don’t come to me I don’t seek anything new because I just don’t have the time. I mean I know that sounds sad but I’m concentrating on doing my own music and I’m happy to shy away from hearing other bands new stuff. We’ve never intentionally nicked anyone’s riff apart from Bong, from Newcastle, who aren’t black metal, but are mind blowing, and Winterfylleth who definitely are a black metal band. I saw their first ever gig earlier this year and they just absolutely blew my mind really. They were just fantastic. We even got a recording of that gig and I told them they should put it out because who gets to put out their first ever gig man. They had so much Darkthrone type mid pace and it just worked so well, and they just made it their own. And then you’ve got the sort of cider swilling, hills engulfing singalongs. I can’t think of a better black metal band in this country at the moment. They’re the best black metal band I’ve ever seen or heard. Their album’s also amazing, and great artwork as well.

SL: Let’s move on to Doom, cos that’s where we’re at. You all come from one hell of a pedigree, and I saw Electric Wizard just a few months back, now I don’t want to go into any history but do you feel that pedigree behind you? Do you feel that you come from a lineage of bands, Sabbath influenced, who just went out and did it? And now you’ve come out of that and gone your own way and just become stronger and stronger, is that something you’re still aware of?

AR: I know that I’ve been playing Doom, or Death Doom more specifically, ever since 1987 and it was all pretty much based in Dorset which was where the bands that led up to Electric Wizard all came from. There wasn’t anything else to do basically, so what you did was either get really, really heavily into drugs and don’t do anything ever again, or  just carry on getting heavily into drugs and do some music! The bands thing, I just loved it straightaway and never looked back really. I’ve had what may to appear like long hiatuses, not releasing stuff with bands but really I’ve always been doing something. I’ve got all sorts of stuff I’ve done with other bands that hasn’t been released. Hex is probably the biggest band I’ve done that no one’s heard of. That lasted from ’99 through to 2003-2004. That was when Ramesses started. That was extraordinarily heavy, slow Doom with just two the two beasts: me on guitar and vocals and the drummer.

SL: A bit like Moss?

AR: Nothing at all like Moss. (Laughter).

SL: What about the Doom scene in the UK now? What’s your view of that?

AR: It almost seems to be getting more popular, Doom. And especially over the last seven years or so. Having said that we don’t really feel like we’re in a scene in a way, Ramesses. It’s weird because we don’t fit in with a lot of bands. I don’t know what the deal is with other bands but our vibe is, ‘right, we’ll keep ourselves to ourselves then’. You can fucking do what you want, we’ll do what we want. We don’t really rely on a ‘scene’. I mean, this isn’t in a bad way. I just think that we’ve become really, really independent which I really like. I mean, we get to anything we like. There’s no one telling us what to do. There’s no big game plan. In a way I’m amazed we’re still going actually. We’ve had so many problems as a band that it does start to read like a Spinal Tap script.

SL: That bad?

AR: Yeah. I mean without wanting to go into it we’re now the strongest we’ve ever been as a result. We haven’t got any gigs booked whatsoever although we’re now looking towards booking some. Because the horror and stress of recording Take the Curse has come to an end we just wanna celebrate a bit.

SL: Sounds like recording Curse was a very big effort, pretty intense..

AR: The overall results are great and we’re all excited, but the work dragged on. I mean we recorded it nearly a year ago, we recorded it last August (2008) in two days. It was the most arranged, prepared and put together album when we went into the studio which obviously reflected in the recording time. Again, of course, we changed everything as we played it. We drowned out bits just to give ourselves a sense of relief that it was still Ramesses, you know.

SL: Does anyone actually lead the way things are going? You know, jamming things out, developing them. Or does it just happen between the three of you spontaneously?

AR: Tim writes most of the riffs. Then we get together and play those riffs. So Tim will bring his riffs. I’ll have two or three. Then as soon as I hear what he’s got I’ll go, ‘Oh right, check this out’ and inject one of mine into the flow of one of his Terrdactyllian riffs. Then we have basically the skeleton of a Ramesses song and then we go, ‘Right we’ll leave that now’ and put that to one side. Then I’ll think about that separately. About what visuals and what moods to use. I mean this new one we’ve got written right now, weirdly, I’ve got lots of stuff written already. The tracks have got names straightaway. I’m already working on five tracks with song titles that are nearly finished for our next record right now. We’ve been calling Tim, Timmy Iommi because some of the stuff he’s been coming up with is just… I mean he’s the master of the first take. We played everything live straightaway but I was passing out during takes, feeling really ill. Purportedly I was leaning up against the wall with my eyes rolling up into my head playing what was one of the hardest riffs that I’ve ever had to learn.

SL: Tim’s got a really unique sound, I mean considering he played bass before…

AR: He was always a guitarist. He got fed up playing bass; didn’t like playing it before. And why should he? Look at the guy, he’s insane. That solo at the end of Kali Mist, the last track on the ep and the album I think, he did that in one take standing up in the studio with me laughing at him. What I didn’t realize was that he could only just hear the tap of the snare in his headphones. He couldn’t hear the track at all. And when I was putting down the vocals for that track – that end section was meant to have a really big, 70s style rock vocal – I just scrapped the whole thing because that solo was just so amazing. The song just sounded so much better that I just trashed it and just left the solo.

SL: So you’re quite good mates then all of you?

AR: Yeah, we’re pretty insular when we get together. When we’re gigging and stuff we hang out together. We’re like brothers.

SL: Looking back, do you think you’ve changed as people? Do you think you’ve changed a lot since you first set out in 2003?

AR: Everyone’s calmed down a little bit and we’ve become more productive. I think everyone’s surprised themselves about how much we’ve been able to achieve for an independent band. We’ve been on quite a few different labels and stuff which says a lot you know. We would love to have a label that’s home which is pretty straight forward, but it’s amazing what’s a problem for a lot of people. So I’m just happy at the way things are going at the moment.

SL: Do you think labels are looking for a degree of conformity that some people just won’t accept?

AR: Well, we don’t know what we’re doing actually. Our sound’s going all over the place. As well as being the most progressive stuff we’ve ever done, we have the guitar harmonies on the new album and alongside that you’ll hear the heaviest riff and song you’ve ever heard from Ramesses on the same record. It’ll just kill you. The tracks called The Weakening. It’s a song that will kill you. So we’re doing a black metal album, we’re doing a Doom album. Genuinely what we are is what you hear. There is very little editing, or clever ‘ this should be a bit like this, this should be a bit like that’. There’s none of that actually.

SL: Very quickly, going back to the The Tomb and We Will Lead You to Glorious Times do you look back to those as landmark really important release, because a lot of people I know, myself included, think they’re pretty unique sounding?

AR: Yeah I guess so. I mean I haven’t listened to them since we did them. And when we put a record like my view is bury the child, let’s make a new one. I know that Tim listens to stuff occasionally, our old stuff. I guess looking back in reaction to when Glorious Times came out I love the design on that cover. It’s a punch in the face, quite punky and stark and then you hear it… We don’t actually sound like anyone else. I love this next record. I can’t wait for people to hear the depth of the recording and the space that’s in the sound. The next record after that is some of the heaviest stuff we’ve ever come up with. There’s a black metal track which doesn’t really deviate from that much at all. There’ll be a more solo filled harmonies. The groove will be natural because of Mark. So we’re the same band, we’re doing exactly what we wanna do. No one’s telling us what to do.

As humanity falls into an abyss of its own making, these dark times were only ever going to be fully understood by seers, philosophers, musicians, artists of the highest calibre. By seizing on the symbolic malevolent significance of the ‘curse’, Ramesses show beyond question that they see the approaching apocalypse of human civilization. Not only do gifted musicians and writers like Adam Richardson, Tim Bagshaw and Mark Greening look into themselves for the ideas that denote the terror to come, they look far deeper and beyond even the mind. That is what makes this band so immense, so overwhelmingly powerful, so deadly. Take the Curse will be a monumental release, and not just within the confines of the sometimes petty world of metal. It will be a powerful prophesy of what lies in wait. So, if you’re brave enough fucking take the curse. Doom on!!!

Ramesses’ Myspace

by enos