It’s funny how small the metal community seems to be in the UK – minutes after I told people that I was checking out Xerath’s debut album, this lovely lady (and now really good friend) was amused since they were mates of hers. As a result, I was more intrigued to see them live and meet the frontman Richard; whom I had heard quite a bit about.

And bless him, he was eager to do the interview despite being so dog-gone tired.

Thank you for agreeing to an interview! You don’t know how grateful I am to have this opportunity. :)

Since you’re a relatively new band, would you care to introduce who you are and what music you play for those who don’t know who Xerath are?

Rich:

Sure! We’re Xerath, we play what we like to call “Orchestral Groove Metal”. We take inspiration from alot of bands such as Gojira, Pantera, Meshuggah, SYL, Dimmu Borgir. We love to groove over most things, and be symphonic alot too. That’s about it!

Can you tell me how all the members of Xerath’s current line-up got together, and how you came to be noticed by Terrorizer and then Candlelight Records after that?

Rich:

We’ve all been friends for a very long time, and we all had our own bands whilst we were growing up. Eventually, it was decided that we would take the best elements of these bands to form a (ahem) “super group” and get some real work done! We started doing a bunch of demos to a musical brief we had all discussed, and put them up on a Myspace so people could check it out. After a couple of months, Terrorizer contacted us asking if we wanted to be included on the Unsigned covermount CD. After the release of the magazine, we were contacted by a few labels but nothing came of it. Eventually we sent out an email to Candlelight explaining our situation, and they pretty much sent out the contracts the same week!

I have to say – for such a young band, it seems as if you all are speeding your way up to fame; what with supporting Ihsahn at the Electric Ballroom in August and then getting Jacob Hensen (whose credentials include Pestilence and Aborted) to mix your second album! Do you mind telling me how these achievements came about, and whether you feel that things might continue to look up for you as a group?

Rich:

Haha well we wouldn’t say speeding, or cruising…or walking for that matter. Everything takes time to happen and we appreciate that; alot of bands get everything thrown at them at once and these groups tend to fade away quite quickly. We’re happy that we’re building a good foundation of progress from the ground up. The Ihsahn gig fell in our lap really due to us being label mates and of a similar genre (that doesn’t mean we aren’t thrilled, of course!).

We were looking for who was going to do our 2nd album for a while, and we came across Jacob by mistake really. We hadn’t heard of the man, but we had certainly heard his work! So a few emails later, we managed to convince him to mix the album; so we’re really pleased about that, too.

Are there any hopes that you might get to meet Ihsahn himself, before the doors open that night?

Rich:

Haha well us being long time fans of his work, I'm pretty sure we'll manage to force him to sign a bunch of stuff before he kicks us out of his dressing room.

It's now around the time of the launch of your first music video for the track 'False History'. For those of us who haven't yet seen it - can you tell us what to expect, as well as what made you decide to pick this particular song for a video?

Rich:

Well, we're really pleased with the video's outcome. We originaly weren't going to do one for our first album, but the chance arose to get it circulated on a popular music t.v. station (an offer a small band can't refuse!) so we went ahead and did it. We kept it nice and simple (our budget wasn't huge, ok? :D) because extreme metal videos that try a bit too hard can look awful! As long as we're in HD, we're smiling ;)

False History was chosen as we feel it represents Xerath the best. It's a catchy, groovy song and tends to be most people's favorite from the CD.

Since we’ve referred to plans for a second album, can you tell me when the recording for that will take place and when you’re hoping to have it out by?

Rich:

We’ll be recording most of it ourselves at our home studio. The drums will be done at Foel Studio in Wales, and then everything will be sent to Jacob Hansen to mix and master! We haven’t discussed it yet, but we’ll estimate an early 2011 release.

Though it looks like Xerath has such a busy schedule at the moment, are there any other plans for the band right now in terms of festivals and shows? What about a nationwide tour of the UK where you’re the ones headlining?

Rich:

Haha we’re not as busy as we’d like, but we have a few shows coming up before we knuckle down and get this album done. We have Mammothfest, the Ihsahn show and Prog Power Europe in the Netherlands coming up. We don’t think we’re big enough to headline a UK tour just yet, but come the second album we’ll hopefully be supporting that as much as possible!

Okay; it looks like time’s up for the interview. Do you have any last words to say to the readers out there?

Rich:

Sleepy time now. Thanks for reading!

Rich :D

Thanks goes to Rich Thomson and Xerath for the interview.

To view the video for 'False History', go here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7k7wA9Pb3Q