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P R I M O R D I A L

With the release of their colossal album "To The Nameless Dead" Ireland's Primordial have come to the fore of the Celtic Metal scene - when I met frontman Alan Nemtheanga a few years back I found him to be a deep intense man passionate about what he did - time didn't permit a full interview at the time but this time around the man from the Emerald Isle was in full flow!

-Shan Siva

Hi Alan, good to meet you again. Gotta say straight off that the new album blew me away, quite different to the Primordial of old, so hand me a Guinness and tell me about it!
Well thanks, I’m glad you appreciate it cos of the work we put into it. In terms of how we went about it, it was actually no different to how we’ve done things in the past from the beginning in 1991 as kids. We still get together in the rehearsal room pretty infrequently, stand there arguing and the end its the interaction of 5 different people pushing in different directions with some sort of common focus being to write great songs. At the beginning everyone thinks its sucks but then it starts to take shape. There’s no MP3 trading, there’s no cut n paste sitting there with a laptop - we just don’t do that kinda thing. As for the concept, I write what I write independently of the music and then when the rest of the band write the music we piece together the best bits that fit in. I try to look for a unifying theme and this time it’s nationhood. I’m fascinated by maps and how boundaries and nations have changed or ceased over time and in particular the sacrifice of people to achieve or resist this. The themes of martyrdom and alienation and loss of faith are universal in terms of people who gave their lives believing in a better future for their country, and also what makes people believe that a certain piece of land belongs to them. Its also about the movement of empires and their 2,000 year cycle as in our song ‘As Rome Burns’ which seems to herald the demise of our own western civilization as we have no binding spiritual culture and we have just embraced decadence and capitalism....everything in historical context has a modern resonance....its a universal theme but you should be able to see yourself in it, no matter who you are.

So how much time do you spend writing and is there a way or method that you use?
I write constantly, whenever and not necessarily at the moment or for the music. I could be walking down the street, think up something and I’ll note it down and later when I come to piece together lyrics for the music it might be used. You can take 20 minutes or 2 years to come up with that key fockin’ lyric man. There’s no hard and fast rules, no what I mean, and that’s the beauty of it. There’s no master plan or secret special way we do things but what comes together comes together.

So the DIY approach does work?
Oh yeah, absolutely that’s our approach - in fact I would say it’s our strength! It’s what’s kept us together for 16 years. We didn’t start as friends, we became friends. We didn’t have to write, make albums or tour and we sure don’t make any real money so we don't do it for that. So we’re never really compromised in terms of having to do something, we can do nothing.

But you need to survive right, so you need to make money?
You do need money but I guess what I’m trying to say is that its not our living or our only living. And saying that in the last coupla years we have been making some money outta the band but its more of a nice bonus and we still do our other stuff. We’re not a professional band - in the money making sense - and we’ve never aspired to be. I myself am a mature student, I study journalism and politics, the others work various jobs. And that’s perfect for the band cos like I said, Primordial is a loose collective. Its not like ‘oh, its thurs, time for band practice’, sometimes we don’t practice for months. None of us has any ideas, what’s the fockin point? We might’ve well been playing AC/DC covers!

Do you think that the laissez faire style may have impeded the band’s career or mebbe made it slower to progress?
Possibly but then we might’ve also killed each other ha ha! Like I said, we didn’t start off as friends and we used to fight each other all the time. Literally. Go out for a social and end up punching the heads off each other.

Isn’t that normal for Irish people?
Ha ha - can be! Its not normal in Irish people’s nature to have everything worked out to a tee. We get plenty of offers to play shows cos the band is now in ascendancy but we pick and chose the shows we want to play, not just play every show. Its the same with the songs, he (pointing to the bassist) might come into the studio with a song worked out, but by the end its different. You have to allow for that 10-15% random factor. If you look at our history, it just happens the way that it does. I really don’t think its in the nature of Irish people to be that mathematically precise. There’s no grand plan - yeah, you're worried now cos you’ve got an Irish builder right ha ha! We just have a loose, devil may care attitude and that’s the way it hasta be with Primordial as some of the others live about 3 hours away. I myself and the drummer are from Dublin but the others have chosen to live out’ve the cities. As long as you don’t fight it and it works then its ok right?

Is the scene in Dublin as bad as when we talked a coupla years back?
No, its better - we’ve now got Westlife ha ha! Seriously, there’s a whole new generation of fans now that don’t have the same begrudgery as fans during the 70s and 80s. So I would say we now have an active thriving metal scene in Ireland. Compared to the mid 90s there’s a lot of bands, labels and active people. Besides us there’s Mael Mordha, Mourning Beloveth, Scald, just go to www.metalireland.com and you’ll find fockin tons cos of the myspace generation, which has made a whole difference, not like how we used to do it. Now we’ve got the global village and its made the whole world a much smaller place.

Just going back to the nationhood theme of the album, do you feel that technology has contributed to the breaking down of barriers as well as borders?
Yeah, totally, totally. The mainstream media would rather have you as all consuming, all fearing, all medicated and essentially rudderless without any connection to their history or culture. There’s no morals, ideals or religion and no cultural platform upon which to step into the brave new world. They just want fockin zombies y’know. But if you’re willing to stand up against that, as we are, as this room fulla people are, as you are, then you can count yourself as swimming against the grain. Its a dark world we live in, and Primordial reflects that.

So is Primordial more than music but also a movement?
That’s a difficult one...we’re certainly not a typical band as the cultural awareness goes hand in hand with the music for us. I certainly never wanted to sing about fockin trolls or unicorns or zombies ha ha. Ok (seeing me frowning), I like Dio too ha ha! But its about the here and now, not a fantasy world, but its not my soapbox or my pulpit. All I’m saying is ‘think’, ‘challenge’ and ‘re-evaluate’, see if you can impact positive change on the people around you. Ok, I understand that we’re just a metal band, but there is an opportunity happening out there right now and I’m not gonna waste it. 15 years from now on I wanna be able to say to my kids that I did something rather than wasting it on Evil fockin Dead and if that means standing up for my heritage and ancestry than so be it. No one is gonna shoe horn me to be politically inclined or culturally inclined this way or that way. Life isn’t about black and white but very often about that shade in between. Primordial exists within that and if we as just a metal band can challenge people’s preconceptions by making them stop and think then maybe....but maybe I’m just being an idealist but I think Primordial fans are much more than just the average fan. There is a definite transference where people can take the things we say and run with it...another rambling answer ha ha!

I’m wondering how all this goes down in conservative religious Ireland - I’m surprised you haven’t been exiled to London?!
Yeah, point taken but Ireland has changed in the last 15 years. Before that it was very different, still very rural, massive unemployment...we’ve only had money in the last 15 years. Saying that though the changes that have happened in 15 years have taken other countries 50 years to happen. But there’s section of Irish society that have forgotten what it means to be Irish meaning that they’ve replaced any form of humility with a rampant form of capitalism. There is a terrible greed amongst these people and that means that we have become just like other countries.

So what does it mean to be Irish?
Traditionally, originally at least to me it means stubbornness, a refusal to accept defeat. Also artistic, musical and literal rebellion, which means often you end up fighting those closest to you. It also means isolation as regards our position as an island off the coast of Europe. It means a sort’ve ruralism or a certain agrarianism in the attitude that pervades the country. And it means drinking and fighting ha ha! But also for a country so small, we have had such an impact just on the States for example where the Irish are a big immigrant group. If you think that in 1845 we had nearly 9 million people but by 1970 we were down to 2.5 million and the country still has never totally recovered from that. The concept of emigration from Ireland over the last 150 years is one of the most defining moments in our history as well as defining our nationhood. On the one hand we are a diasporatic people and yet everyone clings to their Irish roots so strongly. And that’s because of our history of disenfranchisement, of always being the underdog and of our history of oppression. Then again we’re a massive contradiction cos we fight against a massive empire and then once we get our freedom we start to kill each other. That’s symptomatic of the Irish, that you’re willing to fight to the bitter end and then when there’s no one left, you fight each other. That’s the stubborn Ireland mentality and that’s what we’ve got in Primordial.

Any last words
The metal scene needs Primordial. That may sound fockin arrogant but the mainstream metal scene is so plastic and bloated in its sense of self worth that its become vacuous and a fashion. Its just the general hollowness and shallowness in the messages of the mainstream. No one is really trying to make a stand for something. To me, the only real creativity is being done in the underground scene. The people that know us know us, but the mainstream scene needs us to say ‘fock you, now this is real’.