INTERVIEW: Heavy Sentence

UK Heavy Metal mob HEAVY SENTENCE took the time to talk to me about their traditional form of carnage. Having recently delivered a phenomenal debut album, it seemed the perfect time to talk to these guys, read on and bang to rights!

1. Let’s get the boring bit out of the way, for those who haven’t heard your music please tell us who you are, what you do and why those who haven’t heard you need to! 

Tim – We’re Gaz, Tim, Bry, Ed, Jack and we use just your everyday guitars drums bass and vocal set-up to raise hell in our practice room and beyond. 

2. Building on getting to know the ingredients of this band, what are your biggest influences? Clearly you are an old school bunch of headbangers, but which bands / sounds specifically fuel the fire for you?

Tim- Recently it’s been the MC5. They’re the best band that ever was and they’re a 5 piece just like us. We like to throw a Mercyful Fate bit in now and again and sometimes have to avoid sounding like Iron Maiden. Saxon should be observed at all times.

3. Cool, now we can get into the tasty stuff! In 2017 and 2018 respectively, you released a couple of 7” records (a format I am glad is still held in regard by some aside from myself). Each with 2 bangers of pure old Heavy Metal steel. What was the process and went into each of these little relics?

Gaz – Around the mid-2010’s myself and Tim had been talking about getting a Heavy Metal band going playing purely old ways Heavy Metal. So after a lot of talk over pints, we decided to go into the practice room and give it a bash – Tim had a few riffs and I had some rough ideas for lyrics – we came away with the bones of a couple of tunes from those first few sessions and went away to develop them. Tim sorted the arrangements and I got to work on the lyrics etc – I think Tim demo’d them first off on his computer and we thought ‘there’s something here’ and booked some studio time to lay them down. The recording went really great and we had Protector and Darkest Hour in the can, with several more songs in the process of being written. Fast forward to Night Rhythms in America hearing the tracks and pressing the 7”, we decided the time was right to get a proper band line-up going and play some gigs, so in steps Bry on drums, Ed on bass and Mike on guitar, we knew the lads already from their other bands and from hanging out and we knew, that they knew, their onions. We set about immediately writing songs with this line-up and gave birth to Edge of the Knife, which was Mike’s riff, and Heavy Vengeance which was Tim’s riff – we got in the studio again with Joe Clayton at No Studio and hammered them out in a couple of days. Night Rhythms was keen to press the second 7” and we were keen to work with him again, so that’s how those came to be. Steel on 7” – the way it should be!

4. Aside from HEAVY SENTENCE, you guys play in a whole bunch of cool bands. So here is your chance to plug some of these! I am familiar with AGGRESSIVE PERFECTOR and WODE, both of whom have released killer records but let’s have it in your words, not mine! 

Tim – I’d encourage readers to check out Morbid Sordidity if they get chance. And Bry’s very own Rat Cage. Eliminator is Jack’s other band and they’ve got a killer new record on the way. Iron Drugs will also be emitting their magnum opus at some point soon. 

5. In and out of HEAVY SENTENCE, you guys are not shy of playing live. So what are some of the coolest shows you have played? I caught you guys open for Midnight in London and it was a phenomenal opening set! Building on this, give us a cool tale from the road!

Gaz – That Midnight gig springs immediately to mind as a banger – I’m glad you were there my friend!  I’m struggling to think of a gig that wasn’t cool, we’ve played to a few empty rooms but there’s always a few die hards there that turn up and drank beer with us after – we had an arm wrestling tournament in Hamburg with some locals, that was ace until they brought out this tank of a man who flattened us all – but now we’ve got Jack on our team we shouldn’t have any troubles as the man has a remarkable talent for it.  In Halle I was trying to get a kip after two day session in Berlin and Mike came up to wake me before the gig, bearing in mind this gaff was right in the middle of the countryside and there was deer roaming about freely, one got in the house and was moving about all shifty and there’s was several more loitering out the front, so there’s me and Mike sticking our heads round the door like a scooby doo cartoon discussing how violent a pack of deer might be, in the end we just legged it past them, but that was funny, we’d never played a venue full of wildlife before.  What else – In Tilburg we were supposed to have an ‘unlimited’ bar, so being the thirsty working class lads that we are we can’t pass up an offer like that and set about testing the theory – turns out the Dutch version of unlimited differs from the English version and the promoter had to hand over some of our fee to cover the excessive consumption. 

6. Now before we get onto the new album, I am aware sadly axeman Mike Woods passed away. I am sure this must have been a horrendous blow to the band to lose a brother of such talent, but you guys are still carrying the torch and not letting what you created be lost. On the LP, was there any use of Mike’s guitar parts or had he passed on before recording? Either way, I have to say you did him proud with such a maliciously delicious record! 

Bry- Yeh, it was a huge loss for us all personally and for the band too. I’m sure we’d all agree it’s one of the toughest times we’ve all been through. Mike wasn’t just our guitarist, he was the life and soul and above all he was our brother. It took sometime to get our heads around continuing the band. We always intended on recording the LP however. Mike wrote a lot of the songs but sadly passed before recording began. The decision to carry on the band further than ‘Bang To Rights’ and to play live again really came when Jack from Eliminator came to us saying he’d love to play second guitar for us so we could carry the band on as it would be such a shame to stop. We all knew we wanted to carry on deep down and to keep Mikes’ spirit alive by continuing to tear around the world, causing chaos, drinking and rocking. Now all we need is this virus to fuck off and let us loose! 

7. “BANG TO RIGHTS”, your debut full length has been unleashed via one of my favourite labels Dying Victims Productions and one of my favourite record shops Crypt Of The Wizard. How has it been to work with these 2 maniacs of the underground and how has the release been going so far? Feel free to plug any upcoming shows / news here too! 

Bry- Both Dying Victims and Crypt Of The Wizard are great labels. We wanted to work with Charlie at COTW because we liked that he was trying to start something cool in the U.K. with his shop and label and when we’d met he was dead sound. We ended up working with DV as Tim had recently released the Aggressive Perfector LP with Florian and he’d done a great job. Doing a split release between 2 labels has had its complications and has been a learning curve for all parties id say. But now we have the CD/Tape out and the Vinyl is a couple of weeks away from release, everything’s cool. Charlie and Florian have put their faith in us and we really appreciate that. Hit up either of their web stores or bricks and mortar shop in COTW’s case to pick up our release as well as countless other bangers. 

Charlie is putting on a record release show for us at Helgis in London on 11th September. We also have a show in Leeds at Boom with Voorhees and The Annihilated on 21st August. Fingers crossed we can club together a small UK tour before the year is out but we’ll see!

8. 10 tracks, in and out, pure Heavy Metal firestorm. There is no fat to trim on this album, nor any lame tracks that spoil the energy. How did you guys lay this down and what went into the songwriting? It feels like a very natural and organic album, where I imagine you didn’t have to force anything. 

Bry- We’ve been writing these songs for a long time (some longer than others). We’ve played most of them live and jammed them a lot, so going into the studio we were confident and it came out pretty natural. Tim did a solid and played nearly all Mikes parts as well as his own and Jack jumped in to rip a few solos out. We recorded it with James Atkinson in Leeds, who aswell as recording bands like Witch Hazel and Carcass, is known for his stripped down punk approach. The majority of current UKHC bands record with him, so we knew his recording style would capture the rawness of the band. We’re really happy with how it came out. Its not too raw that riffs are lost and it’s not too polished either. A lot of current recordings lack energy because bands fuck about with everything too much. Keep it organic and you’re onto a winner!

9. With the world opening back up (man this is gonna seem outdated soon, I hope), do you guys have any plans? I am aware of a London show, but past that, will there be tours for the record? I am sure many of my European, American and otherwise located readers are dying to know when they can bang to rights along with you! 

Gaz – As our Bry said we can’t wait to hit the road once again, starting with a UK do – and hopefully some new places too – we still need to hit Scotland, Birmingham, Wales. We’ve got one coming up in Todmorden on October 2nd at The Royal George pub, it’s a rocker/biker pub in the Yorkshire valley and I’m hoping it’ll be a raucous affair.  It’s also ace to hear that for many EU countries a visa won’t be required for UK touring bands, so you’d best get brewing some more beer cos we’re coming!  America is definitely on our list ASAP, but it’s all about logistics and timing, in the current climate can’t make any serious steps towards it yet. We’d also like to hit Southern Europe, Eastern Europe and Russia – all of these places are taking the album in, so we wanna get out there and wreck! 

10. Finally, enough of you guys, stop hogging the spotlight! What bands do you think need more of a helping shove into the ears and record collections of those reading this? Now is your chance to give some support the other underground acts with the potential to become legends! 

Tim – We played with a band called Wedding Planner at the gig in Halle when Gaz ran with the deer. I’m not sure if they’re still going but they’re worth seeing if so. Ideally in a barn. Most of our peers are far more popular than us so we’ll hog the spotlight for the rest of the interview if that’s OK. Check out Pink Cigs.