Interview: Matt Drake from Evile

Note: if you want to read the Spanish version of this interview, go here.

Nota: si desean leer la versión en español de esta entrevista, vayan para acá.

British Thrashers Evile have been going for a bit of a transitional period since 2014. After the release of their fourth and more than potable album, Skull, their lead guitarist, Ol Drake, left the band in amicable terms and auditions were held for a long time until hiring their new man, Piers Donno-Fuller. While not quite upfront in the Metal realm, Evile have become a steady ship in the last couple of years and this new era would prove vital in the band’s future endeavors. So, if you want to know what’s going on with a band, what better way to find out than to talk with one of the leaders? So I contacted Matt Drake, Evile’s vocalist and second guitarist, for a quick interview.

Truth be told, the interview was planned months ago but Matt had some personal issues to deal with before taking the time to talk with me. As usual, I tried to cover different subjects about the band and the musician’s careers, so I hope you have a real kick about it. The man himself was quite open about several subjects and we get to see the opinion of a man committed to his project and to his ideas as a musician. And I tried to get the answer from a very specific matter, but to no end –Matt vas very careful with that.

KT: thank you for taking the time to do this, Matt. It’s a pleasure.

MD: no problem at all. Sorry it took so long to get back to you; not very speedy for a man in a Thrash Metal band!

KT: how did you get into Metal music and why you wanted to learn to play the guitar?

MD: I had grown up listening to my dad’s music: Queen, Led Zeppelin, Hendrix, Wishbone Ash – all guitar based music. It’s something that’s always been there with me so it just felt natural to want to play guitar -Brian May is my guitar hero. I got into Metal through Ben, Evile’s drummer; one day at school he lent me a tape of Master of Puppets and I was hooked; I went out straight away and bought as many of their albums as I could afford. From there I heard about Slayer and Sepultura, and this kind of music captivated me; I wanted more of it, I wanted to be a part of it, I wanted to play it.

KT: can you tell me the story of Evile’s inception?

MD: We originally got together as a covers band with no aspirations of anything else: we just wanted to play our favourite songs, mostly Metallica! It was me and Ben at first, then my brother joined but we needed someone to play bass. We didn’t know anyone so we put an ad in a local guitar shop and that’s how we found the mighty Mike Alexander. For a few years we played covers and we started to want more, it never felt right being applauded for doing something that somebody else created so we wanted to create our own music. When we had enough songs that we could make a set with we decided to change the name of the band to Evile. 

KT: Why the name Evile?

MD: I was originally doing loads of logo sketches using the word Exile, looking around the internet there were about 2,300,457 bands all using the word exile so I just changed the X to a V and it felt right. There was no significant meaning attached to it, it just felt good and it seemed to suit us and the music we were making; we then had the logo made up by a guy called Lee Gaskins who did a great job on the logo and the artwork for our Hallows Eve and Hell Demo EP’s.

KT: you guys started as a cover band. Which songs you used to play?

MD: Mostly Metallica. We would try and change songs quite a lot but we did stuff like Master of Puppets, Battery, Four Horsemen, My Friend of Misery, Sad But True, One, Creeping Death, Of Wolf and Man, Seek and Destroy, etc. 

KT: the band was formed in the early 2000s. England has never been such an easy place to play Thrash and get recognized. How hard was it to promote the band in those circumstances?

MD: we never really thought about it that way. We just wanted to play shows, so we would get any that we could and travel to them; it didn’t matter where, we played a lot of local shows too so that helped prepare us, we just noticed that more and more people were coming to the shows so it made us want to do more and more. We were lucky in that we got to do all this with a few other bands that had the same ideas as us, Pitiful Reign and Headless Cross -we played a lot of shows with them.

KT: in your debut I noticed a heavy Slayer and Metallica influence but you started to slightly change your sound through each album. Was the change intentional or it has been just a natural progression?

MD: it’s a bit of both; we want to learn from things we don’t do well and better things we can do well; we also don’t want to repeat ourselves too much, we’ve tried to give each song and album its own identity, part of that is down to how they’re recorded as well. Another part is I always want to get better at singing: on the first album I couldn’t, I really hurt myself recording that as I didn’t know what I was doing, for Infected Nations I learned how to use my voice properly and with power without damaging myself but didn’t learn how to sing any notes unfortunately! For Serpents I learned how to do both so there is a natural progression there, I think we’ve got closest to what Evile should be with Skull, I am hugely proud of that album. 

KT: lyrics wise, who is the writer of the band and you come up with the concepts for them?

MD: lyrics are mostly me. In the beginning, Mike wrote quite a lot; he wrote lyrics for Thrasher, Killer from the Deep, Armoured Assault; Ben wrote Man against Machine and I wrote the rest. From that point onwards I wanted to explore different themes other than war, death and sharks so I started writing the lyrics, themes and titles. Some of them I leave purposefully vague so people can read them how they want. I really enjoy doing it, it’s a challenge to come up with good hooks that fit with the riffs, I’m really proud of how Tomb and Head of the Demon came out.

KT: it was pretty shocking to see your brother, Ol, leave the band. Why he left the band? Was it a friendly separation?

MD: He left for his own reasons, from what he has said he just didn’t want to tour anymore and was fed up of not having any money. I found it to be quite a shame because there is nothing that could make me leave Evile, except old age. It was a completely friendly separation; we had no right to say what he wants to do with his life is right or wrong, on a personal level we actually get on better -being brothers we always clashed quite a bit when writing.

KT: how was the process to replace him? Because is not only about finding someone who can play the Evile tunes, but you guys need to find someone who you feel a good chemistry with.

MD: the chemistry is the most important part to us. We were really lucky with Piers, we just took our time to make sure we found someone we could be happy spending time with. It happened the same way with Joel, we found someone local who is a good player who fits right in with us – lazy!

KT: if I’m allowed to say it, your last two albums see you as a much more complete outfit than the first two; you found a certain balance between heaviness, speed and melody. Do you see the band doing some experimentation in the future? Maybe in this upcoming album?

MD: thank you, I have to agree. I’m very proud of our last two albums; Skull is going to be a tough one to beat. We will definitely be trying different things in the next set of songs, Ol was the main songwriter along with myself so without that dynamic it’s going to be very different. We will see what happens!

KT: what can you tell us about the new Evile album? How is the writing process going and when can we expect it?

MD: we have only just started putting some ideas together and we will spending all of 2.016 writing. There have recently been a lot of personal things to deal with outside of the band so hopefully we can get down to writing once everything is settled; it may take us a while but we’ll get there and hopefully it will be worth the wait, we write for us from now on, not to any deadline.

KT: how it is to work with the new guitar player, Piers Donno-Fuller? What does he bring to the musical table?

MD: Piers is brilliant and he’s a really great guitarist. We don’t know what he brings just yet, we will be finding out when the writing begins properly!

KT: do you find hard singing this type of music style on the road? Do you do any vocal exercise to keep your pipes in shape on tour?

MD: I have a few rules I stick by when on tour: no drinking, lots of sleep, do an hour of warm ups before going on stage. I have 30 minutes of exercises and scales I do; I’ve been doing them for years, ever since I went to a vocal coach called Talena Cuthbert, she was fantastic and gave me these exercises to do, they go everywhere with me. So after a show when everyone goes drinking and socializing (if we aren’t travelling) I will be straight to bed to get as much sleep as possible. If anyone questions that my answer is that it’s like me taking their guitar out and pouring beer over it, will it work tomorrow? Probably not.

KT: there have been criticisms to bands like yours because you play a style that was set back in the 80s. Have you had worries in the past or in the present about the band just being seen as a clone of the classic Thrash acts?

MD: people can see us however they want to. It’s a genre we all love, yes, we aren’t going to pretend we’re setting the world on fire though; all we want to do is play live music and the songs we write allow us to do that because I think we’re straight up with people about who we are and what we do. As long as we keep writing good songs hopefully people will keep coming to see us. We’ve never worried about it; all we can do is just keep doing what we do and be ourselves.

KT: in several interviews you mentioned the fact that you have regular jobs to provide for yourselves and the band financially. What kind of jobs have you done?

MD: I have worked full time for the local government for the past 8 years, mostly as a temporary worker so I can come and go when I need to for tours. I’ve mostly worked in children’s services. It’s difficult to juggle both things, but it’s worth the effort.

KT: obviously, you are a huge Thrash fan. But leaving that style aside, what other musical interests do you have? Do you have any other musical intrigues?

MD: I love loads of different styles of music; anything from Creedence Clearwater to Nick Cave, Neil Young, Cypress Hill, Film scores, Genesis, Entombed, Blondie, Soundgarden, Michael Jackson.

KT: name your Top 10 of favorite albums of all time.

MD: in no particular order:

Paradise Lost – Draconian Times

AC/DC – Highway to Hell

Queen – Queen II

Soundgarden – Superunknown

Wishbone Ash – Argus

REM – Out of Time

Creedence Clearwater Revival – Green River

The Beatles – Rubber Soul

Pantera – Cowboys from Hell

Pink Floyd – Wish You Were Here

KT: looking on your career so far, do you see the band going for a long time? Considering the reception, the musical style and other factors, can you see yourself playing this style and with this band in, say, 15 o 20 years, like so many bands have done?

MD: I can’t see myself playing with any other band -I’ll be doing Evile until I physically cannot. If I don’t take it as far as it possibly can go then I will regret it.

KT: what’s the song Long Live the New Flesh about?

MD: I’ll never tell!

KT: and finally, could you give us one final message for your fans and readers?

MD: thank you for the years you have followed us, there will be many more to come \m/