Rockezine.com interview with Cruachan on Apr 27, 2004

with Keith Fay on Apr 27, 2004


		Cruachan is relatively unknown, can you briefly describe the history of the band? I (Keith Fay) have been playing in metal bands for a very long time. My first band was a grind core band called P.U.S., It was in 1990 and I was only 14 years old. I left this band and joined a death metal band called Crypt, I was still only 14 but the other members were in their early 20`s, John Clohessy was the bass player. At the time I was very influenced by Mick Harris and Mille from Kreator, Black metal was very underground at the time and the now popular screaming vocals were unheard of, I like to think I was the first in Ireland to sing that way. Anyway, after a few demos the band broke up in 1991. I then formed Minas Tirith, a Tolkien concept band. At this time I was starting to listen to more folk music and I picked up Skyclad’s first album. Wow, that album really had an impact on me and I immediately came up with better plans. I was now a lot more into black metal and decided I would combine Irish folk and black metal. I changed the name Minas Tirith to Cruachan and we recorded our first demo, Celtica. This demo caused a bit of a stir and got the German label NEP interested, they signed us in 1993 and we released our first album "Tuatha Na Gael" in 1994/1995. This album became a huge success for the label but because they were so small they could not do any promotion nor could they meet the demand for sales, so it became very hard to find after the initial sell out. We began to look for another, bigger label and were offered a deal by Century Media records, this seemed great at the time but we soon realized it was not too good. The contract they offered us was insane, they wanted to take all musical rights away from us and we could not do that so we turned them down. The band more or less broke up after that because we felt we had nowhere to go, that all record labels would be the same. Soon after breaking up we began to receive a lot of fan mail from around the world telling us to get back together, we were surprised at the amount we got. I also hated not being in the band so we did not stay broken up for too long. We began to write new material, I got everyone back who was interested and we signed to Hammerheart Records. Joe joined just 4 weeks before we recorded the Middle Kingdom and Karen was originally just a guest vocalist but ended up joining.
		Secondly, what does Cruachan mean? Cruachan is a name given to a cave in Ireland that was allegedly the entrance to the Celtic otherworld (Tir Na Nog). When Christianity came into Ireland, the monks, in a bid to convert pagans to Christianity, claimed the cave was the entrance to hell.
		While listening to your new album Pagan, I noticed a few parts (for instance during “Viking Slayer”) which I had heard before on one of your previous records; why did you decide to re-use these parts on Pagan? The part in Viking Slayer is a part I really like from a song that we never released called "Return", the song “Return” was recorded on an old promo that we released as a bonus on the re-release of Tuatha Na Gael.
Cruachan is a name given to a cave in Ireland that was allegedly the entrance to the Celtic otherworld.		I also noticed that the sound is rawer again compared to FolkLore, especially the guitar parts but also the vocals. Why did you decide to go for a rawer sound again? We did not consciously decide to go for a rawer sound it just turned out that way because the production is quite poor. We did not have as big a budget as we spent on FolkLore and so had to go for a cheaper studio. A big problem was the sound engineer; he just was not good quality, a really nice guy but just not that good when compared with the people we worked with on FolkLore.
		Is there a message, or an ideology behind Cruachan? We do not try to ram our beliefs down anybody else’s throats but I like to think that people who read my lyrics about Ireland and see how proud I am of my country will be inspired to go and find out about their own culture and history. If we have a message it would be to acknowledge your past and your culture.
		You guys have come a pretty long way since your debut album. Are you satisfied with how the band has developed? And what are your goals for the future? I`m not really satisfied with where we have gotten. I want to be playing festivals every year; I want proper tours focused on the countries where our fans are located. I don’t want the hassle and stress of recording on tiny budgets. Our main goal for the future is to record an album without any financial stress, to be secure in the knowledge that all we need to worry about is how the music sounds.
		The cover artwork of Pagan is fantastic, and done by no one less than John Howe. Aren’t you afraid that people will immediately think of Lord of the Rings, and not about Celtic mythology (even more so since the bonus track “The Fall Of Gondolin”)? The cover painting is called "Celtic Myth" and features various Celtic images such as fairies, druids, warriors etc. I don’t mind if people think of Lord of the Rings as it is a great thing to be associated with and we have a few other songs based on Tolkien’s stuff anyway such as a song called “Sauron” and an unrecorded song called “Ungoliant”.
		How did you get John Howe interested to do the artwork in the first place? John Howe is a fan of the band and myself and my brother got speaking with him over the last year on the internet. We both thought it would be a great idea to ask John to do the artwork and thankfully he was into this idea as well.
Beer is a lot more important than being a headline band you know.		How difficult is it to combine Irish folklore music with metal and rock; and come up with good sounding songs? I suppose I find it quite easy, but then I have been doing it now for over ten years. People don’t realize how similar classical heavy metal and folk music really are and how easy they work together. If you listen to a lot of early heavy metal, Iron Maiden, Saxon etc. there are blatant folk sounding metal riffs, probably written without thinking they are folky at all.
		Cruachan uses a wide variety of folklore instruments; how difficult is it to play these live, or do most of them come from tape during a live show? We always try to play the instruments live and will never use backing tracks. I think bands should not use backing tracks, if people want to go to a show to hear a tape, what is the point? Obviously with the amount of instruments we use we know we can never recreate every single sound live, this is something we accept and our fans will also have to accept. We usually have a guest with us to help us out live but right now we are having trouble finding a guest or a 5th member. We have decided that we will tour anyway, even without a dedicated live folk musician. We have started advertising for a new member in Ireland so hopefully we will not need to play as a 4-piece.
		Speaking of live shows, you recently had a tour with label compatriots Thyrfing. How did those shows go, and how did the Viking metal audience react to your Celtic folklore music? The shows were great; Thyrfing and Shadowbreed were a great bunch of lads to have fun with. Viking metal audience? I think they were just a metal audience, anyway we outsold Thyrfing in the merchandise sales anyway ha ha!!
		Since the aforementioned tour was only a mini tour in the Benelux; will Cruachan embark on another tour? And if so, with whom? We are hoping to do a tour after the summer, the plans are to do a headline tour but I would rather be second on the bill so we can all have a few pints and watch the last band. Beer is a lot more important than being a headline band you know.
		Thanks a lot for this interview! Is there anything you would like to add? Thank you Frank, hope to see you on tour soon!!!
		(Frank van de Voorde)