There are few musical talents that equal that of Martin Walkyier.
The man who made Sabbat the legendry act they are considered today, the man who turned Skyclad into the world's most important folk-metal band, and a man who's intelligent lyrics, unique view of this planet, and harsh vocals made him an immediate favorite of mine ever since I heard the classic sabbat track "hosanna in excelsis" in a noise records compilation album.
The metal world and mine's especially, shook when it was known that Martin was out of Skyclad, certainly a surprise, when considering that a short time before that, te band's return to form album, Folkemon, was released.
Skycald decided to continue their efforts without him, but to me, the band was finished, all I was interested in, was what Martin was doing these days, his "return to the sabbat" project went on for a short time, covering classic sabbat tracks in live gigs in Europe, but was there a new album in sight?
My prayers were when receiving a word that Martin is in the midst of writing the lyrics and recording for a new project, one that includes Immortal's past bass player, Iscariah, who even made the bold step of moving into martin home town of Nottingham, from far away Norway, a band by the name of "the clan destined" (a typical walkyierish name, a play of words upon "Clandestine"), I finally had the chance to talk to both martin and Iscariah, and this is what they had to say:
A: Hi Martin, what are you two up to these days?
M: Hi Alon, well, currently we are working on a second demo,
A: I understood from Nuclear Blast record that they received a first demo whose sound they didn't like.
M: that's right, we sent a demo some time ago, but we really didn't get a decent sound, so now where actually demoing the demo, which means, where doing pre-recoding of the demo songs, making them as perfect as possible, before we go in the studio and make another, much better, demo to send the guys at N.B.
A: how many songs have you got ready?
M: three that are complete, but something around ten in general,
A: who are the band members as of now?
M: it's just me and Iscariah, I do the lyrics and vocals, and he does pretty much everything else, including bass, guitar and drums,
A: are you recruiting other people?
M: definitely, we are currently looking for a female vocalist to participate, we want a professional keyboardist, since what we're trying to create is something totally different than anything made this far, something truly original,
A: what do the songs sound like?
M: there's really nothing to compare them with, they are extremely heavy, yet melodic, a lot of keyboards, but its really unlike anything you've heard before, it has some Skyclad elements, some black metal elements, but its something new..
A: what are the band's lyrics about?
M: the clan destined is about this modern world, so the lyrics are going to be very political, very up to date, were going to deal with the politicians that are ruining this world, its very much related to the things the people is Israel are experiencing, wars caused by politicians looking to line up their pockets some more.
A: how was the band originally conceived?
M: well, after I left Skyclad I was certain I didn't want to get a regular day job, I mean, I was in the metal scene for twenty years now, I never got rich or anything, but I wasn't going to quite, I was sent a lot of material from people wanting to work with me, I really wasn't into most of them , but then Iscariah sent me his stuff, and I immediately took to it, he heard about me leaving Skyclad, and he was already out of immortal for some time then, so he sent me the music he had, and it really interested me, we started e-mailing each other, and about a year later we met in Norway, ever since we were good friends, then we Iscariah decided that the only way to make this really work is to move to England, and really work on the object, now, he has a wife and two children, which means this was not an easy step, but he was committed to the project, and made the move, and that's actually what we are looking for here, serious, committed people, not people for whom the band is secondary.
A: a question which has to be asked is, why did Skyclad split up?
M: the thing was, that the band was never the main thing for the members, all of them had day jobs, as teaching music and such, and the band just wasn't a priority to them, we wanted do to a tour after folkemon went out, and no body wanted to do it,
Nuclear blast did a lot to promote the album, but the band just wasn't into doing anything themselves, at the end I decided that I didn't want to be a part of a sinking ship, and that I prefer to work with a band which is actually committed,
A: for a while there you did shows with a band called "return to the Sabbath" that did sabbat songs, tell me about that.
M: well, during my time in skyclad we got a lot of requests to do sabbat songs, do I decided it's a good idea to create a band that will do that, we did some shows, had a lot of fun, but now the clan destined is a the thing, it's a real band,
A: I noticed that your web site is not up to date; do you have plans of upgrading it?
M: well, currently we are so busy it'll have to be postponed, but we have a whole community of people working with us here, a lot of painters, writers, its something of a commune, so eventually we'll update the site, and put more effort into the things that were put aside, but the main thing now is the band, and the music we're creating.
And this stage the phone is passed to Iscariah, sitting quietly and drinking beer up until then:
A: hi Iscariah, tell me your side of joining the clan destined.
I: well, since I left immortal I didn't find an exactly serious group to work with, I joined necrophagia for a while but I wanted something more substantial,
I heard about martin leaving skyclad, and I decided to send him some songs I wrote, I guess he liked them because he contacted me and said he wanted us to work together, the rest of the story, you've heard.
A: how's the recoding process of the new material going on?
I: its going great, if got three recorded songs which we need to finish up the final touches, and four or six more complete songs, actually we've got enough material for a 12 song album as of now, but we might chose just the best ones of them to be on the album,
A: why did you leave Immortal?
I: well, it reached a certain point when all they though about was money, and it completely changed their character, I wasn't into that, and I decided to try my luck with martin, who's lyrics I've been a fan of for years,
A: what kind of music were you writing at the time?
I: just something which I thought of, a different style than anything immortal did, and I thought that it's a good idea to cooperate with martin on this,
What w we created is something new, the most important thing to us is creating something which is of high quality, which I believe we did, but the music cannot easily be defined.
I get back to Martin
A: I understood that the band is very much a political band,
M: yes, I'm expressing my opinion on the state of the world we live in, and you, of all people, can understand what I'm saying when I say that the way this world in currently acting, we wont be here for much longer,
I'm expressing my views that our leaders, the one's that hold the power, are leading us all to annihilation, and if we, the simple people, the people that put them were they are now, wont do something about it, then we are all doomed,
A: so you think this world is on the brink of destruction?
M: I believe so, I do not think we will survive the way things are going now, with people like this idiot bush in charge, and a fool like Tony Blair here, in England, maybe there's no other choice, we have to destroy ourselves and let everything start all over again, in a cleaner world, maybe we have to suffer the consequences, and only then learn, that's what some of the songs talk about, my message for the people is: THINK FOR YOURSELVES.
A: well, thank you both, Martin and Iscariah and I can't wait to hear the clan destined debut album in the near as possible future!
www.martinwalkyier.com
www.prick-tees.com
