"Of Beasts And Plagues" took shape across several years. How did that long creation period change the album as a complete work?
Joe: Well, there were mainly 4 reasons it took so long. One was I had A LOT of technical problems with my studio software. I won't go into details, but at times it was a Nightmare mixing the album. The second was that I took extra time with writing the music, and was VERY picky about what I used. I really think that made it to where there are no "filler" songs on the album. ALL of them are well thought out quality songs. Hell, I even added a couple cool additions to songs on guitar while I was mastering the album! Three is when I first really started writing the album, we didn't have a full band, didn't add the drummer who played on the album until I had already written all the songs and recorded them to a metronome. So we spent a lot of time working together on the tunes before recording. Again, the extra time we took just improved how the drums came out on the album. And fourth, I took a WHOLE LOT of time in mixing: working on every tiny section of all the tracks. I would not accept anything but the best sounds possible, which seemed to take forever, but the result speaks for itself; the best sounding album Axemaster has ever had, good enough to rival anything out there.
Which parts of the present world fed the images of beasts, plagues, machines, violence and human decay across the lyrics?
Joe: The coronaviris pandemic is what started me thinking along those lines, but there are actually a lot of things that could be seen as a beast or a plague to us all: hate, prejudice, deception, violence, despair, betrayal, things like that. Geoff wrote most of the lyrics, I only wrote words for a couple songs, but that's my take on it!
Geoff: Joe isn't wrong, but when we were considering titles for this album I was considering that 2 of the main songs were built around the Black Plague and HP Lovecraft monsters. This time much of my lyrics were less about metaphor and more about stories.
Does the title describe outside threats, human behaviour, inner corruption, or a mixture of all three?
Joe: Definitely all three. There are a lot of things in this world that could be termed as a beast or a plague, like I said above, some which you wouldn't think of right off like hate or betrayal. Basically, anything negative about this world could be seen as a beast or plague, or both!
Geoff: Again, for me the title was all about actual Beasts and Plagues, not every song is about that, but “Dagon Rising” is the Beast and “Murder Of Crows” is about the Plague.
The album joins traditional US metal with thrash and doom. How did the band decide where each song should sit within that range?
Joe: The musical direction was really never discussed within the band. I'm fortunate that I have the trust of my band-mates that I'll write kick ass music so they basically just let me do my thing. Now I DID make demo recordings of ideas/songs for the album and played them for everyone to get their opinions, and we DID end up throwing out 2 of the things I wrote because the guys didn't care for them, and that's totally cool. Anyway, honestly, I don't think about the musical direction when I'm writing. When I write something I like, I record it. If I still like it a few days later, I use it. I ONLY play riffs/songs that I really like, and they almost always naturally fit within the usual Axemaster feel. What I like and what I write is almost always dark sounding: mainly riffs that would work in doom metal (with just a couple exceptions), but I mix them with some thrash which gives the stuff our feel. So yeah, no special thoughts or planning goes into where and how any song fit into our style, it all comes 100% naturally!!!!
"I'm fortunate that I have the trust of my band-mates that I'll write kick ass music so they basically just let me do my thing."
Joe Sims
The sessions were divided between Chamber Studio and Mindfield Recording And Mixing. How did that split affect communication, performances and final production choices?
Joe: Chamber Studio is my place, but I don't have the capability to record drums, so I reached out to my friend Andy Sartain who owns Mindfield Studios and he gave us a great rate to record bass and drums there. The sessions there went totally smooth. Basically, he just engineered the recording and I was the producer. I made the decisions of what takes we kept or threw away, and gave Craig and Chris hints and asked them to do some things in certain ways. There were no problems or issues, we all worked like a well-oiled machine. So the split caused no problems whatsoever with anything.
What was the hardest song to complete, and what problem delayed its final form?
Joe: When it came to songwriting, the song that gave me the most trouble was probably "Machine". I wrote and recorded the music for a song that kind of ended up being “Machine”, but after I recorded it and listened to it quite a few times, I decided that I didn't care for most of it enough for it to be included on the album. So I kept the first around 30 seconds that I liked, and trashed and re-wrote all the rest of the music. And I'm REALLY GLAD I DID because it became the band's favorite song. As far as the production goes, it's tough to say which song was the hardest, they ALL had parts that were a bitch to get right. If I had to pick one, I'd say "Dealers", especially where in one part there are 7 guitar tracks doing 4 different things at once. That was SURELY a challenge to mix.
How did the pandemic period influence the writing, arranging and emotional temperature of the album?
Joe: In a way, the pandemic was actually good for the new album. There obviously wasn't much to do, so I took that late spring and all the summer concentrating just on writing the album. I had written a bunch of riffs the previous 4 years, so I went through them, took what I liked, wrote a bunch of new parts, put everything together, and recorded demos of all the songs I had to play to everyone. It didn't really affect the album other than that, just gave me the perfect opportunity to write it.
"Forsaken II" suggests a link with earlier Axemaster material. What connects the new song to its predecessor beyond the title?
Geoff: Thematically it is a continuation of the 1st song about Betrayal. In “Forsaken” the Hero throws aside allies that betrayed him and stands on his own. In “Forsaken II” he almost wins the battle but falls to an unseen enemy
After releases such as "Blessing In The Skies" and "Overture To Madness", where does "Of Beasts And Plagues" sit in the band’s history?
Joe: That has yet to be determined, it'll take a little time to be able to say anything FOR SURE, but I think there's a good chance that the album will be seen by most as Axemaster's crowning acheivement. Hopefully it will mark the band turning a corner and becomming much better known, possibly rise out of just being a "cult" band, or at least be a well known cult band.
The band’s first label contract came during the 1980s underground era, and this album reached physical production through crowdfunding and Cosmic Fire Records. What has changed most in the relationship between a heavy metal band and its audience?
Joe: The obvious one is that it's easier to have a relationship with more fans now with the internet. Surely easier to message me or the band or email us than back in the day when fans had to use postal mail. Other than that, how I personally relate to the fans hasn't really changed. I always respond to fan mail and try to show the fans how much I appreciate them.
Which story from the sessions best captures the difficult path behind this album?
Joe: It was DEFINITELY when my multi-track program partially crashed, it became almost unusable. I had to export something like 500 tracks separately TWICE then input them all into the new program I bought. Then I had to re-mix everything that I had already mixed on the old program. It seemed to take FOREVER, felt like I would never get it done. Shows you what you can do when you never give up.
Are there any plans to promote "Of Beasts And Plagues" with live shows or a tour?
Joe: We have shows booked, and will definitely continue to play live, but touring is a different story. We don't have the money to be able to tour, it takes a lot. We would need a person/place to book us a tour and give us advance funding, and it's very difficult if not next to impossible to find somewhere that would do that for a band like us. BUT YOU NEVER KNOW, stranger things have happened, never give up.
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