I’m terribly late with this interview, and i sent the questions late too, and when the answers arrived i sat on them as a good brooder. So i would like to apologize to everyone, but i can’t split into more pieces, but that Ian Arkley and Andi Lee were replying to my questions should be really compensate everyone (Ian Arkley only by the end gets warmed up the interesting fact about the interview), beside it’s behide its time, that my collegue at EMP helped me in some of the questions. I’d only take your time for a few minutes, first of all please introduce your band and the positions! When did you formed and what were the antecedents?

(Kate) My Silent Wake was formed in 2005 by some of the members of Ashen Mortality, which had recently come to an end. Initially, Ian played guitar and vocals, Andi played some guitar and bass, Alan Southourn (who has since left) played bass and Jasen was on drums. I joined shortly after the band was formed, in time to play some cello on the first album. Unfortunately, Jasen injured his wrist, and since the first album has been unable to play drums live, so when we were asked to play our first gig (Elements of Rock in 2007) we asked Steve Allan, who had been our recording engineer, to play drums. Alan had left, and we needed Andi and Ian to both play guitar, so I had to learn how to play the bass in time for the performance! Jasen stayed on in the band even though he couldn’t drum, and has contributed some great vocals. Our most recent line-up includes Tank (drummer for Seventh Angel) as Steve is taking an indefinite period of time off to concentrate on his new career.

The band is formed just five years ago and „IV Et Lux Perpetua” is your fourth LP. Considering one EP, one DVD and one split, this is the band’s sixth release. This tempo is mostly out of common in this genre. What is the reason?

(Kate) I’m not sure how we have managed to churn out so much in such a short time – it has just seemed to happen! When the band first formed, Ian had a lot of material which he had meant to use for previous projects, but never got the chance, so that has provided us with a lot of inspiration. Apart from that, we all contribute to the songwriting and have a wide range of influences, so we always have a lot of ideas floating about. The final album (Et Lux) was a bit of an unexpected decision, taken because Steve was going to be selling his recording studio, and we didn’t think we would have another chance to record with him. So we decided to write a last album to make the most of the time we had left, intending all the songs to be quite simple and riff-driven, quite traditional doom. In total I think it took us three months to conceive of the idea, write and learn the songs, then record and mix them. It was a bit of a whirlwind! We have also just started to come up with some ideas for our next album, although I think we will try and take a bit more time and care over this one!

When i lived and worked in England i experienced that the social network is working there, if somebody earns less than 100 pounds a week, then they don’t put a tax on that money, they only deduct the medical things. People put in the common everthiny they don’t need, these goes into the cheer shops, and from these they aid the poor. What do you think, why is this working in a good way or correctly in your country, when in East-Europe it doesn’t.
 
I apologise but I’m am not sure that I have correctly understood the question, but I will attempt to give some kind of answer! InEngland people who earn less then a certain amount do not have to pay tax, and we have a large amound of charity shops (is this what you meant when you
said cheer shops?), where people can donate possessions that they no longer want or need, so that the charity can sell these items and raise money for their particular cause – such as Cancer Research, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, or the British Heart Foundation, for instance. I don’t know if there is a similar system in Eastern Europe, or why it doesn’t seem to work I’m afraid!

Yes, my question was about that, and i really don’t understand why isn’t that working in my country, i thought you can came up with an answer, but nevermind! So let’s stay at the social problems… How much do your feel the economic crisis, how much do you experience the things, which are going on in the wold? In your opinion who can be responsible for it?

(Kate) When the economy was officially in recession, we didn’t really feel anything. I work for a small local company, and business was
 very good while the banks were being bailed out and all the world leaders panicked! However, since the economy has officially emerged from recession in the last year, it is my experience that the small businesses have really begun to suffer, and many are having to close, or cut back the hours that their employees work. We have all been worried about losing our jobs, and things like food and energy prices are increasing. Our government is also making huge spending cuts which will affect public services and which are very unpopular. Many people fear it will send us back into recession, but only time will tell. I don’t know who can be held responsible for the crisis, but it seems to me like there was a general global culture of speculation, which built wealth which had no foundation, it didn’t actually exist, it was all just numbers on a computer screen. There was a sense in the West that everyone should have anything they wanted, and that they could achieve this by getting into debt. I hope people will learn a lesson from the happenings of the last couple of years, but I think that they have short memories!

Please tell me 5 gothic and 5 death metal albums, which had a great
influence in your life!

(Kate) I don’t listen to so much death metal as a rule but here are some metal albums that have influenced me…
1. Anathema – Eternity
2. My Dying Bride – Turn Loose the Swans
3. Opeth – Still Life
4. Paradise Lost – Gothic
5. Machine Head – Burn My Eyes (because it was the first metal album I ever bought!)

… and some gothic albums:
1. Dead Can Dance – Dead Can Dance
2. Fields of the Nephilim – Elizium
3. Sisters of Mercy – Floodland
4. Swans – Children of God
5. Bauhuas – Burning from the Inside

Reading the band’s bio on the official website i have noticed that you mention continously the sort time of the recording procedure. Is the genre too polished and over produced nowadays?

(Kate) Yes, it can be. And unfortunately people expect music to sound this way now, so when something sounds a bit rougher and more underground (and more real) they don’t like it, and dismiss it.

The band’s first live performance took place in Switzerland after three
years being together and after the second LP. Was it a conscious concept, or
just time has come for the first gig?

(Kate) The time had just come to play the first gig. The guys at Elements of Rock asked us to come and play, and as I have mentioned before,
Steve offered to play drums for us, and I learned to play the bass specifically so we would be able to. It was a very enjoyable, but nerve-racking gig!

The way i see things is that GB has built up a cultural „Chinese Great Wall” and inside these walls a special own pop-rock culture is flourishing. Am i about right? How can your genre prevail in your own country, and how can you prevail in your genre in your own country?

 

(Kate) I’m am not sure I know too much about the pop-rock culture in our country. We are very much absorbed in the underground music scene of our own and of other countries, and pay little attention to pop-music I’m afraid! However, I think Britian has for a long time been quite prolific in the music that it creates, of all different genres, perhaps because we have a lot of influences from other cultures of the world all intermingling in our small country, and perhaps because we are a little eccentric and like to express this in our music! However, My Silent Wake does not fare very well in our own country. Not many people like to attend gigs anymore, not even if a well-known band is playing. We do a lot better when we go abroad to the continent.

What are your lyrics about? Who writes them? Please emphasize some, and explain them through examples!

(Ian) We have four lyricists in the band now, so the lyrics are about a wide variety of things. My own lyrics tend to express certain things that I have felt or experienced in as poetic a way as I can manage. They are often written at times of great emotion or times when I have been thinking very deeply about something. The song ‘Father‘ on the new album is about missing your children after a breakup and the helplessness of that situation. It is something very close to my heart.

What would you do if happiness would be an apple?

A. bite it and eat it.
B. make it shine and put it away.
C. cut it up into little bits and eat it if i’m sad.
D. trade it for a pear… :}

(Ian) Eat a cake instead.
 

Have you got a message to the readers of Fémforgács?

(Ian) Yes. Please check out MSW if you get a chance. The best way to do this is through our MySpace. If you download please do it legally and
support the band.

Last words?

(Ian) Thanks for the interview and for your interest in MSW!

Zoli