Ade Mulgrew – Darkest Era – Interview Exclusive
Written by Matt Phelps
Sunday, 18 March 2012 05:00
Belfast’s Darkest Era have just released their debut album, ‘The Last Caress Of Light’, a heaving, emotive blend of doom-laden riffs mixed with some more traditional elements. I caught up with guitarist Ade Mulgrew in Bristol recently to discuss things Darkest Era and learn a little more about this impressive Irish bunch.
Ade, thanks for talking with Uber Rock today, we’d like to know a little more about Darkest Era so if we could start off with you letting us know who’s in the band and when you got together?
Sure. Well, we’re an epic heavy metal band from Northern Ireland. We play metal in the style of New Wave Of British Heavy Metal meets Irish folk music, so a lot of influences there. We’ve been playing for about 6 or 7 years. We have myself of course, Krum on vocals, David on bass, Sarah on guitar and Lisa on drums and our album is just out on Metal Blade Records.
Yeah I saw you were on Metal Blade, a rather prestigious label, been around for a while.
Yeah they have a great metal legacy, they’ve put out a lot of our favourite albums. They put out Slayer’s first record, King Diamond, Mercyful Fate and they’ve just signed a whole bunch of more grass roots metal bands which is great and getting more of a traditional metal back to the
kids. They’re still an independent label but it’s great.
You’ve got this debut album now, ‘The Last Caress Of Light’, but you’ve also released a couple of EPs before that. Could you tell us a bit about those?
Well when we were 16 and started the band we did ‘Nemesis’ which was a demo and we were called Nemesis at that time. Then we changed our name to Darkest Era and we originally self released ‘The Journey Through Damnation’ but it was subsequently picked up by Eyes Like Snow who are a small German label. So they put out that which was amazing. Then in March 2010 we put out ‘The Oak Sessions’ which was another self released digipak and that got picked up by Metal Blade. Our album we recorded in August and it came out in February.
I have a copy, been listening to it, in a way a doom kinda style something like Candlemass but also a more modern edge, something like Killswitch Engage in there…
(Sighs) You know someone said that and I don’t hear it whatsoever, the Killswitch Engage modern metal thing… I don’t know. Not even on the production. The production was done on like an old analogue desk with these old valve amps and stuff. It’s not like a modern production so I don’t really hear it but that’s the interesting thing you know, people pick up on different threads in the music. Some people hear the doom influences and then some people hear something different. But yeah there’s definitely a doom influence in there, we listen to a lot of Warning for example and like you say Candlemass so some of the slower sections show through from these bands. We’re just trying to get our own identity through it I guess and people pick up on different things but it all sounds good to us.
You recorded in Wales, did that help at all with the whole “Celtic” feel?
(Laughs) What, like, just because there’s a load of sheep around we feel at one with the land? Uh…. no, it was just that we were completely isolated in a Welsh valley which was right up in the mountains which was an amazing location to be in because the nearest village was like 6 miles away so there was literally nothing to do but work and record. So we were getting up at 
like 10 in the morning and then recording from about 11 until midnight, 1, 2 or 3am most nights. It was like a really focussed working environment so we were able to fully immerse ourselves in the whole process and make full use of that and hopefully that made for a better record.
So could you take us through a couple of your favourite tracks on the album, maybe reveal some of the lyrical inspirations behind them?
‘Heathen Burial’ just kicks ass from start to finish. The story behind it? It was one of the last tracks we wrote for the album and it’s got some like Paganesque lyrics in there. It’s one of the stronger ones. The last three on the album are probably the strongest though I think. There’s ‘To Face The Black Tide’ – it’s like a long, sweeping doom kinda number, you know? Then it goes into an acoustic song that we put on there, ‘Poem To The Gael’, and again it was one of the last songs we wrote and it’s kinda like a nice break before the title track which is like an 11 minute thing that’s in three sections that’s constantly building to this big climax and winding outro. They’re the strongest I would say but there’s loads of different lyrical themes between the songs.
You started this tour in Plymouth the other day, how’s the material going down?
Very well, I mean we do the best we can and hopefully people will like it, they seem to have liked it. In a way I’m a bit surprised because we stand slightly apart from Claim The Throne and Alestorm because we’re a slightly different style and we don’t have the synth and stuff but the crowds are acting really positively towards it which is cool because we were worried it might not be their thing. It’s been really cool though and now we’ve had a chance to play with these two bands over the last couple of nights we can see similarities in certain aspects and I think we’re a really good fit for the bill. Last night in Sheffield was the best night so far, great venue and a really cool crowd plus it was sold out so it’s all good, you know? I’ll have some more of that!
So what are Darkest Era’s plans for after the Alestorm tour?
Well, we’ve got a couple of Irish shows and then we’re pretty much back into writing, we’re looking at our second album quite soon so we’re hoping to record it around October. On the first album a lot of the material was a couple years old so it was a collection of a few years work but for this next album we’ll be writing in a much shorter period so hopefully it’ll be a more focussed body of work and maybe a little bit tighter. We’re just looking forward to sitting down and getting another record made, maybe doing a few shows over the Summer as well. We’ve been working really hard over the last couple years to really try and move the band forward so whatever opportunities come along we try and take them.
Finally the name Darkest Era, does that have a specific importance? You said you changed from Nemesis so does Darkest Era have a particular meaning to you?
Well, when we changed we had a massive list of names and I just went through them going nope, nope, shit, maybe, already a band and they’re shit, nope… But basically there was like a hundred bands called Nemesis, even Candlemass used to be called Nemesis before they changed. So we wanted something original, there’s so many bands now, there’s bands called Night Satan and Night Bitch, it’s just getting ridiculous, although Night Bitch does sound pretty awesome (laughs). We just wanted something that reflected the darker aspects that were creeping into the music from our Doom and Black Metal influences giving us a different type of tone and having a melancholy woven through it you know so that sort of represents all that in a way. Also when you Google it we’re the only thing that comes up, so that’s a bonus, that always helps (laughs).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnr8KQ5eCzQ
To pick up your copy of ‘The Last Caress of Light’ – CLICK HERE
