The BIG Über Rock Interview: Jon Davis (Conan)

Written by Rich Hobson
Saturday, 05 May 2018 05:00

Quite possibly one of the heaviest bands in the UK right now, Liverpool’s Conan have been shattering ear-drums and banging heads for a decade in 2018.

As they gear up for the release of their fifth album (‘Existential Void’, due 31 August), and another run of dates around the Über Kingdom of Rock ‘n’ Roll starting this coming week, I caught up with vocalist Jon Davis at the recent Hammerfest shebang to chat the state of doom, how things are in the camp right now and what it means to three lads from Liverpool to be able to take their sonic warfare around the world.

We’ve just come back from a five-week US tour. I only got home yesterday so I’m exhausted, but Johnny (King) our drummer got back this morning, so he’s shattered! We’ve pretty much finished the recording of the new album, just got to add some vocals and mix it, then that’ll be out end of August. We’re off to Japan in a month, few tours lined up and some not announced yet so it’s looking good.

How’re you feeling at the end of the ‘Revengeance’ cycle?

It was good; different to our usual Conan sound, but I think it actually helped convince the music world that the music we write doesn’t have to be slow or just one speed. There’s a lot of different tempos and I think ‘Revengeance’ has a lot of that variation in it; it’s heavy like all the other albums, but it’s more technical. A lot of that was because of Rich (Lewis), who was a very technical player – he’s left the band now but we’ve got Johnny who is also very technical. I think you’ll see the difference between the two on the new record. I love ‘Revengeance’ though and I’m glad we got to record that with Rich – we’re very lucky people.

What value do you feel festivals like Hammerfest lend to the wider metal scene?

They’re a showcase for some of the smaller bands. And for bands like us who tour internationally a lot, the chance to play closer to home is really valuable. It keeps you in touch with the local scene, where you come from. One of the first festivals we ever played was Hard Rock Hell here – it wasn’t necessarily our kind of thing, but it was very cool and it’s great to be back here doing main stage at Hammerfest. We play festivals all over – we’ve done Maryland Death Fest recently – and it’s great because there’s an eclectic mix of people and an eclectic mix of fans. It’s good for your own profile, because you get to play with other festival-worthy bands who will bring their fans to see you.

You guys will also be playing Boomtown this summer – there’s a lot of talk about how Reading and Leeds are no longer representative of the modern metal scene, do you think Boomtown’s booking of bands like yourselves and Napalm Death shows that there’s a niche that smaller festivals can fill?

I think there’s always been a niche, but that makes it seem a bit vague really! The heavy music scene has always been there. Earache Records – the people who invited us to play – have been pioneers of that and heavy music in general for a long time. What bands haven’t been on Earache? Though, to answer my own question, Conan haven’t! But, to be invited to play their stage even when we’re not on their label is a massive compliment. A lot of the bands I grew up listening to – and still listen to today – have been or still are on Earache; it’s a fine record label.

The festival itself, it’s not really mainstream – it’s more avant garde in the way its presented. For Conan to be asked to play the Earache Stage at a festival which is aimed towards more commercial audiences – that’s very cool. We’ve been part of the underground metal movement for ten years – we’re ten years old this year from our very first demo – it’s cool where we’re at a stage that we could be invited to play a festival like that, or Hammerfest for that matter.

What are the biggest changes you’ve seen come around in the last decade?

In terms of Conan, we take everything a bit more seriously now, in a business sense. When you get to the stage where you are selling merch all over the world and you’ve got to get visas and sort royalties, you have to keep your wits about you because there’s a lot of opportunities for you to lose out. We still approach practicing and writing in the same way, but for business its more important to keep up.

In terms of the music, it’s basically the same, but there seems to be more of a place for the noisy horrible stuff that Earache loved and fostered to thrive these days. Like Boomtown – the fact we’re sharing a stage with Napalm Death or Soulfly was completely unthinkable when we started. The fact that a band like us, who are in a different genre to Soulfly or Napalm, can play with those bands means that our corner of Doom is getting more accessible in that way. It’s down to earth music and the fact we can get recognised by people like Earache for that is pretty special, actually.

You guys will be releasing a new record in a few months’ time – what can we expect of it?

It’s not a million miles away from what we’ve recorded in the past, in terms of sound and approach. We’re really happy with the new songs. We’ve recorded the album in a different way to what we’re used to – we were pretty fast about it, which is surprising when you think we lost Rich, had Dan Mullins in temporarily then got Johnny in. He toured with us in October and we recorded within a few weeks of getting back from that tour. It’s gonna be heavier than the others, few twists and turns, but it’s definitely a Conan record.

Will you be keeping the heavy blast-beat style pieces you introduced in ‘Revengeance’?

Oh yeah definitely – Johnny is more than capable of that type of stuff and it wouldn’t be a Conan record without it now! We’d be negligent to suddenly not play the mid-paced or faster stuff. And it sounds good both live and on record, so we use that to our advantage.

It also marked a darker turn in lyrical themes, will your next album be following that?

Definitely, because it’s fun to do that! Our songs are ultimately about triumph and victory and battle, stuff like that. We’re starting to bring more of a human element to some of the lyrics – not to try and be pretentious or anything – but for a song like ‘Revengeance’ we started to look more at the mindsets that might exist in the world we usually write about. Some of the negative things that might occur – the world that I think of when I’m writing lyrics. It was a lot of fun to get my teeth into that and there’s more of it on this new record.

What is the biggest thematic influence on your music?

I’m always writing down notes, whether that be a cool line from a book or something that was said, it might make its way onto our lyric sheet. I’m influenced by a lot of science fiction and fantasy stuff – like a lot of bands who write heavier stuff – I’m just taking inspiration from cool nerdy things in general. I don’t want to pigeonhole myself too much, because it varies on what I actually find. And there’s always something new to read, look at or listen to. So I combine my imagination with the black and white text I read.

With ‘Revengeance’ having that tonal shift, was there anything you learned playing the songs live that you’ll be applying to this new record?

It’s hard to articulate, but yes. I think you naturally just take notice of what works and doesn’t. Without even thinking about it, you’ll start to root out the stuff that doesn’t, and suddenly you end up writing material that just works really well in a live setting. We’re playing two new songs in this set, and they haven’t changed much from the album version in terms of structure.

How do you feel about the state of the doom scene right now?

There are more bands, so that creates more interest and more opportunities for us all. I’ve got lots of friends in this scene, so it’s good to support them. On a wider scale, we go over to the US or whatever and we play with one or two local bands, and the quality is really high. We’ve been around a little while and people respect us – we came from nothing and have been playing this before the scene had really seen a resurgence. Since 2010, when we started touring, it’s just got bigger and better. I think it’s great, we really can’t complain

‘Existential Void’ is due out 31 August 31 via Napalm Records.

Conan tour the UK with Monolord over the course of the next two weeks:

Monday 7 – Birmingham, Mama Roux’s

Tuesday 8 – Manchester, Rebellion

Wednesday 9 – Glasgow, Audio

Thursday 10 – Nottingham, Rescue Rooms

Friday 11 – Brighton, The Green Door Store

Monday 14 – Bristol, Thekla

Tuesday 15 – Dublin, Voodoo Lounge

Wednesday 16 – Belfast, Voodoo

Thursday 17 – Stoke, Sugarmill

They also play ‘The Earache Factory’ stage at Boomtown Festival, 9 – 12 August.

PHOTO CREDIT: Hammerfest photos courtesy of Simon Dunkerley/Hammerfest.

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