Interview With Warpath

Last month, I headed for a weekend of metal madness at the Bloodstock Open Air Festival. I was only really there to see a few bands, but was open to checking out what else was going on. Little did I know I was about to stumble upon a new gem in British metal!

Heading back to the campsite, to avoid the rain, we were stopped in our tracks and told to check out this new band playing on the Lava Stage… By the drummer’s mum… Un-cool? Nah, her words of persuasion made us check out one of the best acts of the weekend, and that band were Warpath!

The musicianship of this band just totally blew me away, and I knew I just had to ask the lovely lady who persuaded us to watch the band, about doing an interview with the guys, so you lot got to know a bit more about a band that I think have the potential to become HUGE! (And don’t you forget who told you!)

MI: I saw you guys playing at Bloodstock last month, I really enjoyed it from the front of the stage, how was it for you on the stage?

Rich: Thank you! Bloodstock was an awesome experience. We had a great time playing there. The crowd were wicked, I saw three or four pits going which was really fun. Getting there was a lot of hard work but we’re used to that.

Pete: Yeah thank you for the compliment! Getting to Bloodstock felt like the journey that would never end, getting thrown around the back of a smelly old transit van in the dark, but it was worth it. It was a bit rushed on the stage without a sound check and with everything else going on right next to you just off the stage, but the crowd were brilliant and it was a fantastic feeling / experience playing there.

MI: For young guys, you all seem very talented. Tell us a bit more about how and when you started playing and writing music.

Rich: I’ve been trained in classical music since I was five years old, studying sight-reading, theory, performance etc up to Grade Eight. I started playing guitar at the age of fifteen, and began writing music at the age of sixteen, which is actually when I wrote "Life Unworthy of Life", "Face To Face" and "W.M.D" from the "Damnation" album. Pete and I both teach guitar too so there’s a lot of musical experience.

Pete: That’s right, I have been playing since I was 11 and taught private guitar lessons for the past two or so years. Upon joining Warpath, the album was already written so my only contributions were the guitar solos (not including “Hostile Takeover”) and the additional harmonies. But you come up with cool little riffs your whole life when you play guitar. Some are better than others and you will only hear the best from us!

James: I have always been writing music ever since I can remember. I started playing drums and keyboard at 11 years and been hard at it since. I’ve studied music for 7 years and will be continuing onwards with that in good time. I’ve written a lot of stuff during the years. If anyone is interested please check out my side project, Vertex. I also teach drums in my spare time.

MI: When did the band first get together, and how did you all meet?

Rich: I formed Warpath in 2003 in my hometown. Soon after, we started gigging across the UK and building the band’s name and reputation. We recorded our first EP in December 2005 at Bridgerow Studios in Wales, and gigged solidly for a year and a half. Our bassist at the time Gareth Allen decided to leave to pursue his education in university. He’s still quite active with the band though, managing our Website and MySpace and helping to promote us. During this time, James Davenport contacted me about drumming for us, as he’d seen us live a few times and enjoyed the music. We met up and within a few minutes I knew I wanted him to drum for us permanently. I’ve never seen a thrash drummer in the UK so precise and fast with kick drumming, so it was in instant match. We began writing and recording the tracks for the "Damnation" album during the summer of 2007. In August ‘07 we met Pete, and invited him to record on the album and then to join the band as a full-time member. His solos were exactly what we needed to complete the album as I feel they add a lot of harmony to the songs. Soon after, Joel Jordan auditioned, and the line-up was complete. We filmed the "Damnation" music video in London less than a week after Joel joined.

MI: What or who inspired you to get a band together?

Rich: Just watching Megadeth, Metallica, Guns N Roses, bands like that when I was younger inspired me to form a band. I despised school and knew that I wouldn’t be able to stick college or university, plus I’d been playing & performing music since such a young age it was instinctive to want to play music with other like-minded people.

MI: On your debut, Damnation, you worked with some pretty decent names who have worked with some really big bands, did you find that intimidating?

Rich: I didn’t really find it intimidating, as they’re such cool guys to talk to. It was awesome working with them on the album. I’m a massive fan of James Murphy’s (Testament, Death, Obituary) guitar work so it was a real honour for us when he agreed to master the album. I was talking to James Murphy a while ago actually about him mixing and mastering the next album. Orlando Villasenor is great; he did a fantastic job mixing and was very patient with everything we requested. Pete had a message from Kevin Talley (Daath, Chimaira, Hate Eternal) too saying about the killer mix of the album, which is really cool of him.

Pete: I personally didn’t find it intimidating either, the fact that like you said they have worked with the best of the best in the world of metal and they actually wanted to work on our material means they must think it’s pretty awesome stuff!

MI: You’ve been getting a lot of positive press from various media sources, how do you handle this and manage to keep your feet on the ground?

Rich: It’s great to read that these top magazines and reviewers love the album and are comparing us with our heroes (Megadeth, Testament, etc) but we try not to let it get to our heads too much. I don’t really read anything on forums on the net any more.

Pete: To be honest we are so busy working on the band, once we read a great review or comment someone leaves us, it’s like “Oh cool, that’s fantastic! Right, back to work” ha hah!

MI: You seem to have a huge fan base on Myspace. Have you found Myspace a good source in promoting Warpath and finding new genuine fans, or do you feel there’s a lot of “friend collecting” and that your music is falling on deaf ears?

Rich: I think Myspace is a great tool for exposing music to new fans. A lot of our fans are people that have heard us through the Internet and bought the album afterwards.

James: Myspace is truly one of the best ways for promoting. It takes time and hard work but it definitely pays off.

MI: Like I said earlier, I really enjoyed watching your performance at Bloodstock, are their any plans of a tour in the near future to back the album?

Rich: We’re working on a tour with a booking agency to support the album, with European shows included. When everything’s officially confirmed, we’ll announce the dates.

Pete: We all really enjoyed playing at Bloodstock, I have been going to it since 2004 and the fact we got to play there is amazing!! I’m really glad you enjoyed our set and like Rich said, we are busy arranging bigger gigs to come.

MI: So what is next for Warpath?

Rich: The album’s just gone on sale in all the major UK stores; HMV, Zavvi (the new name for Virgin Megastores), Tesco, Asda, Play.com, Amazon and others so we’re working hard to promote it. We’re planning a second music video as well as getting the ‘Damnation’ video played on the other channels. It’s just been added to Scuzz TV’s play list, which is a big step for us. We’re the first of the new UK Thrash bands to have gotten a music video played on a major TV station so we’re very proud of that and are now working to get it played on Kerrang! and MTV2. Also, we’ll continue gigging across the UK! Thanks for the interview and support!

A HUGE thanks to the guys from Warpath for agreeing to the interview! Now you know a bit more about them, please do check them out! And if you get a chance to see them live, get yourselves along! Thrash isn't normally the kind of metal I listen to, but these guys are just superb musicians and very entertaining! This isn't a*s kissing, this is my geniune enthusiasm for an extremely talented young British metal band!

Myspace: www.myspace.com/warpathuk
Website: www.warpath-online.com

Vertex Myspace: www.myspace.com/vertexproject

All pictures in the interview are used with kind permission from the band.