Ελληνικά
Night Demon is undoubtedly one of the strongest Heavy Metal acts of the last decade. Indeed many consider them as one of the best live bands that count miles out there. On the occasion of their upcoming shows in Greece, together with Cirith Ungol and the promise to leave us with the best impressions, I took the opportunity and exchanged a few words with Jarvis Leatherby about… everything! Take a look!
Hello and welcome to Metal Invader! This is Elpida and I’m pretty excited for this interview! To begin with, how’s life treating you these days? Are you getting prepared for your upcoming shows with Cirith Ungol?
Life is great! Touring the world and playing rock and roll. Doesn’t get much better than that. Yes, we are currently wrapping up our European tour with Accept, and are getting ready to head to Greece to meet up with the Cirith Ungol guys and have some fun.
Night Demon has been active since 2011 and since then its fanbase keeps constantly growing in numbers. Did you anticipate such an embrace by the crowd when you firstly formed the band?
We did not at all. We formed in 2011 with the intention of only making one EP just for fun. We were not active as a band until late 2012, then everything started to change once we started taking the band seriously. It’s been a childhood fantasy come true ever since then, being able to perform for diehard metal fans and share our music with the heavy metal community.
Your second album “Darkness Remains” followed its predecessor’s success. Both the Press’ and the fans’ acceptance was high! Are you satisfied by the general feedback you’re getting? Does it serve as a motive to keep going strong?
Yes and honestly it was very surprising. The debut was received so well, and to follow that up on the next album is not an easy thing to do. We felt a lot of pressure because of that, so we are definitely feeling the pressure again to follow it up once more. However, we are currently very motivated to write the next album and are excited for the possibilities it may bring.
It’s been almost a year since your sophomore’s album release. Now that time has passed, and you can see things from a bit of distance, if there was anything you could change, add or take away something, what would that be?
There’s always things you want to change about albums looking back, like maybe I would change some of the harmony vocals in the mx, but really yeah just small things I would change. But nothing really major. Sometimes you just need to get the job done and release it to the public. If you sit there and try to make everything perfect, you lose the soul of the music, and the project will never get finished.
Jarvis, you’ve been sharing your time with Cirith Ungol and actually have a few dates booked. How’s that working out for you? It seems hard to perform with two bands at the same night.
It takes a lot of energy to do so, but I am always up for that challenge. You only get one chance to live, so at the end of my life, I would hope people remembered me as someone who always worked hard in music and did everything he could to do more for the music scene.
In a few days, Night Demon (along with Cirith Ungol, of course) will be performing in Thessaloniki and Athens, Greece. What are your expectations from your upcoming show and what should we expect from you?
We have never been to that part of Greece (Thessaloniki), so we are very excited to see something besides the city of Athens. The Greek fans are always very passionate, so I expect a great time!
Now, a more general question. Who is the Night Demon? There’s a main dark figure in both of your album’s covers. Does this Demon take a new form in each of your releases or is the choice of this name random?
Well it’s interesting, because we actually have two guys. The guy on the cover of the EP and Darkness Remains is named Rockwell Augden Aldridge III. “Rocky” for short. He is the main mascot of Night Demon and also makes appearances on stage with the band when we play live. He is an ancient demon priest who takes the form of humans and holds the key to eternal life.
The other figure on the Curse of the Damned album cover is named “Eugene”. He is an axe murderer who has been programmed and manipulated by his father (a very powerful political man) into killing people for him.
As far as I know, you were all friends before forming Night Demon. What led you into joining forces and creating your band?
Really I think just knowing each other for so long, playing in other projects together over the years, and really just deciding that we were the best musicians that we know to play this style of music. Also one more important thing to add is that it takes the right combination of individuals not only to play music together, but to tolerate each other and live on the road for years and years. I’m proud to say that we finally have that in this band, and it’s a real blessing having everyone on the same page and working towards the same dreams and goals.
How difficult is it to filter your influences and create music that’s nor generic or follows trends of the era, like those retro-sounding new bands that keep popping up but always remind you of something else? In Night Demon that’s definitely not the case.
That’s an interesting question. Sometimes writer’s block will come into play where you feel like you’re not writing anything original, or you are just flat out uninspired. I think the key for me sometimes is to just finish songs. Even if they are bad. I just like to complete them and decide if they are good enough for us, and represent the band in a proper way. Sometimes if they suck, you find later that there may be a riff, or a piece of music from a not so good song that ends up being the link that you are searching for in a potentially great song.
What’s that certain track that you enjoy performing live and will you perform it at your show in Greece?
I would say right now we really enjoy the instrumental “Flight of the Manticore”. We will definitely be playing it when we come.
Maybe it’s a bit early to ask for such a thing, but is there any chance for new material soon?
Yes, we do plan on releasing another record in Spring of 2019. Our touring cycle usually last around two years per album, so that’s our timeline right now. However, we are feeling very inspired at the moment, and are already starting to write for the new album.
That’s all from me for the time being; thanks for taking the time to answer everything with honesty. We’ll be seeing each other in Thessaloniki. Any messages for your fans here?
Yes! Looking forward to having the time of our lives with the passionate Greek fans. There is nobody like you!
