Project: Valkyrie

Project Valkyrie

Project Valkyrie is a newborn band that will soon unleash upon us their debut album, an album that as Peter describes in this great interview is extremely versatile and the only words that can perfectly describe it are diverse and multi dimensioned... I suppose this isn't much of a clue to you, so read the interview to find out more about this UK based band....

1.HELLO! SINCE THIS IS THE FIRST TIME WE LISTEN HERE IN GREECE ABOUT YOUR BAND, I WOULD LIKE YOU TO START WITH THE BASICS. GIVE US A SHORT BIO OF THE BAND AND WHICH ARE YOUR BIGGEST ACHIEVEMENTS SO FAR?

Project Valkyrie formed in 2002 by two ex members of Stoke rock band "Scotia Road". It was started by me, Peter Horton (Vox), Russ Johnson (Drums) and Gez Parry joined on Guitars. Pat Bonner then joined on Bass and the band begun gigging across the UK. Over the next few years the band recorded a few EPs and changed a few members (Phill Jones - Drums, Shawn Rene - Bass) before finally recording our debut album in 2005. Shortly after the band were rocked when current bassist Shawn Rene left after 2 years to move back to the USA. Shawn was replaced by current bassist Rob Houghton and keyboard player Colin Rees was also brought into the line up. The album is being released early 2006 on Psychophonic Records and will be supported with extensive UK touring.

2.ALSO MAKE A SHORT PRESENTATION OF EACH MEMBER OF THE BAND AND TELL US IF YOU HAVE PLAYED IN OTHER BANDS BEFORE.

Peter Horton - Vocals. I played for Scotia Road for 2 years with ex drummer Russ Johnson. We formed PV so that we could adopt a heavier sound and create a darker atmosphere. I also wanted PV to be fast and loud but to keep the element of melody that is often lost in metal. I am the sole song writer in the band and without a doubt the moodest bastard!

Phill Jones - Phill joined in 2003 when Russ left andd he's been working his ass off ever since. I'd say Phill was probably the hardest working member of the band now Shawns left. PV is Phill's first band but he's dabbled with groups and stuff in the past. Easily the closest personality to mine we spend a lot of time freaking each other out . Phill has a Southern Comfort addiction.

Geraint Parry - The only other original member. Gez has been the stable guitar player since the bands creation. Again PV is his first band but he's been in it so long now that he's as experienced as anyone playing live. Gez probably has the heaviest taste in music of anyone in the band and was a major part of shaping our sound early on.

Rob Houghton - New bassist. Joined mid 2005 after Shawn left. Rob has fit nicely into the band, filling Shawns role and also bringing his own influence into the group. There's a few changes to our older material that were made at Rob's suggestion after he joined and they sound great. Rob has dabbled with other groups in the past but nothing serious. Once jammed as part of a group with Phill pre PV.

Colin Rees - Life long friend of mine and probably should have joined the band a lot earlier than he did. Was PV's biggest fan for 3 years until the need for a keyboard player became great and Col was the obvious choice. Since he joined our live sound has taken on a totally new dimension and frankly it f*ckin rocks!

Shawn Rene - I gotta mention Shawn. It still doesn't feel like he's left man! Shawn got made a real good job offer back in his native USA so had to go. We've got an open offer for him to come back on lead guitar if he ever wants to and I'm slowly talking him back into it a bit more everyday! Shawn has probably done more for the band promotionally and in plain hard work than everyone else put together. If we ever got a record deal that would make this a full time career we'd get him back in a second. Watch this space......

3.YOUR BAND NAME SOUNDED TO ME LIKE A NAME THAT THE ARMY GIVES TO MILITARY OPERATIONS. HOW DID YOU CHOOSE IT AND DOES IT HAVE A SPECIAL MEANING TO YOU?

Cool! Project Valkyrie is a go! Sounds good to me. That's probably quite fitting coz that's how it's been run the last 6 months - military precision and very determined. I came up with the name after about 4 weeks of trying to think of something. I decided I wanted to be Project something because that's what it was for us at the time - it was us trying something new. Original idea was Project Loki but then I heard Valkyrie whilst playing the video game "Max Payne" and as I've always been into the whole culture of Nordic folklore it just really appealed. We nearly didn't run with it because Russ didn't like it but then out of nowhere he just changed his mind at the last minute and hence PV was born.

4.WHEN I CHECKED YOUR SITE AND READ SOME OF THE TITLES OF YOUR SONGS, I THOUGHT THAT I HAD TO DO WITH AN EPIC METAL BAND LIKE MANOWAR. HOWEVER, YOUR SOUND DIFFERS A LOT. CAN YOU GIVE US A SHORT DESCRIPTION OF YOUR SOUND, BECAUSE THERE ARE MANY PEOPLE THAT HAVEN'T LISTENED TO YOUR MUSIC YET.

Someone once said we've "got our light and shade" which I thought was perfect. At times we can be really raw, heavy and brutal but then we also have a melodic side that seems a lot calmer and more controlled. We've got an almost gothic ambience at times and and a modern crunch at others. Somehow it all fits together though and we're careful that everthing fits in with what we consider to be our sound. I think once you've heard a few songs you can spot our sound pretty quickly.

5.SINCE WE TALK ABOUT MUSIC, I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW WHICH BANDS AND ARTISTS STAND AMONG YOUR INFLUENCES. CAN YOU ALSO NAME 5 OF YOUR ALL TIME FAVORITE METAL ALBUMS?

Band wise our influences are hugely varied. We listen to a lot of old school metal - Van Halen, Dio, Megadeth, Metallica but also a lot of modern metal like Linkin Park, Trivium, Killswitch Engage. There's also a lot of calmer stuff on my part - The Beatles, Queen, Bob Dylan - I think that's why melody and lyrics are so important to me.

Top 5 Metal Albums personally:

Metallica - Black Album

Killswitch Engage - End Of Heartache

Megadeth - Countdown To Extinction

Dio - Lock Up The Wolves

Chimaira - Impossiblity of Reason

6.ONE SUBJECT THAT INTERESTS ME A LOT ARE THE LYRICS. CAN YOU TELL ME WHO THE MAIN RESPONSIBLE FOR THEM IS? WHAT KIND OF THEMES INSPIRE YOU TO WRITE ABOUT? CAN YOU MAKE A PRESENTATION OF THE LYRICS OF EACH SONG THAT YOU HAVE INCLUDED IN YOUR NEW ALBUM?

I write the lyrics - thats something I've always done since I was a really young. I usually write when something affects me - either if I'm upset, happy, angry. Anything that peaks an emotion can inspire me to write. I have been known to vent anger through lyrics and it usually sounds pretty good!

Album Lyrics
1 - By Daylight We Die: Everyone always assumes its about vampires! It could be I guess - I'm always open to interpretation. For me this song represents the divide between who you are and who you have to be in society. Personally I am very different in my life to what I'm like at work and thats kind of what this song symbolizes.

2 - Taste The Pain: It's very much a statement of independence. I think this was born out of PV's new sound and escaping the shackles of playing middle of the road rock in our old band. I consider it to be a celebratory sound in a way only a metaller could understand!

3 - Fall Away: This is about letting things go. I had a rough year 2004 and this song was just about how I was dealing with it by just not taking too much in and just focusing on the band. It has elements of submisson in its story but the happy ending is defiant....

4 - You Could: We're putting this forward as our entry to Eurovision I think.....?! Its a melodic metal love song I guess. I forget who I wrote this about now but she must have triggered something. Its an old song for us but I still love the line "I must be the spider in this mighty world of flies".

5 - Winter Of My Discontent: Complete contrast to You Could - this is an anti love song. An angst ridden middle finger at a particular young lady (you know who you are!!) who mucked me about just before I wrote the lyrics. If nothing else her timing was ace as I was getting stuck for awhile! Everytime we start this song I always laugh to myself....

6 - Eat The Dead: Inspired by George A Romero's films - I've always been a zombie horror fan and started playing around with the idea of a "dead" song. Its a bit different as it has survival elements but even so people never look at me quite the same once they've heard it!

7 - Few Against Many: I have a half Irish background and one of the things I remember as a child is being played Irish folks songs that were very us VS them. I've always been obsessed with impossible odds and heroism and this I guess was self indulgence. I love the fact that I can be full of arrogance for 3 minutes......

8 - The Unknown: Was written when we first had to start seriously considering that Shawn might have to leave soon. The idea of a huge part of your life just not being there still scares me even today and this was the basis for the song. Its primarily about fear of the unknown.

9 - The Battle For Valhalla: This is actually about the band itself. The struggle for 4 years to keep it going, financing it, replacing members etc.... and finally getting a stable line up that was like a family. Ironic as Shawn left so soon after its recording! Its a story of success though and grit determination to get through.

10 - Neverend: An old song that in some form dates back to Scotia Road days. Very old skool - I still smile when I hear the verse riff - its so Maiden!! The lyrics to this are quite random if I'm honest!

11 - Reap The Whirlwind: This was when I was living in Stoke - it was like a battlefield at times! This was about how crazy living there could be and how dark and violent the area was we were living in - yet how happy and oblivious we were in our own little contained world.

12 - Exocism: This is about dealing with your neurosis, your hang ups, and saying I am me - lets just accept it. If everyone in the world did this the world would be a lot happier. I love the last section of the song - its a message to anyone who tries to pull me down.

7.YOU ARE ABOUT TO RELEASE YOUR DEBUT ALBUM, SO WHEN WILL IT BE RELEASED AND UNDER WHICH LABEL?

The album is being released in January / Febuary 2006 on Pyschophonic Records. We were going to do it this year but with the line up changes we thought we wouldn't rush it needlessly.

8.BEFORE YOUR NEW ALBUM YOU HAVE RELEASED 3 DEMOS. WILL ANY SONGS OF THOSE DEMOS BE INCLUDED ON YOUR DEBUT ALBUM? HAVE YOU CHANGED THEM A BIT?

There's a few yeah. You Could survived from as far back as the first EP although it was a last miniute decision to include it. Eat The Dead, Taste The Pain, Reap The Whirlwind all made it. Eat The Dead we shortened a bit, Taste The Pain we slowed down because the demo was mentally fast! Reap The Whirlwind we removed the guitar solo from because it simply didn't need it. You Could is pretty much exactly the same as it ever was.

9.IMAGINE THAT YOU HAVE A LOT OF MONEY TO DO A BIG BUDGET VIDEO-CLIP. WHICH SONG WOULD YOU CHOOSE TO VISUALIZE AND HOW DO YOU IMAGINE IT?

We were going to do Eat The Dead out in the woods with lots of The Evil Dead-esque fast zooms and stuff but we couldn't afford it at the time. Might look into it again soon though. If I had a big budget I'd be interested in looking at The Battle For Valhalla - I'd want to get elements of modern metal in there but also some old school homages. There would have to be a big guitar solo moment in it!!

10.DO YOU HAVE ANY PLANS FOR LIVE SHOWS? DO YOU REMEMBER ANY FUNNY INCIDENT THAT HAPPENED TO YOU WHILE YOU WERE PERFORMING ON STAGE? WHAT SHOULD A METALLER EXPECT FROM A LIVE SHOW OF PROJECT VALKYRIE?

We once went on dressed as Star Wars characters to the theme music. We got a huge cheer from the crowd, got loads of smoke and stuff. I was drunk as hell and we all started playing wearing these masks. They steamed up in about 10 seconds and no one could see or breath!! The whole thing just collapsed and we had to stop and take the masks off - the crowd thought it was hilarious and the rest of the gig was mental - ace!! Generally we put a lot of energy in and try to get the crowd going - we feed off them a lot. We're always LOOUD!

11.LET'S SAY THAT YOUR LABEL ASKS YOU TO WRITE SOME WORDS TO ADVERTISE YOUR BAND. WHAT WOULD YOU WRITE?

I'd probably use "old school metallic aggression and restrained clean-cut modern melody" that's from a review we once got and I've quoted it on stickers - I think its a good gauge of our sound.

12.THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR YOUR TIME REPLYING MY QUESTIONS! GOOD LUCK WITH YOUR NEW ALBUM! THE LAST WORDS BELONG TO YOU AND LEAVE A MESSAGE TO THE READERS OF BEHIND THE VEIL WEBZINE.

Thanks to you guys for talking to us and thanks to everyone who reads this and listens to our album. Remember there are free MP3's at www.projectvalkyrie.co.uk and we try to reply to everyone who emails us or leaves a message on our forums.

Cheers,

Pete

Nick "William_Kidd" Parastatidis

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