Greg Mackintosh Talks About New Vallenfyre Album ‘Splinters’

By Andrew Bansal

Three years ago, Paradise Lost guitarist Greg Mackintosh started a crusty doom-death side project called Vallenfyre, donning the new role of frontman and recruiting Paradise Lost band mate Adrian Erlandsson on drums along with Hamish Glencross (My Dying Bride) on guitars and Scoot (Doom/Extinction Of Mankind). The quartet released their debut album ‘A Fragile King’, lyrically based on Greg Mackintosh’s expressions resulting from the personal tragedy of his father’s death, and now Vallenfyre is ready with the follow-up album ‘Splinters’, due out on May 12th in Europe and May 13th in North America via Century Media Records. A week ago, I spoke to Greg Mackintosh on the phone to discuss this new album and all things Vallenfyre. Check it out below.

Greg, pleasure having you on Metal Assault, as always. Vallenfyre is a band that was born three years ago out of personal tragedy in your life, and that gave rise to the debut album ‘A Fragile King’. And now you’re ready to release the next album, so how have you managed to keep that same feel? Are you still writing lyrics about the same content or is it inspired by something else this time?

Yeah, it’s a more general thing this time. Like you said, the debut album was definitely about the one specific thing, but this time around there’s a couple of tracks that deal with grief but more on a long-term basis as if affects you going on through life, but the rest of the songs deal with all kinds of things, like self-medicating, mental illness, intolerance in society and things like that, just anything that makes me angry, really. The reason for doing another record was because we had a lot of fun doing the first one and we just had so many good ideas, and as much as anything, we wanted to do a record that actually sounded like its own band, if you know what I mean. The first record was very much meant to be a retro record, kind of old-school homage to bands we’re into, but on this record we wanted to develop our own sound if possible, to make it such that within the first 20 seconds of listening to it you can tell that it’s Vallenfyre and not just a cover band, you know.

Right, but obviously three years ago you were not thinking about making it a long-term band, right? You just wanted to do it at that moment and that’s what you did.

Yes, it was a spur-of-the-moment thing. Vallenfyre altogether has pretty much been a spur-of-the-moment thing, really. We’ve never made plans to do anything. It’s all like, if we want to do something we’ll do it. It’s not like the other bands that plan to massive degrees.

For this album, when did you actually start writing the music. I know you were on a whole touring cycle for the last Paradise Lost album ‘Tragic Idol’.

Oh yeah, we did quite a bit of touring for that. But as for this Vallenfyre album, I’ve probably been writing it for the best part of a year, may be, throwing ideas around with the other guys in the time that I had off from touring with Paradise Lost, trying things around and putting it together. So it was over the course of about a year.

As you were saying, musically you seem to have found a little bit more of your own sound on this one. Is that the biggest difference between this album and the last one, which derives more from influences?

That’s one of the biggest changes, for sure, but I think another thing that would strike people that heard the first album is, this one is a lot more extreme in every way, I guess. The slow stuff is slower, the fast stuff is faster, the angry stuff is angrier. It’s generally pushed to the limits more than the first record, I suppose. Obviously the production is quite different on this as compared to the first one. It’s definitely more of an extreme production. It’s very messy, but that was intentional. We wanted to make a record that was spontaneous and not polished. It wasn’t about making the perfect album, but rather about making one with a good vibe.

I feel that this style of crusty death-doom is quite prevalent these days and a lot of bands are doing it. In that sense it’s a good time for you to be doing this band because there’s an audience for it, right?

Oh, I don’t know, one of the good things about Vallenfyre for me is, I tend to not worry about that side. I’m not bothered about it. There’s no pressure on me, and there’s no expectation. It’s just about doing a good job and putting it out, no matter who the audience will be, you know.

Paradise Lost is also dark music but it’s so different, and totally an opposite vibe in many ways. That also must be a reason why Vallenfyre is more aggressive because it’s like a different expression.

Yeah, Paradise Lost to me is a kind of classy, polished, somber dark mood. Vallenfyre to me is quite the opposite to that. It’s rough and ready, and uneasy and angry. It’s really easy for me to separate the two because they are kind of like two sides to a personality. Even though they’re both dark concepts, like you said, they’re two very different ways of looking at it.

Right, but when you’re on tour with Paradise Lost or when you’ve involved in the cycle for that band, does Vallenfyre come to your mind at all or are you able to totally separate the two in terms of the working process?

I can kind of separate it. It depends on what I’m doing. If I’m writing a new Paradise Lost album, which I am at the moment, then I’m completely in the mode of writing Paradise Lost. But when I was writing Vallenfyre, I was touring and doing gigs with Paradise Lost and wasn’t trying to be creative for Paradise Lost. I think being creative and playing it afterwards are two totally different things. For instance, during the time the first Vallenfyre record came out, I was doing a couple of festivals where I was doing Paradise Lost and Vallenfyre on the same day, which is quite tiring but it’s not the same as writing new music for both bands. I think that would be more difficult.

For Vallenfyre, what plans do you have? I believe you’ve played shows mainly in the UK and Europe and haven’t really taken it on a global level yet.

Yeah, we’ve played festivals mainly. The first show was in Finland when the first album came out. Then we did Bolt Fest, which was a show put on by Bolt Thrower with Autopsy, Discharge and Benediction, and it was for a cancer charity. Then we did Party San and Summer Breeze festivals in Germany and the Damnation festival in the UK, so we’ve done a few over Europe, but my plan for this album is to hopefully get to the States within the next year. I’ve been talking to some guys at Decibel Magazine and we hope they might be able to make it happen sometime within a year.

That’ll be great! You said that playing with both bands live is tiring, but if required and if that’s the only way you’re going to get to take Vallenfyre out, would you do it on a touring basis?

If it was the only way to take it out, may be. But I don’t necessarily think that the two bands fit together too well in the live setting. I don’t think the music is too complementary to each other, if you know what I mean. Plus, with Vallenfyre I don’t want to overdo it. I want to keep it special, to where it doesn’t become like a long touring thing. It’s got to be something that’s exclusive, and feels special.

Right, so I have one final question for you. When you’re in the mindset of writing music, like you are now with Paradise Lost and did it for Vallenfyre before this, do you try to seek inspiration from other music or do you stay away and just focus on your own music?

No, I listen to lots of stuff! I listen to lots of extreme stuff, and old stuff from my youth. I also listen to classical music and various other things. It depends on what mood I’m in, like anyone, really. If you’re in the mood for something sedate, then you listen to something sedate, and the same goes for when you’re in the mood for something angry (laughs). So it’s no different from anyone else but I try, specially with Paradise Lost, not to let any one form of music completely override another as far as influence goes. With Vallenfyre it’s a little bit different but with Paradise Lost we try to keep ourselves open to whatever influences come our way.

Vallenfyre links:
Vallenfyre.co.uk
facebook.com/Vallenfyre 
twitter.com/Vallenfyre 

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