Interview

Paul Delaney: "Nobody Really Pays Attention To What We’re Saying"

It’s hard to gain respect as a black metal band, with many purists in the scene believing in order to be considered a black metal band you must live up to a certain standard. You must dress a certain way, have certain beliefs, and sound a certain way. Odinists can’t sing odes to Satan. Bands definitely can’t use keyboards or instruments other than traditional heavy metal drums-guitar-bass.

In the case of New York’s Black Anvil, the members are guilty of being from a region, New York, considered to be “hipster.” Many journalists focus on Black Anvil’s members playing in hardcore bands, a fact that has no bearing on the group’s sound. The group's latest record (reviewed here) “Hail Death” features elements considered untrue such as clean vocals, melodies, and even some groove.

In the following interview conducted during a tour with Skeletonwitch and Ghoul, vocalist/bassist Paul Delaney expresses frustration in that so many do not get his band. He makes its very clear that Black Anvil, is indeed, a black metal band. Expressing dark emotions, “Hail Death” is a passionate album with plenty of black metal elements such as blast beats, tremolo-picked riffs, and goblin shrieks. A reading of his lyrics brings all this passion together and puts into perspective the band’s convictions.

Rex_84: We’re meeting today on the Austin, Texas stop of your tour with Skeletonwitch and Ghoul. How is the tour going so far?

Paul Delaney: It’s been pretty impactful. We’ve been doing our thing every night and leaving our mark, so it’s been really good for us.

Rex_84: Are you gaining a lot of new fans?

Delaney: It seems like it. I was curious as to how we would be received. At first I had the mindset we were the odd band out. Then I realized technically every band is the odd band out because these are three different bands, so I went into it that way and not the other way. We’re just here to do what we do alongside whoever the fuck we play alongside. This has been great. The guys in ghoul—everyone has been fucking great! It’s a good time.

Rex_84: Do you see the styles of each band meshing well with the crowd? There is no genre-specific band on this tour, really. Everybody has their own sound.

Delaney: I can only speak for us, we’re a black metal band. It’s literally three different types of bands. Musically, there are always a couple of thrashy parts, a couple of bass riffs—there is a dude climbing over the building over there. Sketchy. (We momentarily put a halt to the interview to watch a man climb on the roof of the building behind us on the right.) It’s interesting because we take ourselves seriously, all three bands do. There is also a humorous element to Ghoul that is part of their who thing, which is completely serious, not just joke shit. Even Skeletonwitch is a little more personal on stage, a little more human that us, maybe. It all works. It all fits. There is a good balance of difference.

Rex_84: Did you play material primarily from “Hail Death?”

Delaney: Yeah, all new stuff. We felt for this run this record was for us, personally, so overwhelming and it’s everything we’ve sunk ourselves into the last couple of years writing that right now that’s the only thing we want to focus on playing. Why look back? We don’t tour like maniacs. I don’t know, it’s just the right thing to do, play some new shit.

Rex_84: “Hail Death” has been out since May. How do you feel about the album now that it’s had a few months to breath?

Delaney: It’s the best thing I’ve done in my life up until now. Even if it didn’t come out and it was just on my iPod. I’m that happy with it because of time and place and what we put into it. Lyrically, it’s a really important record. We could get back to this. You mentioned hardcore before—that’s where we get lost in translation. A lot of reviews want to focus on our past bands or the fact that we fill in for hardcore bands. We do this or we do that, but nobody really pays attention to what we’re saying. That would really answer the big question about us. “Oh, these guys are in a hardcore band.” Without the lyrics they don’t get our conviction, you know?

Rex_84: The album is titled “Hail Death.” Is this a morbid album. Does it have themes or morbidity?

Delaney: The world is morbid so in a way, yes, but we’re not intentionally trying to be morbid. I think it’s more—it’s a passionate record. It’s deep for us. We are deep. We’re not morbid in the scheme that we are trying to scare our listener.

Rex_84: Is it morbid in that it deals with themes of death?

Delaney: Yeah, and after death. I’m always focused on the fact that I’ll die, and everything will die. It’s heavy. I’ve had some heavy deaths this year alone that even changed my outlook. You think you can’t be knocked down and you’re ok with the fact that everything ends and then you lose someone and it fucks you up a little bit. But it is ok because it has to be. We’re just humans. We get upset when we lose people. If you can separate yourself from the everyday mundane bullshit and live like we do…I don’t know, it’s all about learning and accepting. That’s really the ultimate reality in life. As we move forward we run closer to it.

Rex_84: You know it will happen, you just don’t know when.

Delaney: You could be thirty-five or you could be ninety-four. It’s weird when you have an album called “Hail Death.” I’m not pro-death. I’m not like “YEAH! KILL YOURSELF!”

Rex_84: Tell me about one of your songs, the lyrics and the themes you’re looking at?

Delaney: They are all sort of very personal. I like the fact that they are vague enough you can interpret them for yourself. And it’s important. Most of them on the record are. Some of them are just something sparks it. Something simple, asshole on the train or someone in my life who is difficult. Some sort of drama. There is always some sort of thing, an idea, and we point at each other and we’re like “yeah.” Then we weird it our way. We turn it into one of our songs. There is always a spiritual thing to music writing. There is the physical writing to our lyrics and, I don’t know, we just make our shit and keep it to ourselves.

Rex_84: You mentioned it being a passionate album. I hear a lot of passion in your clean vocals. Tell me about developing this style.

Delaney: We didn’t expect when we were writing the record. I like it and I hate when you get into the mode to start something new. It’s like “what the fuck are we going to do? I know I want to do something different.” I never want to repeat the same shit. I don’t want to be a complete 360 all the time, but I feel you should always progress. The songs are becoming big, longer songs. I feel like the longer songs flow. I hope they fucking flow. I think we succeeded. For some people it’s a long record—attention spans can’t be held. Maybe they just don’t like my voice. I think for the most part it’s a pretty cohesive record. We thought maybe we could experiment and add another dimension. The whole record, for me, is like a journey so why not follow those waves and add something more to it. Maybe the next one will be nothing but blasts and yelling. I have no idea, but we felt we needed to do something outside of the box. It felt really natural, too, to do that.

Rex_84: It seems very diverse too. Part of the reason your songs are so long is because they are diverse.

Delaney: That’s a big argument about black metal. A lot of reviews say we’re not a black metal band because we don’t sound like Necros Christos or whoever the fuck. There is too much focus on what we should sound like, not like what we are as individuals in this realm. I think that’s important. Our individuality should speak for itself. People don’t buy records and look at the lyrics anymore and pay attention. They would rather put us on the chopping block. And they make assumptions on our past, a past they know nothing about, also is a big thing. Yeah, we got a weird hybrid of shit. I’m influenced by UFO, some dude on the street and we influence ourselves, too. Listen to our old stuff…it’s not original. Half of it sounds like Metallica and Kiss (laughs), but cheers. We even do a Kiss cover on the album (“Under the Rose.”) There are not many Kiss songs we can cover. That’s a weird, dark song. I love that record. I got it when I was young. My mom got it for me as an import. I loved it because it was the record I couldn’t get anywhere.

Rex_84: That’s not a record many talk about. That was “Elder,” right?

Delaney: Yes. I think it’s a good record. There are a couple of clunkers just like any record. But, for the most part, I think it’s a pretty good album. It just stuck with me because I have a personal connection, so when that conversation came up it became we should cove this. Now we’re not fucking around because Kiss is one of my favorite bands. Yeah, we’re gonna do a Kiss cover and we did.

Rex_84: “Hail Death” is the second album on Relapse Records.

Delaney: Third album. They reissued our first one.

Rex_84: Will we see more albums come out on Relapse?

Delaney: I’ll stay there until I’m dead or until we break up. I’m really happy with those guys. They treat us really well. They respect us. We don’t butt heads a lot, so there is really no reason to go anywhere else or do anything different. They get our records on the shelf. Like this tour, we play with two different types of bands and are on a label with forty or fifty different types of bands. We do our thing and they allow us. It’s a good relationship that we have.

Rex_84: Have you been on any tours that were all black metal bands?

Delaney: Yeah, we’ve done a bunch. We’ve done a couple of tours with Watain. We’ve gone out with Marduk a bunch and Aura Noir and Averse Sefira. We’ve done a lot. It seems like Europe is really starting to recognize us, which is cool. There is always trash talk because we’re an American band , hipster, Brooklyn black metal shit. But I think, judging by some of the reviews I’ve read and some of the interviews I’ve done, I think the record speaks for itself. It’s puts our head up a little bit. We’re not fucking around. It’s being acknowledged. I don’t give a fuck overall; I know where I stand, but it is good when you put this much into it and people fucking get it! Going back to Watain. I think that record they just put out is fucking great. I read some reviews where people just tore it apart. What, you trend bash and then you’re over it? You can’t sit through a record that is different? Maybe people expected so much more from it. They are a black metal band. They have a way of doing things. I think it’s a nasty record. There is some melody on it, which is really fucking cool. There is some really harsh, death metal riffing. When I first heard it I was like, “Wow! These guys are playing some shit. They are out of their minds!” It’s a good progression. It’s a step to the side. All of their records are different. It was weird reading such negative shit. It just seemed like hate for no reason. We don’t sound like a band like that. People like to say “Oh, you’ve toured with this band. You toured with that band.” Even people on this tour have commented, “Watain Jr.” What? Nah, we got a rapport with those guys. We’re friends, but I really don’t see much similarity in our music at all.

Rex_84: Are you influenced by Watain?

Delaney: Yeah, as much as there is Agnostic Front or Judas Priest. I’m a fan of the band, which is cool. I like that I can be a fan of bands like when I bought “…And Justice For All” when it came out. I m a fan and that’s great, but there is no direct influence. I don’t listen to them and want to write something that sounds like that. If anything, it leads me to be more different. I’m influenced more by bands I don’t like. There is probably some sort of influence but it’s not like “I like that riff. I want to go here.” They were a part of our lives at some point, so maybe there was a little. It’s like anything. It’s like this conversation I’ll take with me and it will go somewhere.

Rex_84: What music have you been listening to lately?

Delaney: For some reason I always freeze when I am asked this question. I put on Blasphemy to go to sleep with the other night. I’m looking through my iPod and I’m not sure what to listen to. I’m all across the board. There are some bands that I really like recently. There is a band from New York called Psalm Zero. They were put on to me by someone out of nowhere. I fucking love them! Really great band. They sort of remind me of Godflesh. Really melodic. Interesting. Really good band. That record still gets non-stop play. And the same person opened me up to a band called 40 Watt Sun. I’ve been running the shit out of that. Newer bands—I really like Beastmilk. I haven’t gotten tired of them. The last In Solitude album was fantastic. We know a million bands, but it’s good when your friend’s band blows you away and you forget who they are. Shit like that gets me psyched. Urfaust, Type O Negative is the shit we’ve been running in the van. Type O Negative to Molly Hatchet, there is all sorts of shit going on in the van. The newest Van Halen record I fucking love! I’m not a fan of the first song, but the rest of the record destroys! That inspires the shit out of me!

Rex_84: The only song I’ve heard from the album is the one they made a video for.

Delaney: “Tatoo,” that shit is crappy! I was so disappointed with that song and the rest of the record crushes. There is double bass all over the place. It’s nasty.

Rex_84: What’s next after this tour?

Delaney: Early next year we go over to Europe with Tombs, another band from New York. We just confirmed Roadburn. We haven’t announced it yet. We’re doing that and the tour around Roadburn. Tombs and we’re not sure who else will be on the European tour, but there will be another band, possibly Herder. It was a band with one of the guys from Aborted and a really good friend of ours from Urfaust. He left. They’re good.