Blistering.com: Opener “The Sickness” is one of your more foreboding and dark songs. What’s the story behind this one?
Brendan: The best way I’ve yet heard to describe “The Sickness” is that it’s a “13 minute flagellation” of a song, which sums it up pretty well, I think! Sonically, I think it’s the equivalent to a universe imploding in around you, the immense weight of sheer destructive force crashing down on your shoulders. A constant wave of intense unease and disgust suffocating the very breath from your lungs. A parasitic Asthma attack while choking on the black bile of impurity. A true sickness, of both mind and body. Of Sunday mornings and raging hangovers….
Blistering.com: The cover art for A New Disease… is unsetting. Care to elaborate?
Brendan: Its just a fantastic visualization of the music and lyrics that are found in the album it covers. We sent a copy of the CD and a few choice references and thoughts to the artist, and after several false starts, he perfectly captured visually what we could only do with music. Harrowing visuals, simple yet brutal.
Blistering.com: With that mind, how important are visuals to a band like Mourning Beloveth?
Brendan: If we had the money, I’m sure we would try to bring some of the visual representation of our music to the live environment, but that’s pretty much out of our league financially. So our foremost weapon in projecting moods and atmospheres is through the music itself, and the visuals we try keep as simple and bleak as possible.
Blistering.com: Your music has always been centered around moods and atmospheres, so does both art and real life intertwine? Certainly none of you guys could be as miserable as your music suggests…
Brendan: Only a few of our personnel traits and character is brought to MB, but when we operate within the realms of MB, we know where we need to be. We are five very different people, but have common interests. I was friends with the rest for 10 years before I joined the band, they have all known each other since school. As for our supposed misery level, I’ll let you answer that one after you’ve actually had the much sought after and highly ‘kult’ pleasure of meeting us! Your round, naturally…
Blistering.com: The band was spawned during the heyday of Gothic metal. Do you have any fond memories from those times?
Brendan: I was merely a spectator when MB was spawned, and the very thought ofGothic Metal even having a “heyday” has rendered my keyboard useless with fear. Sorry.
Blistering.com: In hindsight, do you think your geographic locale hurt the band since it wasn’t from England ala MDB, Paradise Lost, etc.?
Brendan: In the earliest days of MB, before the Rynair (Cowboy) era of cheap flights, any island locale was a hindrance, and the fact our national scene was far weaker than present was another obstacle. Nowadays, not so much, although the recent relish with which Ryanair (Cowboy) and other airlines charge extra (through the fucking roof) for transporting heavy bags/equipment on top of ticket prices, is making playing mainland Europe an expensive experience.
Blistering.com: Similarly, the band used to associated (unfairly, mind you) with My Dying Bride. Did those perceptions hurt or hinder the band?
Brendan: Well to be gracious, people will all ways use comparisons to describe music, for ease of description or pure laziness. So I guess there are a lot worse we could have been compared to. I doubt those guys would consider what we do to be remarkably similar to their music, nor us to them. Hinder or hurt MB? If half the people who own MDB albums bought our new one, I wouldn’t complain too loudly…
Blistering.com: Nowadays, Mourning Beloveth can be considered ‘elder-statesmen’ of the doom scene. Is that something you can take with a dose of pride?
Brendan: To be honest, its not something I’d dwell on, preferring to grow slightly older disgracefully, thank you. The band has been around for a long time, played a lot of gigs/tours for a band of our style, so I guess some may consider MB in that light. Which would quickly change if they ever had the again rather excellent luck of having meet us on the road. Or in the pub. Or on the floor.
Blistering.com: Do any new doom/Gothic bands pique your interest?
Brendan: There always new stuff to pique the interest, and doom is only a part of the musical mix I listen to, a large part though it is. So some new bands and indeed some new albums by more established bands that I enjoy at present would be Isole, Warning, Secrets Of The Moon, Hour of 13, Rev Biz, Pagan Alter, Enslaved, Unleashed, Desaster, Virgin Black, Graveyard Dirt, Iron Maiden, Evoken, Primordial, SerpentCult, Nifelheim, Saturnus, Mirror of Deception, Gorrilla Monsoon….
Blistering.com: Next to Primordial and to a lesser degree, Skyclad, MB is one of the preeminent Irish metal bands. Is there a tight-knit scene or is it spread out?
Brendan: I guess the Irish scene would be relatively tight knit, through sheer size and location if nothing else. Though I have slightly rose tinted reflections of the mid/late 90’s scene, a time when I first began my metal voyage, when you really did know all the local bands, the people in them, etc. These days, there seems to be a new band gigging every two minutes. And fair play to them, I hope it works out for them.
Blistering.com: Finally, what’s on tap for the rest of ’08?
Brendan: A few of the smaller fests during the summer (DOD, Metal Maniac in Romania, etc), then hopefully a small Euro trek in the autumn and we’ll see. We all work full-time, so every offer of a gig has to be carefully juggled with work commitments, not to mention private lives and general carry on and overtly metal escapades…