Horrified Interview

Horrified are a relatively young old school influenced death metal band hailing from the North East of England. Their rise from demo band to fully label signed band was been rapid to say the least, so UKEM decided to quiz Guitarist / Vocalist Dan Alderson and get a brief insight into the band!

For those unfamiliar with the band, please give us a brief history of the band and its members?

Horrified started as a studio project, which began with the recording of a three track demo which was released in 2013. It evolved into a full band with the current line up we have now, which consists of:

Matthew Henderson  - Drums (Plague Rider, Live Burial)

Ross Oliver - Guitars (Risen Prophecy, Vacivus) 

Dan Hughes - (Winds of Genoicde, Prolefeed, Rotting Bull)

Dan Alderson - Guitars , Vocals (Starborn)

Who came up with the band name and what is the influence behind choosing such a moniker?

I came up with the name as it sounded in-line with our initial influences and our lyrical concepts.

You guys have just released your debut album via Memento Mori, how did the deal come about and how are you finding working with such a great label?

I had Raul, the label owner on Facebook for a while. I contacted him showing some pre production of the album and the rest is history. I'm honoured to be apart of the label, I never expected to even get signed at all or for the album to make the impression it has on the underground death metal community, its humbling really.

Musically, who influences you, if anyone at all? 

All forms of good metal, my biggest influences range from Edge of Sanity and Dan Swano, Dissection, Dismember, Carcass, Horrendous, Morbid Angel, Garden of Shadows, Emperor, Sacramentum etc etc. I'm just as influenced by melodic metal as well, bands like Anubis Gate and Pagan's Mind are just as big of influence on me currently.

What themes and topics do your lyrics deal with?

Conceptual surrealist horror stories and mental health issues.

Composing songs can often be a frustrating process, how do you go about it?

Usually just jamming riffs and ideas, then tabbing them up in Guitar Pro so I can jam along to midi files and tab up harmony and drum ideas and, lock in the overall arrangement of a song to.

What could we expect from one of your live performances?

High energy and frantic intensity to represent the feeling of sheer fear and anxiety expressed in our music and vocal approach. 

Plans for the future?

I'm currently writing material for the next album and I'm very pleased with the progression so far, I've have taken influence from melodic styles of black and death metal and infused them into our original sound, Where going for a more dynamic and hopefully more original sounding album next time. We will be starting to record this towards the end of the year and will slowly work on it throughout 2015. We plan to gig every so often when its worth for us to play a show also.

What merch do you currently have available and where can we get it?

Currently just name your price download from our bandcamp, however we will be stocking hard copies of our album soon, once I have received our copies from Memento Mori, we may do shirts in the future. 

Any final words?

Thanks for the interview and keep up the good work with UKEM Chris!

Band Page: Here