Thrashpit: First things first....why did you name your band Peril?

Peril: "We definitely wanted a one worder. One that isn't already taken(At the time it wasn't taken by any existing metal band that we knew about). And one that represents something devastating. Seems like the perfect fit to me. And if you want to say that lyrics are a factor. Our epic journey lyrics represent the struggle of a man who is definitely in peril."

Thrashpit: The NOLA scene is a thriving subculture of metal that encompasses the entirety of your home state. How does a band that has every bit as much in common with 1990's Norwegian black metal fit into the sludge-y, Southern fried scene that spawned Down, Soilent Green, and other such bands?

Peril: "That pretty much comes from the VERY wide list of bands that we like to listen to. We love almost all of the NOLA bands. We prefer the Scandinavian stuff more. But we've always enjoyed a good song that you can kick back and f***ing drink too. We could probably still drink to some bands like Fintroll and other upbeat yet still devastating things. But the NOLA bands just have that thing to them that makes you want to get f***ed up and bang your head. The Scandinavian stuff is better for playing a videogame like an RPG. Which is pretty much what we find ourselves doing more than drinking anyway."

Thrashpit: You guys almost all share a history in a previous Southern rock band. Care to recollect on that and how it has affected Peril to this day?

Peril: "It hasn't really had that much of an affect on Peril. Especially since our southern groove guy, Brad, quit Peril. :( But if we ever run across a period in our quest for death/blackness that a straight up sludgy riff can be added, we won't pass it up. New Sky Black, which was our south rock band, had cool riffs. But it lacked the heaviness and all around ass kicking that we've always wanted. After finishing the cd/demo/album/whatever you want to call it of "The Desert", we are now leaving ALL of that behind. And we don't plan on looking back."

Thrashpit: Some say musicians are their own worst critics. With that in mind, tell me about the best parts and the worst parts of 2005's "The Desert," your debut album as a band. Have any thing you wish you could change?

Peril: "YES! Many things we would change! The vocals would not have been rushed so much. That's probably the biggest thing. The vocals were definitely rushed. The reason for this is, we don't really care too much about the vocals. You might notice that for the most part, "The Desert" is an instrumental. We didn't care, but looking back, now we do. But the thing is, we did not go to a studio. It was made completely by us. After the computer crashed, with our files to edit the music on it, it was too late to make changes. What we had was what we had. Other than vocals, another thing we wish we could have changed, but don't really have much power over, is the drums. The drums were made on the computer. We could not find a drummer at the time. But with all the material we had, we felt it was definitely necessary to record. So we learned the drum kit on the PC and made our own drums. The symbols skip every now and then. It's VERY annoying. But there wasn't anything we could do about it. Sometimes when we would extract the song, there would be many skips in the drums. We pretty much had to keep extracting until we got a track that the symbols did not skip too much. It was really the best we could do. But it's still aggravating. Other than those things, there are parts that are slightly off from the drums by maybe a millisecond. Which doesn't seem like much, but if you concentrate really had and listen for these parts, you will find them. It's not horribly bad though. Now on to the things we like. We like all the guitars and bass. We like the sound. Everything pretty much came out EXACTLY the way we meant it to. Even with all the flaws we previously mentioned, this is still one of our favorite cds ever. The journeys that each song takes. The ripping solos. Fast and slow parts. And we pretty much love every riff. There is not a single riff that we are unsatisfied with. Even if you do not like death/black metal, there is no denying that these are some good riffs. It sounds cocky, but we think that we have very creative riffs. It's our bread and butter. And when it comes down to it, it's all that really matters to us."

Thrashpit: Is there any concepts behind "The Desert" and it's collection of songs? I have my own theories about it, but I'd rather let you show me the light so I don't misinterpret your hard work. Could the next album be a continuation of those themes, or an entirely new journey? 

Peril: "You are more than welcome to give us your interpretation on it. Even if it is not the same that we have. Because we feel that it doesn't matter what you get from it, as long as you like what you get from it. But to answer the question. I(Jude), and I'm sure the other guys feel the same about this, try not to think about the interpretation of "The Desert" as a whole. Because some things are amiss. Like the track "New Orleans is Overpopulated" for instance. This has nothing to do with a desert. But I still thought the sound of the song just went well with the cd. The sound from "Gunslinger" actually doesn't go with the cd though. But we like the song. Our friend, Brad, wrote it. We definitely had to keep it on there considering all the work he did on everything else. He also wrote "Crimson King" and other parts to other songs on "The Desert". What I am getting at is, I don't want to think of what this cd represents. Because as a whole, it is very mumble jumbled. I just like to pop it in every now and then and listen to the songs. The only thing that really brings all of these songs together is lyrical parts that mention a desert. Now we do have better plans for our next attempt. We have a drummer now. And we plan on moving on to more of a black metal design. But things will probably not change too much for the most part. We will definitely stick with the environment scheme. "The Lands of Ice" will be more frost bitten. And it will have more blackness."

Thrashpit: Seeing as how diverse and structured your songs are, is it difficult pulling off Peril as a live act? How exactly do the band approach the art of stagecraft?

Peril: "It's definitely hard. This isn't radio rock with simple 4 chord riffs with only a max of 6 different riffs in the whole song. Luckily for us, we click very well as a band. Me(Jude) and Deven are pretty much on the same page, considering we played in New Sky Black together. We have been playing music together for a long time. And Patrick has the same mind set as us. And there are parts that we thought would be too dynamic and wouldn't work. But we kept at it and got them straight. We currently have "New Orleans is Overpopulated" down pack. Patrick, who wrote "Crypt of Death's Betrothed", changed up parts some parts of Crypts to make it more suitable for a live act. It still kicks just as much ass, if not more. And we have "Northern Mountains" down for the most part. "Northern Mountains" is a song from our next cd, "The Lands of Ice". But yes, it is hard sometimes. But one thing we've learned is, no matter how much you think you cannot do something as a band, if you want to do it bad enough, then keep at it and you will get it right. Don't get lazy and make your songs simpler just because you want to play shows as fast as possible!"

Thrashpit: Out of morbid curiosity, what kind of bands do you all listen to? A band as unique as yours must have some pretty crazy personal tastes!

Peril: "I can tell you for the most part we like the same stuff. We all pretty much feed off of Opeth the most. Other bands include Emperor, Pantera, Morbid Angel, Crowbar, Cryptopsy, Behemoth, In Flames, etc. Me(Jude) and Patrick listen to alot of power metal. Deven isn't big on the power metal. lol. Stuff like Blind Guardian, Adagio, Iced Earth, Vision Divine, etc. Me and Patrick also like almost any kind of classical music. Some of it is boring and sucks, but for the most part we can enjoy any classical. Me and Deven listen to a little of what people would consider thrash like Slayer, old Metallica, Sepultura, etc. I'm not sure if Patrick is too big into that though. Me and Deven also listen to early 90's grunge. Like Pearl Jam and stuff like that. It has absolutely no affect on our Peril material. But all of us enjoy Death Metal/Black Metal/And many of the Southern Metal(NOLA) bands. I don't exactly know where everyone is pulling their inspirations from. But we are definitely not pulling from the crap bucket!"

Thrashpit: There's a definite old-school Western flick feel to some of your songs. Do any of you garner inspiration from things like Red Dead Revolver, Eastwood Flicks, and the History Channel?

Peril: "The History Channel, maybe. But not Western theme. Me(Jude) and Patrick are more into the epic medieval style. Deven is more of an open minded person and could probably enjoy just about anything. We didn't really intend to give off a Western theme. But if that's how it makes people feel, and they enjoy it, then that is cool. Our biggest inspirations are music and videogames probably. Games like Zelda and World of Warcraft."

Thrashpit: The American Black Metal scene is one of the strongest in the entire world right now...care to weigh in on the bands, the splits, the corpse paint, and the scene posturing? Where do Peril fit into the grand scheme of USBM? 

Peril: "Well, we're not really into the US Black Metal bands. Can't really think of any actually. lol. Even we do not claim to pull of Black Metal the way it is supposed to be. We do listen to enough of it to say that we possibly could pull it off. But we have so many other things we want to use in our music besides straight up Black Metal. Corpse paint and such, we like it. We see nothing wrong with it. But we do believe that if you had to call a particular band the "US style of Black Metal", it would be a band like us. It's almost like how the World really is. Saying Black Metal represents Europe. STRAIGHT UP BLACK METAL! Not a muddied up version. It is the real thing. Then you take Americans, which is pretty much Europeans with all kinds of different mixtures. Our kind of music represents that...sounds stupid, I know. lol."

Thrashpit: Wrap it up folks. What do you as Peril plan to do in the future?

Peril: "Shows! We are working on "The Lands of Ice" right now. It's going to be more of a Black Metal attempt for us than "The Desert" was. Then after "The Lands of Ice", we will move on to the "Pits of Fire". Which we plan on being more of a straight up Death Metal attempt. And then after that, which would be our fourth cd, we will do some kind of a Forest theme. It'll be more soft and melodic. Not much grimness at all actually. The way we plan on doing this is, any soft stuff we happen to write in the process of Ice and Fire, we'll save for the Forest. So that way we could possibly put it out at the same time as our Fire cd. So people won't be too discouraged when we put out a soft cd. And anything after that...well, we didn't think that far ahead. lol. But the best news is our new guitarist. His name is Alex. He is Russian! AND HE KICKS ASS! People will probably find this as an exaggeration, but he is without a shadow of a doubt, one of the best guitarist in Louisiana! He is constantly training. And he can basically do anything on a guitar! So you can all look forward to some ass kicking riffs and extremely bad ass guitar solos!!! Listen to Peril!!! And we want to thank thrashpit.com for showing so much interest in us. Even though we released a demo with s***ty production behind it, they still took all this time to do all of this for us. THIS IS A BAD ASS METAL PAGE! Keep it coming!"

Visit the official homepage
 

More articles for this artist

The Pit Your turn to get in the pit with your thoughts about this interview

Sorry

...end