“I WAS READING a book about the Chicago World Fair in 1893, and I was fascinated by the fact that in the late 19th century, people were writing about the 20th century being this age of hope; the golden age of human evolution and invention and science and technology,” says AA Nemtheanga, explaining the themes surrounding his band Primordial’s new album.
“I traced that moment to the First World War, so you go from hope to shattered hope pretty quickly.
Then I went from 1914 to 2014: war in the Ukraine, ISIS, Islamic fundamentalists on the streets of Europe. I examined all of that stuff, and tried to link a thread between the events of the last hundred years. Basically,” he deadpans with a nonchalant chuckle, “it’s like a boot in the face of anybody who has any hope.”
One thing’s for sure: it certainly ain’t no cheery Ed Sheeran or fluffy Jedward fest. Still, after over two decades in the music business, Primordial are pretty self-assured with their approach to music.
No compromises are made. There are no feelgood anthems on a Primordial record. They are, in case you hadn’t guessed, not exactly the sort of band you listen to for a quick pick-me-up. If you’re into loud, furious music with inflexible will and strong opinions, however, they’ll be right up your street.
The heavy metal band, led by the aforementioned AA Nemtheanga — or Alan Averill, as he’s known to his friends and family — are pioneers of the Irish metal scene.
Their roots go as far back as 1987, when young friends Pól MacAmhlaigh and Ciarán MacUiliam decided to start thrashing around on their instruments — but it wasn’t until vocalist Averill came on board in 1991 that things began to take shape and structure.
They’re not a name familiar to many in Ireland, but further afield, Primordial have been deities of the black metal scene for quite a long time.
Averill — not nearly as intimidating as his war-painted stage persona (which means ‘Poison Tongue’ in old Irish, FYI) — articulates his anger eloquently in person.
He comes from a musical background, although is reluctant to describe it as ‘musical’ as such; his uncle Steve Averill played in punk band The Radiators and is best known today as the designer of U2’s album sleeves; his cousin Rowan played in the indie band Director, his other cousin, drummer Gareth Averill, plays under the moniker Great Lakes Mystery, and his London-based cousin Jon is a well-known club DJ.
“Somehow quite a few of us fell into playing music,” he nods. “I’m not sure how that happened — I wouldn’t say any of us are particularly talented, but there’s something there. But it was always metal for me. I grew up in the late eighties, and remember seeing some of the bands — the Metallicas and Slayers of that era — and thinking ‘I want to be on the other side of that barrier, on the stage’.
As a 13 or 14-year-old, you mess around in school bands where no one can really play. Then I wanted to take it more seriously.”
The story goes that he saw an ad for a vocalist for the band based in Skerries, north Dublin, on the wall of alternative music shop Sound Cellar. “It’s true,” he explains. “I was the only person who replied to that ad. It sounds a bit Hollywood-esque, but it just worked out that way.”
He accepts that Primordial are pioneers of the Irish metal scene, but in the early ’90s Dublin was not a particularly supportive or inspiring place.
“There was no places to play,” he shrugs. “We played on the floor of pubs; we didn’t even know what monitors were. There was a small gang of us who used to go see the bands in the ’80s, and they were always trying to rely on some mythical A&R man from Island Records to come down and see them.
But we were underground guys. We wrote our black-and-white-copied fanzines, we made demos for £50; we didn’t have the good instruments or gear, but we did have a good understanding of a scene from Peru to Siberia that you would write letters and trade tapes with. We subverted all of that. There was no A&R man from a major label coming down to see any of us, so we created our own little DIY scene.”
Over the years, Primordial’s fortunes have varied. As their fanbase in Europe steadily grew with releases such as their debut Imrama (1995) to 2011’s Redemption at the Puritan’s Hand, they remained on the fringes on the Irish scene.
Even today, their Irish fanbase is faithful but far from enormous.
“I don’t take it personally,” he says, shrugging. “Maybe in my mid-twenties, it was a bit more difficult to comprehend. I think it’s just symptomatic of what’s happened in Ireland since the end of the ’80s and early ’90s, and our relationship to sub-cultures and alternative culture in general.
I think when we had our little moment in the sun with a bit of money, we became a bit materialistic and our relationship to subcultures and what they represent deteriorated.
People embraced this vacuous, sort of hollow, celebrity-obsessed lifestyle, and that had a kick-on effect to everything. I think what you’re witnessing in Ireland in 2015 is the ultimate victory of pop culture. We have grown people who think that’s it’s OK as an adult to listen to music made for 12-year-old girls.”
He can understand why people gravitate towards such music, he reluctantly admits, but it’s something that continues to stoke his creative fire.
“Personally I don’t really have an ‘off’ switch for something like that, which maybe makes me intolerable sometimes,” he laughs. “But I understand why people do: to turn off from a world that is so unrelentingly dark and extreme.
So I understand why people share memes of cats. I can understand why people switch off the news and watch the X Factor, or whatever. I can’t relate to it, but I can understand it. It does make them part of the problem also, though.”
Although influenced by the country of his birth, Averill has never been one to shy away from controversial statements about it either. Over the years, he has denounced both the Irish Government and the public for the lack of outrage on contentious topics.
Some of his songs have touched on everything from the famine (The Coffin Ships) to clerical sex abuse scandal (Ghosts of the Charnel House, taken from the band’s new album).
“People don’t like to hear it, it really rubs people up the wrong way,” he admits.
“I used to say that I was against the State and against the Church and for the people, but now I would say that I’m against the Church, State and people… They don’t want you to tell them that the State is rotten and has been rotten for a hundred years, and that the dreams and romantic notions of all these people from 1916 actually came to nothing.
So y’know, it’s part-anger and part-brutal realism — and the fact that people need to have this stark reality smashed in their faces, I think. That’s one of the reasons why the band is the way it is; I at least never lost sight of the energy, hatred and anger that should be the blueprint of proper heavy metal. That sense of alienation, that sense of sacrifice, that sense of being ‘against’.”
Averill views his output with Primordial as continuing the lineage of some of Ireland’s greatest cultural icons.
“I don’t have any kids — but if and when I do, and they get to their teenage years and pick up a [Primordial] album and say ‘OK, so you wasted your life singing about killing prostitutes or killing zombies’ or whatever — I would feel that the opportunity to try and say something had been completely wasted.
I do view it as there’s a lineage to people like Yeats, without sounding too pretentious. To me, it’s art — not entertainment. Obviously if you just want to listen to a song like Empire Falls as simply a German nightclub heavy metal dancefloor filler with a big chorus, it can be that, too.
But I just think that not enough people take things seriously anymore. And Primordial is deathly serious. I suppose that, in a modern age that praises emptiness and banality, makes us very at odds with popular culture. It’s probably a reason why it makes it difficult to resonate with some people. Sitting through an eight or nine-minute dirge of hatred and melancholy isn’t exactly what they want,” he laughs.
“But for me that’s good, because you have to at least represent or make a stand for something, in that respect.”
With their eighth studio album Where Greater Men Have Fallen topping many end-of-year lists in European metal strongholds like Scandinavia and beyond, there is still plenty of work to do with Primordial.
Averill has been involved in several other collaborative projects over the last few years, including fronting metal supergroup Twilight of the Gods, but says that the fire in his belly with Primordial has not been quenched after nearly 25 years.
He picks out names like Malthusian and Zom as young Irish metal bands to look out for, but he’s not ready to hand over his mantle just yet, either. There is much more to be said, and he is readily prepared to say it.
“It was never the intention to be the biggest band, or the biggest of anything in particular,” he says, shrugging.
“That never really interested me. But to never have compromised and for Primordial to still be going is an achievement. Obviously it’s very important to have growth; you have to feel like you are going somewhere.
But when you get a little bit older, it’s important to keep the energy of the band relevant; to know that you sound vital and committed. To me, that’s the most important thing. To still sound like you mean it.”
Where Greater Men Have Fallen is out now
