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 Having been persuaded to reform by Cradle of Filth's Dani Filth, Sabbat have been playing the odd festival here and there throughout the last year, but what does the future hold for Sabbat? What are their plans for the future?
Komodo Rock's Krissy Elliott sat down with the band at the Hard Rock Hell festival where Sabbat had performed earlier in the day to try and find out more.
Krissy Elliott: It's been a great weekend, some good laughs, a bit of
controversy. How was it when you played, did you have a good time?
Andy Sneap: Yeah it was alright. Our set got moved earlier, which was a bit of a shame.
KE: Was it not very busy when you played?
AS: It was alright, obviously a lot of people
didn't know that our set had been moved forward by an hour, which
seemed like a bit of a dumb thing to do if you ask me, obviously people
who had come here to see us, probably missed us.
Martin Walkyier: And all the other bands they wanted to see that had been rescheduled.
KE: You guys have been around for absolutely fucking ages.
Gizz Butt: Steady!
MW: We were around and then we went away, and then came back. We're the herpes of heavy metal aren't we!
AS: Yes.
KE: You thought they were gone and then they're there again. So what brought you back, is there a metal revival going on?
AS: It was Cradle of Filth actually, I was
producing the Cradle of Filth album, and Dani was a huge Sabbat fan,
and he talked us into it. It was actually my birthday. Martin had come
round, and we were having few beers, talking rubbish, and by the end of
the night we were booked onto the UK dates of their Christmas tour. So
we did that, and then we did a few festivals this year, nothing out of
the ordinary, just doing a few select dates.
KE: More for enjoyment?
AS: Yeah totally.
MW: Absolutely.
KE: What you doing otherwise? Your working doing producing?
AS: Yeah.
MW: I print t-shirts, do my own merchandise label if you can call it that.
GB: To get the money I teach, I run a rock school, but I play in a
ridiculous amount of bands, I'm a right whore! Fields of the Nephilim,
Crass, The More I See, too many really, but Sabbat's great, it's a
great band to play in.
KE: So are you planning on doing anything as Sabbat in the near future other than the odd select dates, or is it just for fun?
 AS:
Nah it's just for fun. We're piecing the DVD together of some of the
shows we've been doing, we've got some US dates next year, the first
time the bands ever been out there. If it's easy enough for us to do
then we'll do it. We've all said that it can't be too much of a strain
on our normal lives, if you want to call it that. We're not looking at
a long term career now, it's more a if we can get out there and play to
old fans, make a few new ones along the way, have some good times, then
that's what we're going to do.
MW: Thing is, the music, it is really genuine. It comes over so strong
and focused. I'm talking as a bit of an outsider, so I'm not blowing my
own trumpet here.
KE: Times have changed though, all these bands are throwing everything
out on the internet, it's all about myspace, and it's not about albums
it's about downloads. What do you guys think about that. Your working
in the industry producing...
AS: I think it sucks to be honest. For a band to keep going and survive
financially, record sales is a huge part, and for me as a producer,
sales are a huge part. If kids are thinking downloading is clever, a
great way of sharing music, then all they're doing is putting the final
nail in the coffin for a lot of these bands, and the music industry to
be honest.
With iTunes, and other ones where you pay to download, it's another
avenue where there's money coming, but still, the returns on that are
not as good as CD sales. It's not even like the old things on your old
vinyl's that said taping is killing music, it's not even like that, it
really is sucking the life blood out of the industry. If there's not a
way we can address it soon, there's certainly going to be a weaker
scene throughout.
MW: The money has got to come from somewhere if the kids want a top quality product...
AS: You can guarantee the first ones to be moaning about this will be the ones who have been downloading it for free.
KE: Isn't that always the way?
AS: Yeah, so I don't think it's changed for the
good. The thing I like about the internet is how instant it is for
bands to get something out there, but, I get so many bands contacting
me saying “myspace blah blah blah”. I don't even check it out now, you
don't even need to put any effort in to put a demo up on the net, where
back in the day when we were going, you were printing colour covers,
putting things in envelopes, and making the effort to get in touch
with people.
MW: It's the culture of going into a record shop, all the weirdos, the
prat with the Morrisey haircut behind the counter, the bunch of
straight looking girls in the corner, and you always avoid the guy that
looks like a skinhead. It's like the whole experience of going in there.
KE: It's social, it's culture, and it's about having things.
MW: Real things. In the day, if someone turned
you onto a new band, you take that album round to your mates place and
play it, now you just email it to them or send them a link to the
myspace page.
KE: You don't even need to speak to your mates any more to tell them how great it is.
MW: It's great in a way for the young bands that
need to get out there, but once those young bands become established
bands it's going to work against them, cause they're not going to make
any money off the music. Like Andy said earlier, something's gotta give
or where is it going?
KE: I think it is true that people are so removed from their
entertainment, and where things come from now, that it just appears in
cyberspace, it doesn't cost anyone a thing to make this, it doesn't
matter.
MW: If you were stealing a tin of beans from a
supermarket you'd get arrested and locked up for it, but if you
download something...
KE: They can't police things on the internet though, it's too vast.
MW: You can setup a server in Holland, anywhere
in the world, and you can put what you like online for people to
download. I don't know if it's a good thing or not.
AS: A double edged sword.
MW: It is, as everything humanity invents, it has it's pros and cons,
and then you realise that that's good in some ways. You can just google
something, you can bluff your way through convincing someone your an
expert.
GB: I do like YouTube though!
KE: Why?
GB: I love being able to, if I have an ancient memory of a TV advert.
AS: I was just going to say adverts. All the old 70's ones, I was looking up Watch Out Watch Out There's a Humphrey About.
GB: The Pepsi ad with the lipsmacking.
 KE: Lipsmacking Pepsi Cola!
GB: Yeah!
KE: What are we all trying to do then? You mentioned your kids before and taking your kids out...
MW: To the record shop.
AS: He takes them to Sainsbury's for their Sunday lunch too, and they
try and eat as much in the store before they get to the checkout.
GB: Like the Pizza Hut buffet!
KE: I find sometimes you have to work hard to make it make any sense to
the younger generations. What we're used to, and how things have
changed for them and their peer groups. I think sometimes the adults
have to take responsibility for educating the younger ones, that it
wasn't all click there it is, and actually had to go to a shop and buy
an album, and select it, and collect it.
MW: They make us what we are.
AS: I think there always will be a market for it. People like to have
the genuine, proper thing. Obviously it's effecting record sales, the
way it's going, but there'll still always be the shopping culture.
MW: In a way it started with CDR's. One person buys a CD, and for ten pence a CDR, runs off fifty copies for their mates.
GB: It depends on the character of the person as well though. I like to
have the real thing, I don't want to copy it all the fucking time,
beside that, CDR's that are more than 10 years old are now dieing.
AS: It's an actual dye that effects on there, it only has a life span
of 10 or 15 years. We don't know the life span of hard drives either,
I've had quite a few die on me. You don't know in 50 years time if
these things are going to play, your not gonna have the systems to play
it on, but you can guarantee those old 78 albums will still be in the
attic.
GB: He had a hard drive die once with a load of my stuff on it.
AS: Oh god yeah, cost me a fortune, must have cost me £10,000 in re-recording costs.
KE: Not funny.
AS: Yeah, you could here it clicking...
KE: It's quite frightening. If you scratched a record, if you put your finger on the stylus long enough it would play.
AS: Two pence piece wasn't it!
KE: It fucking worked! If you scratch a CD you can polish it on your
trouser and it might just about work. If your hard drive goes...
AS: You can repair them can't you?
MW: I've got some CD cleaning stuff and it does actual work if it's got a superficial scratch on it.
KE: Things have changed a lot, and keeping up with that is really hard
for bands, you might as well be a medieval musician apart from the
amps, it's an old skill.
GB: The kids still love it though. I played a gig
in the community where I live, and there were all these ten eleven year
old kids right in front of the stage and they were totally screaming.
It's in them.
KE: I think it's a primal thing, to make the music with your hands,
give them pots and pans when they're kids and they do it, but now we
give them technology, and now they just sit there and click, and I
wonder if they're going to rebel and pick up guitars and drums, and go
sod this.
GB: They are doing, I can tell you that for a fact.
KE: Bit by bit you see them fighting it. Really rebelling against the
restrictions that on them, when apparently they're supposed to have
this freedom they're supposed to have, they feel restricted sometimes
by the technology.
MW: I think if you asked a young kid today how
you became a famous musician, none of them would say learn an
instrument and join a band and get together with your mates and jam and
record some songs. They'd all say go on X-Factor, or something like
that, they've got this idea that you go on that's and that's what you
have to do.
KE: The whole idea of what famous is has changed though, and what celebrity is has changed.
MW: It certainly has.
KE: You don't haver to a skill or a talent to be famous.
 MW:
You can be famous for being famous can't you, it's bizarre. When a lot
of people with shit loads of talent don't get appreciated, and people
who are just idiots, and they're like front page news because of
whatever, they've had a nervous breakdown, and it's like what have you
ever done?
KE: And like what's your nervous breakdown got to do with us?
MW: And we don't know who you are, you've never
made a film, or a piece of music, or written a book or anything.
They're the new celebrities.
KE: Times have changed, so how do bands like you fit in?
MW: We're not trying to are we?
AS: No. It's not a consideration for us we're just doing our thing.
KE: And enjoying it, and people are enjoying it regardless?
AS: We've never tried to fit in. We've always not
concerned ourselves with the genres that are going on at the time, and
what the magazines are saying, we've just done our thing, and you
either like it or you don't, and if you don't there's another band out
there for you.
MW: I think that's kinda why it still works today. Back in the day we
weren't following any fashions or trends, it was that off the wall,
thrash metal with a load pagan influences and weird stuff thrown in
with quirky time changes. It was never something really commercial.
AS: No.
GB: Totally different.
KE: Lasting appeal then because it doesn't fit into a lasting trend.
GB: It's thrash metal with maybe a hint of black metal.
AS: A twist of men in tights!
KE: Was there such a thing as Black Metal back in the day?
AS: Yeah, we invented it!
KE: So what have you guys got on your iPod's or CD players or stereo systems at the minute? What you into at the minute?
GB: Nothing!
AS: Yeah nothing, I work with music every day, day in day out, I don't. Why would I do my job when I'm trying to relax?
MW: It's a shame in a way, I've been a bit like that way at times, and
it's a shame in a way that because you're working with something, I
don't listen to music loud, because of what I do for my job.
GB: The Haunted. Yeah I love them.
MW: Yeah, I like them.
GB: Arch Enemy. Brilliant.
MW: I'd say Billy Talent are one of my favourite bands at the moment,
not strictly metal, but very very clever lyrically and musically.
A big thank you to Andy, Martin and Gizz for taking the time to talk with us.
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