Sanktuary - Raising the horns even higher

Sanktuary from Canada play good old Heavy Metal that way us older Metal fans remember it.Big Crunchy riffs,solid drumming and some classic soaring Metal vocals that would have gone down a treat in the days of NWOBHM.There is a lot of bands picking up again the classic Metal sound and i have interviewed a couple of them already but i believe Sanktuary are one the best.Here is a interview with Cole from the band and we get the lowdown on how they have arrived at this point.Raise your horns now !

1. Thanks for the interview. First off give us the story on how all you guys got together to form this band?

No problem, our pleasure! It all basically began back in high school with Anders and Alan being jam buddies. Cole was long time friends with both of them and one day it was brought up that Cole should take up bass and they should start a band. One thing led to another and everything just seemed to fall into place. After trying out a few guitarists and doing a handful of live shows as a three piece Glen showed up to one of the gigs. After the show and a few brews later we asked him to come out and jam and everything seemed to click... so here we are a few years down the road from that one fateful night!

2. The band plays I guess what you could call Traditional Metal. Is that the style you always wanted to play?

We never really type casted ourselves into playing a particular type of metal. We always just wrote stuff that we wanted to hear and I guess that just turned out to be a classic style, although that was never really our direct intent.

3. Are the guys in the band into different forms of Metal also, like Doom Metal etc?

Yes, definitely. Our tastes vary greatly from all different areas of the metal spectrum including doom. We believe that this wide variety of influences gives us our particular sound.

4. What were the first Metal bands that ever got your attention?

There are a few cliché answers we could throw out there (Metallica!) but there were a multitude of bands that got our attention at an early age. Many of these bands hailed from the NWOBHM movement and the early 80’s Bay Area thrash explosion. It would be unfair to name a couple in particular and there are far too many to list them all. Once we discovered one band it wasn’t long before we were listening to ten others from the same scene.

5. What is the local scene like for bands like yourself?

The scene is very up and coming. There are a number of well established bands that are regulars on the circuit and know it well but there are also a growing number of younger bands that are just getting their feet wet. Over the last year especially we've noticed the crowds getting bigger, younger and rowdier which is really fuckin exciting. It's almost at the point where the underage shows are even more fun than the clubs cause you get all the kids coming out and moshing with each other on their sugar highs.

6. The CD you sent me has a classic 80's Metal scene and yet doesn't sound dated at all. Do you hear yourselves as being 80's in sound? I know when you are in the band you sometimes hear things differently than others.

We've definitely been labelled as a classic 80’s style band but like we mentioned previously that was never our direct intent. We do have a lot of old school influences which probably show themselves through our tunes but the bottom-line is we write music that we believe in. The culmination of all of our influences from old to new gives us our sound and our creative edge is what differentiates us from other groups.


7. In the last couple of years "True Heavy Metal" bands have gotten a little more recognition. Do you think a lot of people are a bit tired of the Black/Death/Thrash Metal music that has dominated the Metal scene for so long now?

Absolutely. We believe that people are always out there looking for something new and fresh even if has been done years before. Music also tends to go in cycles, so in the same breath something that has been labelled dated these days may be back in style at some point down the road.

8. You are all good players. Do you rehearse a lot and do you sit down to write songs or is it more of a "jam thing"?

Yes, we rehearse and jam quite a bit and that is definitely helping us grow and get better as musicians and as a band. It’s a bit of a combination of jamming and sit down writing. Usually an idea, a couple of riffs or even just a song title is brought into a jam and then we'll decide if it is something we'd like to play around with. If it is we'll sit down and learn it, discuss the structure and then jam the shit out of it until it sounds like butter!

9. What does the future hold for live performances? Have you got much planned?

Well right now we're in a bit of a writing frenzy. We have so many ideas and songs on the go that we are practicing full time so that we can get them out there for the summer. We will be playing as much as possible all summer and may possibly be relocating down south to a major city near the beginning of fall. We would also like to record a follow up demo sometime near the end of summer which will blow the first one out of the water!

10. Have you sent out the CD to many labels?

A few. As any band knows, promoting is a full-time gig in itself. For the past while we've been focusing on sending our demo out to radio stations for air time. We've been receiving a lot of positive feedback so hopefully that translates into maybe having some label interest when we do start getting lots of our press kits out.

11. What’s the long term ambitions for the band?

Well the biggest long term ambition would be to just keep doing what we love doing and that’s making music. We've got a lot of new material on the go and like we said we're hoping to record another demo at the end of the summer. Once the new record is all polished off we'll most likely try and toss it to a couple of labels and see if one of them can't throw some cash our way to help us record a full length.

12. Have you contacted anyone about a possible road trip around the US?

Not yet, but that’s one of the top things on our to do list. We're hoping to set up some Canadian/US dates real soon!

13. What is in your opinion the real home of Metal? England, Germany?

That is definitely a tough one. No one can deny that the NWOBHM was a major metal movement and there were bands much earlier out of Britain that you could say had a metal feel but Germany also spawned a slew of great bands around the same time. We’re gonna go the safe route and just give it to Europe.

14. Is the song writing shared among all the band members and who comes up with the lyrics?

The song writing is completely shared. An idea may be brought forth by one member but not until it passes through the scrutiny of all of us does it become a finished product. We don't believe in having only one 'mastermind' write all of our tunes... we've got four goddamn masterminds! Heh, but seriously, unless your Dave Mustaine the songs will only suffer without everyone’s input. The same goes for the lyrics.

15. Who are the main vocal influences for the band? They sound so classic!

Again, that's a tough one. There are tons of singers that we love and take ideas from but it is totally a combination of influences. Anything from Tom Araya to Jason Decay to Geddy Lee and everyone in between... as long as you don't sound like Fred Durst you'll most likely be in our good books.

16. Last one, tell everyone how to get hold of a CD and how they can support the band...

Well if you are in and around town you can head on down to Triple J’s Music where we sell our stuff exclusively, or you can email us at hume_c@hotmail.com and we will be glad to hit yah up with whatever you need. Other than that you can support the band by coming out to shows, gettin drunk and having a good time... that's all the support we need. See you on the road.




http://www.myspace.com/sanktuaryslays