Shrapnel Interview

Joe catches up with Jae and Chris of Shrapnel at the London Underworld while they are supporting Destruction.

How are are you both?
Jae: Yeah Good.
Chris: Very excited, tonight should be fun.
Jae: Soggy!

I was going to ask you how the tour has been going but I may as well ask you how your residency at the Underworld has been going also as you have played here 3 times in the last 10 days!
Chris: The first one was "Wrongstock" which was an all dayer. It was all the bands Russ Russell has worked with. Which was great, alot of fun. There was another two day fest we played on the Sunday which warmed us up for this tour.

So how are things going on this tour so far?
Jae: This is the first night of this run.
Chris: The rest of the guys have done some dates in Europe, they've done Germany, Belgium on the way here.
Jae: We're doing just 5 days covering the UK.
Chris: We're looking forward to playing Dublin. It's a great city.

Lets talk about the album "The Virus Conspires"
Chris: We just tried to write an album that was better than anything we did before didn't we? We did an EP with Russ Russell and he taught us alot. We had stuff that we had wrote before and just tried to make it better.
Jae: We just tried to make our Terminator 2. If you look at the first two EP's the transition for me personally, vocally there's a massive difference. That's something I was working on and get up to scratch.

How did you manage to get Dom Lawson to do backing vocals?
Chris: He was good friend's with Russ. He reviewed our second EP and he liked that so Russ invited him to come down while we were recording. He spent a couple of days with us there.
Jae: He has done so much for us and he's a really cool guy.
Chris: I'm looking over my shoulder actually because he's meant to be here tonight and I don't want him to hear us saying nice things about him.
Jae: He sent a txt saying "I'm coming down, don't play shit!"

Lets talk about the history of Shrapnel.
Chris: Well I wanted to be in Megadeth basically! I had been playing stuff on my own and got in contact with Nath online. I'd seen his band. Norwich is a small place so everyone knows each other through one another or school. So we all either knew each other or of each other beforehand so it came together quickly. Some people at the beginning couldn't do it anymore for their own reason's. Work or keeping up with expenses.

That's the thing nowadays it's so expensive getting things off the ground and so little chance of making it back.
Chris: That's the thing it's so expensive to cover everything.
Jae: Everything we do like this tour for example, as long as it cover's itself we're happy. Selling the merch pays for the miles and hopefully a night in a hotel. Otherwise it's gonna be a cold night!

So what's next for Shrapnel?
Chris: We're going to start writing another album. We've got bits and pieces. Nath's going to be busy because he writes alot of the material. Also looking at gigging as much as possible. We're desperate to get to Europe. Hopefully that's next.

Your top 5 albums? Doesn't matter which order
Chris: Rust In Peace will always be top for me. Reign In Blood, Beneath The Reamins, I absolutly love Rainbow - Rising
Jae: Urgehal - Goatcraft Torment, Deicide, all of them! Everything by Bathory - Hammerheart especially but pretty much all of them too. My favourite tracks are 'A Fine Day To Die' and '13 Candles' or… too many!