First things first, how are things in the world of Blood Coven?

Things are going great for us.  We've had the same line-up with all four members for about 2 years now, which I think is a record for Blood Coven and we've been working hard on a lot of new material.
 
Have you been able to play any gigs recently and how did they go?

Yes, we've been playing quite a bit lately. Some of them have been better than others, but in general we've had pretty decent shows. We just opened for the Incantation/Vital Remains tour along with like 5 other local bands. Unfortunately we had to play at the same time as Incantation, but we had a fairly decent crowd.

Can you tell me the about the origins of Blood Coven? How did you originally get together?

I formed Blood Coven about a year after my old band (Sin-Eater)split up. I took some time off to write and find members and did some other music in the mean-time. That original line-up is long gone, however. The current members joined as a result of many auditions. Ryan Arter came up after Justin Lightfoot auditioned on drums, but  Justin decided he'd rather just be a vocalist so we worked with that line-up for about a year. Then Justin quit and I gladly went back to guitar and vocals. Ryan met Tony Brilla at a party one night during a time in which we were auditioning guitarists, so that was convenient. Then we had a show coming up so asked Steve Rolf who was an old friend of mine if he's sorta fill in to help solidify things and he's been with us ever since.

You have recently been searching around for a label. What do you feel a label would require for you to consider signing with them?
 
Some money to actually be able to release an cd for us. We're not really all that picky as long as I know that they're helping us to get our name and product out there and not ripping us off!

It seems to have been a problem for you to find a label for the last couple of years (looking at the amount of promos over the last couple of years). Why do you think that is? (Personally it must at least feel at least a little relieving not having a label pushing you around like some of them seem to)

We've had some interest in the past and most of the situations fell apart on the end of the label. Either they didn't have the money  or they lost interest for who knows what reason. A lot of people want to start labels, but don't really have the resources.  We've never really sent out any promos to labels but we're planning to very soon when we get a new demo with the current line-up on it.

It seems to be a long time since you last updated your website. Why is that?

The guy that used to do that for us kind of lost interest and now he doesn't know where all the codes and stuff are. He's changed computers several times and lost information, etc. For now, our primary web site is: www.myspace.com/bloodcovenband

What do you think of the current death/black/extreme metal scene? Any new bands that have impressed you recently?

The scene is the scene and it's only as good as the participants. Many people have claimed the scene is dead or that it's dying. I think it's changing mainly because of access ability. In the early days, everyone was at every show because shows were far less frequent. Now there are bigger bands touring constantly, and local bands playing all the time. There's a lot to choose from so shows aren't a special thing anymore. Plus with the Internet, it's so easy to find exactly what you're looking for in a band that no one buys anything on a whim to see if it's any good or not. It didn't used to be like that. As for new bands, it takes a lot to impress me. I'm kinda jaded I guess. There are a lot of great bands and there are a lot of half-assed bands. No one really comes to mind right off the top of my head. I like Necrophagist to some degree. Not really new but at least they're different than the Cannibal Corpse clones. I guess I'm more into the old style stuff.

There seems to be a big trend at the moment in the death metal scene to imitate at the Gates and Cannibal Corpse with a multitude of substandard imitators (at least I know thats the case in my country-either that or its a bunch of Killswitch Engage wannabe faggots). What do you make of all this?

Well, just like every other genre of music, a few bands come out and do something really new and special and then come the multitude of clone bands and that's what kills the genre. It happened to heavy metal, it happened to glam rock, it happened to thrash and it happened to grunge. It's been happening to death and black metal for a while now and that's why the scene is sort of stalled. It's unfortunate, but that's the way it goes. The audience is fickle and when a new trend comes along, the masses will follow for the most part. People who truly enjoy metal will stick it through with the good bands and ignore the trend.

You have supported some well known and respected bands such as Mercyful Fate, Morbid Angel, Cannibal Corpse, At the Gates, Overkill etc. Have you had good responses from fans at all?
 
Yeah, we've always gotten a really good response from the crowds at shows like that. It just makes me wonder where those people are for the local shows. I guess a lot of people just aren't involved enough to seek out the smaller shows. Plus the advertising isn't as good for the local shows, so...

What did the bands you opened for make of Blood Coven? Also are there any other respected bands whom youve had the chance to open for?

I'm not sure what other bands make of us. Most probably don't even watch us. One of the Morbid Angel shows we did, Steve Tucker checked us out and gave me some good compliments. The guys in Nile were very cool. Those are the only ones that stand out. We put a lot of energy into our live shows and we really focus on stage presence. We don't just stand there looking at our guitar necks. It's constant head-banging and thrashing from go! Not to toot my own horn but I think we piss a lot of the bigger bands off cause we make them work harder! ha ha. We've had several bands tell us that they don't want to play after us or that they hate playing after us because we steal the show. But that's our goal. We're there to play and entertain the audience,  not stand there doing nothing and bore them!

Can you tell me about your new Blood Coven demo and some of the songs featured on it?

Our 2005 demo has three songs. Plagued By Faith which is a heavy more death metal influenced tune, I Am Mortality which is on older song that we re-did and is more thrashy and Sempiternal Abomination which is more of a black metal sounding number. Plagued By Faith is the newest of those songs, but it's actually quite old now. Probably written around 2002. Sempiternal Abomination was originally written by myself and a former bass player for a side band, but then we worked it into the Blood Coven repertoire. I Am Mortality is actually one of the first songs I wrote for Blood Coven back around '94, but it still holds up today. We play it often and people love it. We actually just recorded 3 more new songs but I'm not sure if they'll be released. We did it at a new studio as we won a recording package, but I'm so far not really thrilled with the quality.

Has being a part of the myspace website help spread the Blood Coven word?

Definitely! There is no better way to reach people right now for so cheap! That's another reason we sort of abandoned the old web site. We do it all through MySpace now. I know that sounds trendy and gay, but it's definitely drawn a lot more attention to the band.

Your image and imagery seems to be rather old-school compared to many modern death metal bands (what I mean is that you still embrace using spikes etc as part of your onstage image unlike many death metal bands now that look sonormal). Do you feel you relate to older death/black metal bands more such as Nihilist, Necrovore, Autopsy, early Death, early Kreator, early Morbid Angel, Possessed, Sadistic Intent etc?

Definitely! I still listen primarily to the early death/thrash bands from the late 80's and early '90's. But I also like a lot of other music too. I love old hardcore like Agnostic Front and the Accused, punk, early goth stuff, old heavy metal. Iron Maiden is my all time fave band. As for the spikes and stuff on stage, well, I've been wearing that stuff for over 10 years now and that's not gonna change any time soon!

Thank you for taking your time to do this interview. Feel free to add any additional Propaganda you wish here!

Keep your eyes peeled for our second album "...Of Blood and Battle" Which I will be releasing myself in a few months and we're working on material for our 3rd full length and with luck maybe we'll have some label support. Anyone interested feel free to contact me Bloodcovendann@yahoo.com. Thanks a million for the interview. Good luck with the 'zine.