If we’re the future of British metal, where’s all our fuckin’ money?!’ Scottish Metallers Mendeed haven’t let success go to their head, despite being on the brink of becoming one of the biggest Metal bands on the planet…
The Scottish music scene has had a lot of pop-rock and indie to offer lately, from the likes of Franz Ferdinand, Travis to The Hazey Janes; but very little metal. ‘it’s good; there are good bands, but they just wanna play the same thing and everyone just stays in Scotland’ explains Mendeed’s Mohawk-sporting bass-player Chris Lavery when asked about the Scottish metal scene. But this Scottish quintet has taken the plunge, and alongside the likes of Welsh metallers Bullet For My Valentine are being hailed as the future of British metal. ‘If we’re the future of British metal, where’s all our fuckin’ money?!’ laughs drummer Kevin Matthews. But joking aside, Mendeed seem to have received nothing but praise; ‘it’s a huge compliment,’ guitarist Steven Nixon acknowledges, ‘but at the same time, we know we’ve got a lot to live up to’.
Despite constantly being compared to a plethora of different bands, Mendeed seem unable to pinpoint any particular artists who have had some bearing on their style; while Chris refuses to name any influences (after already making the mistake of mentioning Elton John during one interview) Kevin sums it up neatly as ‘any metal’ and ‘anything with good guitars’. Either way, it appears that their seamless blend of modern, classic, hardcore and power metal, combined with their love for a good melody is what has helped their rise to stardom; ‘we try and keep the songs melodic and heavy at the same time,’ explains lead vocalist David Proctor, ‘a lot of the European bands that influence us are really melodic, but, you know, some of the heaviest bands in the world. Being heavy for heavy’s sake isn’t really a challenge, I think you’ve got to write a song and make it heavy.’
It’s only a year since Mendeed made their first appearance at Bedford Esquires and already so much has changed for them, and after huge tours with the likes of Cradle of Filth, God Forbid, Dragonforce and Trivium, making the switch back from audiences of three-thousand to a couple of hundred is an interesting one, ‘it’s weird,’ muses David, ‘but it’s good for us, we’re happy to be playing a place like this just now’. For a band like Mendeed, life without touring has become almost unthinkable, ‘it can get a bit tiring when you've been doing it a lot, but not to do it would just be fucking shit’ – a sentiment echoed by guitarist Steven, ‘it’d be pointless. Sometimes you feel, “oh I really wanna go home,” but once you’re home, when it gets to about half-eight at night you just think, ‘I should be going on stage just now!’
But all the hard work seems to have paid off, not content with a slot booked at this year’s Download festival, the band have bigger plans, ‘there’s the possibility we’re going to be playing some European festivals, maybe a couple in America,’ David reveals, ‘but we don’t really know yet, we’re kind of in the middle of our licensing contract just now, so obviously we can’t say too much about that, but if that all comes through then we should be at some of the European festivals, America, maybe go over to Japan this year at some point, which would be really good. We’ve toured the UK so much in the last year; I mean this time last year we hadn’t done anything, hadn’t supported Cradle of Filth… and then after that everything happened, its been UK, UK, UK, so to get out and do it on a bigger scale will be brilliant for us.’
The release of Mendeed’s first full-lenth album has also proved a turning point, ‘I think people take a full-length album more seriously; the press do anyway,’ remarks David, ‘I think it’s good for your first thing not to be a full-length album, so you can break the ice a bit and introduce yourself.’
Kevin: You always think you’re ready to make an album… when we made ‘From Shadows’ [‘From Shadows Came Darkness’, the band’s mini-album from 2004] we thought we were ready…
David: But I think we would have regretted our first album being that album. As much as we’re proud of what we’ve done, there are only three songs from that album that we play and like as a band.
But now having firmly established themselves, plans for a second album are already underway, with the band hoping to fit in some writing time in between the touring, as David explains, ‘we aim to have the next album out by February time so we’re not leaving big gaps between everything’.
Aside from their own plans for world domination in years to come, Mendeed seem concerned that the metal scene needs to grow and expand too, ‘it would be good for us to be a more extreme metal band than some of the other bands that are around just now. It would be good if we could take that step and be playing arenas in ten year’s time and see more extreme metal coming up, because it’s so underground, you know what I mean? But I think it’s starting, people are starting to change their views on it.’ This the huge crowd that turned out to see Mendeed at Bedford Esquires this time around seems to reflect David’s hopes and observations, ‘if we can do what all the mainstream bands do without selling out and going down that road then that would be amazing for us… if not we’ll go home and sign on. [laughs]
After watching their performance and the reaction of the crowd during their performance at Esquires, I’d say the chances of Mendeed going home and signing on are pretty slim.
For more information on Mendeed check out their website www.mendeed.co.uk or their MySpace page, www.myspace.com/mendeed Their debut album, ‘This War Will Last Forever’ is available now.