Un: Let’s get the tired and boring question out of the way first. How did Helvis come together? There seems to have been a few line-up changes over the years, do you think that this is a stable (perhaps not mentally) line up?

Marygold: I’d hope so, as long as Watson doesn’t stay on strike too long… It’s the longest running line up we’ve ever had and seems to be working out great (drummer/guitarist fallouts aside!) I think the reason we’ve been together for so long is because we’re all mates first and we always have a blast whenever we do get together. It all started as a pub conversation of forming a Turbonegro style detuned noise machine, however there was a bit too much of a cider intake which caused a few problems, and a bit of a personnel change. We’ve changed to power shandys and red bull now so all is well for the time being.

Watson: well by now we are like four old men and a young apprentice who work in the same steel factory...same gags/bitching that goes on in those places, kinda like a 2nd family... and like families we argue and people get fired or leave... right now i have a bitch with the drummer so i am on strike. I’m missin’ some good gigs...but i must remain steadfast in my goal towards perfection. I will prevail.

Un: Do you think that because of you guys being involved with so many bands in the past people might have a preconceived notion as to what Helvis would sound like? As the same time do you think it may draw people into the band and make them curious to see what Helvis is all about?

Marygold: I think it can only be a good thing, although we sound nothing like any of our other bands I don’t think. We’ve taken bits from all the types of music we listen to, from Darkthrone, through AC/DC and Discharge to OMD so it all comes out through all of our influences I think. We’re essentially a metal band with a punk drummer, so we bring in our meaty metal riffs and Frost sorts them out and puts some tippetty tappetty punk beats to ‘em! It’s great if people do pick us up from our previous works, but we don’t just want to be another “ex members” band.

Watson: works both ways, we get the teenage iron monkey fans and the fat old punks… and sometimes we get neither...

UN: It seems like Helvis have a very open ended sound. You have the raging hardcore punk side, yet there is still a lot of groove and some almost Sabbath influenced riffs as well. Is it important to have varied styles throughout the bands songs? I’m sure we’ll never hear Helvis play polka, but it’s nice to have no idea what to expect next.

Watson: needs a bit of tightening up at the back I think...and a harsh introduction of 70s scorpions riffs...more black metal style vocals...some classic mantas style floyd rose Armageddon solos...faster down picking.....

Marygold: We’ll try anything really and see if it works, we take our influence from all over the place - Hand Of Glory is essentially a Spanish guitar piece over the chorus, but no-one’s picked us up on that yet! (or the fact that is a Fall song too…) I tend to write riffs over other records, and just listen to the drums, rewriting the song completely! Watson will just take the riff and say it was too good to waste…

UN: How have things been working out with loudspeaker? Was the album out in the UK a long time before the us version was released by Abstract? Do you think having the album released by a us label as well has opened your music to a lot of new people? I guess they would have had to have picked it up as an import otherwise.

Watson: I doubt very much anybody bought it on import...in fact me and chris amuse ourselves by finding it on ebay for 1 dollar... I hope people like it obviously, but if it gets slagged, well it's only one persons point of view - like the good reviews, so far the good ones are beating the bad 10/1

Marygold: We’re well chuffed that it’s come out in the states, and seems to be getting some great reviews. Loudspeaker have done us proud for getting reviews and advertising, there’s no end of stuff on us on t’internet. We just need to get over soon and introduce y’all to some pagan thrash from Middle England.

UN: How has the response to reverence the sacrifice been so far? Anyone just not get what you guys are doing and give any hilariously bad reviews? Do you ever find people comparing you guys to bands you sound nothing like?

Watson:Well i really cant see the punk thing, unless they mean the discharge riffs, and maybe hand of glory (which i stole off the fall) ....like i said earlier, we get fat old punks at our gigs and they seem to like it ... the german reviews when translated to english are the oddest. Some reviewers have said me n chris are shoddy guitarists… and that we steal riffs. Others have not been so kind.

Marygold: It’s been amazing to be honest, we’ve been blessed with some great reviews and coverage. Abstract and Earsplit PR in the US have done a sterling job. We’ve had nothing but great reviews really. Some really amusing foreign reviews and a couple of slaggings off. The main problem seems to be our sloppy guitar work and some people don’t like BK’s voice, but the positives are far outweighing the negatives.

UN: What inspired the picture for the front cover? I actually have the exact same candle! Granted it looks a lot better with the lighting you used then it does sitting in my bedroom.

Watson: We couldn't find a real hand of glory.

Marygold: It’s inspired from the classic British horror film “The Wicker Man” like most of our early works. We’ve had allsorts away from that film, music, lyrics, song titles, the album title, so we had to do a suitable tribute with the cover. It’s the genius of our photographer & website designer Bob Vimto. He got the candle from a £1.00 Shop in Nottingham and just took a clever picture. It was the cheapest cover in history - £1.00, and it looks great.

UN: When Helvis goes into the studio do you guys record live? The lp has a very live sound and the production seems pretty simplistic in nature. It doesn’t seem like you guys bothered with any overdubs. Just bass, drums, guitars, and vocals. Do you think simple is better for hardcore or heavy albums in general?

Marygold: it is a little known fact that the LP was actually recorded without one single full band rehearsal. BK lives in London see, and we all live about 150 miles north so we never get together unless it’s for gigs or recording. We send down CD’s of new music and he steals some lyrics from somewhere and when we come to recording, we find out what the songs are called and work out where the words go! The music for the LP was pretty much live and then BK had 2 days off work to do the vocals, backups came after that. I really like the way the LP sounds, it’s got a raw edge to it, not too overpolished over over rehearsed, what you get on the CD is what you get live, mistakes and all. 15 Sticks was the last one written, and nearly didn’t make the record at all. The words were done on the second day before we set off to the studio.

Watson: Well it was sorta live… the usual thing, record live jam, keep the drums if they are any good (fat fuckin' chance!) Then redo guitars and bass, then add main vocals, any backing vocals then any solos or whatever. The only time i ever recorded totally live was iron monkey, that was because we had little money... not little as in undersized, sterling currency you understand.

UN: How would you say the UK scene is doing right now? I’m not really hearing about many new bands coming out of the UK these days. Do you ever miss the early earache days? There was a ton of great albums and bands coming out in those days. Even the bad bands back then were better then a lot of the bands around these days.

Watson: I cant think of any uk bands that are of real talent. mogwai certainly are amazing... that's about it

Marygold: There’s a load of bands just doing the UK circuit, and never really braking out of that cycle of shows. We’re lucky to be out in the States to be honest, we never thought that would even happen. Bands these days don’t seem to last that long, not many get to the recording stage, and those that do seem to split up not long after.

UN: D you think there has been a big progression from the demo cdrs you’ve released to the lp? Has the bands sound essentially stayed the same?

Watson:Yes, just different degrees of production cock ups.

Marygold: We’ve stayed the same people, but the music has got better I think, some of the earlier works were not up to much listening back to those CDR’s! I’m proud of everything we’ve done though, I just want to get on with the next one now though as we’ve been playing these songs for 5 years.

UN: D you guys get the chance to play as many gigs as you’d like? Do you think that we’ll ever see helvis making the trip over the ocean to come play in North America?

Marygold: We don’t do as many as I’d like to, or as many as we should be doing, but at our age there’s family and work commitments that sometimes make it difficult. We’re cracking on with it though over this summer and would love to make it over to the US. We need to lean on Abstract/Loudspeaker to get us over I reckon, but that would be the best.

Watson: Well if helvis get any gigs in America, and im doing them. i will have to sail cos i don't fly. It’s not a 9/11 thing... i was on a near-miss plane coming back from Germany. It was like castaway... i totally shit my pants, so since then i sail.. it's much more classy.

UN: I noticed that you guys have a lot of pictures from horror movies on your releases and on your website. Are you guys big horror fans? I’m a huge fan of the hammer horror movies. Are you guys fans?

Watson: Yeah..when they were originally shown on TV in the 70's I used to stop at my friends house on Fridays nights to watch hammer films... his mother was cool about it. We were maybe 8 or 9 at the time.

Marygold: Yeah, we’re well into all that stuff. Asylum, Devil Rides Out, Don’t Look Now, the hammer horror stuff. There’s a DVD box set of all the hammer house of horror TV shows which I’m after at the moment. British 70’s horror is the best, none of the new films beat them for ideas and stories. There’s talk of redoing “The Wicker Man” and that would just be the worst film I could imagine. It’d probably star Bruce Willis, and helicopters would fly over the Cliffside and save him at the end, oh… and then he’d get the girl…

UN: What’s next for you guys? Any plans to release any of your demos on an official cd release? Or would you say that it’s unnecessary due to most of the songs being on the lp?

Marygold: Next plan is 6 track EP of the new stuff we’ve got written, or maybe even a full length if we get some more done by the time we record. It should be called “The Crops Have Failed” and we need to find a label to put it out. We’d also like to get to USA and Japan and get some new product out. Maybe some demos will appear at some point, but the priority has got to be new songs.

Watson: Un-ness sari...we could do a covers ep or summat. but every band does them and by and large they are boring.... and for many differing reasons we would end up doing 'heavy' versions of ratt and motley crue songs. Nobody deserves that. Our music is called 'nuadacore' and we play the purest form of it we can.

Marygold: Cheers for the interview and the interest in Helvis. Check out our website for further info: Helvis Website