Savage Messiah’s inception began in London in 2007. Carrying the legacy of the legendary iconic bands such as Iron Maiden, and thrash bands like Overkill, and Testament, Savage Messiah is hot on the heavy metal scene proving themselves as more than capable of taking over the thrash metal torch from the current generation. Dave Silver, vocalist and guitarist for the band was nice enough to lend RockRevolt Magazine some of his time, and talk about their upcoming album “The Fateful Dark” along with the cultural differences between American, and Europe, & what he would like to accomplish before he dies. Read on!
Today I have Dave Silver, vocalist and lead guitarist of the band Savage Messiah on the phone. How’s it going Dave?
It’s little cold over here in London at the moment, but I’m alright.
For those unfamiliar with Savage Messiah, can you give the readers an idea of what the band sounds like, and what you’re all about?
Sure! We’re much like a classic British heavy metal band, with a ton of American influences, and a modern crunch with sort of that west-coast thrash sound, but we’re distinctly English sounding heavy metal music.
I definitely drew out a contemporary 80’s thrash feel from what I’ve listened to, who are some of your influences?
For us its bands like Iron Maiden, Metallica, Testament, Judas Priest, and other classic British metal like Black Sabbath, UFO, and that kind of stuff. Back on the American front other bands would be such as Overkill, and Anthrax.
What do you think drew you guys to that style?
I guess when I was about 15 I used to go to a second hand vinyl store, in the town that I lived in, and I just ended up collecting records by bands like Nuclear Assault, Sacred Reich and such. Then I just got indoctrinated by this heavy American thrash metal. My dad is also from the era of Iron Maiden, and that was his thing, so I grew up listening to bands like Judas Priest, Black Sabbath, and Deep Purple. I got into it all as a kid, and it wasn’t really a conscious decision. I started playing it, and decided “that’s what I want to do.”
With all that said, have you had the pleasure of sharing the stage with any of those artists, or rather who are some of the artists you have had the pleasure of sharing the stage with?
Yeah! We toured with Overkill in Europe, so that was pretty cool. We’ve played with Death Angel before, and shared festival bills with Testament, and Iced Earth. I did a feature in a British metal magazine with Chuck from Testament where we basically just sat down and talked about singing, and that was pretty cool. Other than that, we’ve yet to play with someone like Metallica.
That would be a goal right?! With that all said as well, who are some of the artists you hope to share the stage with someday?
From a commercial point of view, obviously bands like Iron Maiden because you get to play for so many people. From a purely artistic point of view, I’ve always been a fan of bands like Sanctuary, and I know they’ve reformed, so you never know, we may end up on a bill with them one day. It would be cool to do an actual tour with Testament, they’re just an amazing live band, that we’ve learned a lot from.
I just actually had the chance to see Iron Maiden not too long ago, so I can definitely see the appeal behind wanting to tour with them. Especially because they seem to sell out every night.
I think in Europe Iron Maiden are bigger now, than they probably were almost 20 years ago. They’ve had such an unbelievable resurgence. It’s quite encouraging, because they never changed their sound, and they just did what they wanted to do.
Savage Messiah – Cross of Babylon
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Why do you think that is? What do you think Iron Maiden has done to grow so much over this amount of time?
Primarily I suppose its good management. The management they’ve had since 1980, so they’ve been incredibly well managed. They never really chased anything in terms of looking for commercial success, and they built a hardcore fan base, and I think they’ve maintained it. Primarily because they are quite objective, and very good, and second I think it’s the way the industry sort of started to change in the 90’s. There really hasn’t been, at least not in England a band that’s come out and really taken the mantle from Iron Maiden. If you look at the 70’s you had some big British bands like Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, and then Judas Priest and Iron Maiden, then in the 90’s, the last decade, and the current decade there hasn’t really been anybody to come out… and I don’t know if it’s a question of a saturated market, or they were just in the right place at the right time technologically and everything else, but there hasn’t really been any world-wide heavy hitting British band since. So I think it’s partially nostalgia.
With Savage Messiah being from London, what are the biggest differences with touring overseas on your continent, VS. coming over here stateside to the U.S.?
We haven’t actually done a tour in America, I did a guitar clinic once about six months ago in Hollywood, so I did have a chance to come over and do some guitar stuff, which was pretty cool. We just finished a tour with a band called Havok from Denver who have toured a lot, and they were saying the big difference is basically in the states you got longer drives, where sometimes you’ll be driving upwards of 14 hours. That doesn’t tend to happen in Europe, it’s a lot smaller. Touring Europe, as opposed to playing solely England though is good because it seems to be more trend-led in the UK. So we just finished this tour with Havok and it was really successful. It was their first European headlining tour, and we were doing pretty good numbers. Hopefully we’ll come to America ideally this year.
It seems like metal fans in Europe seem to appreciate live shows more than America with attendance. Not that America doesn’t do well with certain concert tours, but Europe definitely seems to have more of an appeal towards metal, any ideas why?
I don’t know, again I guess if American audiences are culturally similar to the British audiences which seems to be slightly more trend-led. So if you get a band that get all the hype, the press hype, and all the big magazines behind them, people will go out and support those sorts of tours. When you try to build it grass-roots, it’s just a lot harder to break through. America has an incredible heritage for metal, if you think about all the quality metal and rock bands from the 60’s and 70’s. I know a lot of people talk about the “British invasion” but a lot of the classic British bands were imitating the early American pioneers like Chuck Berry and people like that. So honestly, I don’t know why that would be.
Savage Messiah is set to release a brand new full-length album entitled “The Fateful Dark” can you tell us about the album, and when it will be released?
Yeah! So it’ll be out in America on March 18th on Century Media Records, which is a deal that’s come about through Earache Records. Basically its 10-tracks of heavy metal, song based, with big choruses, big riffs, a lot of guitar solos. Not overly “shreddy,” more in the Adrian Smith (of Iron Maiden) school of guitar solos, but with a bit of shredding in there too. If you like classic vocals as well, then it’s definitely a record you should check out.
Being a guitar player, who are some of your virtuoso influences?
Paul Gilbert, Marty Friedman, Jason Becker, Michael Romeo, Michael Schenker, Alex Skolnick, Chris Oliva from Savatage, in fact I model myself to be closely to someone like Chris Oliva. It’s more about bending the notes to screams, and getting the real expressive vibrato. Of course Yngwie Malmsteem as well for anyone that has ever picked up a guitar and tried to play shreds.
Savage Messiah – Hellblazer [Official Video]
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Every one of those guitarists is great! So what are some of lyrical themes explored on the upcoming Savage Messiah album, “The Fateful Dark?”
Lyrically with this album I wanted it to be diverse. Our last album got a little bit painted into a corner with conspiracy stuff. So I wanted to get away from that, so on this record we wrote everything from the title. We wanted to write from the title so we could build a chorus, and as a result some of the themes we added were from comic books. For instance if you’re familiar with the Constantine character from the “Hell Blade” comics we have a song about that. We also have some pseudo-political stuff, but we’re not a political band. Lyrically I tend to draw from that Pantera “school of self-empowerment” stuff.
What can someone expect from a Savage Messiah live show?
We intend to be a high energy act. Like a soccer match, getting people chanting, and the mutual exchange of energy really. Of course we have to play tight as well, and balance it, and you can have all the energy in the world, but you need to deliver the songs. We try and be as theatrical as possible on a small stage set. We try and give people their money’s worth.
What’s the craziest thing you’ve seen a fan do while you guys were on stage performing?
When people start moshing you see some pretty horrendous things. I’ve seen people go down, and smack their head on the barrier, and to be standing there playing and see that, it’s like “wow that’s pretty horrible!”
It’s like “I want to help you, but I gotta play this guitar solo.”
Yeah! (laughs) I remember a gig we did in Ireland, with a band called Evile and that was pretty insane. They had oversold the gig, so there were too many people in the venue, and this one guy kept reaching up, and every time I was playing, he kept grabbing my leg. Of course I’m the singer, and I’m playing so I’m rooted to the microphone, and he’d just reach up and grab my leg, and I’m thinking “get off!”
Did you kick him?!
Yeah! I remember we were out with Havok in the Czech Republic. We played in a village somewhere, miles from anywhere, and the crowd looked like they just came out of the ground. At one point our bass player had to escort this guy who got on stage and just walked over to the drummer, and just sort of stood there. Its like “what are you doing? *laughs* You don’t understand the dynamic of a gig!” So my bassist had to escort him off.
You mentioned it was in the Czech Republic where Randy Blythe from Lamb Of God recently had his legal battles with a fan jumping up on stage during one of their performances.
Oh, that’s right! That didn’t even occur to me at the time.
Savage Messiah – Minority of One
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Maybe they think it’s okay to walk on stage in the Czech Republic?
Yeah, it was really strange. He literally got on the stage and walked over to the drummer, and stood there. It’s like, “what the hell… go away.” [Laughs] I’m glad I didn’t push him off the stage, that could’ve came back to bite us.
Yeah, if you can learn from anybody, learn from Mr. Blythe’s situation. So in 2014 we have a long year ahead, what are some of your touring plans?
Well, I just came over to America for the NAMM convention in California, and we met with some agents to sort things out for the coming year, and early next year. We’re just trying to prepare for the process of a European band coming to America, we’ll have to have working Visa’s processed, and a lot of expenses to figure out. You have to kind of come over and stay for six months, relentlessly gigging. So hopefully we can do something like that, and we’ll see. The intention is there just to come and tour, and play as many shows and festivals as we can.
I like the sound of that. Maybe you guys can get on the Rockstar Energy Mayhem Festival or something?
You never know.
Did you enjoy coming stateside for NAMM?
Oh yeah, absolutely! I love coming over to America. I came over before to New York, and went out to California, and did the guitar clinic. We came over for NAMM for about 10 days, did some press, and hung out and Los Angeles. It’s always a treat to come to America. NAMM was a good experience.
Pretty cool to see the metropolis cities in America for your first visits!
Yeah New York is a lot like London as well. It’s quite strange at times to be walking around and it feels like London, even though that’s thousands of miles away.
Is there a difference in the attitudes of people in comparison from New York to London?
Not really, to be honest in the past 20 years in England, basically about 90% of our television is America, so everything is really Americanized. All the sayings, and expressions, and particularly amongst young people it’s very, very Americanized. That’s the strange thing about being from England now, and coming to the states because everything is so familiar. You know all the chains, and the hotels, and walking around New York you think “oh, that was in that film.”
What are some of the American television shows popular over there?
Everybody’s obsessed with “Breaking Bad”! Fringe has been on re-run here for about …. God knows how many years. My personal favorite is “Man Vs. Food!” It’s awesome. We also have “How I Met Your Mother.” Honestly if you came over to watch television here you’d probably just feel like you’re in just another state.
Coming to the tail end of the interview, what is something you’d like to accomplish as a bucket list item before you die?
For me, it has to be a world tour covering the four major continents. Play in Asia, South America, North America… I think all that would be a bucket list. Outside of music, I’d be quite interested in (not climbing it) but going to the Himalayas and seeing Mt. Everest. I wouldn’t want to climb it because it’s quite dangerous, but to stand on the shoulder, and say “woah! That’s a big mountain” would be pretty cool.
I think it would be cool to climb Mount Everest and play a guitar solo at the top.
I’m sure you’d be in the Guinness Book of World Records!
I doubt you’d be able to play a guitar solo, I’m sure you’d have gotten frost bite! Hopefully you get a chance to see Everest, and play your world tour man! Where can we find Savage Messiah on the internet?
We’re on all the social networks, and like I said “The Fateful Dark” will be out in America on March 18th!
