UK veteran thrashers Onslaught are ready to unleash a new beast with Generation Antichrist, their latest album which also features their newest member, vocalist Dave Garnett. Taking over the spot previously held by Sy Keeler is no easy task and we find out how that went when we spoke with guitarist and founding member Nige Rockett as we touch on the new album, navigating through the pandemic as well as going back to the early days of Onslaught and the changes seen in the music industry over the years.
Andrew: I know it’s crazy times at the moment so hows things at your end?
Nige: Not the best to be honest, really. Don’t think the government here have handled things very well to be honest, still 300 odd deaths a day which is obviously not good and I think there’s still a lot of infections going on which is crazy.
Andrew: Yeah it’s crazy and I guess with your bands perspective with the touring and all that stuff has been postponed and cancelled right?
Nige: Yeah absolute nightmare mate. We had a lot of big festivals this summer to support the album obviously, they’ve all been cancelled. We were planning US tours, South America tour for the end of the year which has obviously been postponed as well. I just had the TV on here and they’re kinda saying that maybe shows in the UK won’t be coming back until April 2021 which is terrible!
Andrew: Crazy and you’ve been doing this for a long time and I guess there’s been nothing like this in history in the last 30 or 40 years like that.
Nige: No nothing at all, I didn’t expect it to reach this kind of scale. When you see things kind of kicking off in China, you never really expect it to happen to you, it’s just gone mad. Things in Europe seem to be really picking up, recovering really well. I don’t know what it’s like in Australia, I know New Zealand have got it under control so I think it’s just us and the Americans!
Andrew: Yeah it seems like that. I mean we’re doing pretty well, just on the local front we just started having live gigs this weekend.
Nige: That’s really good!
Andrew: It’s a start but I guess with Europe starting to open up a little bit you may be starting to do some touring there at some point?
Nige: Hopefully yeah, we’ve still got 2 shows that have survived cancellations so far. One’s in early September in Germany so we shall see whether that happens, I’m probably about 50/50 on whether that happens but I’m hoping it will, just itching to get back on stage.
Andrew: Well that’s your bread and butter, the whole live show and getting out there hitting the road. This new album coming out in August, I’ve been privileged to hear the new songs from your publicist that sent me a copy and it’s fantastic stuff. You guys really hit it out of the ballpark on this one, you must be pretty happy with how it’s come out.
Nige: Yeah thanks man, yeah really happy. The production on it is amazing, we asked for a really brutal sounding record and that’s what we got delivered but the songs are really strong as well. I know a lot of people say this about their new album but I really do think this is our best album to date.
Andrew: Yeah I would agree. I’m pretty familiar with your stuff in the back catalogue and I would say this is some of the best stuff you have come up with so far, that’s a big statement as you have had some killer albums in the past.
Nige: We approach every record to try and better the last one, if you can’t do that, I don’t see the point of releasing an album if it’s kind of sub-standard to what you’ve done before. So obviously we set the bar very high for ourselves when we start writing and it just really flows. I know it’s a long time since the VI album came out so we’ve had a lot of time to put a lot of ideas together and think about things and obviously take a different approach to making this record to the last one. There’s obviously going to be considerable differences but I think it probably benefited from the big gap in a way to help us focus on writing some different songs and the good songs.
Andrew: How long did it take to write the new songs? When did you start coming up with ideas for it?
Nige: I think we started around probably 15-16 months ago that we started to properly write. I find it really awkward to write and tour at the same time, I know a lot of guys tends to write when they are on tour but I find that really difficult to concentrate on the tour as strange as that may seem. We had basically toured for 4 and a half years after the last album because we did 2 and a half years touring on the “VI” album and then the 30th anniversary of the “The Force” album came up and that tour went for 2 years instead of 1 so we ended up being on the road a lot for 4 and a half years which really kind of put the record back. Then the label said, ‘Come on guys, when are we getting a new album?’ Time had just flown by, you didn’t even think about what was happening because we were so busy.
Andrew: I suppose that’s a good thing when you’re busy because there’s a demand for the band I guess.
Nige: Yeah that’s why The Force thing was only meant to be a one year tour and then it went on and the demand kept going on and we kept taking it! So it’s good, things have been growing and growing so that’s obviously the plan again to take the band up to the next level and see where it goes from there.
Andrew: Definitely. So the big question a lot of fans want to know is, what does the album sound like with the new singer? Because that’s obviously a big part of the bands sound as well and with Dave [Garnett] coming in at, almost the last minute really because he joined the band only a couple of months ago right?
Nige: Yeah around mid-March so about 2 and a half months I guess and in that time he has done amazingly well. We got him in there, he had done a couple of step-in shows for us and then it was, ‘Dave do you want this job full-time?’ He was a bit freaked out about that but he’s a massive Onslaught fan anyway, he knows all the material and he loves Sy’s vocals and stuff. We weren’t going to change things massively, there was never any mention of Dave you need to sound like Sy, that would of been stupid to kind of try to emulate Sy in any way. Dave has got his own take on things and they’re not a million miles apart, we’ve not gone for something radically different. I think Dave has kind of got a bit more aggression in his voice, Sy has a very thick, deep voice whereas Dave is a bit more aggressive and a bit more lively sounding. So it’s maybe brought even more energy to the band’s sound on record. The one show he did before we recorded the album, people were blown away by him and the response we’ve had to the first single off the album, the “Religiousuicide” track has just been amazing so I think the fans are really going to enjoy having Dave in the band.
Read review of Generation Antichrist
Andrew: Yeah listening to the album I think you did a fantastic job and you’re right, it’s slightly different [with Dave] but it’s not so different that people would be so turned off of it, he has his own distinctive voice. But that’s gotta be a bit of pressure on him to fill those shoes because obviously Sy is a great vocalist as well so there must of been some pressure to come in and do that vocal position.
Nige: Dave has made a couple of albums with his previous band but never been produced properly in the studio so it was very important. It was a big step up for him and for rehearsal we had to make sure everything was perfect, to replace Sy was a big issue anyway but if we got it wrong it could of been disastrous. So what we did was a very good friend of mine, a guy named Pete Hinton who produced the first two Saxon albums, “Wheels Of Steel” and “Strong Arm Of The Law”, I asked Pete to come in and produce the vocals for Dave. Pete is a lovely guy, as I said he’s done those two albums and loads of other stuff in the industry and he’s just a real calm guy, a funny guy and I think he just made feel Dave feel at ease straight away and got some great performances out of him without pushing him or putting him under pressure. I think Dave really enjoyed that experience and it got the best out of him.
Andrew: That’s good because as you said it can be disastrous sometimes when a new member comes in and it does change a few things. But I guess overall you probably had a thing where you kept doing the same thing that you’ve always had, or has a lot changed over the years as far as the writing and recording process?
Nige: Nothing really changes, I’ve wrote virtually all the records myself. Obviously the last two, “Sounds Of Violence” and “VI” I had a co-writer with Andy Rosser Davies, we kinda wrote 50/50 of the music together and we’d sat in the same room all the time and so it was a complete collaboration between me and him. But him not being there this time it was kind of back on me again, so that was the only difference writing wise. I mean I always write the lyrics and the vocal lines anyway so there was never going to be a radical change in the vocal layout if you like, or massive changes, so it was just the kind of delivery from the actual person who was singing those lines that was going to be different. But Pete knows the band, he knew the band, he actually managed us back in the late 80’s as well so he knew exactly what the band are all about and exactly what the band needed so it was just so easy for him to work with Dave and an absolute pleasure for both of them. So I think we got a nice little team together for the next one.
Andrew: Definitely and we look forward to seeing what you guys come up with. Obviously for those that may not be familiar with Onslaught you have a pretty big history and I know you had a hiatus period for a little while but you guys go back to the early 80’s when thrash was still pretty new but you had a bit of a punk influence on those early days. When you think about those first couple of albums of the band, what’s your initial thought looking back on it now?
Nige: Haha it’s quite bizarre really. I think we started in late ’82 or something like that and another little bizarre twist actually is that the two guys I started the band with are actually Australian residence, they live in Australia which is kind of weird! But yeah when you look back we were just kids, me and Paul Hill, we used to just follow Discharge and The Exploited and GBH who were around in the UK, sleeping rough wherever we could, bribing free entry off the bands into the gigs and stuff and we just loved it so much that we thought, ‘Why don’t we start our own band? We’re following all these bands around, we love it so much, why don’t we give it a shot’. Which is what we did and that’s how it started.
Everything moved so quickly back then, I think after we were rehearsing and writing for about 6 to 9 months and then we started playing shows and 6 months after playing these shows in Bristol we actually picked up a record deal with Children Of The Revolution records which started on this government scheme. The government was helping young kids start up new businesses and this guy called Tim Bennett decided to start a record company under the scheme and he had seen us at these gigs and decided to sign us up and everything just went mental from there. He managed to get a deal with Pusmore in the States, got a great deal in Brazil for us so everything kinda went global straight away, it was mad. So we didn’t even know what was going on, we were still those young kids just wanting to be on stage and it just taken off so quickly just flying by, you didn’t even notice what was happening really.
Andrew: That was the early days of thrash metal as well and no-one really knew what was going on with that kind of music. What kind of feedback were you getting in those early years and even on your first record as well?
Nige: It was weird, the first album was the real kind of cross over, metally, dark, hardcore punk metal and we were still finding our feet on that record and it was a weird thing because I don’t know what the situation is like in Australia but here punks and metal heads and everything really mix at gigs, or they did at the time. So we were playing to big cross-over of audiences of all sorts in the UK and obviously the metal scene in general was very good here at the time, lots of press and we were getting lots of magazine coverage and I think within 6 months apart from “Power Of Hell” coming out we were offered the deal with Music For Nations. So it was just insane how quickly things were moving, we’d gone from our first few shows to being signed to one of the biggest independent labels in the world within a matter of 18 months, it was crazy.
Andrew: It’s amazing and obviously it’s a lot different now, I mean what do you think is the biggest change now as far as the general metal scene overall?
Nige: Well obviously there seems to be so many bands out there these days in comparison to what there used to be and it must be so tough for these guys to get their feet off the ground. Obviously the competition is so much but the record labels won’t invest like they used to because obviously the end results aren’t there financially for labels these days because of what happened with the downloading situation and it’s basically knocked 90 percent of sales down over these last 30 odd years. They just can’t invest in new bands or break in new bands as they could so it’s gotta be tough for new bands who are doing this. For established bands like us and Exodus and the likes of that it’s still very good, we already had a ready made audience and we’ve been lucky to drag that through to a new generation of thrash metal fans. So things for us are still really good and long may that continue really.
Andrew: Yeah definitely and it’s good to see thrash metal come in waves as we did see a bit of a resurgence about 10-15 years ago where all these new bands started coming out and that’s really kinda kept the thrash metal scene alive I think along with you guys that have been around a long time as well.
Nige: Yeah I mean we came back in 2005, that was based on what we had seen from the first two albums “Power From Hell” and “The Force” being re-released and we didn’t know nothing about it, released in 2002. I think it was about 2004 we’d actually found out they actually came out again so we obviously got in touch with the label who released them and we were amazed at the amount of records they had sold, it was incredible. Which is fair enough, we got paid all the royalties from that which was nice but it also showed that there was an audience for Onslaught still and a lot of people were still interested in the band so that kind of helped us with the decision when we came back. So that was kind of when another resurgence started in 2006 or something like that so we kinda got in at the right time which is great and it’s just been going very well ever since, and there seems to be another little resurgence in the last few years as well so very cool.
Andrew: Yeah it’s very cool to see that and I remember when “Killing Peace” came out as well and going ‘Yes Onslaught are back again!’ I felt that album was maybe a little under appreciated by a lot of fans I think.
Nige: I think it’s one of those things, I think not a lot of people knew we were back and we were trying to re-establish ourselves again and that record for me was really important in particular because “In Search Of Sanity” was, as much as there was great songs on it, it didn’t turn out the way I wanted it to and it wasn’t a typical Onslaught record and it triggered the end of the band the first time around. “Killing Peace” for me was a big statement to come back and that record was how I wanted “In Search Of Sanity” to be so for me it was trying to put a lot of wrongs right as well, it was a massive album for me in the Onslaught catalogue.
Andrew: Well despite what’s going on now and with the new album as well, I guess things are pretty optimistic for Onslaught these days. Once we get past all this virus stuff I guess Onslaught will continue on this cycle for a couple of years.
Nige: Yeah I mean it was a gamble whether to release the album or to delay the album because I noticed a lot of bands have been delaying the albums because of the virus which I didn’t kind of get really, I didn’t understand their thinking behind it. Because labels need to survive as well, the last thing we want is for labels to go out of business, and promoters. So if every band started cancelling their albums and what have you, labels would really be in some deep trouble. So we looked around, we looked at Testament who were still releasing their album, Lamb Of God are still going ahead releasing their record and we thought, ‘Well if these guys are releasing records then there’s obviously a reason behind it and if it’s good enough for them, it’s good enough for us. We get on with the record, get the record out, fans are going to be looking for new music to listen to because they got no festivals, no shows to go to. So hopefully we can benefit from this bad situation and sort of get people who wouldn’t necessarily listen to Onslaught, checking it out, maybe buying the album and then when we can come out of lockdown we kinda got a step ahead with an established record that people are going to want to see the band play live and give us a jump on the other bands who maybe delayed releasing their record.
Andrew: Yeah definitely it’s a good time, on a more positive note, to check out new music for sure. Well it’s been fantastic to be able to speak to you, as I said I’ve been a fan for a number of years and I’ve never had an opportunity to speak to you guys. I hope the album does really well when it comes out and maybe at some point if it ever comes to fruition we will see you down in Australia.
Nige: Well it’s top of the list, Australia. We’ve been so fortunate, we’ve played in 70 different countries across the world and Australia has eluded us all this time and it’s a place I really want to come to and try and get at least one of those two guys on stage with us when we get there as well!
