Revenge and brutality all mixed together with Warpath

Howdy Darren, how are you Mate? Introduce yourself and your band and give us a little bit of Warpath history.
Hey, Hows it going? I'm Darren Keogh the vocalist of Dublin based brutal death metal band Warpath.
Warpath got started late 2005/early 2006. We started out as a band made up of close mates all with the same interest in music and the same desire to play in a band that specialises in brutal as fuck extreme music! We wrote some material and released a couple demos and then went on to record our debut album which we titled "Gorefare". After the release of Gorefare we started getting some really good gig slots with well known international acts such as Necrophagist, Obituary, Unleashed, Misery Index and Napalm Death to name a few. We went strong and got our name across eveywhere we could. In April 2009 we went on a European tour with Lividity from America and represented Irish Brutality across Europe. We have played a couple of European festivals over the last 2 years, Way of darkness in Germany and we are just home from Obscene Extreme in Czech Republic, They were both great experiences for us! We have recently recorded our New album which will be titled "Malevolent Reprisal",  so keep your eyes out for that coming soon! In two weeks time we will be main support for one of our big influences, Cannibal Corpse. We are looking forward to that show! should be a brutal night!

Now your just back from Obscene Extreme 2010, how was that for you guys? Who did you meet and hang out with?
Yeah man, we just got home from Obscene Extreme two weeks ago and I think I'm still hungover haha. We had an amazing time over in Czech Republic at the festival, the fans that go to that festival are literally insane, you can see the are fuelled by extreme music! We played on the Friday of the festival and had such a fun time on stage, I didnt want to get off the stage I was enjoying myself so much. We were hanging out with the guys from Misery Index, Cattle Decapitation, Avulsed, Beyond Terror Beyond Grace, Rompeprop and many more cool people man. It was great to hang out with the guys from Misery Index all weekend because they are a big influence to us and they were fuckin amazing live, there was a full on thunder and lightning storm during their set, it was lashing rain but we all just jumped around in the pit loving every second of it!

You guys done a European tour with Chicago gore slammers, Lividity, how was that for you? any favourite shows amongst it and why?any crazy stories?
Yeah man, that tour was fuckin amazing, the guys from Lividity are some of the coolest people i've ever met, We got on so well with them. We played dates all across Europe in countries such as Germany, Holland, Austria, Poland, Czech Republic  and a few morewe made loads of new fans/friends and played some great shows in the tour. Id think one of my favourite shows was the show we did in Rotterdam Holland, Our tour combined with another tour that night and Pessimist joined the bill that night, that was such a cool suprise. Kelly Conlan was playing with them. It was cool to meet a death metal legend like him unexpectedly at the show, He has Played in bands like Monstrosity, Death and Vital Remains, thats one hell of a C.V right there haha. He was wearing a Tshirt with an Irish flag on it and came and got drunk with us after he found out we were Irish it was a great time! As for crazy stories, the first one that comes to mind that makes me laugh everytime I think of it was one night after a gig we were on the tour bus on our way to the next destination on the tour, We had a great after party and we were all very drunk. The toilet of the bus had been broken for a couple of days, it wouldnt flush after you used it so the toilet bowl was filled to the top of everybodies urine. Our drummer Graham was feeling quite drunk and went for a piss, he stupidly brought his camera and mobile phone into the toilet with him, the bus driver hit the brakes and Graham dropped both his phone and camera into the toilet filled with piss, haha then out of impulse put both his hands into the toilet bowl and fished out his camera and phone out of the piss! haha it was fuckin disgusting but hilarious, the funniest part was both the phone and camera still work to this day! hahaha!

Your debut album, "Gorefare", seemed very Cannibal Corpse influenced but however your new material seems alot stronger but with a shed load more influences? Tell me about your new material and of course the new influences that you have embraced?
This time around we took a much more brutal and extreme approach to the style of music we were writing and we were delighted with the outcome. It is alot more Dynamic compared to the earlier material, It is faster and alot more technical than the debut album but we didn't steer off the groove that we have had from the start. We just wanted to knock everything up notch this time around, to me progression is key when you are writing, it keeps the listener entertained and stops you from getting fed up with the same old thing you know. We definitely take alot of influence from bands like Misery Index, Dying fetus and Cannibal Corpse, but we would also take inflluence from grindcore and hardcore bands such as Napalm Death, Waco Jesus, Terror and Hatebreed... We have influences across the board which can be heard in our music but we never stir away from the sound of Warpath. We have started writing material for our third album already and although it is very early days in the process we are extremely happy with the way it is sounding so far!!

Who are the main song writers for the band? Do you guys write in the practice room or do you guys write as individuals and then bring it together in the practice room?
We actually do a combination of both man. We all bring our own piece to the table when it comes to writing, The guitarists would come in to the studio after writing a riff at home, blast that shit out to us and we Start jamming it out in the practice room, throwing beats over it and then we start piecing it together, getting into it, everyone throws in their two cents and we see how stuff sounds, if we dont like it we scrap it straight away and just keep on trying different things until it clicks. Then we work on structure and vocal patterns and we piece the song together making sure everything flows nicely and every member is happy with it. It has been working so far, So if it is not broken don't fix it haha.

You have undergone a few lineup changes. Who is new to the band and what happened to the old members?
Yeah man myself, Graham and Eoin Broughal are the three orginal members in the line up, We seem to have had bad luck with guitarists in the past. We started out with two guitarists, Daniel Peshke and Daniel Murray, Daniel Murray was the first of the two to go, He deicided in the very early days that death metal wasn't his thing and wanted to leave and we highly respected that decision and are still mates with him today. In Daniel Murrays place we recruited Rowan o'Neill, who was a great guitarist and wrote many of the riffs which you hear in the Warpath tracks to this day. Next to go was Daniel Peshke. Peshke wasnt working out due to personal reasons and we had to let him go. We have no bad blood with Peshke but we lost contact with him when he left the band unfortunately, He contributed many great riffs to Warpath and we greatly appreciate everything he did and we hope he is keeping well. After the departure of Peshke We Got Eoin Dunne on board, he clicked with us from day one and was actually a fan of Warpath before he was a member.One of the things that sold Eoin Dunne to us was he showed up to his audition Knowing how to play every one of our songs! He had the songs down so tight that he gigged with us a week later and played a blinder of a first gig. He is still with us to this day and we couldnt be happier at the moment. To our suprise and confusion Rowan O'Neill stopped showing up for practice with no excuse for his absence, we don't mess around when it comes to practice, everybody has to pull their weight, this went on repeatedly for weeks until we had enough and had to get rid of him, It was a very unexpected decision to have to make but it was what had to be done to prgress and accomplish our goals. We then recruited Joseph Merriman, He showed up to his audition and fuckin destroyed it, he was a breath of fresh air to have in the band. He was slammin out old school dying Fetus songs with us and knew some of our material already, He was a quick learner and picked everything up withou a problem. He shredded some of his own material for us and we were sold. Joe was recruited and is still on board to this day. We can safely say that this is the strongest line up warpath has had to date!

Now your currently looking for a label for the new record, how's thats going for you? For labels reading this, give these guys a listen!
Yeah man, it is going ok, we were extremely Happy with the job Ian lawless from underground Movement did with our debut album. Ian is a legend and does nothing but great things for the Irish metal scene. we had a discussion and we decided we would like to see what else is on the table for us. So far we have had nothing come our way but we are going to be sending more copis of our new material along with the old material out to more labels soon. we are jusyt waiting on artwork at the moment, we had slight delays with that but everything is moving along nicely now! Yeah man appreciate appreciate the label shout out, hope somebody reading this will be interested in signing us! thanks!

Lyrically, what are your influences? And have they changed since the "Gorefare" days?
Yeah man it is fairly safe to say that the lyrical content and influence has changed on "Malevolent Reprisal" than on "Gorefare". On "Gorefare", as the title would suggest I went with very Gore orientated lyrics but as we all know, Gore has been done to death these days, It is hard to do it while being orginal nowadays. This time around I went with just a general theme of violence, Revenge and brutality all mixed together. Leaving all options open, no limits to it at all. The album is titled "Malevolent Reprisal".. So revenge played a big part in the lyrical influence, Getting your own back in a wave of malevolence you know, whie also suggesting Warpath were coming back with a second wave of malevolence which is our second album. There are songs about Interrogaton, Songs about mental torment driving you to go insane and kill and as I mentioned songs on revenge and punishment! I think the lyrics have definitely matured since "Gorefare".

What has been your favourite show you have played to date and why? And where can folk check you out in the future?
The favourite show we played to date for me was probably, The way of darkness festival in Germany.The crowd gave us great support, the sound was excellent, the atmosphere at the festival just made it such an enjoyable show and experience for us!We Shared the stage with bands like Cannibal Corpse, Dying fetus, Malevolent Creation, Vader and Vomitory They would be a collection of some of my favourite bands so it was great to party backstage with them. At present the shows we have scheduled are the main support slot for Cannibal Corpse in Dublin on August 21st and Main Support for Prostitute Disfigurement in Dublin on the 8th of december. I hope people can make it to the shows and show their support for Death Metal with full force on the nights! We hope to get on the bills of more festivals in the future and Hopefully do another tour very soon but at this present time getting this new album out is our main objective!

Cheers Darren for yer time, anything to add? The last rites?
I'd just like to thank you for the interview and to ask people to check out some of our new tracks and contact us on our myspace page at www.myspace.com/warpathire. we really appreciate the support we get and we hope to see you banging your head or killing in the pit for us in the future!! New album will be out soon! keep supporting the brutality! Irish Brutal death metal! spread the word! Cheers!