Interview with Ignite The Helix, Progressive Death/Groove Metal Band from New Zealand

Interview with Ignite The Helix, Progressive Death/Groove Metal Band from New Zealand

Ignite The Helix is Progressive Death/Groove Metal Band from New Zealand. Ignite The Helix are Craig ‘Snowy’ Didham – Vocals, Scott ‘Barkey’ Herriot – Guitars, Adam ‘Fiddy’ Fitzgerald – Guitars, Mike ‘Mitch’ Mitchell – Drums/Vox, Dylan “YOUSONOFABITCH” Pringle – Bass, and Ellen “Riffuel” Wilcox – Keys/Samples. Ignitve The Helix gave us some information. Check it out.

Tell us about Ignite The Helix?

We are a 6 piece groove-infused metal band from the southern depths of New Zealand that have been around 6 years with varying lineup changes. We focus on playing music that is simple, groovy and melodic with aggressive but ‘hooky’ vocals and some technicality but not over-the-top! Our song structures range from simple standard verse-chorus to progressive with a linear display of riffs however we like to try and evolve our sound and having keyboards opens up a lot of options with this. Since introducing a keyboardist a few years back the sound has changed dramatically and as a result the music has so much more depth and boosted the dynamics incredible. We would say dynamics play an extraordinarily integral part of our sound and we range from delicate to destructively heavy with moments precious as they are thundering.

What are lyrical themes of Ignite The Helix?

The lyrical content comes from a wide range of inspiration including mythical and spiritual themes as well as the experiences and emotions of the lyric writer...And also at times humorous material.

Adam: Speaking as only one member of the band I find lyrically the songs can be truthful and haunting - playing out the dark aspects of the human condition and delving introspectively into the mind.

What are your influences?

Our influences are a mixture of and range from bands like Machine Head, Lamb of God, Pantera, Gojira, Mastodon, Tool, Parkway Drive, Karnivool, Opeth. All of that and none of that comes out in our music :)

How did you choose the cover artwork?
All of our artwork to date has been designed by our very ex-bass player Brendon who recently left the band to move to Australia. He goes by the design brand Diskord (most of his stuff is isn't very metal but you can check him out at www.facebook.com/diskordnz) He's a very talented guy and is also responsible for some of the song writing. For the EP our vocalist Craig ('Snowy') had a very specific idea for it and communicated it to Brendon... we just kinda waited on the result and were very impressed!

How were the songs written?

The band has 4 main song writers and we all work through different processes. Sometimes we start off with an idea or two from scratch and just jam out riffs in the band room together and work on it from there. Other times one of us will write a full or near complete song, do a basic recording and bring it to the band. Either way we end up messing with it and working through structure ideas and gaining everybody's input. Usually 4 of us will get the song down first and then the vocals and keyboards get added last - but sometimes the song is based around the keyboards so we work from there.

How did the recording process go?

The recording process was great! We have attempted to record 3 times before with people we know and just haven't been entirely happy with the result for whatever reason. We have been around since 2010 so some of the songs on the EP go back as far as 6 years old! We really wanted to try to capture our live sound on record so this time we decided to go with someone we knew had a good track record and pay him for his time. We didn't have a huge budget so it was basically like "how many songs can we do in how many days for this budget?" We were in the studio for 3 days + a meeting to go over some of the final mixes. We used a local guy called Dale Cotton who has produced some great stuff but has never done metal before so for both of us it was a bit of a learning curve but we enjoyed it and we're very pleased with the result!

What are your future plan?

It's in our sights to record and release an album because the old material needs to be put on record. Traditionally the writing of new songs and getting them to performance standard has been a ridiculously drawn out process but at this point we've written and continue to write a bunch of new songs.

Are there any countries you’re interested in touring or performing in? Why?

Adam: Personally I'd love to tour around Europe. Go to somewhere Germany where there are 3 days festivals of metal! That would be insane! I really feel that's where the main metal audience is and that's where we should go and I'm very serious about it. We have discussed it but no formal plans have been made. There is also something really exciting about the idea of going on the road and touring round like the west coast of the United States or somewhere like that but we'd really have to do our research on the places to go that would have an audience to for metal and the bands to play with. For now we're setting our sights on doing a short New Zealand tour and popping over to Australia.

What bands would you like to play alongside?

We would absolutely love to play alongside any of our influences, like to share the stage with Lamb of God, Gojira or Opeth or any of our icons would just be amazing and humbling. We can't tell you the buzz we would have off that it would be incredible!

Any last words?

Thank you so much for your interview, we really enjoyed the questions! To all the metal head brothers and sisters out there go check out our facebook www.facebook.com/ignitethehelix and like us, check out our Music video for 'Throwing Scissors' on Youtube. Like us on Instagram (www.instagram.com/ignitethehelix) and grab the EP at www.ignitethehelix.com! The more friends we make abroad the sooner we can come visit your beautiful countries! \m/