Raising Hell.
Interview: Andy Sneap from HELL
Legendary theatrical metal band HELL are back with their latest release titled ‘Curse and Chapter’. Mining old material combined with a wealth of new ideas, their resurgence has them cranking more riffs but in a tighter recorded set, borne from honing their fiendish craft in a furnace of rehearsals. Chock full of satirical puns and skewering organised religion with their tongue in cheek, the band delivers a crushing musical outing. Well established metal producer Andy Sneap, who also contributes with many guitar duties, is a life long metal fan whose engineering prowess has not been wasted on this new album that sees a previous pursuit to bring HELL to Earth in fine form again realised.
The first thing to ask Andy, fresh from reanimating such an archive of a band for a second sacrifice to the musical gods is how they cope with changes in technology? “Just roll with it, to be honest,” he begins. “I’ve bought a Behringer mixing desk to take on tour because my iPad will talk to it. I can mix my monitors off stage. I’ve been using a Kemper profiling amp for 18 months so I can profile my own rigs. I’m using in ear monitors as well. The only reason I am using speakers on stage is for the other guys who are Luddites and won’t move forward with technology. Using the Kemper is so much better for our front of house guy because instead of backline and stage fill, he has the perfect tone going to him,” he says, with a certain amount of pride.
New gear would impact on performance surely? Not so, according to Andy. “I’ve got this incredible mix happening right in my head so on festival stages you can go anywhere on those stages and still hear a good mix. At an outdoor gig without in ear monitoring, you can get pockets of sound, missing parts so it can be a challenge to keep your performance tight.”
The latest album has plenty of guitar solos. ‘The Age of Nefarious’, with an amusing nod to 70’s fans who should pick up on the astrological pun, has a trade off solo that simply rips. Andy explains it as adding excitement. “The guitar duel is something we should do more of as I like that,” he chuckles. Also harmony guitar parts on ‘Deathsquad’ bring older material to life. “That is an old instrumental from the 80’s and is meant to be a double guitar type of thing. We added what we thought was right in the studio. Then we go away and learn it. We’re opening current live sets with the song so that is a tricky number that weaves around the houses before it gets to the end. When we’re writing in the studio we don’t really worry about who plays which parts live. We’d probably played about 70 percent of this album before we’d recorded it. We would demo it with me and Kev [Bower – guitar] writing material and putting Dave’s [Bower – vocals] singing on. Some of those times when you then have to learn it end up being tricky moments.”
Hell’s influences are obvious. MAIDEN, PRIEST, ACCEPT and SCORPIONS are par for the course but on listening to the material, there is KING DIAMOND element stylistically. Andy explains it best stating that his impact on the band now given his being a metal fan growing up in the eighties probably weighs heavily on the sonic outcome. Given he was a fan of both HELL and MERCYFUL FATE, the comparison makes sense.
“Well, people say that because the songs are complicated and we’ve got a higher vocal in there,” he comments. “But back in 1982, the band was exactly the same so they had the same influences as MERCYFUL FATE did such as UFO, PRIEST and MAIDEN. That is only where I see the similarity and obviously because there is a theatrical element. I was into both HELL and KING DIAMOND when I was growing up but the other guys in the band did not follow metal that closely. If there is an influence coming from anywhere it is from me being into that scene but really HELL were around at the same time. I can play stuff from 1981 with HELL doing spoken intros. It is just a coincidence.”
Speaking of which, old music and the resurgence of vinyl today seems an apt topic. Does one of the world’s best metal producers worry about the source being from an analogue recording for pure audio appreciation? Surprisingly not. “That doesn’t matter,” he reveals matter of factly. “People have the wrong idea about what analogue and digital does to a sound. The vinyl pressing now is way better than what is was in the 80’s. They’re doing 180 gram pressings and a double album for a normal length record so you’re getting a better cut on there.”
Andy continues, clearly having hit a favourite topic. “I’m really impressed with the vinyl releases that are coming out now on Nuclear Blast and Century Media,” he says. “People talk about it being too clinical but when you sit back and listen, it fits right in with the stuff from the 80’s. I bought myself a deck several months ago to listen to the cuts people were doing for me. Each side is say 22 minutes and you enjoy the album cover and the music because you cannot skip through it. It is a real experience. I love it; I’d release everything on vinyl if I could. Every Saturday I used to get the train to Sheffield and spend the whole afternoon looking at album covers in record shops. It was a thing to do with my friends. I miss it and I think kids today should get off the Playstations and go and thumb through vinyl. It is a work of art.”
One of the main things overlooked in metal is the importance of guitar rhythms and the rehearsal that goes into flawless time signatures changes. Naturally, the way that HELL achieved their results is the same as anyone; rehearsals, hard work and instinct. “We did what felt natural really. We did demos of the whole record before we recorded it. So we got tempos mapped out and knew how we wanted the songs to flow. It is not as complicated as the first record so it is a bit more mature in the songwriting. We’ve played as a band for two or three years since the first record so everyone is playing a lot better. I’m a bit more of an old school thrasher so I’ve got that right hand technique down. We haven’t gone out and planned anything, it is just how we felt it should be,” he states.
Given Andy’s reputation as a well respected producer in the music industry for almost two decades, he is only too aware of the importance of an artist’s vision for a project, no doubt invaluable for working with HELL. So, what is his favourite production project where everything went to plan from both the producer and artist’s realisation of a vision?
“I don’t think anything ever goes exactly to plan,” he offers truthfully. “One of my favourite ones though was ACCEPT’s ‘Blood of the Nations’. I got the band back together and a lot of that album was my doing as far as getting them in the right direction, getting them focused and making it happen. I gave them the studio time on the condition that I got paid once we got a deal for it, so I took a real punt on that album and it paid off. I was such a big ACCEPT fan as a kid so to get the band up and running again, in its current form and getting them back on the map was something to be really proud of,” he says with a smile as big as a Cheshire cat.
Aside from the lyrical puns, there was some musical humour to be had in the process of making this second dark offering. Mentioning that having some cowbell in the track ‘Deliver Us From Evil’ adds some authentication and humour, Andy concurs. “I love that,” he roars. “Kev hates that. They used to do that on the [original] track and Kev was saying, ‘don’t use the cowbell’, so I said, ‘it’s going in’. It is actually the original cowbell from the 80’s as well. How good is that?” he asks, whilst knowing his target audience.