Venom Prison: "We weren't afraid of trying new things"
Three albums deep, and Welsh metallers Venom Prison are really hitting their stride. With their new full-length 'Erebos' - which shares a name with the...
Three albums deep, and Welsh metallers Venom Prison are really hitting their stride. With their new full-length 'Erebos' - which shares a name with the Greek god of darkness, a child of Chaos, 'FYI' - they've pulled out all the stops for a blistering level up. Guitarist Ash Gray fills us in.
Hello Ash! What are you up to today?
I am keeping busy, getting ready for the album campaign and sorting a bunch of stuff behind the scenes for the band.
You've had an eventful couple of years, with postponed live shows, new music and a new record deal - how have you found it all? Are you in a good place?
It's been very constant if I'm honest. With all live shows being postponed, it was time to figure out what this band was going to do for the time being and make sure we stay active and creative and not just sit on this band. I'd say we and myself are in a good place at the moment, having our new album 'Erebos' on the horizon and future plans/creatives. We have a clear indication of what we are heading for, feeling confident that people will be into everything.
At what point did you start working on the new album, was it before the pandemic kicked off? What was your headspace like going into it?
Myself and Ben [Thomas] are always writing, so it's usually what song or songs kick start the idea for a record off. We had just come out of the studio in December 2019 after rerecording 'Primeval' - we added two new songs on that release - that would be the start of the pool of new songs we started collecting. Having more time for this record really helped us reflect and make the right decisions. Headspace was certainly different, a lot more critical, figuring out how 'Erebos' would sound was difficult; we didn't want to create a version two of previous records, each Venom Prison record we try to approach differently and give each album its own character and personality. Once we found a clear idea, we just ran with it.





