Interview with Malefice

We caught up with Dale Butler from Reading metal band, Malefice, at Sonisphere for a quick interview.

R13: Hi Dale. I've been following your progress since Entities was released in 2007. You have grown at a tremendous pace. What has it been like over the last three or four years?
DB: Bloody Hell! It's been a roller coaster ride. I mean a lot of people see a lot of good times for us, but there have been a lot of bad times for us as well. With a band like us growing as quickly as we have being, it's very easy to get used to that but we do have to come back down to reality a lot. So, it's been difficult. We'll go out and do some huge tours and then we don't get booked for some of the smaller ones because people think we're actually bigger than what we actually are. We keep trying to explain to people that we need all the support that we can get. We get written up by the press like to be this fucking huge band and we're not, at all. We don't earn enough money to survive just for our music. We need all the help that we can get, but other than that man, as far as band life's been, it's been amazing. We have toured with some of our heroes like Devil Driver. Dez Fafara 's been one I've looked up to since I was 16 and now he's one of my friends and it's like, it's been amazing. We owe a lot of our growth to that man, because he's taken us under his wing from a very young age and he matured us into what we need to be.

R13: That's great, and brings me to my second question really, as to what's your career highlight been so far?
DB: Yeah, I mean Download 2008 was a huge, huge moment in our career because we never, ever deserved to be on that stage if we look at it. It's another one of those things where people think that we are bigger than we were. Although we opened, we opened the second stage to about 25,000 people. We had no right to be there. But that got us signed to Metalblade Records and we've never ever looked back from there. So, Download was that turning point for us from being a dream to 'we're actually doing this, boys', do you know what I mean?
R13: How did you get onto the Download bill then?
DB: Our manager managed to blag us on to the first Devildriver tour and Andy Copping and Dez are great mates; and Andy saw us on that tour and said 'You guys are solid; I want to book you for my festival'. So we did it. We were expecting like a third or fourth stage slot somewhere, not the Main Stage. I mean, if you're British, Donnington is like the Holy Grail. It's got so much heritage and history behind it. We are just really proud to be part of that history now.

R13: And Sonisphere's history off cause. So this is your first Sonisphere. Are you ready to rip Knebworth a new hole?
DB: Always ready. Always ready. We've just come off a European tour with Devildriver and Anthrax, so we've been playing some big crowds over in Europe, but no crowd in the world is close to a British crowd. So we are looking forward to getting out there. British kids always go fucking mental. I mean we only got added last week so we hope that we got the word out to enough people that we were here. So it will be alright, it will be cool.
R13: Yeah, I've just been speaking to an American band earlier today, and they were saying that the British crowd comes for the music, whilst the American kids come for the booze and girls.
DB: Yeah totally, I agree with that. We did New England Metal Fest in Boston earlier this year and it was a very weird crowd. I mean, you still got kids out there hardcore dancing to bands like Mastodon. And we were like 'what the fuck?' how does that work? It is really strange.

R13: Chris, your new drummer, how is he settling in the band?
DB: Brilliant. You know what? It feels like he's been with us for years. He used to be in a band called "Shy of the Depth" that supported us years back. And we've been keeping tabs on him ever since. He's a brilliant drummer. He's a young guy, only 22, but he's very down to earth. He's got a wife and kids and a really nice guy to tour with. And he's a superb drummer. It was a match made in heaven for us.

R13: Right, the Devildriver tour must have been awesome, are you planning to do that again soon?
DB: We would love to. I was talking to Dez on the last tour on the possibility of doing it this time around. And from our point of view we don't just want to be a Devildriver support band; and from their point of view they want to freshen up the bill. So we are going to tour together in the future. We want to get our new album out and their new album sounds ridiculous. They were playing the demos of it. It's going to be amazing. So we decided it was a little too soon to go out with them again so we will hold off. We have got a huge tour in November which I can't say an awful lot about at the moment (ED Malefice has since been announced as support on the Arch Enemy UK tour), but we will go out and play similar venues.

R13: Excellent, I'm looking forward to that. You've been recording your new album. You've been very secretive about it.

DB: Yeah, we don't want to give too much away, because I think it's going to shut a hell of a lot of people up about us. All the negatives we get from people about being unimaginative. We get a lot of good press, so we really do read our bad press. If someone's got an opinion about us, it's cool and I want to know what it is. We weren't happy with "Dawn of Reprisal", I say we, but I wasn't happy. It didn't evolve in the way I wanted it to but I think that had a lot to do with the line-up we had at that time

R13: Do you think it is a bit soft? I mean it's a lot softer than "Entities".
DB: Yes, very much. The way it's mixed. We're going with a different producer this time. We're going with Scot Atkins, who did the last Sylosis record and Bohemoth record. We stripped it back to really groove orientated Thrash Metal. It's going to be full of hooks.....that's all I'm gonna say. It's gonna be good.
R13: Ok, good. Looking forward to that. When is it going to be released?
DB: Haven't got a clue, man. We start recording October, so it'll be released Spring next year I'd imagine.

R13: Alright, any advise for the young bands out there?
DB: Yeah, get a credit card and a van; and stay with your Mum and Dad. Like, I can't afford to move out. Do not fucking move out! We're in a shitty position at this moment in this country. The economy is fucked. If you want to do it, it's going to be hard. It was hard for us and we started before the recession and we've seen the result of the recession on our business. So like I said, get a credit card, get a van and be willing to rough it. We toured in night liners loads, and we've just did that European tour, sleeping in our van. So, it's what you've got to do just to make it work sometimes.
R13: So are you ready to quit your day jobs?
DB: Yes. As soon as this new album is out and we are on the road constantly we can think about it. The reason why it's so hard at the time is because we are at the end of an album cycle, so tours are drying up a bit for us because we haven't got a product out. I mean, we only need to work when we are at home just for beer money really. The band survives; it doesn't cost us anymore, not like when we were younger. If I had no bills and didn't ever want to go out and have fun or go to the football, I won't need to work. So that's basically what our living is at the moment.

R13: Ok, last question is a tough one. How do you feel about commercial success?
DB: I'm a very selfish person. I think you got to be in this industry. There's always someone waiting to trip you up and put a knife in your back. All I want to do is make it. I have a lot more to prove to myself than I have to anyone else. I'm not afraid to say that I will step over people to get to where I want to be. I'm a business man and I am very realistic. We've had it happen to us, so it's the way you got to be, man. Its dog eats dog. We help people out a lot as well, younger bands. I've just started my own management company and I'm supporting younger bands, just trying to get back into the scene a little bit. But yeah, I just want to succeed.
R13: And Ben has his own recording studio.
DB: Yeah, we kind of team up a bit. I find bands I want to take on and he'll record them and we try to get them signed. It'll be good.

R13: Ok that's all from me; I'll be checking you out later today at the Jager Stage. Thank you.
DB: Yeah, it was good, man. Thanks.

Malefice played the Jagermeister Stage at Sonisphere and I rated them as the best 'non-headlining' band of the weekend. The review is on Roomthirteen.com. Malefice has also just announced their UK tour as support for Arch Enemy. Catch the live at a venue near you and keep your eyes peeled for their third studio album next year.