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West Side Dave: Alrighty Dave, first up; what`s the status of the current line-up?
Dave Morrissey: It`s early days really. We`re only just getting back into rehearsals after nearly 18 months and we`ll be hard at it up until Christmas The plan is to get out with a short support set to warm up before we start to gig again and there`s also the album to think about. We`ll be getting a demo with the new line-up recorded before Christmas hopefully. So we`ve got a lot of work to do before we`re well and truly back.
As for the new guys themselves, Denis is a worthy successor to the previous singer. He`s got the range and the voice to carry both the old and new songs. He did a stunning version of Children Of The Sky recently and it`s even better than the original. Keith`s a great guitar player, very much in the mold of John Sykes and we`ll be working closely over the coming weeks to nail those harmonies tightly. Conor`s a jack-of-all-trades. He`s a multi-instrumentalist, which will be great for studio work. He`s been away from Metal for a while so he`s relishing being back in a back like this. He`s a very technical drummer but he`s got the Metal chops too.
Time will tell whether this line-up will gel and also stick together, the early signs are very promising. But things were very promising last time out too and that didn`t work out too well. But we know what danger signals to look out for this time.
WSD: Can you tell us a bit about the upcoming CD "Guardian Of Eternity"?
DM: It`s getting there. The writing is 90% done for the album. Slim and myself have spent quite a while working on the material in much the same way as we did on the previous two albums. As before, a lot of preparation has gone into the arrangements and it`s starting to sound like a natural follow-up to Resurrection. But we were slowed down by the continual uncertainty with the line-up so that meant constant delays in getting the album recorded.
Over the past 6 months or so I`ve been working on the basic tracks in the studio and for a long time it looked like we were going to go with a session drummer, with me playing all the guitar parts and Slim singing. Then Den arrived and we had to backtrack a bit. Now Conor and Keith have come in, so already we have tracks that don`t reflect the line-up. So we`ve decided to scrap the recordings we`ve worked up and go into the studio in the new year and essentially start the album again. This makes sense because otherwise we`d release an album by a different band to that which would be playing it live later on and that would mean that the sound wouldn`t be consistent with the studio album. It also makes more sense in that the newer guys wouldn`tt feel like they`re just performing a set of cover versions onstage. It`s far better to have everyone involved from the start The guys would be more enthusiastic about performing songs they`ve recorded themselves rather than by another group of musicians. However, we still have the aborted recordings and they may be made available as a bonus disk on a limited edition or be released later on a compilation. They certainly won`t go to waste anyway.
WSD: How does the new one compare to your previous efforts?
DM: I think it takes the band a step further than on Resurrection. There are no old re-recorded tracks this time, no instrumentals (aside from a brief intro) and no ballads. By the same token, that trad influence isn`t there as much as it was previously, although the material still has that strong Irish overtone. If you listen to the first two albums back to back, there`s a definite progression. Celtic Legacy was a pretty experimental album in a lot of ways and there are things on it like Rainman that didn`t work. Resurrection was a more straightforward metal album than the first but it still had a few weak spots. This time we`ve tried to learn from what worked and utilise those ideas. It`s certainly closer to Resurrection that it is to the debut. Once you put it on you know straight away that it`s a Celtic Legacy album. And one thing I`ve promised myself this time is that it will be a lot better produced than the previous ones.
WSD: It`s been nearly 3 years since the band released "Resurrection". Looking back, what are your thoughts on it now?
DM: I think I can be a lot more critical of it now than I was when it was released. I think it`s great album but it could have been even greater if band politics hadn`t gotten in the way. It`s no secret that I was dead against "Shine" being put on that album, I think it`s out of place and it should have been left as a track from the first album rather than carrying it into the Resurrection era. It`s not a particularly bad song but we should have put another new one on rather than taking a lazy approach and just re-hashing a track from the first album. It came to sum up everything that was wrong with the line-up that recorded it and it was definitely put in as a filler which I wasn`t happy about. Sloidephuch Doin is also generally regarded as a filler but I honestly don`t think it is. I think it slots nicely in and is a good tune. The biggest problem I have with the album overall is the production because it really should have sounded better. It could have been a lot more powerful than it was, there`s not enough clarity in the mixes and tracks like Guardian Angel and Shine really sound terrible to me now. The biggest let down for me when I think back to Resurrection is that the mastering of it was botched completely. You might be wondering why Children Of The Sky just clatters to a halt instead of fading out like it was supposed to. I was wondering why too¦ especially considering the money it cost us to have it supposedly "properly mastered". On the plus side, there`s really some great stuff there like Emania, Resurrection, Live By The Sword, Timeless, When A Stranger Comes and Children Of The Sky. Most of these tracks will be in the band`s live set next year; I don`t think we could get away with dropping them even if we wanted to.
WSD: The bands` concept overall is derived mostly from Irish culture; was this a deliberate move, or did it just work out that way?
DM: It just worked out that way really. It started when I wrote the music to Lost Soul and Slim contributed appropriately themed lyrics. The very next song written was Celtic Legacy itself and after that things sort of slotted into place.
WSD: With the exception of yourself, the only constant member of Celtic Legacy has been bassist Dave "Slim" Boylan. What is the appeal of working with Slim?
DM: Slim and myself have this chemistry as songwriters in that we can give each other a basic riff or melody and you can be sure that when we finish off that song it`ll sound exactly as we both intended it to be. I could write a basic riff and play it to Slim and he`ll come up with a melody to suit it without any discussion or direction from me. In the same way, Slim would call me out to hear a riff he`s come up with and I`ll take it home, play around with it and bring a finished track back to him that he`s very pleased with. That`s the way we`ve always worked. There`s an element of trust in that both of know that we`ll be able to complement each other`s work without having to go into lengthy breakdowns.
Both of us can contribute complete pieces of music without too many changes to structure. We`ll both suggest things or change a few parts of the arrangement, but overall we tend to know what will work to each other`s tastes. But at the same time if something is clearly not working we don`t argue about it¦ we just move on to something else. We just developed a certain working relationship over the years and it came from us being familiar with our styles of playing and our tastes in music. It`s not something we laboured on though, it just evolved over the years and it`s worked out very well.
I like to concentrate more on riffs and rhythms, organise the song arrangements, work out twin leads and breaks and generally knock a track into a rough shape. Slim works hard on melodies, vocals and lyrics. Then I arrange everything and we both listen and make any changes we think are needed. The combination of the ideas forms the basis for 98% of Legacy`s material. If both of us like a song then it passes the test, if one of us doesn`t like something then it`s likely to be dropped. That`s our benchmark.
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