“We were just looking at each other with big grins on our faces,” says Gallagher about when the band finally had the finished product in their hands (said finished product was originally released on indie King Records last year but is now seeing proper North American release through Metal Blade). “When it comes down to it, we’re making music for ourselves. If someone likes it, that’s great. But you’ve got to like it yourself. We’ve had times in our past where we were basically told to make music for other people and it doesn’t work out that well. You’ve gotta be true to yourself and follow through on that, which we’ve been doing for a hell of a long time.”
And after the decade that these guys have had, it makes sense that we’re not getting a The Pack Is Back (although, damn, that’s a fun album to listen to), instead, getting something that approaches the vibe of their last disc, One For All, which, shockingly, came out a solid ten years back. But, man, what a ten years it’s been, with guitarist Mark Gallagher famously having a wall fall on him and crush his legs, and dealing with a miraculously successful recovery. Add in the Gallaghers’ father passing away and it’s not been the best of times for the guys.
“Mark nearly died,” says Gallagher. “Then it was, ‘We’re going to have to cut your leg off.’ Then it was, ‘You’ll never walk again.’ He’s proved them all wrong, right down the line. He was skiing last week in Colorado; he’s a good skier. He’s probably 90% back to where he was.”
All of which means good news for the Raven faithful, those who know what a special band this is. I mean, no one else can combine hyper thrash, ‘60s-rock harmonies and… those vocals. All this from a gaggle of guys that aren’t exactly getting any younger. But once they’re with their instruments, it’s like they’re kids again.
“I put a guitar on and crank it up through the amp or stick my bass up nice and loud, and I’m there,” says Gallagher. “I’m that 11-year-old kid experimenting in his basement with a homemade amplifier, saying, ‘Can we make this feedback? Is it going to blow up or not?’ When I first heard heavy metal, it sounded like whoever was playing it was actually demented. Then you’d see a lot of the bands and they weren’t demented, they were just standing still. The demented ones would be the audience, playing air guitar and headbanging and jumping around. We just took that part and put it on stage.”
For Raven, it’s all about the energy. When Gallagher sees current bands play with ultra-perfect technical precision, one thing comes to his mind.
“Yeah, they’re great,” he says, “but can they bang their guitar off their head and keep laughing? (laughs)”
I share a story with Gallagher at this point about when I was a kid, seeing my older brother’s copy of the band’s Live At The Inferno double LP (gatefold, on Banzai Records; as an aside, when asked if they saw a penny of payment for that Banzai pressing, Gallagher says “of course not”). There was a note inside saying there was absolutely no overdubs on the album; I was horrified, thinking that meant there was going to be swear words on the album. Gallagher laughs at my tale and tells me one of his own about his early days in the band, back when they had a certain hockey-helmeted madman behind the drums, back when we were all a lot younger. That’s the joy of Raven, really: eternal youth through absolutely nutcase tunes.
“When we were kids we used to rehearse in a school,” says Gallagher. “It was three miles away. Once or twice we literally pushed our gear three miles to rehearse. Set it up, play, and at the end, start throwing the guitars around, trashing our gear, making a big noise. Nobody was there. My father went to pick us up once, and walked in, I’m swinging the guitar over my head like a lasso. He said, ‘Are you bloody crazy?!’ It’s fun to abuse your equipment a little bit; if you’re going to destroy everything it gets old pretty quick, but we like to give it a little bit of a kick now and again.”
Despite other life commitments preventing too much touring, the band will be keeping busy this year, hitting the Euro fest circuit then playing some gigs in the States in September and October to support Walk Through Fire. Said jaunt will also include a Toronto stop, says Gallagher, which is something Toronto fans should be thankful for, considering the luck the guys had last time they were in T-dot.
“I think the last time we played Toronto was ’89, at the El Mocambo,” he says. “Both me and my brother’s Visas ran out when we were in Toronto so we had to go to the US Consulate to get stamps put in our Visas. We stood three-and-a-half hours out in the snow, then when we finally got in, we waited another two hours. Then they said, ‘Sorry, you’ve got to come back tomorrow’ (laughs). What a horror.”
