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It's not often that a Metal act comes up with a sound that really causes you to sit up and pay attention, yet this is exactly what Northern Ireland's Epoch have managed to achieve. To listen to Epoch is to transcend all the self-imposed boundaries of Metal and head off on a voyage into the sonic other-world. Check this act out if you think your intelligence can handle it.
Formed in late 1995 as a bit of a mess-around side-project, Epoch became mainman Jason's full-time musical project after he left Waylander and is today possibly the most avant-garde Metal act in the whole of Ireland. Fitted Kitchens met him one fine summer's afternoon in Belfast (I'd been told to look for the guy with the Manowar t-shirt at the train station...) and headed to the nearest imbibing emporium for what turned out to be several hours enjoyable chat... impossible to squeeze into this rag, so its all been a tad edited down. Enjoy.
Ok, big man, tell us how Epoch came about
"Well, we were playing every Saturday night just for a laugh and getting drunk, but immediately developed the Epoch sound. We started layering electronic sound effects over heavy riffing... we were very influenced by 70's Progressive rock such as Pink Floyd, King Crimson, Van Der Graf Generator, Emerson Lake and Palmer, Hawkwind etc, and we were trying to fuse it with extreme Metal. We more or less got the sound immediately"
I did ask Jason to outline the early history of Epoch but its such a complex web of personnel changes and swaps that its far too long to transcribe here... suffice to say that it would put the nascent Entombed to shame. Several demos have been released, the latest one being the sonic head-fuk 'Inside an Open Space'. Anyhows, we've got the whiskeys in, lets crack ahead. It would be quite difficult to describe Epoch's music by using just one or two well-known band as reference points, you certainly can't be described as 'generic'.
 "We're very much appreciated for our originality. At the end of the day, its just a sea of un-originality out there, all contemporary bands have the same drum sound etc"
Yet for many bands, all they want is to sound like their heroes. I know a sound engineer who worked with a band who said 'we want to sound like Immortal'.. and their demo does sound like Immortal. They're happy, the engineer's happy...
"Well, our influences are more varied. I have completely different musical tastes to Johnny, we're very antagonistic which maybe has something to do with it. There's no single band that we wish to ape, we're just trying out different things. If I like something, I'll take a little slice of it and put that in, not just take's a band's sound"
It's undoubtedly progressive stuff, and in the past you've already cited the likes of Hawkwind, Van der Graf Generator etc as being major influences, but there's also some more recent stuff that I can hear, like Robert Fripp and Voivod, a lot of experimentation, and perhaps Rush though I terms of technicality rather than sound. Are there any influences that I may have overlooked? Like, are you going to shock readers by citing the Bee-Gees or anything?!
"Ha ha! Absolutely anything influences us. The Beatles and Led Zeppelin have a lot to answer for... 'When the Levee Breaks', that drums sound, we're trying to get that sound. We can break free of that riff-chorus-solo thing, there's no boundaries. Most bands are frightened to break the rules; we have a blatant disregard for them!".
Jason's in no rush to get Epoch material completed and will happily spend ages on a particular piece until he is happy with the overall sound and vibe. He's also very conscious of the need to impart an atmosphere through music...
"We're planning to go into the forest to record an acoustic interlude for our new material, just to get that quintessance. Me and Johnny, we're very into the 'Led Zep' thing; they did their first album on the lawn outside this country mansion. If you listen carefully, you can actually hear a plane going overhead during 'The Battle of Evermore'. It's to try and get that sort of atmosphere that no one else can"
Hmm... Epoch are a bunch of stargazing hippies. Is this not a fair accusation?
"Hmm, let me think... stargazing, aye, I suppose so! I do gaze at the stars very often, it's a good thing to gaze at the stars. So 'stargazing hippies'... whatever! "
You claim to hold quite a jaded view of humanity. I think it was Bernard Brecht who said 'Hell is other people'...
"Personally speaking, I am very much a misanthrope. I spend a long periods of time by myself, I'm not a sociable person. I don't know whether this is entirely to the benefit of my organism... maybe I should get out more often. Yes, hell is other people. If you take a good look at your life, most of your problems are caused by other people."
Your recordings thus far have been consistently lo-fi. Is this simply due to that old chestnut, a lack of cash, or is it a deliberate decision to keep the sound raw?
"Well, with the first one there was an accident with the master tape and so all copies had to be duplicated from an ordinary cassette tape, but the quality was fucking bad to start with anyway. The second one, 'Inside an Open Space', wasn't that bad, but wasn't that good either. The recording that we're about to delve into now will have a super top-notch production job (Jason had done all previous ones himself- Ed). But at the end of the day demos, by their very nature, are a demonstration of your music, the production doesn't really have to be that good. A lot of these brutal Death Metal bands, they can all play really really well and a get a top-notch production demo done, but their music's just bland crap".
Ask Jason to discuss the concepts behind Epoch's songs and he'll reel off an impressive reading list, ranging from the likes of CS Lewis to Michael Moorcock. But how about political and social awareness?
"I'm obsessed by politics. Lyrically speaking, in my younger days I was trying to right the wrongs of the world, trying to express all that. Lyrically, Epoch would be removed from that. On the first Waylander tape, there's one song that I wrote the lyrics for; it was about the problems in Northern Ireland, the 'tit-for-tat' sectarian shootings, stuff like that, sort of going 'oh no, this is wrong, this is wrong'. But, on reflection, it was maybe a little naïve. Lyrically, I've moved on and Epoch is just on a deeper level. Maybe I will try to get some social awareness in."
It is frustrating that people constantly expect bands from Northern Ireland to write solely about 'the Troubles', and bands as diverse as Therapy?, The Divine Comedy and the Undertones have been attacked in the music press for not doing so. Living day in day out in this place, its annoying to see people trying to oversimplify what goes on here. In that respect, if you did want to make a valid and articulate point, it may be best to phrase it in more ambiguous or vague manner to avoid glibness.
Jason, do you subscribe to any particular world-view or set of values?
"No. Philosophically and religiously speaking, I absorb everything. I'm reluctant to say this, given the current climate of Heavy Metal, but I'm very well educated in matters of the occult. Not to say that Epoch are an occult band or blah, anything like that, that's just me personally".
People like Anton La Vey have put an articulate case for 'Satanism' essentially meaning 'challenging' and 'independent thinking', a far cry from the teenage dickhead out desecrating graves. It's a lot more subtle a mindset than is often given credit...
"Yes. Nowadays, people have such a narrow viewpoint, its just either Christianity or rebellion against it. All these 'Satanists' have just turned Christianity on its head, they confuse the politics with the philosophy."
Getting back to Epoch's activities, let's talk about gigging. Is it fair to say Epoch don't?
"You could say that. We have played at the last two summer solstices, but just at sort of piss-ups with friends... I operated all the sound effects with foot triggers, very complicated, but we pulled it off. But as you said, we don't really gig; due to our revolving line-up, we've never really got round to it"
It all sounds very Bathory!
"Well, we were on the very verge of gigging before our previous guitarist left. But watch this space! We may get more musicians, but at the minute we're quite content to stay in the studio. I got a bit disillusioned playing live whilst with Waylander... if you're playing to a crowd that doesn't appreciate it, its just a waste of your time. But, you never know..."
What do Epoch do by the cold light of day?
"I'm involved in the meat industry, in a food safety laboratory. For the readers, I'm being interviewed by a vegan... He is disgusted! But he's wearing leather boots..."
Ah, well my line of defence would be to say, its better to reuse than buy new, maan!
"Johnny has just finished a music course and is now 'resting'. Kim, our semi-guitarist, is doing a course in sound engineering"
Useful people to have involved indeed. What do you make of the Irish Metal scene?
"I don't really think hat there's a 'scene' of such, just a few dozen people who know each other basically. A few good bands... Primordial, Thy Sinister Bloom, the now-defunct Lesshelp, I liked them. Generally speaking, the Irish scene is very bitchy... that doesn't do anyone any good. I don't know what it is about the scene, but it always was, and always will be, bitchy"
Though that's no worse than a mutual backslapping, happy-clappy scene... that would be insufferably dull
"Ah! I'll take all that back, there's nothing wrong with bitching, ha. It makes the scene interesting... all that bitchin' and slobberin', people love it, its good fun, aye."
OK, well what next from Epoch?
"Well, in the immediate future we're going into the recording studio. We're pulling all the stops out on this one, its going to be mental. We're also going to start posting tapes to record labels now, which we'd never done before. We did manage to get some label interest and a good write-up in Terrorizer magazine without haven't sent them tapes, which was pretty good going. The new recording will take a few months, and hopefully we'll have something that'll be listened to by a wider audience than a few hundred. I don't care if I never make any money off it, it's purely artistic. I'm in search of that artistic high, the buzz you get off good art is amazing"
Well, hopefully I'll be getting an earful of that sooner rather than later. Ok, cheers for the beer and answers... now get yer arse out of the pub and get cracking on the vibes.
"Thanks very much Spandex, I wish you the best of luck with the Fitted Kitchens of the Living Damned. Hold yer fist up high for Metal! Thank you and goodbye"
Ed's note (Oct '99): Since this interview was conducted (May '99), Kim has been replaced by original guitarist Gareth Morrow. The current line -up is Jason Barriskill (bass/ vocals/ fx), Gareth Morrow (guitars/ piano/ fx) and Johny Cardwell (drums/ percussion).
Interview and words by Spandex Oo-er.
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