The Osiris Club Interview

We had an interview with the English progressive band The Osiris Club. We have enjoyed it a lot! Hope you will also!

Thanks a lot to Andrew Prestidge ( drums) for interview and we wish good luck for the new album ”The Green Chapel”.

First of all, how are you? As a group, are you guysfeeling excited about new album?

Hi, I’ m fine thank you, It will be nice to finally get the album into the world even though the record was finished a week before the last lockdown in 2020, obviously it wasn’t our intention for the record to come out almost four years after the ‘Wine Dark Sea’ album.

We have learned that your band name comes fromthe name of a cult in 1880s. How this cult affected your music?

The name itself derives from a secret Occult society from the Mike Mignola: Hellboy comic book universe, we mainly have literary influences on each album and there are always one or two tracks inspired lyrically by the Mignolaverse; ‘Citadel of the Fly/A Winters Night on Sentinal Hill from ‘Wine Dark Sea’ and also the first single from ‘The Green Chapel called ‘Moscow’ was based on the Varvara character from the B.P.R.D stories: Where Grigori Rasputin passes on his supernatural abilities to his daughter Varvara Rasputina.
I guess the darkness of the literature and imagery informs the darker aspects of the music too.

Actually, your band was a project to make horrormovie musics. Then you became a music group. Wouldyou like to tell us about this transformation process?

 When we first formed we were really influenced by the horror film scores of John Carpenter and the Italian Progressive band ‘Goblin’  and wanted to mix it with sound of bands like Voivod Cardiacs and Killing Joke.

 How can you describe your music?

 A Psychedelic Doom Rock Band with influences as diverse from 70s Prog, Post Punk, Pastoral Folk, Doom Metal & Horror/Sc-Fi Synth scores.

 What brought you back from avant-metal to theheavy- psych atmosphere of 70s? Which bands of 70s influenced your music ?

 My personal influence was an English psychedelic prog meets punk band from the late 70s called Cardiacs, their music led me to discover the work of early Genesis, Gentle Giant, Yes, King Crimson, Frank Zappa, Van Der Graaf Generator, Devo, Split Enz.
I also love The Damned , Rush and classic doom metal bands like Trouble, Cathedral & Saint Vitus
As a group we collectively love Voivod, Killing Joke & Black Sabbath but i am probably the guy that  mostly lives in the 1970s  in the Osiris Club.

Well, I want to talk about your new album, TheGreen Chapel. First of all, Why you named it as ”TheGreen Chapel” and is there a theme which dominatesthe entire album? Or theme of songs are independent from each other?

The original idea was to make an album about a Utopian Esoteric Scout movement post  first world war in Britain called ‘The Kindred of the Kibbo Kift’ this then led to an idea about adapting a song cycle on a book written  and illustrated by a gentleman called ‘Kit Williams’ called ‘Masquerade ‘ where you had to find clues within each picture about buried treasure (a golden hare) it all ties in with our obsessions of folk rural horror that started with seeing the ‘Wicker Man’ at an impressionable age.
Simon Oakes(Vocals) brought in those ideas as well as the epic 14th century poem ‘Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, interestingly one of our favourite groups Rush had planned to write a song based on this Arthurian legend only to be discarded to become the song ‘Natural Science’.

Do you have any favourite song from new album?

My favourite today would either be Phantasm or Innmost Light parts 1&2.

Well, What do you think about marketing music? Does it frighten you if your music turns into acommodity?

 It’s not something i enjoy but it has to be done. The constant flow of information and ‘content’ to keep people interested via Social media is hard work and not as much fun as playing the music. Art and commerce is a strange thing- but we need to do what we can do to sell copies, it’s a necessary evil.It’s a different world from the days of big record company advances and we have to try and find a way to pay for the next record.

Do you have a wish to appeal to a mass of audiencesor you just want to create your own audiences andmake music just for them ?

 If we can make enough to keep making music and not lose money and maintain a small fan base i think we would all be content, in some ways we are playing niche & difficult music for some, i think success will always elude us in that respect.

I have a last question for you. If some day, a progfest was held in Turkey and The Osiris Club was invented. Would you want to come here?

That would be lovely if it could happen one day.

Thank you for taking your time for us.

Thank you. Greetings to all in Turkey…