Considering its relatively strong impact on world pop music, Ireland is a curiously weak presence on the metal scene, and Corkish four-piece For Ruin feels like they’re trying to single-handedly make up for all that in their exciting, dynamic second album, Last Light, which came out in October of 2009. Last Light takes the tired, beaten ball of Scandinavian melodic death with black metal elements, and somehow invigorates it with its finely honed arrangements and meaningful riff writing. We chatted with guitarist John Murphy about his band’s work via email.
 
Maelstrom: For Ruin. How did you pick the band name?

John Murphy: Hey, Roberto, thanks for the interview. The band was initially called "Ruin" when I started out doing this as a one-man project but somehow the name got lengthened… ha ha. I’m not sure really, to be honest! It’s just a name, y’know, there’s nothing significant behind it.

To introduce the band maybe a little history: The band was formed in 2002 or 2003 in Cork, on the southern coast of Ireland. I released three demos during ’04-‘06, which gained some label interest and allowed me to put together the initial lineup of the band, culminating in a deal with Sentinel Records in early 2007. The first and third demos were recorded in Ireland, but I lived in Valencia, Spain for two years and wrote / recorded much of the second demo while there before returning to Cork in late 2005.

We released our debut album, December in October ’07, and it has done well for us – it’s well distributed by now (including digitally) and while the production on it could be better for a variety of reasons, it’s a good representation of the early sound of the band – all albums are an audio-picture of where a band is at a particular time, and for us it is still early days – but that’s the first proper documentation of the band.

We’ve played with some of the biggest names in extreme music since then and now our second album, Last Light, is out since October last – it was preceded by a digital-only EP called Enlightened. Our lineup now consists of Pete Alcorn on drums, Drew Myers on guitar, Pete Lawlor on the bass and I’m on guitar and vocals.

Maelstrom: Why jump off a label that would release your CD to do it yourself?

John Murphy: Times have changed and our label has had the same problem that businesses the world over has had and while they are still going, we decided we’d keep control of Last Light ourselves – nobody would push the album as hard as we could because we believe in it and really want it to be heard. While we are still a relatively unknown band, we have a lot of contacts and networks ourselves. It meant that we funded the album’s costs entirely ourselves and have learned from that and know how to do it now – right through from song writing to artwork, design and merchandising.

Everything about the album is under our control and that’s a unique position to be in. In means that distribution is compromised a little for sure and that all costs are ours, but at least all the rights are ours and the ball is firmly in our court. Enlightened is just a simple taster for the album and quite a few people downloaded it. I think we will do something similar next time before a full length is released, but with more non-album tracks on it.

A band of our underground status needs to get its name out there and since the torrent sites and file sharing sites are going to have it available anyway, we decided to try something new for us – of course it’s not new in general: Lots of bands are doing it nowadays and labels are becoming obsolete – they will eventually adapt I’m sure, or go out of business. The more people that can hear us, the better, and giving it away free helps that. Its not a full quality version, but if people want to check us out, then its perfect. If they like it, they buy either hard copies, or digital copies – and we also have a Collectors Edition of the Last Light CD available that lots of folks have bought.

Maelstrom: Ireland's still not really a heavy hitter on the world metal map. Abaddon Incarnate, Primordial... I might be able to name one more. Is it pretty lonely out there for the metallers?

John Murphy: It’s true – we live on an isolated island in the north west of Europe that has produced some of the most well known bands in the popular music world, but not in the metal scene. The bands you mention above are some of those better known internationally, but bands like Mourning Beloveth and others are also gaining some international profiles. Mael Mordha is another band worth checking out for fans of the pagan / Celtic style. It’s safe to say that For Ruin sounds nothing like any of our Irish peers as we have more in common with our Scandinavian and Mediterranean peers in terms of our sound.
 
Maelstrom: Did your drummer on Last Light not have any tom toms in his kit, or did you forbid him to play them?

John Murphy: His style on the album is more focused on speed and precision rather than on trying to fill lots of space with tom fills but there is plenty of tom-work on the album, you just need to listen again if you have a hard-on for toms, ha ha – but honestly, is that really important?

Maelstrom: How do you approach writing your guitar harmonies? What scales do you find yourselves gravitating to the most? 

John Murphy: We play in a drop-D mode of tuning all the time — every For Ruin song on both albums is performed in this tuning. I’ve always written music in this tuning. I would say that our harmonies are inspired by acts like Lizzy, Maiden, Dissection, Paradise Lost and early Katatonia. None of us have formal theory to my knowledge and like many players I have no idea what scales we use – nor have I any interest, to be honest. I guess we just play what sounds good and what we like to hear. I know there are particular progressions, chords and such that I like a lot (and maybe have over-used in the past) so I try to move away from those when I write new songs these days.

Maelstrom: The music on Last Light is so perfect I wonder if it's been quantized. Is this the case?

John Murphy: Not to my knowledge – but it may stem from our writing technique in that all of our songs are initially demo’d on computer and that really locks the drum sound (because we don’t spend time humanizing the drum track as it’s just by way of demonstration of a particular idea, riff, song etc.) so its possible that our drummers have gotten used to hearing that.

Maelstrom: Looking at your discography, it seems you've released quite a bit of material since becoming a band in 2003. Two full lengths, two EPs, a split, and a demo. Since we've heard only the latest full-length, what can you say about the direction your music has progressed in since your first recordings?

John Murphy: Yes, it’s true that we’ve been prolific enough so far, I guess. There’s also a basic live DVD too that you missed (ha) – so we’ve been busy.

The earliest demos were of course rough around the edges as you’d expect, but we still play a few songs live that originally featured on those recordings (and some were re-recorded for the debut album). The musicianship is certainly much improved since then and also more varied since we left the one-man predicament behind us several years ago.

I think the direction is more towards faster material in songs that get to the point without too much waiting: We don’t have overly long songs in general and the importance of strong hooks with memorable parts are key to us. The production on the debut album is very thin for a variety of reasons and doesn’t do the songs justice, but it’s something you learn from and we are also striving to improve those sort of technical issues with each album.

Maelstrom: Finally, I'd be interested in getting some of your other albums. You got any still available?