Wayde:
G'day Luke, how are you this afternoon? Lets kick things off with a brief history of Hellbringer, who's in the band, how you got started, what you guys have been doing since you started and so on.
Luke:
Yeah not too bad mate, just lazing around hehe. Well Hellbringer comprises me (Luke Bennett) - bass/vokills, my brother Josh Bennett on drums and Tim Sheppard on guitar. We met Tim back in high school and at the time he didn't even play any instruments at all. So we pretty much got him into metal then told him to learn guitar haha. We didn't actually properly form the band later until college though.
We originally formed playing just classic covers like Sodom, Venom and stuff while getting more towards a sound we wanted to play. Not long after we started writing our own material and not long after that recorded a demo with our first original track and 3 covers. A while after that we finally did a proper recording which is the 6 track Forgery EP. This EP helped spread our names quite a bit and was positively received.
Some time after the release of the EP, me and Josh decided to start e-mailing some undergound labels to ask if they wanted a copy to listen to and to see what they thought of it. A few labels replied saying they liked it and it was good and stuff, but they weren't interested in releasing anything at the current time. One of the labels who replied was Costa from Iron Pegasus saying he loved the release and offered to release it on LP for us.
Ofcourse we jumped at the opportunity and were absolutely stoked to get our shit on LP. We recorded two 'bonus tracks' for the LP since it was a bit too short for a 12" record, one of them being an Armoured Angel cover. One big thing that had happen was we had to change our name though.
Us and Costa all thought it was the best idea since there's another Forgery in Norway who are signed to a fairly big label called Candlelight Records and we all thought it was best to avoid problems/confusion late on. So we all settled on Hellbringer. Now with the LP release pretty much out, we've been getting distrubition throughout various labels in Europe which is absolutely killer. And yeah, that's what's pretty much been happening up till now.
Wayde:
Well that's quite an interesting story, it sounds like you guys have had your fair share of ups and downs!
What influences Hellbringer to write music? What do you listen to for the inspiration and energy required to create your songs?
Luke:
Just evil, maniacal sounding thrash pretty much. No happy thrash hehe. Bands like Sodom, Destruction, old Slayer, old Kreator, Hobbs' Angel Of Death, Armoured Angel, Whiplash, Desaster etc
Wayde:
Sounds about right, the GOOD thrash, haha!
So what's the metal scene like down in Canberra, are there any notable bands down there tearing it up, aside from yourselves?
Luke:
Canberra sucks to be honest haha, hence why we play in Sydney more these days. The only other decent band I can think of is Kill For Satan, but they rarely play live. I mean there have been good gigs in Canberra in the past, but those seem to have just evaporated now.
Wayde:
Ah, I see. Well in that case, what is your opinion on the Sydney/Illawarra metal scene?
Luke:
It's ok, It's definitely better than Canberra that's for sure. Atleast there's some decent bands like Teratornis, Rampage and Innsmouth from the Blue Mountains etc. Although Sydney has it's fair share of crappyness too that's for sure haha.
Wayde:
Yeah, it seems that Sydney is going through a bit of a metal drought, Melbourne looks like the place to be nowadays!
Have any of you guys played in other bands, metal or otherwise? If so, could you give us some background on them?
Luke:
Nah none of us have played in any other bands. Josh might be drumming for the killer Aussie thrash band Trench Hell though at the underground fest called Evil Invaders though, so I guess that sort of counts haha.
Wayde:
While on a similar subject, are you fellas self-taught musicians or did you take the time to attend lessons?
Luke:
Bit of both really. We've all taken lessons in the past, but have also figured out things ourselves.
Wayde:
What's next for Hellbringer? I know you have recently released the LP version of the self-titled release and sold out the first run of shirts. Is there going to be more merchandise? What about upcoming shows and/or tours? Are you working on any new material?
Luke:
We've been slowly writing new material over the past year or so and it's finally nearly done. Songs are sounding killer! So we'll hopefully be hitting the studio late this year or so. New shirts with new designs have been ordered and we have patches being made too which should all be out soon. We've got a few upcoming shows in Sydney, one of them being Evil Invaders which will be absolutely killer. Playing alongside some really great bands!
Wayde:
Sounds good! I'm really looking forward to Evil Invaders as well!
To wrap this up, I'd like to thank you for taking the time to do this interview. As usual, I will let the interviewee have the last word. Is there anything you would like to say to myself or the readers?
Luke:
Thrash till deaf and buy our brand new LP maniacs!!
EDIT: So it seems this interview has caused a stir within the Canberra Metal Scene due to a statement Luke made about not really being into the scene and preferring Sydney over Canberra.
I would like to give my full support to Luke and Hellbringer, and I commend Luke for standing by what he said. Anybody who has been offended by his statement obviously misunderstood the point of his statement. I will not be removing the statement in question, as I do not believe in censorship of opinion.
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