While you sleep, they prepare for battle. Ok, so maybe not a “battle” battle but definitely a musical fracas of sorts. For those already initiated into the ways of the mighty Conan, this is a tussle that you’re dying to die for. If you haven’t yet had the pleasure of having your head cleaved by the U.K. sludge purveyors, you’d better get on board quickly because they’re firing up the war machine. That’s right, hordes, Conan is actively in the process of creating album number six and it promises to be another scorcher.
Since forming in 2006, Conan has steadily climbed to the top of the heap for modern doom/sludge on the strength of a slew of killer LPs, EPs, splits, and live records. Through lineup changes, music industry upheavals, and a global pandemic, Conan has remained as formidable as ever and continues to push themselves with each new release. Now, coming off 2022’s Evidence of Immortality, Conan looks to keep the streak alive as they begin work on the follow-up. I recently caught up with Conan vocalist, guitarist, and founder Jon Davis to chat about the new record and his band’s history.
I wanted to start by getting the band’s origin. How did Conan get started?
Jon: I remember when I was writing the first demo, it was 2006, and we recorded the first demos in January 2007 and then, after that, [we] started just rehearsing through 2008/2009 and then we recorded Horseback Battle Hammer, I think it was toward the end of 2009 and then we started getting more serious.
What was recording that first full-length, Monnos, like? Was that a learning process?
Jon: Not really. People don’t mention Horseback Battle Hammer, which I and some people, not everyone, regards as our first album. We recorded that in 2009 and released that on Throne Records in Spain in 2010. A lot of people didn’t consider that to be our first album because we released it when nobody knew who we were. I think the learning process was from that. I remember when we recorded that album I really had no intention of being in a band long term but then I thought, well, we’ll record the songs we’ve got just to make sure we’ve got good versions of them. Then, as I’m listening back, I’m thinking that this sounds insanely good so I’m going to send this to a few record labels and I did, not really knowing how to do that. I sent it to Southern Lord and Throne Records and Aurora Borealis Records, I don’t think they’re going anymore, and a few others. Southern Lord got back to me and a couple other labels got back to me and we ended up going with Throne Records in Spain, and I don’t know why we didn’t go with Southern Lord back then because that would have been insanely cool for us back then. We went with Throne Records though, who were awesome.
Fast forward to Monnos and we recorded that in 2012. I’d say we did most of our learning with Horseback Battle Hammer. By the time we recorded Monnos, we had been in the studio twice, we had recorded the split with Slomatics around then as well, so it kind of felt like we knew what we were doing and we were experimenting with our sound and stuff like that. I remember those times with fondness. It was fun.
I really dig those early recordings a lot. Looking back on them, are you still happy with them or do you notice things you’d change or do differently?
Jon: No not really. I think they captured people’s imagination at the time. There was a bit of a resurgence of really heavy music at the time but we didn’t know anything about that. We just released the album into the unknown, really, and all of a sudden people were saying they liked what they heard and we started getting offers for shows. Before you know it, we’re touring and going all over. Really, we just enjoyed it. It’s a learning process so I wouldn’t go back and change anything because we may not have behaved the same way moving forward into the future. I’m really happy with how everything’s gone. A lot of people consider them to be their favorite albums so I think we did the right thing there.
Where did you get the idea to bring those songs back for the Monnos Darkwave EP you did the other year?
Jon: It was just for a bit of fun. I thought I’d do it in lockdown and I was just curious what somebody else would make of it. I thought they sounded good. We were listening to them in the van on our U.S. tour recently and thought it would be cool to make a whole album like this. I don’t think we will but it was a bit of fun, done in lockdown through boredom.
How did you get into extreme metal originally?
Jon: The bands I was in before Conan were all sort of like Nirvana, Green Day, or Foo Fighters types of things and I started to listen to more Fudge Tunnel, High on Fire, and Black Sabbath and stuff like that, moving away from traditional rock and grunge. Then I started writing the odd song here and there, leaning toward what Conan is now. The guys in the band just didn’t get it at all. So I changed bands a couple times and before you know it, Conan was formed and here we are.
How did you settle on the name? Were you always a fan of those stories and movies?
Jon: Yes but we didn’t choose the name just because it was Conan. We chose the name because it was more representative of the era of movies of fantasy and mythology that I was interested in at the time, so I called it Conan simply because it made sense to me. It was the coolest name in the collection of names that was available. it could as easily have been Krull or, I don’t know, Beastmaster or something like that. It just seemed like the least daft word to call a band. It’s daft enough but it’s not as daft as calling ourselves Beastmaster or something.
What’s the writing process like for the band? Has it changed over the years?
Jon: I’d say so, yeah. We rehearse and write in the same room less now than we did in the beginning because of Dropbox and EZDrummer and all those kinds of apps. I can now call up a song I recorded on my computer last week and get to work on it and write it and add lead guitar parts and all of that. I didn’t really have the technology or the inclination to do it back when we recorded the earlier albums. I’d say nowadays we’re able to write music but not necessarily live in the same city. Johnny [King, drums] lives in Dublin, he’s 30 minutes away on a plane [and] Dave [Ryley, bass] lives in Nottingham, he’s a two-hour drive, so it’s not like we can just rehearse two or three times a week. We’ve just got to make the most of modern technology and so far it’s worked.
What’s your lyric writing process like?
Jon: I’ll write something down that I think sounds cool or the syllables flow a way that I like, and then I’ll match it up with a riff that I’ve got and match that up with another riff I’ve got, and write lyrics over that bit. It’s like a chicken and egg situation. I don’t have a real scientific process, I don’t follow a set process. Eventually I’ll get to a point where I’ve gone round in circles and slotted riffs into parts where vocals go and I’ll match the syllables of the lyrics with the beat and the riff itself.
Being that you’re the only original member left, how did you get the other two guys into the band?
Jon: When Johnny joined, Chris Fielding was in the band playing bass and Chris had been in the band since 2012/13 so he was well settled when Johnny joined. When Chris left, Johnny had been there about seven years so when we made the decision to bring Dave in, it was an easy one since Dave had been standing in for Chris since 2018, I think. He played a few festivals with us and had done a couple tours with us so, when Chris told us he needed to hang up his guitar to focus on his family and other things, the obvious choice was Dave and, honestly, it was a really easy decision. Dave was already known to us. Dave played in Fudge Tunnel, which was a big influence on me, so I was delighted when he said he’d join the band.
You guys always have really striking artwork and covers. Who does it and has it been the same person the whole time?
Jon: It’s the same artist that has worked on all of our artwork since day one. His name is Tony Roberts. He’s from Oklahoma and I was introduced to him by our first ever bass player, John McNulty. He basically responded to my email within about an hour of me sending it. He sent over some artwork that he thought would be cool eventually and it’s been really, really good. Tony’s a cool guy and a really important member of the team. Our artwork is really important for the overall listening experience because people love to look at the artwork while they’re listening to the music. I totally get that because that’s how I feel and how I felt listening to bands and discovering bands. The artwork was always really important. Tony is gonna be doing some work on the new album that we’re writing at the moment. He’s got a couple of merch designs that he’s already sent over.
Do you give him any lyrics or themes before he starts working?
Jon: I normally send him the song titles as we’re working on them in demo format. That helps get his creative juices flowing and then, eventually, he’ll send some sketches over and I’ll say yeah, that’s cool. Whatever he sends is always awesome. I never feel the need to turn around and say I don’t like that, can you change that? We just trust him completely because his work is just so good.
You mentioned that you’re working on writing the next album. How’s that going?
Jon: It’s good. We are in the studio and writing a lot remotely as well. We’ve got ideas for about 46 songs at the moment, we’ve got exactly 47 rough ideas on Dropbox. When we got into the studio the other day we sort of wrote the bones of four albums. We are going strongly at the moment. I love writing music and the other lads also love writing music. Normally when we get together in the same room, something cool happens. We’ve got a handful of songs already and plenty more to play with before we decide on the final line-up for the album.
I really dug the last record, Evidence of Immortality. What was the creation process like for that one?
Jon: Similar to what I mentioned earlier. That was written over lockdown so we were just exchanging ideas over Dropbox. We did that for several months. I was writing a lot of demos at home and I was just getting used to a home recording set-up, which I hadn’t really used too much before. We got it to the point where we were writing cool songs remotely and we had a couple of chances to get into the studio together during lockdown when we were allowed to socialize. When we were allowed to, we got together and rehearsed. We’d come up with some really good stuff because we had a lot of pent-up creative energy so we were able to write quite a lot of music in those brief and [few] amount of recording sessions.
I wanted to ask about a couple tracks on there. How’d you come up with that killer opener, “A Cleaved Head No Longer Plots?” That’s a perfect title for a metal song too.
Jon: Actually, I steal them off other people. That, I think, was a line or a heading on top of a paragraph in some viking mythology I was reading. It also may have been from a Warhammer book. I don’t remember. Once I’ve picked a name, I write it down or put it on my phone and pluck it out when I find a song that fits that vibe. I also think it’s a cool name. It’s over-the-top heavy metal and it works. The riffs are cool too. All the lyrics on the album were actually internalizing anxiety about the war in Ukraine and translating them into the Conan world and the Conan style of lyrics. That particular album’s lyrics were all written, more or less, the night before I recorded vocals with Chris. The lyrics actually came together pretty quick, they were very easy to write. It was one of those albums that came together very quickly.
When did you decide that was the theme you wanted to go with on this album?
Jon: I didn’t decide to deliberately write an album about the war in Ukraine. In fact, it isn’t about the war in Ukraine. However, when I was writing the lyrics for it and coming up with Conan style lyrics, I’m watching this prelude to battle unfold on the news. That just inspired me to write the lyrics in the way they came out. The songs are about anxiety, and I mean anxiety about being involved in a war and not regular anxiety, and anger, triumph, pain, fear, and all those emotions one might feel if you were in Ukraine and not in another country in relative safety. It just made me feel like I wanted to document that and write it down. I personally was feeling very anxious about it because it’s not a nice situation for anybody. The album isn’t about the war in Ukraine. There’s no references, direct or indirect, to Ukraine or Russia or anyone else who might be involved. It’s simply that they inspired the flavor and the direction of the lyrics more than anything else. It’s more of an inspiration than a direct reference.
I loved the instrumental closer, “Grief Sequence,” on that last one too. How’d you come up with that piece?
Jon: Honestly, and this happens a lot, we’ll write a song and just think it sounds better without lyrics. That particular song, being long and drawn-out and relatively one-dimensional, in terms of the guitar and the riffs I’m playing, Johnny’s drumming is brilliant on there but my guitar is relatively simple, we decided that instead of dressing it up with lyrics or some more lead guitar that we’d have Dave Perry, who played bass in Conan around 2011 and is a big synthesizer and keyboard and organ player…we asked him to do the same [addition of keyboards and synths as he did on the 2011 split with Slomatics] on that track. Interestingly enough, I’ve got another album coming out with another band I’m in called Ungraven. The lineup is different on every release and on this one, it’s just me and Dave Perry. It’s really cool, droning guitar with lots of synth and organs and effects. If people liked “Grief Sequence,” they’ll definitely like this new album.
Photo at top: Evidence of Immortality album cover. Artist discussed in above post.
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