IRONSIDE are brand new and they are already causing a storm with their presence and their eclectic sounds. Their debut album The Viking Saga is understandably receiving praise from fans and critics alike. Rock Out Stand Out’s Lotty Whittingham caught up with bassist Dale Pountney. They spoke about the band’s eclectic sound, The Viking Saga and mental health. Here’s what happened.
So, you released your debut The Viking Saga. When watching you live at Power Metal Quest Fest in 2022, I got that first taste of eclectic sounds.
That’s a mixture of influences from all three of us, we haven’t had a drummer as such so all the music and writing comes from the three of us. I’d been writing from the drums since I am on bass so it makes sense for me to make that work together because if we had a drummer, I would be working with them to write the songs and bass lines.
Joel’s [Terry] background is very Queens Of The Stone Age and the heavier side of the indie stuff. Josh [Watts] is very Preiphery and Muse. My influences are really quite weird so I put a playlist together recently of Ironside inspirations and there is a bunch of songs in there. This led to bits of it being picked and turning into Ironside songs, one of them is a band called Royal Hunt which is power metal; so that’s one I took inspiration from. There’s a lot Tesseract and Karnivool, there is a lot of prog in there I absolutely love. A lot more of the melodic side of things comes from Royal Hunt and Muse for me.
That’s why it’s so eclectic [laughs]
No complaints from me there, I love the variety. I have come across bands who release a wide range of songs as their debut album and there is something that connects them all together.
A lot of time was spent on the production of these songs before they are sent to Matt [Jones] at CapsArx to mix them. I know there’s eight songs listed but I would say it’s more six; this is because Skal and The Gates are not really songs. The Gates is a pre-cursor to Valhalla which when we played that live, we played that as part of Valhalla but it’s a separate song so if you didn’t want to listen to it, you can skip it.
Skal was a bit of a joke, it comes from Joel with his Queens Of The Stone Age influences. I’m not sure what song it is they do but there’s a two minute song that contains a chant that goes around and around. That’s where Skal came from and of course it being the chant for drinking in Viking culture, it was fun for all of us to stand around a microphone and chant SKAL. It was good fun.
It sounds it. With everything going on, was 5th April the intended release date or would you have liked to have released it earlier?
It’s interesting as when we made the video for Shield Wall, we said the album was going to come out March 2023. That’s what we were hoping for but because life get in the way, we were originally going to release demo quality stuff on Spotify to get it out there. That’s when I started to get to know Amie [Chatterly] and Matt from CapsArx and seeing what they were doing, the things being pushed out from bands like Fury, Vanitas and Dakesis. I wanted that level of quality and professionalism in the product we released. That’s why it took a long time, we had to go back to the drawing board a lot. I am very glad we did as what has come out is a great album, I absolutely love it.
It’s a great album. Going back to the eclectic sounds in your album; when it comes to putting the songs together, do you have an idea on what each track is going to sound like or is it case of experimenting and seeing what works?
The way the songs are put together is Josh or Joel will come to my house, they plug into the interface and open up Logik. Either Josh will tell me about a riff or Joel will have a piano melody in mind and I say ‘that’s great, how do you feel it should sound after that?’ All the while whilst they are playing, I would be recording it. So they will leave some script bits of audio they recorded, then I would make it an entire song with orchestration and drums. I would then send them a demo over WhatsApp and show them. I only wrote one song on the album and that was Valhalla. Whilst there was input from the other guys as well; the lyrical melody, the bass, drums and guitar including the solo were all written by me. The rest of the album was written by Joel and Josh; I will layer it up. I draw inspiration from other people’s tid bits, I struggle to come up with things on my own.
To answer you question, there was no process. Something would land, it would be on my laptop and I would pick it apart, move it around. I was more the producer rather than the writer of the songs, there’s still a compositional element in there as well. A song like The King for instance, there’s a lot of orchestration in there to the point where it sounds pompous. We got carried away with that one [laughs].
Out of the tracks on that album, what was the most challenging to put together?
If I’m honest, I think the most challenging one was Oblivion as it has an odd time signature. It’s hard to put your finger on as Josh recorded himself on his phone playing it in his dark and dingy room [laughs]. He asked me what I thought of it, since it was very Preriphery style he quite liked it. I sat that there and wondered what time signature it would be, I can count four but it’s really slow. I then started to wonder if it was a six eight. So putting drums to that song was the biggest challenge of that one as I am not a drummer so trying to put a playable drum track to something that has such as odd time feel, where should the beat land? We debated for months on what the drums in the chorus should sound like, how it sounds now is how Josh wanted it sound.
As you know, one of the things we do at Rock Out Stand Out is to keep the conversation about mental health going. Did you have lessons you learnt about your own mental health you wanted to share?
We all kind of suffer from mental health issues one way or another, whether they are recognised or not. Some people don’t even know but raising that awareness is extremely important. I’ve gone through a huge life change in the last couple of years and it really put a huge downer on my mental health. It’s an experience that taught me a lot about myself and actually, being around people who are more mentally self aware has helped me be more self aware too. You can either rationally think to put it in a box and realise why you’re feeling the way you are, that’s fine. Tomorrow is a new day. There is a meme on TikTok saying “If today’s shit, then let it be shit” there’s no clawing it back, just revel it in and see what happens tomorrow. I love that meme [laughs].
What helps you get through a bad time with your mental health?
If I am on my own, I have new microphone so I do video editing. That’s my latest thing. I’ll watch tutorials on editing techniques or ways to capture a certain scene, I love learning about things like that. I use it in my video shots right now, that gets me excited and gives me a buzz. Especially when you’re on the creative spur, it really lifts me and that’s my current hyperfocus. I invested in lots of gear, going to gigs and doing videos for bands.
Due to the title of the album, this question has got to be asked. Alongside your band members, who would take on a Viking raid?
Thing is, I’ve mentioned before that Ironside have all but disbanded and I am kind of the remaining member. Josh decided to us Ironside as part of his portfolio and to help with the direction he wants to go in. Which is fine and there is no saltiness there. With Joel, it was mainly the distance and I think if he still lived in the Midlands, we would carry on just me and him.
In answer to your question about who to take to a Viking raid, anyone from the ones I usually camp with at Bloodstock. No-one would stand a chance.
What advice would you give to someone wanting to start a band or a musical project?
Regardless of their musical tastes, abilities or their enthusiasm; the single most important question you got to ask yourself is: would you be able to sit on a bus with them for twelve hours? You are going to be working with these people a lot so you need to have that understanding relationship as in they need to understand your personal boundaries and work out how to challenge each other on ideas respectfully.
One thing Amie taught me about considering people in a band is to ask the three following questions; would you go have a drink with them one on one? If the answer is yes, move onto the next one; would you leave your dog with them for the day? If the answer to that is yes; would you leave your child with them for the weekend? If the answer to all three is yes, then it’s all good. They can learn music, techniques and get better at composing. At the end of the day, if they are someone you wouldn’t trust with your dog for the afternoon then maybe you need to reconsider.
I joined another band recently and I used those questions to help me consider those I’m working with. They are great people.
Do you have a message for Ironside fans and our readers?
Speaking on behalf of the other guys too, thanks for your patience and the support. To whoever has bought a copy of the album, we really appreciate it. If you fancy picking up some merch, that’s great; everything from that helps go towards studio time and making music videos as it’s all really expensive stuff. Thank you to those who have stuck with us all this time and have waited patiently for the new album.
Thank you Dale for joining Rock Out Stand Out today and best of luck with the album release.
