Evile’s Matt Drake Says New Album Will Make Him Proud When He’s Older

Evile vocalist-guitarist Matt Drake is so proud of his band's latest effort 'Five Serpent's Teeth,' it's first since the untimely bassist of bassist Mike Alexander, that he can already envision himself looking back on it as an old man and feeling pride.

"It's one of the things I'm going to look back on when I'm wrinkly and old, and shouting at teenagers to get out of my garden, that I'm really proud of," Drake told Noisecreep. "It's something where I can say 'I was part of that.' It's just really great heavy metal to me. It has everything I love in heavy metal: riffs, singing, solos and it's all memorable stuff. Each track is it's own different beast."

Drake is also well aware that now is the time for Evile to stake their claim in the British metal scene and beyond. "Now is the time to show people what we are capable of, doing heavy metal the way we love it, like actual music, something that stays with you, not just noise on top of noise," the singer said.

He also expounded upon the writing process for 'Xaraya,' which appears on the 'proud of it when I'm old' new album! It allows a keen insight on how Evile operate as an entity, unit and collective. "[Guitarist] Ol [Drake] had done most of it, but without the epic second half, it just continued the slow heavy riff another few times, then went even slower and it just got seriously boring. But Ol was dead set on the song being that way, even with no vocals at that point as well. It was just a really tiring track as it was. But in Ol's eyes it was perfect so we argued about it for ages."

Watch 'Cult' From Evile

This is how Evile do things. They don't create songs – the "bicker them." Drake continued, "I always say that Evile don't write songs -- we argue them into existence. Ol is good at writing on the spot whereas I need to spend loads of time thinking about things and planning things to get them right, so I have a lot of respect for how Ol can write. But sometimes you just need another person's perspective, especially when you're so close to something that you can't see the problems with it.

"It becomes less about what's best for the song and more about getting your way! Luckily before that happened, I managed to convince him to scrap the second half and try something different. I think all I asked him to do was lock himself in his room at the computer with his guitar for an afternoon and think epic, think guitar harmonies, think faster!! And he did that and came back the day after with what you hear on the CD, which is one of the high points of the album, guitar work wise."

Drake acknowledged "it's never easy writing stuff with this band. We usually argue and disagree until mostly everyone is happy with something, but there's always the idea there that whatever happens has to be best for the song and we get the best listening experience from it."

Evile's 'Five Serpent's Teeth' is out now throughout Europe and out in the US on Oct. 18th via Earache Records.