We caught up with Klaymore, a band from Pittsburgh in the US who are developing a cult following.

  • What inspired the name of the band, and your musical style?
First of all, I just wanted to say that I'm a huge Morrowind fan, so being interviewed by you, Vivek, is an immense honor. I also wanted to take a second to do my monthly reminder to everyone that Skyrim exists and you can buy it still. Anyway, now that that's out of the way, we wanted a name that sounded really power metal. I don't think any of us even listened to power metal at the time. We didn't play any power metal either. We still don't really play power metal, so your guess as to why we named it Klaymore is as good as mine. Our musical style evolved in a weird way. It was definitely all over the place at first. Early Klaymore shows could have us playing a Wolfmother cover right after playing "Warrior" by Helloween. Nowadays we pull influence from all different places: thrash metal, blackened thrash metal, thrashened black metal, thrackened brash metal, GMCFOSHO's YouTube channel, and that vine where the guy is losing his shit over how good Popeye's biscuits are. And Yo-Yo Ma.
  • What influences you when writing lyrics?
Real life and video games are where they usually stem from. I think our page on the esteemed and HIGHLY revered Metal Archives says they're all based on "emotions and legends," so we'll try not to dispute the experts here. Recently, after adapting the "Queen Bitch of the Universe" persona that you can see on my shirt, the lyrics I've been working on have mostly revolved around being a non-binary space alien from Hell.

TL;DR David Bowie's makeup

  • Has there been any change in how you handle writing and recording now compared to say a few years ago?
Definitely. We've embraced a lot more aspects of modern production and aren't afraid to try out new engineering techniques that we haven't used before. For our first four CDs we always only recorded a live amp for guitars and things like that, but now we're trying out amp sims, re amping, and that kind of stuff to try to make any new material sound lightyears beyond what we've recorded before. As for wiritng, we're constantly listening to new things and tweaking how things are done, so the music we're writing keeps evolving, which is great but also slows down the release process. By the time we write six songs, the last two sound so different stylistically from the first two that we don't like the first two any more and it all starts over. Hopefully we'll start being less picky soon, but I think this outlook is only going to make the album better overall.

TL;DR Yes it's different because we're actually writing and recording now.

  • Do you have any plans to record new music in the near future?
Yes, in addition to compiling demos for our third album, we're also set to release an anniversary edition of our second album, "It's Alive," to celebrate its release five years ago. That should be out in September 2017 and will have four tracks rerecorded with our current line up. We also are constantly putting out covers of video game music that we upload to our other YouTube channel, "Halberd." We've done material from games like Mega Man X, Kirby Superstar, Pokemon, etc. As for our third full-length album that I mentioned, Dan and I have been putting together demos over the last year and we'll hopefully be putting out a single by the end of 2017 (fingers crossed).

TL;DR I don't think we'll be recording near Future because he's a pretty busy rapper and I don't think he's anywhere close to Pennsylvania.

  • Do you have a different sound when performing live, compared to when playing in the studio?
Overall, yes, just because we do a lot of guitar overdubs and harmonies and things in the studio that you can't recreate live without like three or four people playing it. I don't think it's a bad thing though unless there really is someone out there who thought we would drag along three more of our friends on stage just to make noise for a couple seconds per song like we're Slipknot or something. For me, there are definitely differences vocally between live and studio. After singing songs for a few years I'll start to sing the melodies slightly differently or I'll sing the backing vocal harmony as the main melody at times. I've also recently been adding in some harsh vocals which currently I've never done on a studio Klaymore track.

TL;DR Yes, we're usually much louder live.

  • Finally, any plans to tour the UK?
Ha. No, not quite yet. We've played around the states surrounding us here in Pennsylvania and have made it up to Canada a few times, but we don't have any overseas trips planned in the forseeable future. Probably for the best right now though because I don't think they'd let us back into the US since if I went to Scotland there's no way I wouldn't try bringing back a claymore this time. TL;DR Someone please legally mail me a claymore.