„Night Hag“ is a demon that comes with the phenomenon of sleep paralysis and scares people only while thinking about it. That doesn’t count for THE RISEN DREAD, who put that demon into the center of their debut album. At first, this might sound like a horrormovie, but to singer Marco, who’s suffering from it, it’s the hard truth, like guitarist and interviewpartner William Ribeiro told us.
Only two years after you founded THE RISEN DREAD in 2018 the pandemic started. Since then you were working on the debut „Night Hag“ which was released on the 28th of january. How did you perceive making a new album in these difficult times?
It was hard. But it also gave us time to work on the tracks. I already had some of the songs ideas. We had very tidy restriction in Ireland and we had to move the recording dates twice and at the end we ended up recording in another studio. The original plan was to record in Italy, but with all travalling resctrictions we couldn’t risk to postpone it again. We decided to record in Northern Ireland.
In 2019 the EP „Delusions“ was released and it is now followed by your debut with almost three years in between. What process did you run through over that time?
The EP was recorded when we had less than one year as band. The album is how we wanted to do with the EP songs. But, we weren’t ready for that yet. As a band things start to come together with the time. You start to understand better what you want as a band. It’s a natural process. At least it was with us.
„Night Hag“ is a concept album about mental illnesses. How did you come up with this idea? What do you think makes the human brain and its complexity so fascinating to many people?
The idea came when we were deciding the name. We decided to talk about it from the EP and this album ties everything together. Human brain is something incredible and fragile at the same time, talking about how it can affect our emotions, actions or reactions and so on. It’s just something amazing.
Some of the tracks are focusing on historical figures that had the disorders that are being mentioned in the songs. Can you tell the readers some interesting facts about these people and why you choose them?
Marco writes all lyrics and he reads a lot. He brought the idea to talk about Jim Jones. Jim Jones was an American preacher who led people to mass suicide in 1978. Around 900 people died on that day. The name of that event was „White Night“, that’s the reason our track has the same name. „Lazzaretto“ tells the Poveglia island story and the doctor who allegedly experimented on patients with lobotomies and other unorthodox medical treatments. The doctor jumped from the bell tower in the 1930s after claiming he had been driven mad by ghosts from patients he had killed throughout the years. For more than 100 years, beginning in 1776, the island was used as a quarantine station for those suffering the plague and other diseases before being turned into a mental hospital.
An overpowered creature and the phenomenon of sleep paralysis are what come up first after reading the debut title „Night Hag“. Why did you choose this title and the other mental illnesses?
Night Hag is meantioned in every track. Constantly being around. This also a personal track. Our vocalist suffers from it. Since, we mentioned about it in all tracks. It makes sense to have a specific song about as well as the album name. Night Hag ties everything together in our concept album.
„Silent Disease“ is about depression and how people struggle in pretending that they live a normal life. Is there a special reason or event that took place leading you to write this song? Can you tell some reasons for choosing the other illnesses that are mentioned in the tracks?
Depresession is something that people sometimes don’t treat it as a serious disease. Our drummer and basist have depression. Since, we were going to talk about mental illiness. There’s no way we wouldn’t talk about depression. We all need to speak up and make people comfortable to admit they have it and they need help. We as human sometimes find hard to ask for help. „Silent Disease“ and „The Night Hag“ are the only tracks that they were personal to THE RISEN DREAD. But, we had to talk about PTSD which can lead to a panic attack as well. We also talk about Cotard Delusion. But no special reason for it.
The italian composer Renato Zanuto is your guest and is featured on the last track „The Night Hag“. How did you experience working with him?
Actually Renato is brazilian (laughs). It was easy to work with them, pretty much straightforward. „The Night Hag“ would be more complex due to what we wanted from it. But, we let Renato work on the track to add the orchestra arrangement to it. We all loved what he came up with.
Your single „White Night“ is featuring Andreas Kisser (Sepultura). How did you convince him to participate?
It all happened via Renato Zanuto. Renato is a friend of Marco and Andreas is his personal friend. He asked Andreas if he’d record a guitar solo for us. Andreas said yes. We just had to pick a track of the album and it worked out perfect. Andreas wouldn’t be able to record his solo when we were meant to record the album. But, we had to rescheadule the recording due to Covid restrictions and timewise it worked fine for Andreas to record the solo. The guitar solo is very personal, so we finished the track and sent it to Andreas to record his solo.
What does it mean for you to have a guest from such a mighty band on your debut – and can you guess on the impact that the features will have on the reputation of your band and the album?
It means a lot. I’m also brazilian and I’ve known Sepultura since I was 13 and Andreas wrote one of the best guitar’s solo from a Thrash Metal band. His solo in „Desperate Cry“ is amazing. It’s had a huge impact. When you have someone like Andreas as guest in one of the tracks it helps to put the band’s name out there and also show that THE RISEN DREAD isn’t in this just for fun.
Since we already clarified that „Night Hag“ is a concept album, why did you choose your debut to be a concept? Will you come up with the idea of mental diseases for future songs and projects?
Since we wrote our first track, we decided to write about mental disease. It would make sense to have a concept album. Specially because we’ve been mentioning „Night Hag“ in every lyric since our EP. It’s hard to say if we’ll write about the same thing in the future. It’s too soon to say we’ll or we will not. Let’s see when the time comes to write a new material.
Why was Josh Robinson and the JSR Studio in Belfast the right descition to record the album and how did you experience working with him?
Our plan was to record in Italy. But Covid restrictions didn’t allow that to happen. So, we wanted to work with someone who would push us hard to get the best result as possible. Josh was the name on the island. We didn’t want to have someone who’d just press records and that’s it. We wanted someone to help us to produce the album as best as we could. This would make mixing and mastering to stand out as well.
With „Night Hag“ the carrer of your band is just getting started. What are your plans for the future?
We’re not thinking of our next album yet. We’re joining Vader and Marduk in their „United Titans Tour“ for some dates in Europe and UK in March. We’re also planning our own tour for the end of summer. Let’s see what’s going to happen from there, but we want to play as many gigs as we can. I don’t have any particular festival I’d like to play. I’ll be on board to play in all them, just give me a call. (laughs)
Thank you for the interview. Let’s conclude with our traditional brainstorming. Please describe what comes to your mind first when you read the following words.
Current favorite album: „Imaginations From The Other Side“ from Blind Guardian.
Pandemic: It’s fucked things up really bad.
Illness: Regardless what it is, always remember: You’re not alone!!!
Concept album: It’s a good way to tell a story.
Something that makes every bad day better: My family.
THE RISEN DREAD in 10 years: I don’t know. Headlining a summer fest.
Once again thanks for your time. The last words are yours. Is there anything left you want to tell our readers?
I’d like to thank you for the space and to help promote THE RISEN DREAD to your readers. I hope we can see you all in some gigs soon. Stay tuned for news and stay safe.
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