Still looking back at how beautiful their album was. It was a throwback album not made for the iTunes era.
It may surprise some younger readers that there was a time when purchasing a single was basically no longer done, but we bought whole albums just to get a single song!
I still do that, but I'm a throwback like Alexander from Plato's Stepchildren.
Let's get to know them a little bit better I think....
GM: If you had to describe Bedowyn in one sentence what would it be? Then feel free to use many sentences directly after it.
Mark: Bedowyn is a Heavy Metal band that writes and plays music that we want to listen to.
Marc: We're just trying to carve our own path and make something we can be proud of. If other people like it then that's (the) icing on the cake.
Todd: The trans-dimensional journey through space and time to find the source of all that is heavy.
GM: Tell me about your major influences?
Mark: The influences vary within the band, from classic bands like Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Motorhead, Thin Lizzy, MSG, Soundgarden, to Isis, High On Fire, Mastadon, Witchcraft, etc.
Marc: I'm starting to re-think this a little, but I’m mostly influenced by a core set of drummers that have, in my opinion, a very unique style of their own. Danny Carey (Tool), Matt Cameron (Soundgarden), Des Kensel (High on Fire), Ricard Nettermalm (Paatos), Brann Dailor (Mastodon), and Aaron Harris (ISIS the band).
Alex: Good stories - told through film, books and music or passed organically from person to person. Folklore and myths.
Todd: The world around us is crazy and chaotic and violent and beautiful all at the same time, and those emotions at any given time probably influence what I play more than any other thing.
GM: How do you translate what you hear from them into your own music?
Mark: It’s not really a conscious thing to listen to bands that we love, take things then throw it all into a collective pot and stir it up. Listening to bands that we love over the years tends to subconsciously and subtly come out into our writing style.
It kind of goes back to writing music we all want to listen to. Sometimes one of us may throw a riff out there that reminds us of something one of our favorite bands might do as a homage….and maybe someone will pick up on that. That can be cool as well.
Marc: I'd like to think some of their global concepts tend come out in my playing subconsciously, but I mix them with my own artistic expression/direction to try to create my own sound.
Alex: Writing lyrics is a pretty literal translation from a personal influence. I usually re-imagine a story based on elements of what is part of the inspiration.
Todd: Again, its just all emotion for me. If I'm angry, my line gets aggressive, etc, etc.
GM: A sci-fi movie is 2 hours. A Rom-Com is 90 minutes. A TV show is 22 minutes. How long is an album?
Mark: Ideally, I would put a full length album at around 40 to 45 minutes. Unless you are a band like Iron Maiden who writes epic 7 minute long songs, you don’t want to lose the interest of the listener. Sometimes modern CD format albums have too many songs and too much filler.
Marc: I think typically, we like to think anything over 35 minutes is an album, but personally, however long an artist wants to make it constitutes an album to me.
Alex: As long as it should be and not longer than it shouldn't be more than 40 minutes to an hour, tops. Dark Side of the Moon" is is under 45 minutes, and you never really feel that....in a good way.
GM: What was your turning point when you thought to yourself, I need to be a musician?
Mark: As a kid realized I wanted to be a musician after listening to bands like Iron Maiden, Thin
Lizzy and old Van Halen in the early 80’s. I always thought the electric guitar was the coolest
thing in the world and seeing my guitar heroes play on TV made me realize I wanted to do the
same thing.
Marc: I don't think I ever really thought of it like that. It happened naturally and out of the fun of
playing. Playing drums was an outlet to be creative, then BOOM, 20 years later I'm a musician.
I think it took me forever to say I was a drummer rather than someone who tried to be one.
Alex: I've been playing music since I was 11 years old. I never really considered myself a
musician growing up, but now I find that I need to play music to fulfill a certain place in my daily
life.
Todd: I had been to big concerts, and been around musicians as a kid, but my first hardcore
matinee show at the old Brewery in Raleigh was probably the turning point where I thought, man, I want to do THAT.
That was the first time I really understood the connection between the band and the audience, and the great energy that created.
GM: What are the five most important albums of all time?
Mark: 1. The Beatles-Abbey Road, 2. Van Halen-Fair Warning, 3. Iron Maiden-Piece of Mind, 4.
Thin Lizzy-Live and Dangerous, 5. Metallica-Master Of Puppets.
Marc: I can't really say what is the 5 most important albums of all time, but I can tell you some of
the albums that have really moved me. Opeth's Blackwater Park, Soundgarden's Superunknown, Paatos's Timeloss, Isis's Panopticon, Tool's Aenima.
I like a lot of the classic stuff too ( Sabbath, Zepplin, Floyd, Maiden, etc...) which to me would be the ones to include for an of all time list.
But I never listened to them as much as I've listened to some of these.
Alex: Impossible to answer - I would say that as I get older these change as I start connecting dots between bands that influenced each other. For me, At the Gates Slaughter Of The Soul was crucial as far as heavy music is concerned.
Todd: The albums that I can always go back to are Metallica Master of Puppets, Black Sabbath, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath", Led Zeppelin III, Iron Maiden Live After Death and Kyuss Sky Valley.
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