Necrytis was spawned from the ashes of Sue’s Idol and Onward, although the Onward part was by dark providence. I did two albums with Sue’s Idol and Toby Knapp played lead on 6 songs from the second Sue’s album which was called Six Sick Senses. It’s a great album, very hard to find, and it was mastered by Zeuss, who most recently had done the new Queensryche, Sanctuary, and the remaster of the first Sanctuary album. While finishing up the mixes for SSS, I had a furious burst of inspiration over a 3-week period and ended up with 11 songs completed, and about 75 various melodies, choruses, etc. Sue’s Idol was placed on hiatus and thus I had no guitarist or bassist. I found a bass player named Mark Sobus who was able to follow my ideas and record bass to the 11 songs, which would become the debut Countersighns, and I fortunately found a guitarist. I gave him the demos and he said to give him a few months to learn everything and we’d be ready. He comes out to record after a few months and says “Yeah, I haven’t listened to the songs yet, I figured I could just wing it and you could put it all together in the computer”. I was dejected to say the least, but we tried it anyway and managed to get rhythm tracks for one song, but it took a month. I knew I was in trouble and I also knew the guitarist wouldn’t be able to play leads, so I contacted Toby to see if he would be interested in playing leads for what was supposed to be Sue’s Idol #3 and he said “Sure, no problem”, and I said “Well, as long as we’re talking leads, how about playing all of the guitars”, and I proceeded to explain my dilemma. He asked me to send him the tracks and had everything completed in about a month. Toby and I go way back to our first couple of bands together. It worked out well for me because Toby’s one of the greatest guitarists in metal.
2. What’s the origin of the band’s name?
I made up the word Necrytis years ago, back in 2000 and finally had the perfect opportunity to use it. It means ‘of, or pertaining to the mysteries of the afterlife’, or it could mean being afflicted with constant thoughts of death.
3. Where is the band based out of and what is your music scene like there? Are there any local bands you could recommend?
Currently I’m living in Texas and Toby lives in Wyoming. There’s never been a scene in Wyoming, and I’m sure there’s a scene here in San Antonio but I don’t know anything about it. I pretty much live in my own head when it comes to music. Mark lives in South Carolina and he loves the live scene. He plays live as much as he can.
4. How would you describe your style?
It’s mostly 80’s metal influenced, but there are hints of 70’s stuff in there as well. You’ll find black metal riffs interspersed with a classic rock riff here and there too. We don’t go for the immaculately polished, surgically sterile sound that you hear nowadays. It’s old school. You’ll hear amp buzzing, snares rattling, etc. but that’s how I think it should be. We don’t use a click, we don’t use reamping software or drum replacement software. I’ve used it before and I understand the benefits, which are great, but I also noticed over the past 5 years or so that the snare drum sound is the same on almost every new album out there. So is the kick drum. So are the cymbals, and the rhythm guitar. Oh yeah, the bass too, ha ha! It sounds like every band is using each other’s gear!
5. What have you released so far and what can someone expect from your works?
Well, I’ve done Hypocrites and Mad Prophets, plus Six Sick Senses with Sues’s Idol and Toby has done the Onward albums, along with about 18-20 other albums, Affliktor, Waxen, solo stuff, Godless rising, etc, and with Necrytis we’ve done Countersighns and Dread en Ruin. Mark has done some solo stuff as well.
6. Do you have any new music in the works?
I just finished recording all of the demos for Necrytis #3 this last weekend. I’ve blocked out 09-20 July in my schedule to record them for the album. As usual, it will be drums first, then keys and vocals, then guitars and bass, except this time I will most likely do the vocals over again once guitars are recorded. We didn’t do that with Dread and you can hear some flat spots in the vocals because I didn’t have music to lock onto, but we kept the original vocals because it sounded raw and fresh. It’s funny because Dread en Ruin isn’t officially released for another week and we’re almost done with the follow-up! Necrytis #3 takes another turn in the progression of our sound. Countersighns was straightforward 80s metal but Dread is more progressive. Longer songs, more plot twists within the songs, and reviews have been mixed because some love it and some hate it, but to the ones that hate it, I’ll bet it grows on them with a few more spins. The riffs are too complex to absorb in one go-around. Necrytis #3 takes the same formula but scales it back a bit to include a few more 70s influences.
7. How about playing shows and touring, have anything planned out?
Not at this time, but that’s because we simply haven’t discussed it. We’ve been so busy writing and recording. Necrytis #3 will be three albums recorded in two years. Who does that anymore these days? We’ll end up like Spinal Tap and have 15 albums in 17 years. At least if we do play live we’ll have a decent set list to put together. I need to clarify something though. I don’t sing and play drums at the same time, so if anyone were to see us play live and thought they were going to see the drummer singing the songs, they would be disappointed. Besides, no offense to drummers that are the lead vocalists, but I don’t think it looks cool. Toby already has a drummer in mind that could step in to play drums live.
8. What plans do you have for the future as a band?
Not sure yet. At least another album or two, depending on Toby’s schedule.
9. Where can we listen to your band and where can we buy your stuff?
Pure Steel is releasing Dread en Ruin in Europe as well as the states. I’m not sure if it’s going to Japan and South America or not. Hopefully they do another run of Countersighns because that was a limited release, and vinyl would be awesome. Of course there’s Amazon, iTunes, etc.
10. What is it you’d like a listener to remember the most when hearing your music for the first time?
That it harkens back to a time when the song took priority over the recording. We love the old school sound, because it gives everything an edge. Listen to the first Metal Church album, or anything by Motorhead and you’ll understand what I mean.
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