Interview: Enquire Within (Written)

Much acclaimed UK metallers Enquire Within charge onwards with the release of their savage new EP, ‘Elysium’, out on Friday 31st May. The fiery four piece will also release their scorching new single and video, ‘Point Of No Return’, which is out on Friday 24th May.

We spoke to guitarist Dan about all things Enquire Within.

1. Hello! Thank you for taking the time to chat to us. First things first, tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got started.

We are Enquire Within, a metal band from the UK. We started as a small project between two friends Henry on drums and myself, Dan on guitar. We asked Jacob to do vocals for us and started making some songs, a couple of which we still play! We’ve gone through a few lineup changes over the years but we’re currently fortunate enough to have Erim on Bass and Nik rounding us out on guitar. Probably our biggest influence is the sort of New Wave of American Heavy Metal that emerged in the USA in the early 2000s. Bands like Trivium, Lamb of God and Avenged Sevenfold built the foundation of our early days in metal.

2. Someone comes to you and asks you to sum up what kind of music you play – what do you tell them?

That’s a tough one, we don’t try to stick to one genre (or sub-genre). We really do play by the rule of cool. If it sounds good, it is good. We do tend to stick towards groovy, crushing riffs as the basis of the Enquire Within sound. Really giving Jacob something to throw his voice at and what a voice it is. He’s got an incredible growling tone to his voice, particularly in the new EP Elysium. As a guitarist I try to make some really interesting solos as well, avoiding the generic thrashy solo – as many notes as you can fit into as short a time as possible.There’s nothing wrong with that, I love a good shred. But I try to choose my notes a bit more specifically.

3. What’s currently going on in your camp? New releases? Tours? Etc.

We’ve got a brand new EP Elysium being released on 31st May. It’s an exploration of what makes Enquire Within great. Leaning into what we’ve learned whilst on tour with Acid Reign and Evile. All the experimentation we’ve done to our songs and finding what we enjoy playing. I think the best compliment I heard was from Jacob whilst recording. We were a few days in, all the drums had been tracked and we were just about to wrap on guitars. He was talking to me about how it was great that we were getting a chance to make music that we wanted to listen to. It was that feeling of hearing a band for the first time and just knowing, “this is special”.We even managed to get H, the vocalist from Acid Reign in on one of the singles, Seeds of Destruction. It was great being able to work with him, and watching his process in the studio bringing the song to life. You can watch the video here, it was a blast to make.

Of course, with a new EP you have to go on tour and we’re about to go on our Gates of Elysium Tour starting at the Black Heart Camden on 31 st May and running throughout the summer at venues like the Fuel Club, Cardiff and Bannermans in Edinburgh. You can check out tour details and tickets on our website here and here.

4. What has been the most positive experience of making music to date for you?

We loved the experience of recording with Dan Lucas at the Joplin House in Ashford. He was a consummate professional and knows how to get a killer tone in the studio. His process for drums in particular will never cease to amaze me. They sound so brutal, even while tracking. Collaborating with H was also incredible. Seeing him go from “what’s the line” to absolutely ripping through the song. It’s an indescribable feeling having your little song idea bloom into a full production and I’m extremely happy with how Dan was able to do that time and time again. There’s also the performance side. We love it when the audience sings along with us. Jacob has an incredible way of getting people to open up at our shows. Remember to be as loud as you can at gigs, it reminds us why we do it. For all of you! Bands especially love it when you yell “play Freebird”.

5. Likewise, what has been some of the more challenging aspects and how have you overcome them?

That’s more difficult. There’s a lot of challenges when being in a band. Differences of opinion can be the hardest to overcome as no-one’s actually right. It’s pretty uncommon that we all disagree on something, but it does happen. We had a pretty big… discussion about one of the songs on the EP. We couldn’t agree on the drums and it was making a huge difference to the feel of the song, basically changing the sound entirely. Like the adults we are, there was only one course of action. We fight at high noon! But seriously, we went into practice and started from scratch. Trying pretty much everything until we reached an agreement. That was a long day – but it was important.

6. How do you handle the modern expectations of being in a band? Always online, having to put out content constantly, your success measured in likes and follows?

It can be hard, but we try to put out content that we enjoy seeing ourselves. We’d rather post clips of live gigs or behind the scenes stuff from recording as we find that interesting, than just posting for the sake of it. We try not to focus too much on likes and follows as it can just become a numbers game. There’s definitely a pressure to get the most views or the most social credit score on everything we do, but we’ve found that the absolute most important thing is to go to gigs. Whether they’re yours or bands around you, go be in the scene, go to shows, talk to people and be a part of the music. The London Metal Coalition is doing absolute wonders for the London metal scene. If you’re in a band or want to see more metal in London, definitely check them out.

7. What’s something that really ‘grinds your gears’ about the industry/business these days and what would you propose is done to combat it?

There’s not enough being done to support grassroots music. We’ve been gigging for 9 years now and so many venues that we played in our earlier days have closed. Even bigger venues are under threat. Then there’s ticket prices for mainstream music. Looking at you ticketmaster. I understand why certain productions cost more but I do worry about live music price gating people out of being able to enjoy it.

8. Speaking directly to listeners – what would you ask they do to help support your music?

The biggest things are coming to see us live and listening to us on Spotify. As much as we try to avoid looking at numbers, bookers absolutely do! We’re releasing our EP Elyisum on Vinyl as well, so if you have a vinyl player, I’d seriously recommend giving it a chance – if you come see us, we’ll sign it for you too!

9. Outside of the music, what do you do to relax?

Absolutely everything, whether it’s playing a game or reading a book. It’s just nice to be able to escape to another world for a bit before rejoining society. We all like a nice bit of food out as well!

10. Where can people find you?

Spotify | Website | Facebook | Instagram