Ten Further Questions to ... Matt Vowles (Black Angel)

 

Over the past two years, Black Angel have risen to the forefront of the goth revival, with a winning formula of memorable choruses, clean vocals, ringing guitars, driving basslines and thoroughly professional production. The brainchild of musician Matt Vowles, who grow up in the vibrant UK goth scene of the 1980’s. Black Angel hark back to the time when goth music was prominent in the musical mainstream, and the band’s winning mix of melody and passion pays tribute to the major players of that classic era without ever trying to imitate them.

Today is the official release date of Black Angel’s third album, Prince of Darkness, which further refines the band’s vision which was first revealed on the stunning debut album The Widow and its impressive follow-up Kiss of Death. With Corey Landis’ trademark vocal multi-tracked one octave apart usually to the fore, Black Angel’s songs range from up-tempo gothabilly rockers to dreamier, more languid tracks where Vowles’ guitar licks shimmer and shine.

Fans of old school gothic rock with some pop sensibilities intact will love both the sheer professionalism of the overall sound and the obvious strength of the songwriting on an album which will further cement the band’s growing reputation and act as a gateway artist for more “elder goths” to discover the respectfully creative work being produced by new artists on the scene.

Impressive graphics, innovative marketing campaigns, high quality videos and strong fan engagement have undoubtedly all been key strands of Black Angel’s success to date, but as with the previous releases, it is the sheer quality of the music on Prince of Darkness which will continue to grow Black Angel’s reputation as one of the most reliable – and potentially most commercially successful -  bands on the scene, with many fans pre-ordering the latest album on the strength of debut single Live to Love alone.

Keen to hear more about the album and its genesis, I contacted Matt Vowles for a further interview (see his previous interviews for Goth/Post-Punk Revival here and here) and was delighted when he agreed to discuss not only the current album and the classic Black Angel sound, but also his views on the current scene and his plans for the future. My grateful thanks to Matt who becomes the first person to face the Ten Questions for a third time!

Black Angel’s music can be sampled then bought from their Bandcamp pages.

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1.       Your new album is entitled Prince of Darkness, a name associated with amongst others, Satan, Ozzy Osborne and UK spin doctor Peter Mandelson. Was it more cinematic references which attracted you to the phrase?

 

Yes the new Black Angel album is called Prince of Darkness as it is totally influenced by cinema and romance, think of Gary Oldman in Dracula in the early part of the 21st century. It has nothing to do with Satan or devil worship - this is pure decadence and romance - although he’s a vampire, so he might end up killing you…so there’s that!

 2.       The first single from the new album, Live to Love, has a distinctive “gothabilly” beat which was increasingly prevalent on the second album Kiss of Death, whilst the other teaser tracks like the album opener Alive and Serene have a rockier, more darkwave feel more like those on your debut The Widow. What is your thought process when deciding which track to put out as a single?

 

Live to Love definitely did have more of a thundering psychobilly beat to it, I’m a big fan of the Meteors too - that inspired the feel of this song -  and when I listen through the songs deciding which would be good to put up as a single this one came up trumps. It just has that feel to it I think people will latch onto immediately. It actually came at the 11th hour - I decided to move Duran Duran’s The Chauffeur to our next album as I didn’t feel as though it was quite the right fit so for this one, so I wrote Live To Love at the last minute - then got it over to Corey and it all came together very quickly -  I was super pleased with the end result so I thought, why not put it out as a single?

 3.       You seem to now have a settled line-up, with Corey continuing on vocal duties after the change of singer between the first two albums. Do you foresee any further additions to the line-up in the future?

 

As long as Corey will have me this is the line-up for keeps now. This album had a really good feel to it and Corey has really found his feet and is considered as important as the music is for Black Angel.  It's worked out great, it definitely feels like you can’t have one without the other now. Corey’s vocal takes on this album have been perfect from the faster up-tempo numbers to the one or two slower more ballad-like tracks at the end of side two. We recorded all of the vocals remotely again, the process is that he will give me about 6 to 8 versions of each song in a low register and I basically go through and edit to comp track in that lower register. I then send it back to him and he does an octave up version.

The lower octave is the bones of the vocal track and gives it stability and then the higher register vocal gives it the sparkly stuff - and the balance between the two works out really, really well. He totally crushed it on this album.

On Prince of Darkness I wanted to explore a little more. I consider myself as a guitarist, if you would put me on the spot, extremely weak, but put me in the studio and give me time and I can normally come up with something pretty cool, given enough inspiration as well.  Sometimes you just get super lucky and a riff just happens at the time, as you can be going round and round for hours and it drives you totally nuts!

 4.       Your own guitar sound is actually much admired by other guitarists on the scene. Can you tell me a bit about the set-up you used in the studio on the new album, and your favorite FX pedals etc.

 For Black Angel the guitar sound is essential, maybe not the most essential but is definitely up there. The bass and the drum sound have to be exact and the guitars have to complement so I do spend a lot of time trying to find Guitar tones that I like. I’m a big Line 6 fan and I use, in no particular order, the Pocket Pod, AmplifyTT, the HDX500, and Helix.

 I tend to download tones from the Internet and tweak them like many people do, but yes, Line 6 is my favorite, and if they would like to endorse me and send me all of the gear I’m fine with that!  :-) 

 5.       The global pandemic put paid to any opportunity to tour the last album. Do you aim to tour more extensively and play festivals etc when this becomes possible?

Black Angel are extensively a studio band - we have played before in LA but I tend to direct myself to writing and producing songs and albums and making music videos etc. I get a kick out of the creative side and can’t help but keep doing it - if I don’t, it drives me crazy. I did like it when we played live though, maybe when we get a little bit of a bigger following we’ll be invited to play at some bigger festivals - that would be so awesome!

 6.       The last year has seen a rise in the political conscience of the goth movement in general, with BLM and the US presidential elections for example. Is this something which is reflected in the new Black Angel album lyrically, or are you still primarily writing about relationships?

This is something I stay out of. Yes, Facebook over the last year has had quite the roller coaster ride with the goth scene. For me, and many will disagree, my music is not about politics and has no connection with that whatsoever, it doesn’t need to be - for me it’s mostly about life, love, and relationships, And that’s already a lot of ground cover.

I want a Black Angel project to be about escapism, I’m not trying to make a statement, I want you to listen and enjoy it and get a kick out of it and dance on the dance floor when you hear it in a club I just want people to feel good when they hear it.

 7.       When Black Angel first arrived on the scene, your reference points were very much UK first generation bands like The Damned and The Cult, and on Bandcamp you suggest that the new CD would sit well between those of Bauhaus and The Sisters in your average goth’s collection. Now that you’ve been around for a while, are there other bands of the current goth revival who have impressed you as similarly carrying on the flame from earlier times?

That’s a really tough question and I think to make it easy and for nobody to get offended, I think I’m just going to stick with nobody in the goth revival movement right now is really even close to what I think was the pinnacle of goth music in the 80s, Black Angel included. Now this is my opinion, and I feel music is totally subjective, so this is where I’m coming from. 

I’d like to expand on that -  I don’t think a lot of this is the fault of the bands. I think it’s a fault of the industry at large, as bands are not being taken under the wing of larger labels and engineers and producers and being nurtured into what the big goth bands that before us went through. They are not getting to see the whole process, they are just, which is very important indeed, making the music and the putting it out themselves. But...I think it needs the rest of the layers with it, I think it needs large scale production. That doesn’t mean it needs to sound epic, it just means it needs to feel extremely well-crafted by producers that have been doing this for decades.

WE are definitely in the same boat -  I consider myself a producer but I do not consider myself anywhere near on the same level as many of the producers that have come before me, particularly in the 80's. This is what is missing: I wish the music industry would sort itself out and return to what was a winning formula. Bands need to be discovered, they need to be signed to an honest label, they need to be crafted, mentored, and to go through the system and be allowed to grow as artists. The music industry has never been at such an all-time low, it’s complete chaos right now, but this is a bigger question for maybe another time. However, just to add to that, the music industry consumers are maybe at an all-time high, with companies such as BANDCAMP helping artists, as it seems as though the consumer wants to buy the physical merchandise of compact discs and vinyls from those bands and support them, that is absolutely fantastic and could not be better: it’s the front end of the process that needs to be fixed.

 8.       You recently celebrated your fiftieth birthday. Was Black Angel a project which you wanted to get fully up and running before reaching that milestone? If so, what is your next target musically?

 Yes, it was my 50th recently and definitely a milestone but thankfully I skated right through it without any scars 🙂

Since Black Angel was founded three years ago, I have definitely found my musical calling and I will continue to write for as long as it gives me pleasure to do so and hopefully people will continue to respond to it. I’ve already got the next four albums mapped out!

We are so thankful for everybody’s support, especially our Bandcamp supporters, over the last three years, it’s been totally amazing and I am constantly blown away by the response.

 9.       Like most other artists on the current scene, you have a full-time day job, family responsibilities etc. How difficult is it to find time for Black Angel?

Yes, I do have a family, children, and a full-time job, thankfully I’ve been a Re-Recording Mixer in the film and television industry for nearly 3 decades so I am at a level where stress is a lot more reduced than it used to be - and although it can be very intense sometimes timewise it always seems to have worked out with my musical projects - and I always have always found time to do them.

Although, many people asked me ‘when do you sleep?’ And I always have to remind myself as I have a tattoo on my arm that says ‘never enough’ inside of a hourglass timer, at the bottom is a skull and it the top is a tropical beach scene, I have to remind myself that I can’t kill myself trying to get to the pinnacle of all my goals or when I do reach it, that I will be so exhausted and half-dead I won’t want to do anything else - so there’s always a fine balance between family, career and music. It also helps if you have a totally awesome wife and partner (thanks Catherine:)

 10.   I get the impression that you are a prolific songwriter and had most of the Prince of Darkness album already written when Kiss of Death was released. Will there be a similarly short wait before the fourth album? Do you have any songs already written for it?

You are correct, I am always creating and thinking about the next step. After I finish an album I have to go through the publicity stage and normally during that time it isn’t very creative for me, so I need to start writing again - so after Kiss of Death was released, I already had half of Prince of Darkness written musically and now over these next few weeks as Prince of Darkness comes out and we get into the publicity stage, I’m already itching to get the guitars out and in fact, while I think - while I am answering your questions - I’m thinking that maybe in a moment, after this last question, I can sneak in a couple of hours of writing the next album…..

And off he went into his studio, to work on tracks for the next Black Angel album, tentatively and appropriately (Matt knows his market!) entitled The Devil In The Black Dress. The third album, Prince of Darkness, is out today, and is highly recommended to all fans of 80's goth. My thanks again to Matt for his time and for the music!