IGNITOR - Roll The Bones Page 2
by Martin Popoff

"The main mission, for myself anyway, is to have fun," continues Laurence on the band's mission, asked first if he could articulate what makes this form of the power metal form so well-formed, so... determined and steely. "It's kind of like when you get into trying to decipher genres of metal, because originally I thought what we were trying to do was power metal, and then certainly, a lot of people have called us true metal, or some other ideas. It's really just my fairly limited vocabulary of music, is what it sounds like (laughs); it's basically the sum of all the different people in the band, what we're playing. It's interesting, because I'd never really listened to much power metal, with the exception of Priest... that's the only power metal I can think of, that I looked to when I was younger. I was more into punk rock and stuff, when I really started playing guitar. But then the '80s happened, and I really got into Metallica and Mercyful Fate, Megadeth, bands more in the speed metal vein or thrash metal bands like Anthrax, and it wasn't really until recently, at least in the 2000s, that I started listening to certainly all the Judas Priest stuff, and Maiden. I never really listened to them until then (laughs). And it's really exciting that 20 years later, there is so much material out there to listen to, compared to maybe the '80s, when there really wasn't."

For cover art, Ignitor tapped the resources of dark lord Joe Petagno, of Motorhead fame. "Well, I guess he kinds of licenses the stuff," says Stuart. "I mean, all the great metal records have metal paintings for cover art, and who are we to change that tradition? We didn't really know who we were going to get to do it, and Erika got a crazy idea, let's go right to the top and see what happens. And she found out that he was available to do it, and that for unsigned bands, he would give them a painting that they could use for a thousand bucks. And we thought that fits the bill, although we also thought, that's pretty pricey. But it's definitely a 'you get what you pay for' kind of situation, and luckily, well, we all have day jobs and stuff, so we are not depending on our music for money - we work for it. But it turned out really well."

And serendipity would have it that it fits semi-cogently with the kitschy title of the record. Explains Stuart, "Road Of Bones itself, is a reference to, apparently, in Siberia, the Russian gulags; they had forced labourers make roads between them, and whenever someone dies, they just kind of grind them into the road bed. Which, is particularly brutal and awful, but it makes for good metal music. Erika is very fond of historical references, and, I don't know, I think she must watch the History Channel a lot. But a lot of our material is kind of like period pieces. And I think it's kind of neat to find moments in human struggle that are well documented that you can look up online (laughs), and use that as source material for a song. It's pretty easy to identify emotionally with how horrible it must've been to be shoved into a gulag by your government, and then worked to death. I mean, it's not hard to look for emotion in that, and apply that to a song."

IGNITOR - Roll The Bones Page 3