Okay, straight off the bat let me ask you: why is the new album titled “iii” and not “III”, for it is indeed KING WITCH’s third album. Or is it just a typeface thing?

“There isn’t really a big story behind the name of the album. It’s our third album, there are three of us now and stylistically it looked cooler as “iii” on the cover. If it’s good enough for Zeppelin, it’s good enough for us.”Between “Body Of Light” and “iii” there’s a time span of five years. Did you use this time to write new songs only or were there ‘other matters’?

““Body Of Light” was released during Covid so we couldn’t go out and play shows to promote it. During lock down, Jamie wrote quite a lot of new material. I guess that was one of the good things that came out of that mad period in time. There was more time for creativity. As soon as restrictions were lifted, we put the new tracks on the back burner and went out gigging “Body Of Light”. In 2022, we’d just come off a EU tour with Green Lung and played Desertfest when Jamie and myself decided to take a break from the band due to some pretty heavy personal reasons. We parted ways with our then drummer Lyle, Jamie broke his leg and we welcomed our little boy into the world. It’s been a mad whirlwind. In between all that we managed to complete writing the album and record it.”

Until now, there have been two singles with each a video released from “iii”, “Swarming Flies” and “Sea Of Lies”. You said that for “iii” you have gone for a more personal approach in writing lyrics. Is “Sea Of Lies” one of them?

“Definitely. All the tracks on “iii” have lyrics that are pretty personal to me. “Sea Of Lies” explores mankind’s need to consume and destroy. It’s about trying to live your life knowing there are wars being fought, people dying and that nature is being plundered and burned. It’s also about the innocence of youth being chipped away as we get older and more aware of the crazy world in which we live in. I don’t have a bleak view of the world but there are days when you wonder why the human race can be so thoughtless and destructive.”

The album starts off with some strange sounds on “Suffer In Life”, for what purpose? Your voice on this track (and others too) is very reminiscent to that of Babe Ruth’s Janita (Jenny) Haan, a British rock band from the 70s. Have you ever listened to them?

“We thought it sounded good. The little ‘ting’ sound you hear at the beginning is actually Jamie hitting our little boy’s baby xylophone toy, haha. The rest is some backwards vocals. We think it’s a cool way to slide into the album. There have been a couple of folks that have made the same comparison. I’ll take that as a compliment. I don’t know the band well, but I’ll make a point of listening now.”

Guitarist Jamie Gilchrist could completely indulge himself on “iii” with his doomy Sabbath-like riffs and some blazing fast solos. He also did the producing and mixing jobs for the album. Was he still enjoyable while completing these heavy tasks?

“Jamie’s got great feel on guitar. He can totally shred but he also knows when to give the music space. We’ve got a home studio which was built just before we started recording, so it made sense for Jamie to do it. He obviously knows the music and had a clear vision of how he wanted it to sound. We wanted to make the album sound as natural as possible and having our own space and time helped with that. I really think this is our best sounding album yet. He was really easy to work with, haha. He’s good at getting the best out of us all.”Speaking of an allocation of tasks, you did the artwork for every KING WITCH album so far, but for “iii” you are mentioned as ‘graphic designer’. What’s the story, Laura?

“I was looking after my wee boy so it was difficult to get time to focus on a big job like that. I asked Rosanne Hayes, aka. Blastedheathen, if she’d be interested in helping us. We’d worked with her in the past for t-shirt designs. She’s so talented and her style is really cool. The album is about life and death, the light and dark side of human nature and innocence and corruption. We liked the ying yang idea and we thought wolves would be a cool way of representing the fierceness and resilience of the human spirit. We gave all these ideas to Rosanne and she absolutely smashed it. It’s something special for sure! I’m a graphic designer by day so I was happy to take on the layout of the album.”

On “Behind The Veil” you and the band show your sensitive side, until you decide to turn up the volume at 2/3rd of the song. Is it one of the ‘personal approaches’ as well that you sing about?

““Behind The Veil” is about life and death. It’s about the quiet space in between the light and the dark. It’s also about the awesome power of the sun and moon. Deities, worshipped and feared for millennia. It’s something I’ve always been interested in and something that we’re all experienced in in one form or another. The shift in tempo / power  is like a wake up from a

dreamy slumber. Taking power back for yourself when you’ve maybe been feeling low.”

“Digging In The Dirt” is kind of different and works best for the term ‘electrifying heavy metal doom’ as you call your music on KING WITCH’s Facebook page. And subsequently “Little Witch” is a beautiful acoustic song, one of the highlights on “iii”. That keeps it exciting, the variation, doesn’t it?

“Yeah, we think so. We don’t set out to write an album to sound a particular way. We write songs we enjoy and want to play. Bands like Led Zeppelin, Sabbath, etc., had a lot of variety in their music. They had rock, blues, folk vibes as well as the heavy riffing. I think that’s what makes an album exciting, interesting and something you’ll want to revisit.”

“Last Great Wilderness” may be regarded as ‘the grand final’ on “iii”, but The Metal Archives says there’s another track, the Soundgarden cover “Jesus Christ Pose”. Unfortunately, your label didn’t send it to me. Where can we find it?

“We do indeed have a bonus cover of Soundgarden’s “Jesus Christ Pose” which is only available on cd. I’m pretty sure it’ll be available to stream too, though. It’s a song we all like and one we thought would be fun to try out.”

You’ve always been very faithful to Listenable Records, all three KING WITCH albums were released by this label. Are the free poster, beer coaster and postcard that come with “iii” a present from them to you and your fans?

“Listenable has been an amazingly supportive label. Laurent has a real love for music. I’m not really sure it’s a ‘present’ as such but it’s definitely a cool extra for anyone buying the album.”KING WITCH have no permanent drummer, Andrew Scott performed all the drums on the new album. Will he also be with you when you do the two live concerts in Newcastle and London this July and the Edinburgh Fleshtival in August? Which songs from “iii” will you be playing there?

“Jamie and I have known Andy for a long time. He used to be the drummer in our old band Firebrand Super Rock. He’s an extremely talented drummer and when we were looking for someone to record with we instantly thought he’d be the man for the job. He did a fantastic job recording. He’ll be playing all our shows coming up which is great. We’ll be playing all of “iii” apart from two tracks. The rest of the set will be made up of older material.” ■

Henk van Nieuwenhoven