INTERVIEW: GEORGE HARRIS OF THE RAVEN AGE

serpent's tongue, forgive and forget, I'm music magazine, the raven age, blood omen, george harris, darkness will fall, raven king, audrey riley, — Photo Credit: John McMurtrie

With two albums under their belts and third album released in 2023, The Raven Age have established themselves as one of Britain’s finest metal bands. According to their bio the group has “garnered over 75 million streams worldwide.” The group’s new album Blood Omen is Tommy Gentry’s album debut for the group and they also team up once again with producer Matt Hyde. George Harris, one of the founding members of The Raven Age, talks about their new album working with Matt Hyde and much more in this interview for I’m Music Magazine.

How did the band form?

George Harris/The Raven Age: Myself and our now manager, Dan, started the band together. We met back in 2008 via our girlfriends (now wives) and were basically forced to spend the day together as we attended a family wedding of theirs, however as we were so new on the scene, we were invited the evening only. We spent the day walking around Cambridge in our suits and stopped at KFC for lunch and over a chicken burger we discovered we both played guitar and were rock/metal fans. We setup a jam and wrote a song in our first session and it just snowballed from there.

Two early members of the group left in 2017, Michael Burrough the lead vocalist and Dan Wright on guitar. How did their departures affect the dynamics of the band, especially since your debut album Darkness Will Rise came out about the same time?

Dan transitioned into our manager, so it didn’t come as a surprise to us, he was honest from day 1 that he didn’t want to be a touring musician. He was always the organized, business-minded one out of us anyway and we’re lucky he now works in the industry and is able to manage the band. Tony joined replacing Dan on guitar and was a great fit, we knew him from the local scene. He’s a great player and songwriter. Mike left the band at the end of the touring year in 2017. It was an extremely stressful time for us as we didn’t have an immediate replacement and were holding auditions. But the addition of MJ joining in early 2018 really lifted everyone’s spirits and the morale was sky high. We didn’t have too much time for him to settle in, we jumped straight in the studio and started recording Conspiracy as most of it was already written bar “The Face That Launched a Thousand Ships” and “Forgotten World” which MJ, Tony and I worked on together.

The new album Blood Omen was released in June and it continues the theme of the Raven King. Talk about that theme and how it has been woven into the two previous albums.

The Raven King is a character that Dan and I were slowly developing right from the off. We decided to keep him very background and mysterious, only introducing a hooded figure on some of the booklet artwork in Darkness Will Rise to start with. On Conspiracy you can see him on the cover leaving his tower and making his way to the Tower of London. If you didn’t know already the band name and the entire theme is all derived from the legend of the Tower of London. When King Charles II reigned between 1660 – 1685 he insisted ravens were to be always kept at the Tower grounds, or else the British Empire shall fall. When it came to album 3, we decided to go full frontal with the Raven King and reveal him completely. He’s essentially there to claim back his captive ravens, therefore bringing down the Monarchy and anyone in his way. This is where the title Blood Omen comes from.

Once again you worked with producer Matt Hyde on this album; what is it like working with him?

We have a brilliant working relationship with Matt. He totally understands the way we work as we’ve done every release with him now. We’re very hands on and like to get very involved in the whole process. Matt comes to the studio and gets everything setup drum wise, he then leaves us to it and I engineer the rest of the tracking. MJ and I will then go to his studio and sit in and mix the tracks with him there and then.

Was it important for the band to have his help again for this album?

Actually yes. We originally thought it was a good time to move on from Matt and try someone else to “develop our sound”. Only to find that we’d lost something quite important and that was “our sound” we’d created over years working with Matt. We quickly went back to Matt, apologized and asked if he fancied working on album 3, which he accepted.

The band also introduced real strings on this album working with cellist Audrey Riley. What did she bring to the production of the album?

Having real strings was something we’d wanted for a long time but couldn’t justify doing it previously. When the opportunity came to work with Audrey, we jumped at it. She’s friends with our drummer, Jai and they collaborated on string arrangement together. Having her ear on the record just brings so much depth we didn’t realize we could get. The live strings just add a certain emotion and dynamic we’ve not been able to achieve before.

Tommy Gentry makes his Raven Age album debut on Blood Omen. He already had an impressive resume prior to joining The Raven Age. What did he bring to the table that helped the album even more?

Tommy joining when he did was like putting the icing on the cake for us. We were heavy into the tracking period of Blood Omen and had the songs together but we gave Tommy the chance to show off his chops on the solos and he absolutely nailed it. He has a very smooth and soulful style but is super technical at the same time.

Of all the songs on the new album, which one stands out the most to you and why?

I think “Serpents Tongue” is probably the one that will catch people’s attention most as it’s just a very well written, catchy yet heavy song. But it’s probably Tears of Stone for me, it’s the epic album closer and probably the song I’m most proud of writing on this album.

The Raven Age has toured with some the biggest and best in metal including Killswitch Engage, Volbeat, Shinedown, and even your father’s band Iron Maiden. What have your learned over the years touring with these superstar bands?

Mainly that they’re just super normal, approachable guys. Which just proves you don’t need to have any type of ego to be successful in the music industry.

The band is touring all over Europe this year; any plans for a US tour?

We’re working hard on it. We were due to play our first ever US headline shows back in March 2020 and sadly got flown home 2 days before the first gig because of the pandemic. We were supposed to play New York, Chicago and LA to start with. A large chunk of our listeners online come from the US and Canada so we’re eager to get back across the pond, we have some unfinished business.

Is there any difference in the fans the crowds between touring Europe and the US?

The US crowds tend to be more of a watching crowd compared with Europe in our experience. But will then be very vocal about how they enjoyed the show, come and say hi and be super friendly before and after, which is great.

The new album is out plus a European tour the rest of 2023. What else can fans of The Raven Age look forward to this year?

We have another single with a live cut video for Nostradamus coming out real soon from the tour we’ve just been on in Europe this summer. Also, we’re working hard at launching a new fan club pretty soon which will involve some exciting stuff for our superfans.

That wraps up our time. I appreciate you taking time out of your busy schedule to answer some questions for us.

Cheers for the questions!

I’m Music Magazine Writer Tim Board