[Interview] with MARK PALFREYMAN of Melbourne’s ALARUM.
PREAMBLE-RAMBLE: SOME RESPECTS PAID.
Before we launch proper into the Q & A responses from bassist/vocalist Mark Palfreyman, I feel a little tribute is in order. Alarum are a band that hold a special place in the hearts of the Australian metalhead vox-populi, and I’d like to pitch in my own contextual two-bob around my journey with the band.
Alarum have been around for a while, but time hasn’t slowed them one bit. See for instance, massive recent successes in high critical acclaim both for 2024 release Recontinue but also their fun, funny, frantic and outright blazing live shows.
Don’t believe me, yet?
Go check our review of now-ill-fated (RIP) The New Dead Festival, which includes a report on their set and some rad photos that I’ll reshare right now.
Oh and while we’re here? Mad props and respect to Samuel Phillips Photography.
Good dude and an absolute beast with the lens, as per below:
One of many rippers sets I’ve been fortunate enough to headbang (and laugh!) through.
As an ‘89-baby millenial, I just got skipped over on the classic canonical era of: Metal For The Brain, my State’s home capital of Sydney not being flogged to a live-music death by developers and Boomers who didn’t do prior research, etc. Thus, from the mid-late aughts onwards, I’ve always taken any opportunity I could to catch these dudes live.
As someone noodling around with prog and post-rock stuff on my own musical ventures on bass/guitar, it’s nothing short of motivating to see Alarum continue as one of many Australian metal institutions. Formed in 1992, the band unleashed their unique blend of Atheist/Coroner-flavoured, jazz-infused, psychedelic progressive death metal unto the world with first LP Fluid Motion in ‘98, to resounding success in the local scene.
I was first exposed to the band in the late 90s/early 00s by way of Three Hours of Power and later, Full Metal Racket. Hosted by Costa Zoulio and Andrew Haug, respectively, these were funnily enough, 3-hour segments on late Tuesday nights (which continues to this day, most previous iteration being RACKET with Lochlan Watt).
Back then, as a welfare kid with nil internet access and prior to burning CD’s, my ongoing life mission of annoying the crap out of all my friends with what’d later move digitally to playlists (and this blog, lol) started out with hitting Record/Pause on my tape deck through the weekly JJJ metal segment.
I’ll not forget the first time the single ‘Velocity’ released on the show. Yeah, sure, I was already a fan of their work. Being mid-teens on the release, I was still mired in the adolescent (and probably also undiagnosed neurodivergent) phase of being single-minded in my genre hyperfixations. At the time, I’d only just veered off a long and exhaustive binge of all things grindcore, having got my grubby little McDonald’s-employed hands on Napalm Death’s Scum and Enemy of The Music Business.
I literally purchased Eventuality next in line after Atheists’ Piece of Time, two albums I attribute massively to my ongoing love of experimental death metal. Props to the random bloke next to me at the CD shop who silently picked up the latter, slid it across to me, tapped it a few times, bought his picks and left. Old Mate in Coffs Harbour, 2004 - you sent me on a fantastic path.
Like Alchemist, Devolved, Ulcerate, Portal, Karnivool and countless others, the inception of Eventuality onto the ANZAC progressive metal scene paired beautifully with a years-long run out of mostly old-school hardcore, death metal, black and thrash into totally foreign territory.
Between Eventuality and Devolved’s Technologies, though? Nah, that was it. Done. Deal firmly sealed.
And here we are, 21 years later. Coming out the slow caveman crawl of ‘cavernous OSDM’ informed by Demilich, the high acclaim associated with increasingly-death-metal-Hawkwind (Blood Incantation) etc, and Alarum find themselves among many contemporaries they likely hugely influenced themselves.
Rather than tie the interview off with a pithy statement, I thought I’d lead with one. Mark, Scott, John - I’m sure I speak on behalf of the Australian metal community almost wholesale when I say I’m proud of what you guys have achieved, and I/we are SO stoked to see you guys (re)continue on your journey to get heads bangin’. May you keep heads swirling both from speakers at home and stages in venues for as long as you possibly can!
Right. I’ve rambled.
Let’s hear words from mouth of jazz-death-metal-bassist Palf himself.
An Interview Re-Continued - Q and A w/ Mark Palfreyman of Alarum.
(see here for a prior interview with the man himself, derived from our old dead site (RIP) and conducted just prior to New Dead Festival 2023.
Note: The interview questions were asked a while back - Palf, Alarum and ourselves have all been busy - so man’s answers have been modified to better reflect the many goings-on since!)
B: How are things going in the Alarum camp at the moment? You guys have launched straight from the release of Recontinue into rehearsing for a number of pending shows by the looks!
“Hey mate, all going well here and we are enjoying having new music out and being able to do some shows. There’s been plenty of great shows recently and many more are on the cards for the rest of this year and next.”
Home is where the studio (and heart, I guess) is, right? Job well done by locals Sturdy Fabrications. Support local businesses as well as bands and venues, y’all!
B: Speaking of shows, how's it feel to be on the bill with old-school death metal heroes in Left To Die? Must be a massive honour!
“It was an absolute honour to be on the bill with Left To Die. Death were a massive influence on myself and Alarum and that we were able to share the stage with Left To Die as they played Scream Bloody Gore and Leprosy was unbelievable. An hour and a half set by them was nuts!!! I was hooked as soon as I saw the cover and heard SBG and when Leprosy arrived it blew my mind and opened it up to so much more. When we played our first song at the gig I looked down and Rick Rozz was right up the front centre as we started playing…very surreal.”
From Alarum’s official Facebook profile (links at bottom of article).
B: Given the last time we caught up was in the context of gearing up for New Dead, I'm curious to explore the process of recording Recontinue. How'd you find it as a band?
“Recording Recontinue was a very different experience to previous albums. This time around we recorded the songs before jamming them all as a full band or performing them live at shows.
Previous albums had some songs that hadn’t been jammed prior however most previous albums had a lot more time ‘on the road’ testing songs. With covid lockdowns we didn’t have that luxury and with our past track record of many many years between each album along with the fact our guitarist Scott Young was expecting a 2nd child arrival we decided it’s better we keep the motor running instead of holding off for a few more years and so we got Recontinue recorded and out there so we can continue with new music on our journey.
Everything was recorded by us at my home studio except the drums and the guitar reamping, that was done at Dangertone by Luke Walton. All mixing done by Troy McCosker at his Audio Ninja studio.
It was a good full 6 months of every weekend recording.
”
Link to Dangertone Studios
Image courtesy of Troy McCosker’s Audio Ninja Studio social media profile.
Link to Audio Ninja Studio
B: I personally found Recontinue a bit heavier (if that's possible) than Circle's End. Does this reflect any outside influences such as specific artists/genres, and or conditions outside the rehearsal space that influenced the writing?
“After Circle’s End was released, we were unable to tour to promote the album and as the whole world was locked down those difficult times did shape the next chapter.
We set out to make the heavier parts heavier, the cleans cleaner, jazzy parts jazzier etc.
The album is darker & heavier for sure thanks also to the mix by Troy McCosker who really bought the album all together. There was a lot of emotion and aggression to release during those difficult lock down times, cancelled tours, unable to catch up with band on weekends and rehearse etc. I built a vocal room, unleashed a lot of aggression, improvised and worked on getting some heavier vocals and bass/guitar into this album.
This is first album to feature drummer Jared Roberts and he brings his own style into the sound also and was a big part in bringing the songs together.
”
B: In terms of recorded output, looks like a few stakeholders were involved (i.e. Recording both in your own time and at Danger Tone Studios, then mixed by Troy McCosker at Audio Ninja Productions and finally, mastering by John Ruberto at Mastermind Studios).
What are your thoughts on the polishing end of the album production?
“We were fortunate to work with all mentioned, all professionals in what they do.
We also have a learnt a lot with each album we’ve recorded over the almost 30 past years.
We were able to focus on getting the best, honest versions of our initial ideas and Luke Walton / Dangertone and Troy McCosker really helped a lot in bringing it together.
In a current day field where many albums are highly over edited and clinical sounding, we did our best to record an album that is a representation of what you can expect to see and hear when you come see Alarum play live at a show.
The polishing end is an exciting stage, hearing all the ideas as they begin to become final time stamps and get to shine and be shared forever.
”
B: In our last interview, you noted as a band that ongoing love for the craft has kept you going through multiple decades as a band - especially important at the moment in the industry!
Would you describe your motivation as same, more, less? Why/Why not?
“Having done this for many years the passion is still there and yes live for it. We wouldn’t still be here otherwise.
We’ve seen so many bands, genres, venues, trends come and go and are still motivated to continue being us and doing what we do.
Create music that pushes boundaries, enjoy writing and playing music that has it challenges and here we still are 30 years on playing great shows, touring, sharing stages with friends and some of our heroes and getting a chance to spend time with likeminded musical friends in Australia and internationally.
We’re getting older so the motivation is as strong if not stronger as we’re not in our 20’s anymore so we do need to step things up and do as much as we can while we can.
”
B: We see you've got your first ever Ballarat show lined up in Volta in a few days. I could (and will/am!) selfishly ask about other regional Victorian/Australian locations you might also have in mind in future? How've you guys found playing regional dates in comparison to, say, Melbourne?
“Yes we played there recently, it was fun.
Great venue, great bands and those that came out enjoyed it and we were thankful we made it out there to play finally.
We haven’t done much regional stuff for a very long time however we are interested to when possible and if people want us to. Always interesting to see and play more remote locations. Road trips are always fun too.
”
B: Since it's been a minute between the last interview and this one, I'm interested to hear any of the funniest tour/recording/band anecdotes you guys in recent memory?
“There’s many…Last month after about 2 hours sleep we had to drive from Ballarat to Tullamarine Airport at 5:30am to get an early flight to Hobart for show Extreme South show.
On the drive my wagon clicked over to 400,000kms. While driving at 66.6kms per hour. We did film it thankfully.
We’ve travelled a lot over the past 30 years and every experience is worth it. That really was a reminder.
When we got to the airport we decided breakfast beers were in order before our flight.
Some of the guys got scrambled eggs…they took ages and we’re thinking we’d have to leave to board.
Finally after we saw waiter going to various tables not knowing who ordered them we yelled them over to us and that they were for our table.
They then gave us 3 forks and a knife?
While we were laughing about that, over the loudspeaker in airport we heard final boarding call of all names of the guys in Destruktor from Geelong. We cheered them on and hoped they’d make the flight and that we’d see them in Hobart as we were playing Extreme South with them.
They made their flight, we finished beers/ breakfast and made our flights and made it to Hobart for what was an awesome show. We were back up at 4:30am to get back to airport to get back home.
Was a whirlwind weekend.
”
B: Melbourne seems to be birthing progressive/extreme-metal/insert-genre-bands like nothing else these days. Any newcomers and/or old-guard with stellar recent releases you guys have been digging lately?
“Still getting out and about to check things out after being locked up recording and releasing our album however Vexation, Abramelin, Destruktor, Munitions, Munt & Dreadnaught have all impressed and no doubt many more will as we get out to check them out this year.
We’re the Melbourne metal grandpa’s these days and it’s great to see so many awesome bands still coming out of Melbourne!
”
B: A lot of folks comment on the technicality of your music, which could be as inspiring as it is daunting for our younger cohort wanting to concoct something similar.
What advice would the Alarum crew have for budding jazz-fusion/progressive death-metal heads, or indeed folks wanting to make something technical and 'out there' today?
“Make sure you enjoy what you create and the experience with those you do it with.
Learn from your influences but find your own style or put your own spin on it.
Do it for the love of music and making forward thinking music and enjoy each moment as best you can.
There’s gonna be lots of ups and downs, music will be there through it all, and the music lives on - so make it worthwhile.
”
And there you have it, folks. Sage words for any aspiring tech-jazz-prog-death-metal kids wanting to get some truly gnarly stuff out there, but feeling a little reticent. If anything, Alarum are testament to the fact that not only is it a feasible goal - it’s a rewarding one, and you too could one day be luminaries amongst your contemporaries and proteges alike.
With that said, I think I’ll go try tackle that tapping riff in Mother Man on fretless again.