Nocturnitier: ‘’ Me and Speedfire (Drummer) met Tzar (who later became Vocalist/Bassist) met at an underground local gig in Tychy, small city of the Silesian Voivodeship in Poland. Our garage where we rehearsal is placed there, and we continue to use it as our rehearsal room.’’
Where did the name Gallower come from?
‘’We just combined this out of the word, Gallows”, nothing more but we wanted the name to be connected with the lyrics we use in our songs. ‘’
The decision to be a three piece?
‘’We wanted to keep our band in the vein of old school European power- trio bands like Venom, Motorhead, Sodom, Destruction, Raven and etc’’.
What got you into metal?
‘’One of the first bands were of course Metallica and Iron Maiden when I was a kid, so to this day those bands are inspirational. ‘’
How do you describe Witching Metal?
‘’Old-school sounding mix of Teutonic Thrash Metal, early First Wave Black Metal and a dose of NWOBHM.’’ Your debut album Behold the realm of Darkness is pure old school metal. Did it take you long to make and record ? ‘’Some songs were written and used in our previous demos ,,Witch Hunt is On” (2015) and ,,Through The Gallows (2016) and half of them was written in the years 2017/2018/2019. We had finally managed to collect all the money and record our debut album in our friend’s underground metal studio, we did it as we wanted to and whole recording session took about 5-6 days, so everything was done really fast with no time for fixes.’’
What comes first? the riff or the vocal?
‘’For me mostly riff, this is how I write the songs, but Tzar sometimes writes lyrics first and then creates music.’’
What is true metal? and to those who are pretending?
‘’True metal is not-whimp deathcore or some idiotic djent riffs, it stays close to its Heavy Metal roots and everyone who listens to ,,true” metal exactly knows what is true and who is pretending about listening to metal. ‘’
Who is The king of Ashes? ‘’One of the characters written in our story line for the debut album, Behold The Realm Of Darkness”. It tells a story about greedy king who burned everything in his path and for his decisions was buried in a nameless forgotten grave. ‘’
What influences Gallower lyrically? Witchcraft , evil , war? ‘’Yes exactly, European witch hunts, occult themes, we create our story in a fictional medieval land called Gallower (of course) and we try to story tell various things connected to the medieval folk, wars, mutinies.’’
Where does this come from and does tie into your old school style?
‘’Those are themes we really like, it somehow fits to the, Witching Metal” style and this is the way for our band. It works really well with old thrash, black/thrash riffs and adds grim atmosphere to the music.’’
Do modern events influence the band?
‘’Not exactly, we concentrate on the past, creating our own stories based on beliefs of the people living many years ago and events which had occurred then. ‘’
Being from Poland do you feel pressure from all the other great bands to come from your country?
‘’No, totally not. We like to play the music actually we listen to; we don’t want to create anything new, most of the bands from Poland now strictly concentrates to create anything new. We just want to play old school metal in our way and worship speed metal gods. ‘’
What makes Polish bands so metal?
‘’I don’t know, somehow harsh climate maybe. Maybe some attitude in society that stayed after Iron Curtain had fallen and our country was finally free. Maybe our anti-ultra-conservative government opposition. That’s hard to tell.’’
The greatest metal band of all time is?
‘’I can’t say, seriously and I will never answer that question.’’
Future Plans?
‘’Write music, probably record it on a second album. We are waiting till the COVID-19 issues disappear and gigs will be organised once again, so we can promote our debut album. We would like to play a little tour if it is going to be possible and also, we like to catch some occasions that occur randomly. ‘’
Your top 6 albums of all time
Running Wild – Gates to Purgatory (and many more their albums)
Destruction – Infernal Overkill
Iron Maiden – Iron Maiden
Razor – Evil Invaders,
Mortal Sin – Mayhemic Destruction
Exodus – Bonded by Blood and many, many, countless bands, it is impossible to choose just six.