We caught up with Dale and Alex from Malefice shortly before they hit the stage in the Limelight along with The Rotted and Anterior.

So guys, you just got back from the Netherlands. How was it out there?
(Dale) Amazing. We were over there with a lot of bands we already knew. We’re really good friends with FELLSILENT, Romeo Must Die and a few others. It was good, it was like a jolly boys outing really. We went out there to play some shows but it was just such a massive party atmosphere. We’re all mates and we just came through some shows and got drunk for four days.
(Alex) Naughty boys on tour

So have you ever played in Ireland before?
(Dale) Not until yesterday. Where were we yesterday? Dublin. That was brilliant. Everyone there was awesome, like really nice guys.
(Alex) Irish people are really friendly, a lot of fun.
(Dale) We were supposed to be over here last year.
Last November. What happened?
(Dale) It got pulled. The promoter that was putting on the three shows was rushed into hospital about a month before. He was pretty fucking ill.
(Alex) Everything went on the backburner for that. Instead of saying come out, they said look just leave it for now and we’ll bring you over at another point. It was fair enough for them to do that.
(Dale) We’ll come over for some headline dates this year for sure.
Yeah, a lot of people were really gutted that the tour was cancelled last year.
(Dale) Yeah, we were speaking to some guys last night and they were saying the same thing. There was nothing anyone could do about it unfortunately.
(Alex) It’s great that we have never been here before and we have people saying that they constantly play Dawn of Reprisal and Entities. It makes you feel good.
(Dale) It’s always weird, I know southern Ireland’s a different country and not in the UK. If you go anywhere that’s quite far away people are still into your shit. It’s still really strange for us.

How are you getting along with the guys in The Rotted and Anterior?
(Dale) Awesome.
(Alex) It’s like one big family already.
It’s good that you are getting along well especially since you all share the same bus.
(Dale) Yeah it’s very cramped on there but everyone respects each other’s space. When you want to sleep, you’re left to sleep. If you want to stay up and party, you stay up and party.
(Alex) The Anterior boys just joined us yesterday. They had a bit of trouble with their drummer. It feels like they’ve been with us from the start. We get along like a house on fire. They are funny lads and The Rotted are wicked as well.

Where did your band name come from?
(Alex) It’s evil in Latin isn’t it?
(Dale) Yeah it means like an evil deed or an evil gesture. I think our drummer’s brother suggested it to us. He said it once and we were like ‘what does that mean?’
(Alex) He was going to use it for his band but we were like ‘we’ll have that’. Cos we’re older and we kinda bullied them <laughs> It was like ‘Cheers Scott’.
(Dale) Yeah it means an evil deed or gesture and that’s something which is always very apparent in our music. No matter what I’m talking about it’s always delivered with a lot of fucking venom. It has a real dark undertone to it. It suits us down to the ground.
(Alex) But no one can pronounce it.
Malefice (pronounces it properly :P)
(Dale) Yeah you can, you’ve got it.
(Alex) Yeah there’s a lot of different ones we’ve heard.

You released the new album about four weeks ago
(Dale) Yup
(Alex) Is it that long already?
How has it been received?
(Dale) Brilliant
(Alex) It’s been received really well.
(Dale) Yeah, we’ve just been nominated as best new band in the Metal Hammer Golden Gods awards.
(Alex) Yeah we woke up to find that out, it’s awesome.
(Dale) As you can imagine, it’s doing really fucking well. Fans and press have taken it on board a lot.

It must have been a lot of work to get it out?
(Dale) Yeah it has, we were really worried about this album because this one really came from the heart. Our first album, when you’ve never written an album before it’s almost like an experiment. We didn’t know what we were fucking doing. This time round we knew what the projects had to be, we knew what we had to deliver in this album. We really fucking concentrated on that. So, for it to get a really good response means a lot more to us than it may have done if it was our first album. It was something we did intentionally.
(Alex) Plus when you are recording the album, there’s a four or five month delay before it actually comes out. So you are sitting on it for five months, so you start to . . I dunno the word . .
(Dale) You start to get self critical, and start thinking like shit . .
(Alex) Like are people going to start thinking it’s out dated, but the response has been fantastic.
Why have you streamed the album on your myspace?
(Dale) Metal Blade and myspace got together on that one. It was a publicity thing more than anything. Myspace liked the album and wanted to get behind it so we were a featured artist and they let us stream the album on there.
(Alex) It helps to get it out, it helps people to get to our music. Plus I’d rather it be streamed where it can’t be downloaded, well not legally anyway. It’s gonna happen regardless but the fact that there’s a place you can go to and listen to it. It shows who we are.
(Dale) It helps the presale as well man because we were bigged up a lot. All the press had heard the album and we were getting bigged up a lot but no one else had heard it so we wanted something to back it up. Like we’re not just a load of hype in a magazine, you know? Listen to it. If you like it, then wicked. If you don’t then fuck off. It’s really difficult when no one’s heard any of the stuff all these people are talking about so that was the easiest avenue for us.
Was the album written before you signed with Metal Blade?
(Dale) It was before. It was before because we got signed in September. We went in the studio in June. We started talking to them just before we did Download last year.
(Alex) We met them at Download
(Dale) Yeah, that kinda sweetened the deal, they saw us at Download.
Were you with Anticulture at that time?
(Dale) We were leaving Anticulture, some internal politics.
I won’t ask why
(Dale) No don’t ask why <laughs>
(Alex) It’s too complicated. There’s no hard feelings.
(Dale) Totally, we’ll always thank Anticulture for what they did for us but it was the right time for us to move.
(Alex) definitely and good luck to them for the future.

Going back to Entities you’re still happy with what you put out as your first album?
(Dale) Definitely.
(Alex) I haven’t listened to it in ages though.
(Dale) People still love it. We’re in a really horrible position at the moment because we’ve got two albums. When we’ve got support tours we have two albums to fit into a thirty minute set. It’s really hard pleasing everyone. We want to play more of the new material but there’s still people who want to hear lots of the old material.
Because it’s what they know and love
(Dale) Yeah, we just have to find that happy medium.
(Alex) I’m pretty happy with the set we’re doing at the moment. We’re gonna change it around a bit because we’re in the middle so we don’t get a full on sound check. We don’t get a chance to hear what some stuff sounds like. Hopefully we’ll get everything in at some point. People are asking for certain songs and they will hear it sooner or later.

Any plans of making another video? You did one for a song on the first album, Risen Through The Ashes.
(Dale) Yeah, I don’t know. The problem with shooting a video nowadays is things like Headbangers Ball on MTV, the only people who actually play our kind of videos have just disappeared.
(Alex) There’s no real outlet for videos in my opinion at the moment. There is Youtube obviously but . .
(Dale) The amount of money it costs, I’d rather we spend that somewhere else so we’d get more promotion out of it. Kerrang tv and Scuzz tv for the UK and even Europe doesn’t really play extreme metal. No one really does it anymore. If we get the opportunity to we won’t turn it down
(Alex) Yeah but it’s not on our list of priorities at the moment.

You just want to work on the album and get it out there?
(Dale) That’s it man. Touring and playing to all the people that we haven’t seen before.

The artwork on the album’s front cover. Outstanding!
(Dale) Amazing isn’t it?
(Alex) Everyone loves it.
(Dale) Yeah I was researching for a while and I came across this guy, he did the cover art for Strapping Young Lad’s greatest hits album. I saw it and I was like ‘fucking hell that is amazing!’ I got our manager to get in touch with him and explain our ideas of what we wanted to do and he was really into it from day one.
It fits in perfectly with the theme of the album.
(Dale) Yeah, totally. It’s based around what humans are doing to the world and with global warming it’s only a matter of time before mother nature bites back. We wanted to portray that on our own doorstep. It’s just more of a shocking image. It’s worked really well.

Brilliant. That’s great guys, we’ll leave it there.

Interview by Craig Young