Martyr Defiled

"For every silver cloud comes a silver lining". That's a classic line that everyone can relate to and tonight is certainly a situation in which this becomes a truth.

As I enter the blue double doors of Nottingham's Junktion 7 venue for what is actually my last time, it's not hard to see why this place which was once host to the likes of the Arctic Monkeys and Bring Me The Horizon is now on route to closing its doors for a final time. Bar staff playing a Playstation with not a soul in sight other than Matthew Jones, Alastair Claxton and Euan Lees, vocalist, guitarist and bassist respectively of Martyr Defiled. With a club so dead, and not making enough money to keep its doors open to the public, Nottingham is surely taking a huge blow to its music scene with the closure of such a revered venue. Sinking into the large brown leather sofas, the four of us begin our discussion of the friends, fans, future and the shutting down of Junktion 7.

"Of course it is, let' s be honest right, Emmure brought 280 people to here in February, and only 220 to Rescue rooms... What that says about here and what that says about the way things have changed I don't know," says Matt on the closure of Junktion 7 having an effect on the metal scene in Nottingham.

"A lot of kids come to Junktion 7 because its Junktion 7, I go to shows to watch bands not to hang out, but a lot of kids come to shows just to hang out, and that's why they have to go to a Junktion 7 show," adds Euan on the same matter whilst Ali laughs it off with, "well I've lost my house and fucking job!" as he has to say to goodbye to his flat above the venue and his job within it.

On a brighter note, as Junktion 7's lifespan comes to a crashing end, Martyr Defiled are a band chugging and crashing their way to bigger and better things. Having signed to Thirty Days Of Night records and about to release their eagerly anticipated EP entitled Ecophagy, the boys in the band have a lot to look forward to come 2009. They just had a short tour stint with Annotations of an Autopsy and already have managed to share the stage with the likes of Misery Signals, Devil Sold His Soul and Architects. Matt states, "Yeah we just finished recording the EP in September, 6 tracks. I'm not holding any assumptions on how well it's gonna go though, I don't know about anyone else, I'm just happy that live we're going down well. We played Hull not long ago and we'd never played there before, it was amazing, everyone knew the words and everyone was going mental, probably the best live show we've done." With small feats such as this being achieved through the use of websites such as myspace.com and last.fm, the audience growth can only get bigger with more tours to come. Having only being together for just over a year, to be signed by the most sought after record label for UK's unsigned swarm of metal acts is an amazing achievement.

Thirty Days of Night are the notorious label responsible for putting out Bring Me The Horizons first ever record "This Is What The Edge Of Your Seat Was Made For", so therefore after their blistering success it's not hard to understand why this record label is so wanted.

"Farrell doesn't deal in contracts," Matt explains about the owner of Thirty Days Of Night. "It's more of a gentleman's agreement, he's sorting out our CDs and a print design on a t-shirt to be released with the CD too, all the promo is coming from his half, he keeps what he sells and we keep what we sell".

"All I've seen is a Thirty Days of Night logo on our myspace page!" Laughs Euan.

"I was walking round for about a week after we'd been signed screaming I'm on the same record label as Dead Swans!"

"Yeah you we're definitely the little kid of the band for about two weeks" Ali adds.

Since the signing, Martyr Defiled have been busy getting their name down on as many tours as possible for '09 and so far haven't done a bad job at all.

"We've got quite a few tours in the pipeline at the moment actually, it's just a bit up in the air, we're just waiting to sort out the little problems with promoters and record labels before they get announced." Matt tells us in a professional journalistic answer fashion. With that being said, they've already got an 8 day tour fixed up for early march in support of The Bridal Procession and then their first tour of Europe with the boys in Stigma and The Boy Will Drown. Matt leaves us with this quote about the future of the band.

"We always want to push more, we want heavy to be heavier, the bounce to be bouncier, the blasts to be more blasty, we're happy with the sound we've got we just want to keep on pushing."

For Martyr Defiled it's safe to say that they have come out of 2008 with their heads held high and can be very proud of themselves, and on this evidence surely 2009 will be a year to remember.

Interview by Bradley Simpson
Photography by Mike Spring

www.myspace.com/martyrdefiled