Shine on - Arcane sun! Honestly speaking, I am amased with your debut CD… especially when it comes to guitar work which brings your sound close to power metal. Who writes most of your music and how do you achieve that sound?

- Hey thanks a lot for that....appreciate those words of encouragement especially when there are so many detracting points to life in general, it is cool to have some-one appreciate the music that we have spent so long creating. As far as the power metal thing goes....I would have to say that it has no real bearing on any of us...I mean, I think we all own a couple of CD's...well except for Feargal....as far as I know he is not into any power metal, but then again perhaps he's been doing so in private or something?!?!...a public flogging ensues I think. Well nearly all music is written by Feargal, he's the Arcane wonder-kid!!!.

What is the main lyrical philosophy and how does it reflect your believes about life?

- The words do not have a particular philosophy on the CD, this will change slightly for the next CD... to a degree. They are basically chapters depicting a certain period in time and though they are not really narrative in the normal sense of the word, they do focus on the first person and are more a description of the spiritual and mental state at that moment. So from those words you could not get any impression of my life, attitude or beliefs in life. This will, as I said, change to a degree for the new songs. But from the first CD if you are trying to see how the I would view my life outside the time period that the song focuses on then it would be very misleading.

Generally speaking, why are you playing music? Also, what moved you to make such a step? And why are you playing exactly this sort of stuff? What are you trying to achieve?

- Why am I playing music?!?!?... how do I answer this question. Well it is obviously not for any kind of meterialistic gains otherwise I would have chosen a different  scene to involve my self in. I think it is a necessity at this point, having done it for so many years now... it becomes apparent that the monotony of life outside creating music and the rock / metal world would be so draining and ulfulfiling that I could not see another way of expressing my self. So I suppose the short answer for this question is that it comes down to expressing myself, or rather, needing to. And without the medium of this music, I would be lost.

What is your favourite way of getting fucked up - alcohol, drugs, meditation and other kinds of brain activity or just a sober state of mind? Anything else? Give me a killer recepie if you can…!

- Alcohol and drugs... mainly, beer, vodka and acid... what a combination. That's a fucking killer recepie if you want one. I am a sincere believer in being very drunk before that acid is consumed... revel in the paranoia!!!!!

What are you favourite musicians and whom do you absolutely hate?

- My favourites, as listed in the CD... I supose the members of my favourite bands, MORBID ANGEL, DEAD CAN DANCE, MANIC STREET PREACHERS, ANATHEMA, THERION, FIELDS OF THE NEPHILIM, KATATONIA, etc... good fucking stuff. As far as hating musicians, I think it would be a total waste of energy and time to really dwell on this, but fucking hell... how can any-one respect all of these terrible KORN type bands??... then closer to our own scene all these fucking stupid retro-thrash bands??... haha... can you imagine purposely playing your instrument in a really bad way, because you thought it was truer to the original blue print of the scene you are trying to re-create???... what a fucking joke.

As I believe you have quite a weird line-up: for example Feargal plays guitars, bass, and keyboards and you don’t have a drummer. How do you play live and how did you arrange the drums for the album?

- Ah, we do have a drummer, I have to correct you there. True on the CD Feargal played guitars, bass and keyboards (even did some back up howling on one song) but Mark is our drummer and live it is no problem handing once we have people who can play with is...right now we have a couple of celebrities helping us out for this supposed appearamce at the Partysan open Air festival in Germany. Should fucking rock!!!

Your music strikes as extremely atmospheric one; how do you achieve this and in what atmosphere do you write your songs? Tell me about the song-writing process...

- That is the primary aim of our music and if we can achieve to a degree that someone outside our own creative circle can realise it and appreciate then that is one of our secondary aims achieved. The sogwriting process itself is not too special... in that we are not innovaters in that field. Quite often, Feargal will compose and entire song and put it on tape. Mark puts drums to it and gradually the song grows from the basic collection of riffs that started it all. Vocal melodies are added long before that words... it is basically a case of feeling which words would be at home on which song! We basically play the songs again and again until we feel that we can take them no further creatively and it is at this point that a song is ready to be recorded... or shared, depending on how you look at it!!

There are wars all over the world at the moment and we are approaching Armageddon according to Nostradamus. What is you overall opinion on this topic? Do you believe in any kind of predictions? What do you think about war and death - combined and separately?

- Nostradamus is a person that I was very interested in as a child and these visions... predictions of his really stirred me then. These days I tend not to pay too much attention to any thing like this. I mean, it is ultimately interesting from a conversational point of view. however, I am not the type of person who plans, or looks to far into the future and I am certainly not the type of person to analyse my own future, let alone that of the entire world. So I would have to say that I do not really have a valid opinion on any of his works to-day... apart from saying that I will not even remotely base any future plans around his predictions... as I am sure most wouldn't either... haha. This are godless times and it seems fearless times, so a prophet is a prophet no matter what flag he bears. You ask of wars and this is one subject I can comment on... what are wars but a waste of time, energy, money etc etc. I fucking hate the fact that a war thousands of miles form me can affect my life. Who the fuck do they thing they are... keep out of my fucking life. As far as Death is concerned, it can be one of the most romantic and charming things in the world. Man has been fascinated from the very first day with death... that will not change in my lifetime.

What is the future of your music according to the opinion of your own?

- That is really hard to say,I mean the new songs that we have right now are very different to the ones in the CD in a lot of ways, and also very different to how I had expected them to turn out in the first place, I had visualised the songs vbeing more rhythmically structured…more of a kind of tribal feel to them, it did not turn out this way at all. It does appear like this in a couple of places. Initially, though, I had plans to have some guest percussionists come in and play in places, but I think they music has turned far too metal for that. I really did not think that the songs were going to have such an in your face metal feel I was expecting it to be more subtle…but, fucking make plans and nothing goes as you would expect!!

Whom do you consider to be your favourite poet and why? What are your favourite books or any other kinds of literature? Any comments on the Bible as well as the Satanic Bible?

- Poetry... strange actually, because a lot of interviews have actually focused in on that aspect of the words in the songs. I really do not agree with all of these people slapping themselves on the back, thinking they are all accomplished poets simply because they write lyrics like the old MY DYING BRIDE or CELTIC FROST... no, no, no, no... they are words to a song and I think that they are indeed monumental in their own right, but all this so called poetry is just some attempt at a more accepted and respected ‘arty’ image. I am not really a fan of poetry in general, it is just that I rarely read and do not really have the patience or the time, although I do yearn to make time. But from a number of Years ago, there are some poets that have been truly inspirational. Andrew Pope - The Rape of the Lock is fantastic. A lot of the classic WB Yeats poetry, especially as he was approaching old age and was so concerned about it, something that I have written about also. I think that Thomas Kinsela was one truly tortured soul and his poetry was just awesome and easily, Mirror in September is the best poem ever written, I would die to have written such a masterpiece...read it, it is essential!!

Any thoughts regarding Eastern religions such as Buddhism and Daosism?

- I know nothing concrete about these religions and would not really make any kind of comment on them, I am pretty much uninterested in religions and the only one that I could rant about is the Catholic Church. Don’t get me started though.

And your last words for your fans and the VAE SOLIS would be…:

- If the ARCANE SUN fan exists, I would offer my deepest gratitude for living the cause. And to Vae Solis, sincerest metal thanks for all the support. Fuck this, so called, KORN scene, fuck this so called retro thrash scene, fuck all of those that are ‘truer than true’ be true to your self. You know the score...viva!!!! Watch out for ‘Fade...' truly a soundtrack for the arcane!!!!

ARCANE SUN contact –
Email: kearns@lexmark.com