Loana: Well, we're hoping it's something that rouses their curiosity about what this band is about. The album is intentionally very short, but we wanted people to ask that question, "who is this band?" "Where did they come from?" This is the first official recording since the one Dreams of Damnation did as a three-piece for Necropolis Records. In that case, we wanted to show people that the band has evolved; we started out as a three-piece and that first attempt "Let the Violence Begin," was really Jim kind of wetting his toes coming back into the scene, because he had been gone for thirteen years and this is more of a mature _expression of what he is capable of. So for me, the purpose is getting Jim Durkin's name back in circulation. This is a name that thrash fans need to know about and that they know that his riffs are still as awesome as they were back in the 80's.

Loana: I know that for me, what pushes me is the fact that I am working with Jim Durkin. (laughs) He pretty much has his pick of anyone, he could have chosen to work with anyone, and for some bizarre reason he chose to work with me. (laughs) His name is going to always be associated with that band and rightfully so. I mean, they accomplished a lot. In my opinion, that album got buried because Slayer's "Reign In Blood" came out that same year. "Darkness Descends" came out in November and "Reign In Blood" came out prior to that. It is, to me, one of the greatest thrash metal albums of all time and that's not a bad legacy to be affiliated with. Again, I think that through the years, the song writing that he did on there has kind of carried him over into a name that is memorable in today's scene, but we also want to show that there's a certain kind of music that comes out when you collaborate with a certain someone and for Jim in Dark Angel, it was him and Gene Hoglan and for us, we're not trying to match that. That has it's place in history and we're not trying to overturn what's been done, but we do recognize that this is a very different chemistry and we've got something that we're proud of, but it's not going to be Dark Angel. But the type of riffing, it definitely still exists. So Jim is still going to be able to put out some memorable riffs that people are going to go "holy cow! What's this?" He'll still be able to catch people's attention with the type of music that he does, 'cause none of us have anything to do with the song writing; it's all Jim. And that's the type of music that he likes - he never wrote anything else; he's a strict thrash musician and we're grateful for that. Jim Durkin undiluted. (laughter)

Loana: Well, we knew that if we shopped it around we would lose time on it. With labels being so busy and just the bands that they work with, we knew that between us, we had enough contacts to be able to release it ourselves. I think, too, what we wanted was to have more control over what we do. Say for instance with a band, you kind of leave it to the in-house publicist hand's as to who they should service and all that sort of stuff. Well, we wanted to have some sort of input into who we wanted to service, so we realized that the only way to do that was to do it ourselves and by cutting out the middle-person, we could make decisions about festivals we wanted to play or what we were willing to do and not have other people decide that for us. We don't have a manager, so it's just us making our own decisions and luckily, we're at a point in time and in the scene where putting it out yourself is possible, where it makes a lot of sense. There are a lot of independent artists who do it; it's just a matter of organizing everything together and making up a cohesive attempt to be able to make an impact on the scene, whether it be press or metal radio and in the retail way too, because luckily, we're working with distributors, so we know what to do; we're not sixteen years old. We're not going to sign our rights away and say "okay record label, you do everything for us." No, the benefit of us doing it ourselves is that we get to learn a lot about the music industry, we get to put to use what we already know about the music industry and we have more of a say in determining where we want our careers to go. Our fans have been really supportive, saying "when are you going to put out an album? When are you going to put out an album?" So this is as much for them as it is for us. So we've had a lot of strong supporters that have just really pushed us that way, that we owe them that; let's put an album together and have something to give them, so it's been motivating all the way around.

Loana: (laughs) Well, you should know, Phil, that I'm an analog person living in a digital world. I know that there's a lot of new technology out there and it could probably help me do my job a lot easier, but that hasn't been engaged yet. I think that if we get the chance to tour, that's when I'm going to have to become really creative and come up with a plan to be able to tell Nuclear Blast "look, I can still maintain my workload and these are the tools that I have to be able to do that." One of the things that a lot of people complain about being on tour is all the dead-time; you're there waiting, you wait, that's all you do. Me being able to keep up with all the various press campaigns for all the bands that I work with, it would be totally possible. It's not like we live in age where you don't have cell phones, wireless computer hookups and all that sort of stuff. I think it's definitely possible, it would just kind of put me in a place where I'm going to have to learn really quick. My car, my truck; it's not automatic windows - I still roll them down. (laughter) So that's the kind of world I live in. It's possible, I'm just hoping that headquarters will afford me that chance to prove myself, that I can handle both things. I think I could.

Loana: It depends on what the response is to the album. Our initial pressing has been two-thousand copies; it wouldn't make sense for us to embark on a nationwide tour if we haven't gone through those copies yet. So we're trying to establish a retail history, we're trying to establish a presence within the press and then also with radio. We don't want to make hasty decisions. We know the groundwork that has to be laid first in order to do something like that, but right now, our goal has been lately to play out of L.A. as much as possible to be able to build up our following. We're very methodical in our choices, like "okay, we've reached this goal, now what's the next goal?" We're not pie in the sky, like "okay, we're going to play Wacken!" We're not going to play Wacken, you know - it doesn't make sense right now. Let's establish a presence here on this continent and hopefully the buzz will go over to Europe; we do have a distributor that we're working with out there, but until something starts happening, it doesn't make sense to try to make plans for that happening, say, in the next six months. Granted, yes, that's a goal that we have, it's something that we daydream about, but let's take the realistic steps, let's not get out of control with our daydreaming - let's do the groundwork and then hopefully we'll have a very viable and believable story in terms of album sales that a festival organizer would go like "hey, we've heard about you and want to bring you over." So we know we still have a lot of hard work to do, but we're willing to do it.

Loana: Yes! The contact that we had for the Seattle Metal Fest is still an open one for us, I think the bill for this year's fest is already done, but again, we're already planning on being able to hit him up to play up there. But then, this time, it gives us a chance to do more of the groundwork to get something going, like maybe get fans who didn't see us the first time that we played up in Seattle, get more people turned onto the band and then get something really going. So we do want to return up there and we're lucky that we do have open channels of communication with the promoter up there, so it's definitely a plan. And if we're going up there, you're definitely going to hear about it.

Loana: (very excited) Yes! You caught it! That's awesome!

Loana: Actually, Jim is very much a fan of medieval cultures and of course, how many musicians do you meet that are fans of "Braveheart" and Gladiator" and those sorts of things. But because he has such a love for Sweden… there's another story in there; he's got really wonderful friendships with the guys in The Haunted, Witchery and all of them, that he's really got this natural affinity towards Sweden. So the movie ("13th Warrior") that came out is one of his favorites and it also does happen to involve these Norsemen from ancient Scandanavia and so he wanted to pay tribute to these guys who kind of kept his name alive. It was Jensen who found him after all these years; like he had left Dark Angel back in '89 and the person who found him was Jensen from The Haunted. He searched for him online, they finally met when Witchery was on tour and came to play L.A. at the Variety Arts Center back in '99 and Jim hadn't played or anything like that and Jensen was introducing him to his band mates and everyone was like "oh my god! Jim Durkin! It's an honor!" and he's like "what the hell is going on here?" (laughter) He doesn't realize the legacy that he created, the gifts that he gave to the scene. So "Eaters of the Dead" is just his way of raising Thor's hammer in the direction of the people who made him realize that he meant a lot to the scene. It's like the final word on the album, our praises for them.

Loana: I read a lot and I never know where inspiration is going to come from. For us and our writing style, music definitely comes first, so whatever Jim comes up with, depending on how it makes me feel, that might either remind me of something or it might push me in a whole new direction. If it reminds me of something, I will probably fall back on "oh god, I remember this character, what this character said in this book" and I'll go back and I'll reference it, how did they say it and I'll go and I'll pull out a whole short story about it and turn it into lyrics. I love to read and one of my favorite books would be "The Count of Monte Cristo" - it's a great story about vengeance and it's a little over the top in terms of what tools you get to work with because not everybody finds a pirate's treasure and gets to fund your own personal revolution. For me, it's a range between novels and short stories and prose and poetry that can be really inspiring to me. So I don't know when the next book inspired one is going to come, but I'm sure seeing as you picked up on this one, you're going to pick up on it again. No doubt. (laughter)

Loana: What is it that you read?

Loana: Oh my god! I love Agatha Christie!

Loana: So a lot of novels then.

Loana: Yes, yes, yes. I kind of get in trouble at practice when we're taking a break and I say "I've gotta go to the bathroom," I go and fifteen minutes pass and I'm like, "I'm sorry, I was reading." (laughter) In the books that you read, have they ever reminded you of something that has happened in your life?

Loana: Yeah, you get to read into it. So wow, Agatha Christie, yes. Do you delve into science fiction at all?

Loana: I see. Just in you asking the question, it's made me think "hmm.. maybe that can be adapted." Two of my favorite writers, actually one unfortunately just passed away, Octavia Butler, she was actually known for her novels, but one of my favorite books by her is "Blood Child and Other Stories" and that's her only collection of short stories. I love them, they're so horrific in the sense of the future that awaits us human beings; hopefully it will scare us into changing something. She's just an amazing writer and one of her short stories revolves around Earthlings being on another planet, but it's a story about paying the rent where these extraterrestrials or whatever, they need males to impregnate to be able to carry on their race. Even though some people see it as the male pregnancy story, it really is a story about paying the rent and pretty frightening. But then another writer, Orson Scott Card, absolutely brilliant mind and again, he's known for his novels, but I really do like his short stories. Amazing writer, amazing; just the things that he thinks up are just "aaahhh!" So I'm going to have to revisit (laughs) his short stories and just kind of tell Jim "hey, what do you think about this as a song title?" So I'll let you know if that happens.

Loana: Awesome. Phil, again, thank you so much. We're only five people here in L.A., but we know what it means to have someone listen to an album in light of how many you guys get. So thank you for that.

Loana: Have a good day!