David Gray is the drummer in the premier UK extreme metal bands Akercocke, Voices and Antichrist Imperium, and played in My Dying Bride live for a couple of years. Here, Hamish Glencross from Godthrymm asks a few questions of his old friend.

Hamish: As well as being Akercocke’s master of blast, you’re also an artist with a body of work that includes band artwork and comic book art. Which passion came first; drums or drawing?
David: Well I was attended the London cartoon centre studying comic book art whilst taking art & graphics A levels and rehearsing with Akercocke precursor Salem Orchid simultaneously when I was sixteen. I think I realistically assumed I was more suited to being an artist because I felt very isolated, socially clumsy, introverted and my only friends were people I was in a band with – so it seemed to make sense to sit in a room on my own drawing all day! Playing music professionally was the dream but there always seemed to be an element of chance, being in the right place at the right time and also, we were a Death metal band and there weren’t many of those making a living out of their music. Funnily enough, the first real money I made from music wasn’t playing metal at all but very lightweight pop music.

H: Promotional materials in pop music often seem to be more interested in photography of the band/singer, whereas there’s a massive focus on artwork in metal for covers, merch, etc. What was the first artwork you contributed to a band you were in?
D: Probably a band logo although it’s not really a strength of mine – when we used to tape trade I would usually put tape covers together, make the little flyers for circulation. Old skool.

H: You’ve done a number of shirt designs though, yeah?
D: Yeh, I’ve designed shirts for Akercocke, Voices & Antichrist Imperium

H: Your new album “Renaissance in Extremis” came out last year on Peaceville. What’s the process for deciding on artwork for an album?
D: The latest Akercocke album is the least that I’ve contributed to the art in fact, mostly due to the lack of thematic content for me. The lyrics were very deliberately not to be Satanic and it took a while for me to create some content and there was really very little to inspire or feed any potential artwork. I thought the best idea would be to involve the wonderful Sean Keatley to have his artistic vision to bounce of off and he took the very basic ideas I had and totally ran with them. I literally discussed the anonymity of the shrouded face of the figure on the cover artwork & that I liked the idea of the burgundy texture as a concept, rather like a book cover under the removable dust jacket, the letters in gold.

H: So you don’t blast for Satan exclusively anymore?
D: Didn’t you get the memo? The Antichrist Imperium is the only place I Blast for Satan anymore.

H: Your artwork for Antichrist Imperium is stunning. Is black ink on white your favorite art medium?
D: Definitely – the old fashioned comic book art approach of hard pencil drawing then inking over with 0.5,0.1 & 0.8 pens for line texture.
When Pete Theo and I began the Akercocke artwork back in 1998 we both agreed it should reflect the absolutes of the ideology of the music – Black & white, friend or foe. We are both massive Adam and the Antz fans as well and their first album artwork was the template for Ak design as well – their devotion to the black and white theme was so complete that they refused to be lit in any colour when they performed live in the 70s. I love that – monochromatic genius.

H: The artwork for Voices is very monochromatic, yet stylistically massively different. Was that your influence?
D: No, I made a design for the cover of the first album and started working on the booklet but the feedback I received from the record company was negative. I’m not someone to compromise my art so I walked away from the project entirely – I haven’t contributed anything to the art since then.

H: Onto drums for a moment now; do you approach drumming differently at all in the different bands you’re in? Do you use the same set up?
D: I recorded three albums within six months with Steve Long my drum bro and we had a different kit for each project actually. I used my full Sonor Designer set up with octobans for Akercocke – I used a Roland completely electronic kit for The Antichrist Imperium and then a six piece Tama kit with octos for Voices.

H: Clearly you’re busier than ever. Do you have any specific musical goals you feel you’ve yet to accomplish?
D: My aim is the same as it’s always been I suppose – to keep making heavy metal music with my mates as long as I can – shame you and I didn’t get to record anything with My Dying Bride back in the day.

H: Aye, it was a wonderful time playing and touring together. I loved when we were travelling together and we used to come up with dream casting of 2000AD films that haven’t been made yet. What did you think of the Karl Urban Dredd film. Should there be another attempt at Dredd?
D: I loved it – I’d love them to keep on making movies in that vein. Anderson was totally on the money for me too.

H: Thank you David for this chat. Loved it, and I trust readers of Void Unveiled will too. Any final words?
D: Thank you for supporting the British underground metal scene and thank you H for all your kindness over the years – 666