Dominicide are releasing their debut album in August and asked us if we’d like to launch the first single from it. Well, duh… Pace yourselves, people. Find out a little more about the band courtesy of guitarist Craig Law and singer Sean Dougan, and then fill your ears with heaviness of “Once The Serpents Rise” after the words have soaked in. Trust me, it’s worth the wait!
Where are you guys from?
We base ourselves in Glasgow, Scotland. However the band comes from all over the surrounding areas. Our singer (Sean) emerged from a chemical spillage in the nuclear wastelands of Wishaw, Craig (guitarist) is from Motherwell, Harry (bass guitar) is from Uddingston, Chris (guitarist) is from Dumbarton and our drummer Panagiotis Rodopoulos (Panos) was originally sculpted in Patras, Greece but now lives in Bridgeton.
How did you meet?
Sean – Harry, Craig, and myself (Sean) met at New College Lanarkshire as students and we met our amazing guitarist Chris and Panos through the power of the internet (JoinMyBand and Gumtree). That’s when the bromance began.
How long have you been playing as a band?
Craig – The latest line-up has been together as a band for almost a year now. The band itself has been active for around two years with only one member of the original line-up remaining (myself). In the early days, we cycled through a few different members who couldn’t commit to our band for professional or personal reasons but this is definitely the strongest, most creative line-up in our history and it’ll definitely show in our new record come August!
Where does the band name come from?
Dominicide by dictionary definition means “to kill one’s master.” We all felt it was a fitting name as we are very political as a band in our writing and it gave us vibes of breaking the chains, thinking for yourself, and standing up for yourself (hence the broken chains on our logo)… and it sounds badass. We scoured the internet for a cool original name for ages until we came across a list of “cides” like patricide, suicide etc… and eventually came across Dominicide and it wasn’t taken by any other bands so we went for it.
Influences
Our influences are vast but we are all rooted in thrash and death metal, but we do add some of our metalcore and deathcore influences as well. Harry loves Anthrax and similar to Craig is influenced heavily by thrash bands like Death, Havok, Lamb of God. Panagiotis (or Panos as he’s known) loves Death metal bands like Nile and Wolfheart and that really shows in his rapid blast beats and all round playing style. Sean loves FFDP and Napalm Death hence he’s a complete nutter and Chris loves Avenged Sevenfold and Trivium so he brings a lot of the melodic aspects to the songs.
Describe your music. What makes you unique?
Our music is our own amalgamation of thrash, death, and groove metal. We’re the evolution of modern metal as we have nasty deathcore/metalcore breakdowns, thrashy riffage and shredding, death metal drumming, and clean or growly vocals and everything in between.
Do you have any particular lyrical themes?
Our lyrical themes are very political and outspoken to effectively spread our message of embracing true freedom to think for one’s self. We do so through challenging issues like oppression and greed to expose characteristics about ourselves as a species that we like to ignore. Because the first step to recovery is admitting there’s a problem.
What’s your live shows like and how many have you played?
We’ve played 11 shows so far with plans to break 20 by this year’s end. In our latest show in Bannerman’s in Edinburgh there was so much headbanging and a great atmosphere. In our Glasgow shows, our shows have involved windmilling, mask wearing, crowd surfing, mosh pits involving our singer, and generally intense energy from the band and the audience.
What’s the wildest thing you’ve seen or done at a live show?
Sean – I have the tendency to strip off every once in a while at live gigs much to everyone’s dismay in the crowd, but not at our own. Yet. I also dabble in spot of moshing and crowd surfing when I can. The band will have many wild shows to come though, and we look forward to all the carnage to come.
What kit do you use/gear?
Craig Law (Guitarist) – ESP ltd MH-401FR dark brown sunburst, Laney Ironheart 150w head.
Harry Butler (Bassist) – Fender jazz and an Ashdown ABM 500 Evo iii.
Christopher Blair (Guitarist) – Fender custom shop Telecaster 1977 and Peavey 6505+ amp head.
Panagiotis Rodopoulos (Drums) – Millenium hardware, Meinl cymbals, Evans Drumhead, Pro mark drumsticks.
Sean Dougan (Vocals) – the tormented screams of the damned.
What are your plans for the rest of 2017?
In 2017, we’ll be releasing our debut self titled album Dominicide in August, we’re excited to announce. We’ll be playing with a tonne of new bands, writing some new stuff, and… may even be announcing some tour dates for the UK ;)
What’s your dream bill, if you were sandwiched between two bands you really like?
- Man Must Die (tech death band from Glasgow)
- us
- Turbyne (heavy progressive metal band from Dumfries)
Man Must Die are so intense it’s unreal but also have that melodic edge that just make them one of the best modern death metal bands. One of our inspirations!
Turbyne are a band we came into contact through the Metal 2 The Masses competition and are so tight, melodic, and heavy live it’s a mystery how they’re not huge yet [I agree, saw them in the final – Mosh]
We hope you enjoy our first single, “Once The Serpents Rise” from our debut album!
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