DEVIL'S ISLAND featuring Disconnected Souls
Welcome to this weeks edition of Devil's Island! Every week we maroon a band or artist on the island and see what they get up to, how they cope with being all alone on a small island in the middle of the ocean. It's not your average desert island and we'll see just how each person copes with the extreme conditions.
This week when we arrived at Devil's Island we find Disconnected Souls sat on the beach. The island is far from their home, so how did they end up here and how did they cope with life on Devil's Island?
Find out now...
Welcome to The Razors'e Edge and our somewhat lovely, warm desert island. Don't worry about it's name I'm sure it's not as bad as that would suggest.
So you're marooned here on this island, but before you ended up shipwrecked you chose one album that you couldn't live without. Which album did you each chose and why?
Fletch: Wintersun – ‘Time I’. This has an immensely powerful and majestic sound with lots of emotion behind it. It feels like I could achieve anything whilst listening to it… such as surviving by myself on a desert island!
Holly: Delain’s ‘April Rain’ for me. This album began my journey into symphonic metal and I love the variety of the tracks.
Just behind that palm tree is a shack for each of you to stay in, with enough space for you to put up a poster on the wall of one album cover. What album cover do you each chose?
Fletch: I’m going to be really cheesy here and actually go with our ‘Warring Elements’ artwork. Firstly, I love the design and so I’m giving a shout out to the wonderful Simon Atkinson/Simon A Visuals for being able to translate our crazy visions into a cohesive design that I get lost in. I think it’s the scale; the vastness of the scene which the character is witnessing. Secondly it reminds me of the wonderful times I had with my close friends/bandmates making the tracks which will give me hope for the future. Lastly releasing this music is probably the most important thing I’ve done or will do, so it’s a memory of what can do when they put their mind to it.
Holly: There’s something strangely appealing about Muse’s artwork for the ‘Black Holes and Revelations’ album. It also brings back a lot of nostalgia for me as this album was my favourite when I was younger. I’m sure it’s part of the reason I began guitar lessons too - I wanted to be like Matt Bellamy.
There's also a bar on this here island. But alas each of you only get to choose one drink for the entirety of your stay. What's your tipple of choice?
Fletch: You probably don’t want to hear this one! So, a tradition after band practice used to be to have food and drink at spoons (for non-UK readers, Weatherspoons is a cheap UK pub chain). One day I decided to mix up (pun slightly intended) my usual order and start trying some of the random drinks off the menu. This then escalated into me making up my own combination’s alcohol and mixers, culminating in me ordering gin and tomato juice, much to the disgust of our party. Except here’s the thing, I really enjoyed it and hence it’s been my regular order ever since! It’s fairly easy to know if there’s a new member of staff working as they’ll ask me if I made a mistake on my order and say that they’ve never seen anyone order that before, before looking at me with a mixture of confusion, distress, and pity. So yes, that’s what everyone’s having – the Fletch special. In fact, spending time on the island might allow me to experiment with some additional local ingredients and further perfect the recipe!
Holly: I won’t be joining Fletch with this (although it does actually work better than you might think!). I’d have to go for Pimms. I can keep drinking it without getting bored and it contains so much fruit it must class as one of your five-a-day, right?
Your suitcases were lost when your ship sank, but you each managed to salvage one item of band merch. What’s the merch and for what band?
Fletch: I can't think of anything specific to a band in terms of merchandise, therefore I'm thinking I'll go with a line-up t-shirt for Techfest which is a wonderful smaller festival held each year in Newark, UK focussing on the technical, prog and djent metal genres. It's particularly special to me because of the wonderfully friendly community in addition to its cracking line-ups, therefore again it's a reminder of friends, family and being at home!
Holly: I think it has to be my Lacuna Coil t-shirt from their Black Anima European Tour. Me and Fletch saw them in Manchester at the O2 Ritz with Infected Rain and Eluveitie. It was a great gig and all three bands had their sound mixed amazingly.
You’re sat on the island thinking “I’m stuck here on this island with my bandmates for eternity”… who would you rather have been shipwrecked with?
Fletch: Super cheesy again here but I actually couldn’t ask for a better bunch of people to be stranded with; given that Holly is my other half and the others are some of my closest friends. We’ll have some epic hangs, improvise some new instruments and get a new concept album written before dawn and be picked up shortly later… probably. Perhaps I’m too optimistic.
Holly: My bandmates, and partner, are probably the best people to be stuck with... As long as I can have half an hour to myself it’ll be fine haha! If anyone starts arguing I’ll go swimming.
There's a walkman in your pocket, on the tape inside is the recording of the one live show that stands out for you. It could be any show, from any band, anywhere in the world. What show is on that walkman?
Fletch: It’s going to have to be the most memorable performance I went to, which was Nightwish live at Wembley in 2015. It was probably the best performance that the band had done in their career so far (Metal Hammer I recall gave it 10/10, which is exceedingly rare!). It was also personally nice for me to see them becoming a much bigger band, having been to see them in London many years previously and they’d played The Astoria with a capacity of 500, versus 12,000 for Wembley! So, again a happy memory and they played a flawless show… well nearly flawless, they played Stargazers but I couldn’t hear my favourite synth part of it!
Holly: I’ll have to go with the Lacuna Coil gig I mentioned earlier, the sound was just so good! It’ll also help that I can listen to their songs on repeat again and again.
You're getting desperate, you decide the only course of action is to put a message in a bottle and hope someone finds it. Your message could be to any member of any band, but should be the most suitable for a rescue attempt. Who is it?
Fletch: I can’t name the band who I’ll be messaging because [REDCATED BY EDITOR]. I’ve been doing some work with them recently though and I know how keen those guys are on what we’ve been producing and hence are keen to get it finished and shared! Therefore, if I don’t show up to the next practice, I know they’ll be coming out to rescue me… whether they save the others though I don’t know. Perhaps not without bargaining for more of my limited time (that’s the smart negotiation thing that I’d do at least).
Holly: I think I’d have to contact Lindsay Schoolcraft. She’s a wonderful ‘mum’ (mom) figure to us smaller metallers and I like to think she’d rescue me, and maybe a bandmate or two too!
You've been stuck here for a while and food supplies are running low. There's only one thing for it... which fellow band member gets sacrificed to help the others survive?
Fletch: Hmmmm, how can I put this? Patrick. I think he’ll cook well and be tender meat. I mean what?!?
Holly: I’m not sure I want to think about this... I’m sure I’d be good at foraging. I mean, how hard could it be?
Finally, when the ship sank you each managed to save one person from the wreckage. That person is the one musician that has influenced your career the most, shaped your way of thinking and your outlook on life. Who did you save?
Fletch: I’m confused, why was Hans Zimmer travelling with us? Was this in the future where I’m a successful film score composer, or we’ve made diverse music enough that he wants to collaborate with us? Or was this an all-star cruise where all of my inspirations were present!
I choose dear Hans because I love his quirky, eccentric personality – those are two of my favourite traits for people to have. More importantly he’s the finest composer of our generation, creating some of the most innovative and memorable scores.
Holly: There are so many wonderful people I could choose... not that I wish any of them to be shipped-wrecked. It would have to be Charlotte Wessels as she really inspired me to pursue my singing. I avoided doing vocals for quite a long time choosing to stick to my keyboard and guitar, but I love her voice and I find practising to her songs to be really helpful.
If Holly and Fletch manage to get home from Devil's Island, they release their Christmas single this week!
