WOODS OF YPRES Founder Recaps 2008, Prepares For A Busy 2009

WOODS OF YPRES Founder Recaps 2008, Prepares For A Busy 2009 - "Effort Itself Is Good Fortune"

WOODS OF YPRES frontman/founder David Gold has checked in with the following 2008 recap and a details look at what's in store for 2009

"Greetings! This is my year end Woods-wrap-up and future forecast.

This isn’t the first time that I’ve done ‘band work’ on Christmas day. It’s become my tradition. 2008 was a good year for Woods Of Ypres. For starters, the third album Woods III: Deepest Roots & Darkest Blues was released and became the #1 selling album for four weeks in a row at The End Records (a major metal distributor in the USA) and led to interviews in Zero Tolerance Magazine (UK), Legacy (Germany), Metal Maniacs (USA) and the cover of story in Unrestrained! Magazine. With the services of all four members of Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario progressive power metal band GATES OF WINTER (Bryan Belleau, Brian Holmes, Steve Furgiuele, Lee Maines) and the drummer from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania progressive black metal band THE GREEN EVENING REQUIEM, Woods Of Ypres returned to the live stage to co-headline the Noctis II Metal Festival in Calgary, Alberta, opening for Finland’s folk metal band KORPIKLAANI. A month later, Woods co-headlined another major European style metalfest at the Heathen Crusade 3, opening for Finland’s pagan-black metal band MOONSORROW. The success of this show was followed by a full two week tour of performing to well attended venues and selling a ton of Woods merchandise through the USA, Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec. It was a good year indeed, the journey getting to this point having started over six years ago. From my experience, in order to be successful in an independent original band you need to have the guts to hang in there long enough to really make things happen but also have the brains to know when it’s time to move on. We have many plans for 2009.

The new year will begin on a bittersweet note. Famed Canadian metal personality, founder of Unrestrained! Magazine and personal friend to myself and Woods, Adrian Bromley suddenly passed away in December at the age of 37. Woods will perform at his memorial show at the Opera House in Toronto, Saturday January 17th along with many more of Adrian’s favourite bands from the Toronto metal scene. The event is 'pay what you can' and all proceeds will go to the Cancer Society, which was a cause close to Adrian’s heart. Adrian was one of Woods’ biggest supporters since the very beginning. Personally, my story with Adrian involves me reading his magazine at the age of 20, pre-Woods, and aspiring to one day appear within the pages. Eight years later, Woods graced the cover in March 2008 and was featured in the largest article the magazine has ever done on any band. We were also the first independent band to be on the cover. It was Adrian’s belief in us and belief in his magazine’s objective to support underground music that allowed him to take such a risk on us. I was relieved to hear that our issue had sold out and that Adrian had no regrets in his decision. I will forever feel indebted to him, we are humbled to be given the chance to perform in his hounour and we intend to give him a show he’ll be proud to see! Adrian will be missed while his life will continue to be an inspiration for so many.

Also in January, I will continue work on a very exciting new project. Last Halloween, original bassist / clean vocalist and founding member of Woods Of Ypres, Aaron Palmer and I reunited to make music together again. Aaron, who performed on the first Woods album Against the Seasons: Cold Winter Songs From The Dead Summer Heat (2002) recently moved to Wawa for a career in forestry. With only two hours of highway between us, we agreed to start a new two man black metal based project, yet unnamed. We have decided the focus of the band will be about Northern Ontario themes. The 'rules' of the project involve writing two songs at a time (on song each) where one member will perform guitar, bass and vocals for the song he has written and the other member performs the drums for him (then we switch). To get inspired to complete my lyrics, I’ve planned a trip up Highway 17 to visit Aaron and see Wawa at the heart of winter. After that we’ll have one more weekend of rehearsals in the Soo, and then a weekend of recording at Sardonic Moon Studios in Sudbury where our first two songs will be captured by the black metal expertise of WOLVEN ANCESTRY’s mastermind Fraust. The plan is to release these first two songs on limited, hand numbered 7” vinyl as the first release for a niche mini-label under the name of the ‘N.O.B.M. P.S.’ (‘The Northern Ontario Black Metal Preservation Society’, or as I like to call it, the ‘NOBM Post Script’).

In April, I’ll be going into Stereo Soul Studio to record drums for an experimental metal project from Philadelphia called L'ANGUISETTE. The band consists of Bianca on vocals, lyrics, songwriting, keys and Joe (who also plays in the Green Evening Requiem) on guitars, keyboards, mellotrons, songwriting, sampling, and recording. I’ve been a fan of their band for years and have always enjoyed listening to their demos at home, so I’m really excited for the opportunity to contribute to what to will be a very fresh and creative album!

All the while during the front half of 2009, the Gates Of Winter guys and I will be writing and rehearsing away the late evenings of this winter working on new songs for their second album. The release of the yet untitled Gates II will be followed by touring in the summer. Woods plans to hit the road for the last two weeks of August for the Woods’ second album Pursuit Of The Sun & Allure Of The Earth themed End Of August tour. We intend to go West, find some fun in the sun and play all the dark clubs. West Coast promoters please get in touch!

That takes us to fall 2009. I would love to see us also fit in a Woods 3: Deepest Roots & Darkest Blues themed tour next fall, but, we’ll see. My main focus by then will be the next Woods Of Ypres album: Woods 4 – Spring: The Green Album. At the time of writing this, I have 15 new song skeletons of guitar riff arrangements in column ‘A’ and an surplus of potential lyrics in column ‘B’, both written and filed away throughout my many travels during the last two years. My flex time between now and next fall will be spent matching, editing, refining and polishing these ideas to create what I expect to be the best Woods album yet. So far, I hear ultra slow symphonic doom, post-rock rockers, soul-crushing ballads and avant-garde black metal mixed with bursts of brutality, acoustic guitars, Viking metal, harmonized clean and black vocals, blast beats and the type of lyrics, sound, overall atmosphere and sincere emotion that people have come to expect from WOY. Influence-wise, I identify my reflections on TYPE O NEGATIVE, CROWBAR, KATATONIA, SENTENCED, and AGALLOCH. The planned released date for Woods 4 is March 2010, just in time for Spring, St. Patrick’s Day, Earth Day and other significant “Green” dates of anniversary.

Lastly, for those who hadn’t heard, I spent last year in Seoul, South Korea where I was teaching English and drumming for the legendary Korean Death Metal band NECRAMYTH. After rehearsing and gigging with the band all year, last April I went into the studio to record the drums for eight new songs that along with a traditional Korean music intro, will make up the newest Necramyth album: Pagans In The East. Since leaving Korea in June, the rest of the band have been (Please Note – 12 hours have passed since I started this document and I’ve had some Christmas drinks…) finishing their respective parts of the album. Last I heard, it was being mixed, sounding heavy, soon to be available for release. I plan to release the album on my label for distribution in North America. Expect brutal Asian thrash metal powered by Canadian blast beats! To coincide with the release of the album, I plan to make available the final cut of my first attempt as an ‘indie’ filmmaker with my edited documentary footage shot capturing my life in the Seoul, Korea metal scene. The footage is raw, real, intense, sometimes strange and overall very powerful! I can’t wait to share my year in the Far East with the world.

2009 will be the 7th year of Woods Of Ypres. We may just see an inevitable re-re-re-release of Woods 1: Against the Seasons on CD, remixed and remastered (sounding better than ever!) packaged in brand new, redesigned artwork, with old never seen before photos and some rare bonus audio extras (you may have heard how I’ve always wanted to record a few cover songs that were highly influential to the formation of the band). “Woods 1” has already been re-re-remixed and mastered for CD and vinyl and both will eventually be released. There are still 1000 things to do, but as usual, but many gears are already in motion. Aside from all our confirmed plans, there are always new projects and ideas that are being considered, some blue sky thinking, a few wild dreams, as well as a few label offers that keep popping up, but this is all that I should tell you about for now. There is more, much more, but I already feel that I’m ahead of myself here and that you already know too much. Let us get a few of the heavy priorities out of the way (ex. the new Gates Of Winter album) and then we’ll talk again.

2008 was certainly a growing year, as was 2007, as I believe that 2009 will also be. That’s what we do: experience, survive, learn, grow, build character, continue onwards, succeed and find new ways to do more the next year! We made some serious progress in 2008, but this is still only the beginning of what can be done out there. As I mentioned, this is not the first holiday season that I’ve spent dedicated to getting ‘band stuff’ re-organized and I doubt it will be the last, and that’s fine by me. Going into the seventh year of this life, I do love what we do and I hope that it doesn’t come to an end before it’s time. Each year I feel more love from all our supporters and that justifies all our efforts.

Halfway through our recent November tour, one of the wheels on our trailer came loose and the whole thing took a giant shit all down the highway. Luckily, we were just 20 minutes outside of Sault Ste. Marie after driving all night since our gig in Thunder Bay the night before. While the band went ahead into town with the van to arrange a new trailer, I waited outside until the tow truck came to pick up our old one and drag it to the grave. When I arrived back in town a few hours later, our drummer Evan had told me that while I was out there waiting with the busted trailer in the northern cold, he wondered if I ever questioned 'Is this worth it?'. By ‘it’ he meant everything about the band: the challenges, the hassles, the headaches, the setbacks, the risk, the loss. My answer was and is, yes! It is worth it. We always have something to do and so much to look forward to. We’ve been fortunate enough to even have the freedom and the opportunities to choose to express ourselves through writing and performing music that we love while visiting new places and meeting new people. It’s exciting, it’s dirty, it’s hard, it’s fast, it’s real, it’s awesome! This is living, man, and I feel so alive!

Thanks to all the supporters, the guys in the bands I play in, the bands we play with, the promoters, the magazine and radio folks, the people who print our merch, our distributors, and of course our family and good friends. On behalf of Woods Of Ypres, we wish you the best of years to come and we hope to do you proud in 2009 and beyond! Seasons Greetings and Happy New Year!

For the Finns: Hyvää Joulua ja Onnellista Uutta Vuotta 2009!

On that note, I’m taking a week off. Stay detuned (to C#) and see you in January."

David Gold - \w/