Conan - The band that has been making waves on tour with High on Fire!!!

August 5th 2014

Germany

If you don't know anything about the band Conan hear is your chance!

Joe Denby catches up with Jon Davis Guitarist / Vocalist for the band Conan whilst he was driving through Germany while on tour with Stoner Metal giants High on Fire.

Music Trespass: How are you today?

Jon: Good thanks a little bit tired and I seem to have a little bit of a cold but doing were on tour at the minute in Europe.

Music Trespass: Tell me the history of Conan?

Jon: First of all Conan was started by myself and a friend Richie Grundy back in 2006. A little after that it was obvious that Richie wasn't able to do any shows. So we had written a few songs but we couldn't play anywhere so we had to leave things as they were and I had to look for a different drummer. I met Paul who is still in the band now and me and him have been the constant members since then. We started playing some shows around Liverpool in 2007. We split up in 2008 temporally and in 2009 we decided to get things going again. So we could record a few songs.

Jon: We went to Feal studio's with Chris Fielding and recorded what became 'Horseback battle Hammer'. We started getting some offers for shows and started playing in the UK and a couple in Europe. We recorded our second release called 'Monos', we recorded the album again in Feal with Chris. We also did a split with Slomatics which came out on vinyl. We did another split with Bongripper last year and we we toured with them through Europe. Now we are about to release our new album which was recorded late last year.

Music Trespass: Lets talk about your new album 'Blood Eagle'!!!

Jon: Well 'Blood Eagle' is six songs, fourty four minutes long. We took the best aspects from both previous recordings. It was written in 2012 / 2013 and recorded late last year. We recorded it in our own studio which is called Skyhammer Studio's. Chris Fielding has recorded everything we have ever done. It's come out on Napalm Records around March of this year. It's been received pretty well.

High on Fire (Pictured Above)

Music Trespass: Tell us about the current tour you are on with High on Fire.

Jon: Well about six weeks ago I was sitting on my bed and I got a message on Facebook from Jeff Matz bass player in High on Fire, asking if we would be interested in being on a small European tour so once we worked out the details of it we ended up playing with them on all their mainland Europe dates. We wont be joining them in Spain or Finland so we will be doing a few small shows to fill in around then. It's a pretty big thing for us because High on Fire are a big band and we're big fans of them... so it's was really cool to be asked.

Music Trespass: What else in the pipeline for Conan?

Jon: Well when this tour is finished I'm going on holiday and then in September we're going to Australia for ten days then in October he have a short run in Europe I think it's ten shows. Then at the end of October we've got some shows we've got a headliner at the Underworld in London then on our way home from that we're playing in Milton Keynes. I'm doing driving for a couple of bands in December then next year won't be so busy. We'll concentrate on writing a new album and play some festivals. We don't want people to get sick of us, this is our third trip to Europe this year and we're coming out again in October.

Music Trespass: What music have you been listening to lately?

Jon: Well we're listening to Bob Marley at the moment in the van! We download Mr Bungle, I've been listening to the unmastered stuff from Headless Cross a band that I'm putting out their album on my label. I cherry pick albums that I'd like to put out on Vinyl.

Sleep 'Dopesmoker' Cover (Pictured Above)

Music Trespass: Your top five Albums?

Jon: Slomatics 'Flooding the Weir', Iron Maiden 'Piece of Mind', Fu Manchu 'In search of...', High on Fire 'Surrounded by Thieves' and Sleep 'Dopesmoker' but ask me that tomorrow and it will change!

Interview and Questions by Joe Denby