Next fall Ravage will be playing their first international show - The Swordbrother's Fest in Germany. A European tour or other festival appearances may be organized as well. Details will be posted as they become available.

Also, the Spectral Rider CD Release show is January 6, 2006 @ The Middle East Downstairs in Cambridge, MA! Ravage will be performing with local rockers Jaded, so come on down and show your support! There's a good chance that this set will be recorded for an upcoming live album...

Al Firicano, singer of the Boston MA USA based heavy metal band Ravage has completed an interview with one of Europe's biggest metal magazines - Germany's Rock Hard Magazine. Al discusses the band's new album "Spectral Rider" as well as the band's origins and some basic info on band members. The interview has been posted online at this location. The translation is below:

1. RAVAGE has been in existence since the mid 90s. Why did it take so long until the full-length debut 'Spectral Rider' came out?

Well, it took us a while for a number of reasons. Mostly, it took us such a long time to put together a line-up of players who were good enough to perform the songs in the manner we originally intended. We started out as a very raw band, almost a punk-metal band, while I was in my mid-teens, and we always wanted to be a band like Iron Maiden – raw and yet refined. So it took a while to become “refined”. It was that, and the fact that we never had enough money to record a full length because we were all broke. Selling some copies of our last demo EP, “Curse Of Heaven”, allowed us to have enough resources to finally record the full-length.

2. Why does it come out on a German label?
Well, although there are many great metal fans here in the United States, the metal faith in general is much stronger in Europe – especially in regards to the more traditional metal sound. So we knew we really needed a European label to get us started. Furthermore, Germany really seems to be is the capital of true metal at this point, there are just a lot of great young bands coming out of Germany and some of our favorite bands are from Germany – Running Wild, Grave Digger, Helloween, Blind Guardian – so when Stefan from Karthago Records offered us a deal there was really little question of who we should sign with.

3. Is it only available in Germany and The U.S. or all over the world?
It is my understanding that it is available everywhere. It has been distributed throughout Europe and Japan and the band has a limited number of copies that we can sell to countries outside of those areas. Anyone in Europe or Japan can buy the album through www.KarthagoRecords.de and if they are outside Europe and Japan they can buy it at www.RavageTheEarth.com. There are also a number of mailorders which carry it.

4. The cover looks very traditional but - sorry - a bit funny, too. Who made it?
Well I will take the credit or criticism for the actual design of the cover. A lot of people have expressed a dislike of the concept or the artwork itself. I think it is a good artwork, but I can see how it may be off-putting to some people. It was painted by Vincente Feijoo, guitarist of the Spanish band Zarpa. We actually rejected a number of designs from a few different artists – including 2 covers which I designed myself - and then Karthago suggested we go with Vincente. I was pleased with the way it came out. It is in some ways a homage to Judas Priest’s “Painkiller” and some other classic metal albums. With the destruction evident in the background it is suppose to suggest the arrival of a new, but traditional form of metal mayhem… but perhaps that aspect of it didn’t come through as well as we may had intended and maybe it just came across as looking a bit generic. If that was the case it is my fault because it was my idea to have a rider on a motorcycle – which admittedly has been done.

5. Who is the 'Spectral Rider'??!
Good question. The Spectral Rider is symbolic of a spirit of vengeance. The song itself is really my reaction to the events of 9/11 in the United States. You could see
the ‘Spectral Rider’ as one who is rallying against the injustices of the world or one who is rallying against the abuse of power by those who pretend to be rallying against the injustices of the world. The song is about the balance between freedom and justice and the basic message is – don’t let anyone take away your freedom by using fear. That includes terrorists, but also the government who exploit such events and also the media, religious leaders and the general public. “The price of freedom is eternal vigilence”. I’ve always believed that.

5. Your music is highly influenced by the traditional 80s Heavy Metal. Is there a specific scene existing in the U.S. for this style of music?
In our local scene we are the only traditional metal band. The U.S. metal scene is very fractured. There is a lot of extreme metal, hardcore, metalcore and nu-metal. People seem to be afraid of melody a lot over here and some are afraid of guitar solos or fantasy themes. Those are some of the things that attracted me to metal in the first place, so we haven’t thought of changing our sound, even though a lot people will ask us “why don’t you play melodic deathmetal? Or add a hardcore influence?” etc and that was never our intention. We aren’t going to bow to a trend to get a record deal. We’d rather just go where our style of music is appreciated the way we want to play it.


7. How important are the lyrics for RAVAGE?
They are important to me. I was always a fan of the lyrics of bands like Iron Maiden and Judas Priest etc and their great imagery. Growing up I would learn every word to every song. I think it is important that you have a lot of strong imagery and meaning in a metal song. I think a song should transport you to a certain place in your imagination or a certain time in your life, and strong imagery is important in producing that effect. Some people don’t listen to the lyrics, some people don’t care. As a writer, I want to make sure that there is something there for people to enjoy and think about if they want to. Some of my lyrics are stupid, some are try to be more involved. I’ve always felt that the lyrics should be a mix of professional wrestling and Shakespeare – very dramatic.. sometimes smart… sometimes brutish… whatever it takes to heighten the experience of a metal song.

8. RAVAGE's origin is Boston. In Europe, this area is more famous for Hardcore than for traditonal Metal. How do you come along with that scene? Can you gain acceptance?
We’ve played with all sorts of bands. We started out opening for ska bands, punk rock bands… whoever and whatever we could play with, and we never really cared about being accepted. At this point we have played with every possible kind of band and entertained all kinds of music fans. I think we can cross over because we have a lot of melody, but also a lot of energy, and some of that is just universal – if people enjoy good, hard rockin’ music, they generally can get into our shows.

9. I guess that you can't yet live of RAVAGE. What are you guys doing to earn your daily bread?
Everyone in the band has their day jobs. I’ve worked various office jobs (very un-metal) and also as a writer… my brother Eli, our guitarist works in a supermarket… our other guitarist Nick works in a video game shop, our drummer George works in construction and our bassist Howie works in retail sales.

10. Apart from your own style of music - what are your musical preferences?
I listen to all forms of metal, but mostly traditional metal and power metal. I also like 70’s classic rock/ hard rock bands like Deep Purple, Boston etc and some classical music. Our bassist Howie is into a lot of Jazz as well as a lot of extreme metal. Our guitarists like mostly extreme metal and power metal, and our drummer George listens to a lot of hardrock and some Jazz. So the band has a pretty good mix of musical preffferences and influences.

11. Imagine you could fix a line-up for a tour with RAVAGE as support-band. Which are the bands that should be the headliners for such a tour?
The ultimate experience would be opening for Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Dio, Black Sabbath or Manowar. We did get the opportunity to open for Lizzy Borden, who are one of my favorite bands of all time… and there are so many bands that it would be great to open for. But if I couldn’t play with any of the aforementioned bands then a pretty good bill would be…

Gamma Ray
Grave Digger
Blind Guardian
Primal Fear…
Too many bands, we’d just have to have a metal fest!

12. Will it take another ten years until the next album will come out (I hope it won't...)?
I hope not. Hopefully we will maybe record an EP toward the end of the year and see how the album has sold and if it has done well we will see what kind of record deal we can get for the next release. We have some good old material sitting around from the last 10 years that we’d like to record for a little EP and at the same time we have a number of brand new songs for another full-length that are ready for us to record. We just need to find the time and money to get it done. But hopefully there will be another album out by the end of next year. I don’t want to put out an album every year unless we have strong material… but right now we definitely do. So I’d like to get it done.

13. Why aren't there any pictures of the band on your homepage?
The homepage is currently being revamped. We have links to some pictures that are hosted on other sites, but we haven’t put the new press kit images up. They should be up there soon with the new web design that is set to correspond with the album.

14. On the page you have a link to our site! What made you do that?!
We were actually featured in 2003 for our “Curse Of Heaven” demo EP so we thought we’d return the favor with a link.

15. Do you want to answer a question I didn't ask?
Well I think you’ve covered almost everything. Thanks for the interview. I’d just like to let people know that they can visit us at www.RavageTheEarth.com or join our fanclub The Society For World Wide Ravage at www.myspace.com/swwr and they can buy the album from www.KarthagoRecords.de

Ravage In Peace, friends!

As of October 4th Ravage's "Spectral Rider" album was released. Reviews should be coming in by the end of the month. For INTERNATIONAL ORDERS (Europe, Japan etc) go to www.KarthagoRecords.de, your local record store or your favorite mail order. For orders within the USA, Canada, U.K. and Australia, contact
ravaged@rocketmail.com.

The pre-sale for the debut full-length “Spectral Rider” album from the Boston, MA based heavy metal band Ravage has begun.

For residents of the USA, Canada, Australia, and the U.K. orders can be made by sending $12 US by paypal to ravaged@rocketmail.com or contact ravaged@rocketmail.com for ordering by other methods.

The CDs will be shipped out to arrive in the first week of October 2005.

For orders OUTSIDE the USA, Canada, Australia, and the U.K, and for wholesale orders, go to www.KarthagoRecords.de

INFO ON THE ALBUM
Ravage’s “Spectral Rider” album is the follow-up to 2003’s “Curse Of Heaven” EP. It contains 12 tracks (3 rerecordings of songs from the EP, 8 brand new recordings and 1 bonus track from the EP)

2 songs from the album are available at www.myspace.com/swwr.
The cover art for the album is available at www.RavageTheEarth.com.

1. Turn The Screw
2. Spectral Rider
3. The Wicked Way
4. The Masque Of Black Death
5. Ravage Part 1: Damage
6. Wyvern
7. Incantation Of The Necromancer
8. Wake The Dead
9. The Wasteland
10. Bring Down The Hellhammer
11. The King Forgotten
12. Curse Of Heaven (bonus track)

Promotional copies will be sent out immediately. Requests for promo
copies should be made to ravaged@rocketmail.com.

The old shirts are sold out! The new "Wake The Dead" t-shirt design is now available. They are $10, plus $3 shipping. You can send PayPal payments to ravaged@rocketmail.com or email that address for snail mail info.

- Al

After about a year and a half of various trials, tribulations and assorted horrors, the "Spectral Rider" album has finally been completed! The tracks were mixed down the other night and will be mastered this week. Label negotiations will soon commence as well, and the release date will be announced soon. It will be released in late August. Clips and one full track will be posted on the myspace site www.myspace.com/swwr at some point after the mastering. Thanks to all who helped and to all who have waited... the wait is almost over.

The cover art will be displayed soon too, so there are many announcements coming.

Finally, we have a show at The Middle East in Cambridge MA on June 19th with Adolf Satan and many others, should be a good show AND we'll have new Ravage "Wake The Dead" T-shirts available there.
See you all then,

- Al

Greetings all,

We have decided to add Howie Snow as the permanent bassplayer for Ravage. Howie has learned a number of songs and has played 2 successful shows with the band. He recently contributed a bass track for one of the bonus tracks for the "Curse Of Heaven" album. Howie is a very good player with a lot of stage prescence and we look forward to continuing to play with him and recording with him in the future. He has already added a lot to the band's sound as anyone who has been at the recent gigs can attest.

In other news... We have 2 new shows booked, one in May and one in June. Check the shows section for details. We still have a few of the new Ravage shirts left. They are $10, plus $3 shipping. You can send PayPal payments to ravaged@rocketmail.com or email that address for snail mail info.

Finally, though I've been saying it for nearly a year and a half now, the recording is finally nearly finished. We have reached the end of the mixing stage and most likely the "Spectral Rider" CD will be released at the end of July.

- Al

Some news – RAVAGE T-SHIRTS and STICKERS – They will be arriving soon… probably within the next two weeks and hopefully in time for the next show.

The COVER ARTWORK – The album art is nearly complete. I have seen the back art and Vincente Feijoo has outdone himself. It will be posted along with the new website design probably at the beginning of next week.

NEW WEBSITE – Scott ‘The Webmasta’ Green will be helping us to design a new website for RavageTheEarth.com… coming soon.

We have 2 shows coming up in April, with our new line-up featuring George on drums and Howie on bass. Bass tryouts are still ongoing.

Welcome to the new website… which is under construction.

NEW URL!!! The new Ravage homepage will be at www.RAVAGETHEEARTH.COM

The new site will have lots of new special features. The media section should have some video eventually, as well as audio clips from the new album when they become available. There will be a special “History” section, which will detail the doings of the band up to this point, since we have been around playing shows since 1996. There will be updates on former members, old artwork, logos and pictures and other nostalgic stuff. A DVD is in the works called “The Years Underground 96-06” which should be released next year and will contain all sorts of good stuff.

We will be staying on the 665.org server, but you can update your bookmarks in a couple of days.

In other news…

I’ve seen the final sketch of the artwork for the “Spectral Rider” album, and I think you will all be pleased. It will look very cool and very metal. Vincente Feijoo is working on it as we speak. There will be more details as they come.

We have a new drummer, George (see previous news), but we are still looking for a bassist. Howie is filling in and both are learning the songs very quickly. The band is sounding tighter and heavier than it has in a long time.The upcoming show at Dee Dee’s Lounge should be rockin’, these guys are great players, and it will be good to play with Disengaged again, they always bring their own particular brand of mayhem and this could be their last show, who knows?

Also, my personal website has moved to www.AlRavage.com