The new men in black have survived sickly gigs, killed rock giants, made grown men weep…
Henrik Steenholdt admits, his native Northamptonshire doesn’t have many local heroes, especially when it comes to music. The band’s pitch as the Midlands county’s great rock hope began in 2016, when Steenholdt, guitarist Did Coles, bassist Grant Hockley and drummer Elliot Bale forged a shadowy sound touched by the anthems of Pearl Jam and Alter Bridge. Now, with the orchestral flourishes of second album Relentless, Empyre are entering their imperial phase.
007 inspired their new album.
Obviously they wouldn’t have wished for the lockdown, which broke the stride of 2019’s debut album Self Aware. But Empyre used the downtime to add swooping orchestration to the alt.rock stylings of Relentless.
“Metallica on S&M or Guns N’ Roses with November Rain, that’s what we’re aspiring to,” says Steenholdt. “Soundtracks are a big influence – like Max Richter, Hans Zimmer, John Williams, John Barry. If you listen to [new-album track] Your Whole Life Slows, there’s a little ode to Goldfinger, with the trumpets doing that ‘pah-paah-pah!’”
They’re proud to be killjoys.
You can tell when Empyre have hit the stage, because the temperature in the venue drops.
“The bands we play with, like Massive Wagons, are way more ‘party band’ than us,” says Steenholdt. “We’re more morbid, introspective, darker. We have a joke that we come along and kill the vibe. The rules of an Empyre gig are: one, no singing; two, no clapping; and three, no looking as if you’re having a good time. We take a crowd shot after each show, and instead of devil horns, everyone does Italian-style pinched fingers. Even our merch T-shirts have the Grim Reaper doing it. Pinched fingers are the new devil horns.”
They skinned Steve Vai. Well, sort of.
Empyre are formidable giant killers, winning our website Louder’s Track Of The Week on three occasions, and even scalping shred lord Steve Vai with their latest single Hit And Run.
“I’d like to think Steve is licking his wounds, but I’m not sure he’s got us on his radar,” considers Steenholdt. “Hit And Run is about going back to the Danish town of Sønderborg, where I spent my college years, and finding my friends had all moved away. There are a few new songs about mental health. With Forget Me, I wanted to write the saddest song I could about a guy who’s made the conscious decision to kill himself. That’s not to say those lyrics are about us. I’d like to be immortal, act
