Mick Mercer: Before we get to the music, how about this beautiful painting used for the cover. How did you come to notice this?

Graveside: We found it on the internet. We knew we wanted something striking, and because of the title of the CD, nautical. This image totally fit the bill, and the people at the National Maritime Museum were great to work with while we hashed out the licensing.

MM: Who is the artistic person in the band as the whole design of the sleeve, including the blood corpuscles visible through the back plate is very attractive. It’s a really smart design?

Graveside: Thanks for the compliment. Cruella is a visual artist and I am a graphic designer, so we collaborated. We both picked out the cover image, I doctored it (sort of “grunged” it up) and did the overall layout. The blood cells were Cruella’s idea and the image was stock art. I feel silly that the idea of having blood cells on the cover of an album called “Seas of Blood” never occurred to me! As a designer I see way too many indie CDs with mediocre cover art, very generic, poorly executed stuff that doesn’t say anything about the music inside, and I don’t care for the concept that cover art will disappear as we move away from physical media to a market where all music is just a downloaded file. If we don’t have cover art, what will we look at while we listen to the music?

Cruella: Originally when I was thinking about what our album cover should be for Seas of Blood…I wanted it to be gruesome. But then settled on the ship/ocean idea…and it just happened that John had the same notion. The blood corpuscles was my way of being gross in a beautiful and subdued way.

MM: Nautical imagery seems to have gained favour these past few years. Any idea why?

Graveside: Hopefully, because a lot of people are writing about nautical themes! If not, then it’s just a trend on it’s way to becoming a cliché.

Cruella: I haven’t noticed the gain in any favour. I believe that nautical images have always been prominent. I know for me especially because of my geographical location and my pure love of the sea. My grandparents ,who were painters, consistently used the sea and its accoutrements as subject matter.

MM: Obviously you have a weird mix of influences in this band it’s a Goth Metal Prog hotchpotch – does that make it a very argumentative band to he in, with people sticking up for their side, as it were, or do you all have to learn the art of agreeing to disagree?

Graveside: We don’t really disagree at all. Everyone in the band has adventurous tastes, so we push ourselves to be multifaceted.

Cruella: Not too many disagreements at all. Arguing can be so counter productive. If one of us really had a strong opinion about something we certainly would work it out. John and I have very different writing styles and our creative process is at opposite ends of the scale. But it seems to work for us.

MM: You all seem pretty busy, as in constantly active during most songs. I guess that helps keep irritations at bay?

Graveside: I think merely being adults keeps our irritations at bay.

Cruella: More like, boredom at bay.

MM: ‘Serpentarius’ – how does your approach differ noticeably from Orchestral Metal, which is generally overblown? By which I mean what do you strive not to do?

Graveside: Most orchestral bands don’t actually have an orchestra to bring on the road, and I think that there’s a tendency to let the orchestra become so prominent on the records that the live, orchestra-less version is a bit of a letdown – either there’s a cheesy synthetic orchestra or just nothing there at all. Since the orchestra on our record is primarily an embellishment, and a not a key part of the melodic structure, we can somewhat sidestep that issue. However, if we had an unlimited budget, we would tour with a string section. They ARE a nice addition.

The other thing that bands of our type tend to do is incongruously leap from song section to song section. As the primary writer/arranger, I work really hard to make sections flow together, though an occasional jarring transition is fun in an unsettlingly dramatic way.

MM: On the roving guitar front, how do you instinctively know how far is too far in the excess stakes, or is it when during a rehearsal you realize everyone else has stopped and is staring?

Graveside: As the only guitar player, I have to shoulder my share of the burden along with the rest of the rhythm section to keep the song moving forward in terms of rhythm and dynamics, so I have little time to devote to extravagant solos. Another reason that I refrain from flashy guitar playing as that I can’t play like that! Part of me wishes that I was the next Steve Vai or Yngwie Malmsteen, but it’s just not in the cards. Maybe in the long run that’s a good thing – it keeps things focused on the song, and that’s the most important part.

MM: ‘Wants Me Dead’ has a nice historical lilt where that’s from?

Graves