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One of the most compelling new interests to crop up on the map of American heavy metal, The Sword is a modern-traditional, prog-retro act that has proven itself to be capable of championing such dual allegiances. Fully initiated in the bell-bottomed gravitas of blues-tinged British metal, The Sword conjures powerful memories of Black Sabbath, Thin Lizzy and Led Zeppelin while caressing the celestial vault in pursuit of new realms.
Whether set within the tapestry of medieval fantasy, as on The Sword’s 2006 debut LP Age of Winters and Gods of the Earth, or polished to a chrome lustre, as with 2010 space-caper Warp Riders, its songs are as intricately detailed as they are devastatingly heavy. Readily inspired by film and novel, myth and magic, vocalist-guitarist J.D. Cronise, guitarist Kyle Shutt and bassist Bryan Richie formed The Sword in Austin, Tex. in 2003. Incidentally, that same year, author George R.R. Martin published A Storm of Swords, the third installation in his Songs of Ice and Fire saga, best known for its recent leap to the small screen via HBO’s series A Game of Thrones.
“Those books definitely made the rounds on our tour vans,” confirms Richie. “I love the fact that J.D. puts so much of it into his writing. Lyrically, it makes a huge impact. It’s not just some dude talking shit, he’s really trying to evoke the imagination. Sometimes the stories get pretty God damn complicated, but it’s The Sword, so I roll with it. I just wish the powers that be in Hollywood, the ones who make movies like Thor, would take note.”
“I mean, come on, we have songs with titles like ‘Freya’ and ‘Hammer of Heaven’ that could be on your soundtrack, but no, I have to hear this other shit instead. Sometimes I feel like we’re the Rodney Dangerfield of metal bands.”
Richie laughs. “We get no respect.”
Determined to pay its debts on the road, these throne-robbers have pounded the pavement in support of Lamb of God, Clutch, Priestess and Early Man, to name a few. Still, The Sword has suffered its share of battlefield-related casualties, as the tight-knit troupe lost drummer and co-founder Trivett Wingo in the middle of last year’s Warp Riders Tour.
“Sometimes you have to cut off a gangrene limb, and then it becomes a matter of getting the rest of the body up to snuff,” says Richie, noting that he’s still friends with Wingo. “Luckily, things have really gelled with our new drummer Kevin (Fender); the three of us are all of the same mindset when it comes to the cycle of recording and touring, and his personality matched up with us from the get-go.... No one gives you a handbook on ‘How To Get New Dudes.’”
Prepared for the next onslaught against the Great White North, The Sword has some fond memories of the wintery wastelands that lie beyond the wall known as the U.S. border. Now a free-agent mercenary for hire by any label, the band is whetting its steel and its appetite for a warm western Canadian reception.
“Calgary is colder than shit!” he recalls. “When we played there with Metallica, I wound up back at the hotel with Lamb of God. By the end, Chris Adler and I were wandering aimless and wasted through the frozen streets. At one point he dropped down and begged me to go on without him.... I don’t know how Canadian bands survive doing that all the time.”
Of course, one Canuck band in particular commands the lion’s share of The Sword’s esteem.
“Rest assured, we are aware that there is an old Quebec band from the ’80s called Sword. They actually reached out to us on our MySpace page a long time ago and told us they thought our tunes were cool and wished us all the best. I just hope there’s not some weird, Ron Silver versus bad CGI, Time Cop rule out there that says we can’t both occupy the same space or it’ll cause a catastrophic ripple in time.”
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