Lee: Dave and I were sitting through a really boring English lesson at college once and Dave just opened his notepad and started jotting. He was making up all kinds of gibberish words, but then I saw the word Artaxur, the word doesn't exist but it sure does sound cool, we think!

Dave: Some kid told me there's a medicine called Artaxur. I doubt it though.

Lee: No, we haven't played live yet, we will be soon though.
Dave: Yeah in the not so distant future, we hope to. At the moment, unless we had stand-in members it would be impossible, unless we had a few extra pairs of arms.

Lee: If there is a band that are trying to promote themselves, MP3s can help them be heard of, but for hugely successful bands like Metallica, it's slowly ripping them apart. They lose millions of dollars thanks to illegal MP3-downloads, and it's not on.
Dave: A lot of bands actually make the majority of their money through the live shows they do, for the records sold, the bands only get a fraction of the money, the record comapny gets most of it.
Metallica aren't really getting ripped apart at all, it's just they are greedy.
I don't think MP3 downloading should be totally outlawed though, if it weren't for it, I probably wouldn't know about the bands I like today.

Lee: I don't think Artaxur would, major labels only really accept mainstream music. You wouldn't get Jive Records (home of Britney Spears) signing us up, will you?!
Dave: Probably not.
But if it makes scene kids cry, then that's good.

Dave: I'll give you a little history lesson then. Back in high school, about 4 years ago, me and Lee and some other friends used to jam along using school-instruments (which weren't that great), just to pass breaktimes really. Most of the other guys weren't as serious musicians and decided to sod off after a while, which really annoyed me and Lee, we were serious about the whole thing. Then, in year 11, we decided to start a serious band, and started rehearsing properly in October 2003. We ended up playing an amalgam of black metal, doom metal and sludge metal. This was just with me on vocals and guitar, and Lee on vocals, guitar, programming and keyboards. Dean joined up in 2004, as the vocalist who takes care of most of the clean singing, and is also a brilliant lyricist. We eventually decided to take a new musical direction, and changed the band-name to Artaxur.
Lee: Heh, basically, that is our history, kindly provided by Dave! Also, seeing as though we had the same band-members when we changed our name, we like to think of Artaxur as His Curse re-incarnated, as opposed to Artaxur being a completely new band.

Lee: We are influenced by bands like The Berzerker and Anaal Nathrakh, forcing an ear-piercing artillery of extreme grind (complete with atmospheric keyboards for a more evil sound) onto our listeners. We focus on a blend of acoustic-style strumming (but played on an electric guitar) and extreme tremelo-picking that bands like Cradle Of Filth would do. As for drums, there are no limitations when it comes to electronic drums, so expect speed!
Dave: Like Lee said, fast, aggressive bands like The Berzerker and Anaal Nathrakh. The riffs I write are quite black metal influenced, (lots of tremolo picking), as are my vocals, heh.
Lee: What, tremolo-picked vocals? Ha-ha, just kidding.
Dave: That would sound pretty cool.

Lee: Even though it's nowhere near a number-one holiday destination, I absolutely love the Lake District. The atmosphere is just great, and I'll never get bored when I'm there.

Dave: I'm always fascinated by woodland/forests, and vast natural scenery.

Fender Squier Stratacaster electric guitar,
Fender Squier guitar amplifier,
Roto-Sound 012-054 guitar strings,
Yamaha PSR-320/PSR-195 MIDI keyboards,
Aria STB four-string bass guitar,
Epiphone Les Paul Studio guitar,
Kustom guitar amplifier,
Ernie Ball 012-056 guitar strings,
DOD Tecx4 guitar effects pre-amp,
Marshall GV-2 distortion pedals,
Philips MD-150 microphone,
Codemasters Music 2000 music-creation software,
Leafdrums
Cool Edit Pro 2.0
Reason 2.5