Hellripper returns with Coronach, an album that feels both familiar and more epic. The Scottish history, folklore, and darkness that have always shaped the project are still very present, but this time James McBain opens the door to new sounds and textures. Alongside the usual blackened speed metal intensity, there are moments of punk, death metal, piano, violin, and cello, giving the album a wider and more personal atmosphere.
M.I. - Let’s travel back to 2014. When did you realize that you wanted to turn your hobby into a full-time job?
I was always under the kind of illusion that I wouldn't be able to make music my full-time job, because, historically, larger musicians and people that are successful have some sort of job on the side or do music as their hobby. Even a lot of my favorite bands, bigger bands.
I got into music with that kind of mindset that I was just going to play music on the side and have some sort of job. I didn't go through my choices after I left school. It was either going to university and studying computer science or what my teachers at school recommended. I didn't think music would be useful. I thought that computers would be more useful at the time.
So, I did that, and then after doing Hellripper and various other bands, musical things for a few years, I realized things were getting a bit more serious. I believe it was in 2019 that I started making enough to consider it my actual job, which was luckily enough around the same time I had just graduated university and moved to a different city. I think I graduated university in the summer of 2018. Moved to a city and I worked on the EP while looking for a job in a new city. Then, the EP came out, and we went on tour and that was the point where it kind of became my job. I'm very grateful that I'm able to do that because I say it is very difficult in this industry to do that. Around that time, I started taking it more seriously making plans to keep it a full-time job, like properly budgeting and having better organization and trying to organize all the business side of things to make it.
M.I. - It seems you took a different path, but in the end it merged into what you wanted to do.
Yes!
M.I. - You started only with the idea of launching an EP, and look at how far you have come. Would you ever consider that? You got into where you are right now or not so much?
That was the goal. At the time, Hellripper was a side project. I had a band with my friends going and we were doing a lot of shows in the UK and touring a little in the UK and things, and we were doing okay. We were a big success, but we were having fun and we released a few EPs, and I just had the idea to write some music in a style that I liked, metal punk kind of style.
Again, it started as a side project. I thought “I'll release an EP, and then when I have time, I'll do some stuff, and just see what happens”. I didn't expect the EP to get the attention it did. Then, it had a gradual growth. The first few years I still didn’t get a lot of recognition and stuff, but it was considerably more than I had had with previous things. Plus, I found out as well at the same time that I enjoyed writing this kind of music more. I enjoyed the way of working by myself more. Everything kind of lined up to make me focus on Hellripper, and it's been around 12 years or something.
M.I. - Now, talking about the album or albums in this case. So, Warlocks and Grim was released three years ago. What have you been doing lately?
Since 2023, we just did a lot of touring, mainly Europe. We did also a few things in the UK, trying to increase and get to more places.
We were on a couple of support tours with bands like Warbringer and Abbath. We also did loads of festivals, and in the middle, I released a single in 2024. I think it was the end of 2024. I'm always recording. We went to Mexico and the US for the first time, just for a couple of festival appearances.
This past year has been like traveling almost every week. I don't think we did any proper tour last year in 2025, but it was one or two festival shows almost every weekend. There was a lot of travel involved. I'm in the Scottish Highlands, so it takes around 4 hours for me to get to an airport. Then the flights and then getting back and then organizing times between flights and transport to get back home and things like that. For one show, one weekend, maybe I'll wait four days of the week, three or four days of the week, and then we will repeat the next week. It’s been busy in that way. I thought that would be easier than touring, but I didn’t quite consider the amount of travel involved. That is something I'll probably change in the future.
M.I. - We already know that Hellripper focuses a lot on the Scottish history and lore. The same goes for Coronach?
Yes. Some more of each song again is Scottish themed in some way. There’s a lot of folklore and legends, some true stories, historical stories back in 19th century Edinburgh. There's some kind of influence from a Scottish literature, Robert Louis Stevenson, who's quite a famous author, or even some poetry and then a few new things that I tried… it was kind of injecting my own personal experience into some of the songs.
I've never really written anything with personal themes or personal views or whatever because in general, it doesn't really fit the lyrics, or the aesthetics of Hellripper. I feel more comfortable writing about more stories and things like that. However, this time I wanted to try something different. There’s a bit of my experience growing up in Aberdeen in the northeast of Scotland and writing in a way that fits the Hellripper aesthetic.
M.I. - Also on his album, you decided to use a whole set of instruments such as piano, cello, violin. We can actually say that the essence of black metal is there, but could we state that Hellripper is merging in the future with other genres?
I can't really say that. It just really depends what I'm in my mindset. The only limitation I really place on myself is that I want the band to remain speed metal, black speed metal at its core.
It’s always going to be a black/ speed band, but I want to bring in these different elements. You have songs that sound more punk, there are songs that sound more death metal, and incorporating those different instruments it's just a way to keep myself inspired.
I never know what I’m going to feel like and what I'm going to want to write. Each album is a reflection of my mindset at that time and what I'm listening to and what I'm inspired to do creatively. Sometimes I just want to write a song with no over complications, no frills.
I just want to write a rock and roll song. Sometimes I want to go a bit crazy and try loads of different vocal styles and production ideas and instruments, like you say, and do something a bit weird. I guess over the course of the album writing and recording process, I don't like to set aside one month or something to record the album. It's just recorded in little pieces throughout until it's done really, like three or four years until everything's done.
M.I. - It's good to not to be stuck in one genre. It helps to broaden your horizons and not many musicians and bands tend to expand their musical tastes.
It just works for people. If you want to write something and stay within a genre or stay sounding like a certain thing, that's perfectly fine if that's authentic.
For me, I like a lot of different things. I like experimenting with things, and it makes sense to me to do these other things, as long as it's authentic, an authentic punk band, that just sticks like all the songs are one minute, two minutes.
M.I. - Even the artwork packs that black metal idea. How close do you as a band work with artists and designers to come up with such amazing covers?
It really depends. Usually, I'm not the best visual artist. I’m not the best on that side of things. I usually let the artist have as much control as possible.
So sometimes I will give an idea that I've had or maybe a color palette that I have in mind. Perhaps I’ll say I want a landscape, or I want this here or something, but in general, it's just a brief, very brief idea. I say to the artist, do what you think fits the music, to fit any lyrics that I have or song titles and usually they will give a sketch or a few, but rough ideas or something and then go from there.
After choosing what they have sketched, then they will do some work on that and there's not really any disapproval. The artists that I've worked with in the past, who have done the last two albums they're amazing at what they do.
M.I. - James, my last question and actually my favorite one. If you had to name two or three albums that helped to shape Coronach’s production, which ones should it be?
Perhaps Still Life or Ghost Reveries by Opeth. One of those, or basically Opeth in general, but those albums helped a lot in the experimental side and the use of some keyboards and synths and ham and organs and things. The Holy Bible, by Manic Street Preachers, became one of my favorite albums of all time. There's a little influence you would hear in the music.
I was listening to a lot of that and those are things that would always be your associations with Hellripper, such as Metallica, Venom, Bathory. And that's always kind of there.
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Questions by André Neves
