Artist: Paul Ablaze, lead singer for Blackguard
Label: Sumerian Records
Interview Date: 3/1/2010
Genre: Pagan Metal
I learned about Blackguard first from a noted scribe in Metal’s realm and then from Alissa White-Gluz, the singer for The Agonist and with such powerful believers in their camp I felt compelled to look into them. At the time the band was known as Profugis Mortis and they had never been over to this region, and since I had no direct contact with them outside of the Internet, I was left to enjoying their MySpace songs while maintaining a hope that they would one day embark on a US tour of some kind. Since this time the band had signed a US deal to Sumerian Records and a European one with Nuclear Blast Records and most important of all – had changed their name to the much more imposing “Blackguard”. The name change seemed to open new doors for them as we found the band appearing on the second go round of Pagan Fest and then on tour with bands like Ensiferum and Epica. PiercingMetal.com was able to sit down with the bands singer Paul Ablaze for a quick chat and here are the results of our discussion.
PiercingMetal: Let’s start with a very simple one. What made you decide to change the bands name from “Profugis Mortis” to “Blackguard” and how long has the band been together for those just coming into learning about you at this point in time.
Ablaze: We’ll the band has been together since about 2001. It started with Terry and juice and since then the band has developed into the line-up you see today. There’s only been one line up change since our first record “so it begins” and that was the replacement of our former Violinist for our current lead guitarist Kim.
As for the name change, it initially started before the first record. We tried changing it then but we couldn’t agree on a name. Then when we started talking with Nuclear Blast Records they were telling us that there were a lot of bands around Europe with very similar names, so they asked us if we’d be willing to change, so we gave it another go and decided on BLACKGUARD.
Continue reading PiercingMetal Talks To Blackguard’s Paul Ablaze (3/2010)