Before hitting the road with Orange Goblin on their farewell tour in December, URNE guitarist Angus Neyra reflects on his band’s first tour with the stoner-metal legends in 2021. “They were the first big band to give us a chance, so this is a real full circle moment,” he says.
“That was around our debut LP Serpent & Spirit, when we were still finding our feet. There’s a raw, bluesy, almost rock ’n’ roll sound to our earlier stuff, compared to our heavier sound now.”
URNE channeled a series of painful personal struggles into 2023’s Feast on Sorrow, so they wanted to go down a different road with latest album Setting Fire To The Sky.
“It’s still a very dark-sounding album – especially the riffs – but lyrically it’s about the positivity of music and how that’s shaped us,” Neyra says. “I first saw Metallica at Earl’s Court during the St. Anger tour. When the first chord rang out live it went through me. That feeling of being part of something bigger than yourself is what we’re trying to capture.”
He believes lead single Harken the Waves best captures where URNE are as a band. Pointing out his band are no strangers to releasing longer singles, he adds that their attitude was: “Fuck it – let’s just release a nine-minute song as our next single!”
The track features vocals from Mastodon’s Troy Sanders. “Even getting the chance to collaborate with Troy still blows our minds,” Neyra says. “Another early gig for me was Slayer and Slipknot with Mastodon and Hatebreed. I was one of those kids queueing up at 11am to get to the barrier. So to work with Troy on any level was inspiring.
“Joe Nally [vocals] sent him the lyrics, but it was up to Troy how he delivered. He showed us that it’s always about serving the song rather than serving yourself as a musician. What you hear on the raw takes is what you hear on the record – pure, unfiltered Troy.”
URNE have added a new live member for their future dates. “A good friend of ours, Kurt Bagley, is joining on guitar,” Neyra says.” We’ve had a few rehearsals and it sounds unreal. Being a power trio was fun, but changing it makes sense, because the new album has more layers sonically.
“I made the sound as big and wide as possible using delay and an AB splitter into a Marshall and an Orange cab. But there’s only so much you can do with one guitar. With Kurt on board, it’s like going from being an only child to having a brother!”
After his Gibson SG got damaged on a flight, Neyra recently dusted off one of his first guitars – a Schecter Hellraiser with EMG pickups. “I grew up in the shred era; I was learning from tutorial videos by Paul Gilbert and John Petrucci. I still use the warm-ups from Petrucci’s Rock Discipline DVD.
“The scope of guitar has changed now, with someone like Tim Henson at the top of this generation of players, but some of my current favourites are Mateus Asato, Josh Meader and Josh Loomis.”
But the Schecter can take a break, since Neyra has become an LTD artist. He plays a Horizon Custom ‘87 fitted with Seymour Duncans for a vintage sound – and the deal came about because of a scribble he did at school.
“I was going through a memory box of old tickets and found a Year 7 textbook with a doodle of my dream guitar at the time, an ESP Crucify, with the end of a cross over the Floyd Rose,” he recalls.
“It’s a silly kid’s drawing, but I sent it to ESP and it got to [Director of Artist Relations] Tony Rauser, who thought it was cool. He caught us live at Hellfest this summer, and from there we did a deal. If it wasn’t for that silly drawing on my maths textbook…!”
URNE are still a DIY band. On their 2023 tour with Gojira they drove their van full of gear 12 to 14 hours a day. Neyra’s rig at the time – an Orange Crush Pro, Friedman Brown Eye 100, two cabs and a large ’board – was very cumbersome. Perhaps it’s no surprise he’s now a Quad Cortex convert.
“I wouldn’t have thought to do it 10 years ago, but the technology is so unreal,” he says. “I now blend a similar dual-amp sound and the difference is miniscule; the Neural DSP guys have really nailed it.”
Both he and Bagley will be running a wet/dry blend of two amps each to create a wall of sound on stage. “It’ll sound like we have four amps on stage, which I like. If we’re going full Spinal Tap and turning up to 11, I’d like eight amps onstage – why not?!”
- URNE’s new single Be Not Dismayed is out now via Spinefarm. Setting Fire to the Sky is released on January 30 and available for preorder now.
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