Interview Charnel Crown

Formed in late 2025, Charnel Crown blends raw honesty with groove-driven intensity, turning personal struggle and working-class realities into powerful, unfiltered metal rooted in authenticity and lived experience.

1. Charnel Crown formed quite recently in December 2025—what brought the four of you together, and what was the initial spark behind starting the band?

Charnel Crown came together in December 2025, but the foundations of it go back much further than that. Stephen and Adam had been best friends since they were kids and had been jamming together for years, always trying to find the right people to really push a serious project forward with. Spencer linked up with them through an Irish metal ‘find a musician’ page and started playing alongside them. Spencer had known me briefly beforehand, so we got talking and everything naturally progressed from there.

Around that same time, I (Dean) was going through a really rough period mentally. I had a breakdown in late 2025 and ended up in hospital being assessed. I don’t mind speaking openly about that because I genuinely believe people should seek help when they need it and never feel ashamed for doing so. I remember sitting there with my mother beside me and she was reminding me that I had a good life, a good wife, good friends, that I was a good brother and a good son. But I told her that those were things I was for other people — I didn’t really know who I was for myself anymore.

She told me I needed to get back to music and back to being in a band because that’s what I genuinely loved doing. I’d been away from music for about seven years at that point. That same night in hospital, I messaged Spencer about getting together, and he invited me down to jam with the band.

Honestly, from the very first jam, it felt different straight away. Even though the four of us come from completely different areas, we clicked musically and personally almost instantly. There was no ego and nothing felt forced. Very quickly it became more than just a band — it became a genuine friendship, and in a lot of ways Charnel Crown helped me reconnect with myself again.

2. Your sound is rooted in groove, intensity, and honesty rather than reinvention. In a scene that often pushes for innovation, why was it important for you to focus on authenticity instead?

From the start, we had no desire to reinvent the wheel or pretend we were creating some brand-new genre. We just wanted to play heavy music born from a genuine love for the bands and sounds that shaped us. At the same time, I think our different tastes are a huge reason why our sound is becoming what it is. Between the four of us there are influences ranging from Black Sabbath, Pantera, Tool and Sepultura to rap music, grassroots music, metalcore and loads of styles outside metal as well. Charnel Crown has become a vehicle for us to play what we want to play and say what we want to say without overthinking things or forcing an image.

With the greatest respect to everyone out there, I do think the word ‘innovation’ gets thrown around a lot nowadays. A lot of the time you’ll hear people calling a band ‘the next big thing’ or saying they’re reinventing metal, but then they sound identical to ten other bands you’d see in your local dive bar. That’s not me taking shots at anyone either — there are still bands genuinely pushing boundaries. Bands like Gojira and Orbit Culture are constantly evolving what metal can sound like. But for us, I don’t want to lie to people and pretend we’ve reinvented heavy music.

What we can promise is honesty. We’re your brothers, your sons, your friends, your husbands, your co-workers — we’re people like you. That’s where the song title came from in the first place. We just happen to express ourselves through heavy music.

3. “People Like You” tackles working-class frustration and resilience. Can you tell us more about the message behind the track and what inspired its lyrical direction?

 ‘People Like You’ was really born from observing everyday life and the frustrations a lot of ordinary working people carry around with them silently. Financial pressure, mental health struggles, feeling overlooked, trying to hold yourself together while still being there for everyone else — I think a lot of people are carrying that weight now whether they admit it or not.

Lyrically, I didn’t want to write from the perspective of somebody looking down on people or preaching at them. The whole point of the song is that we are those people. We’re not larger-than-life rockstars detached from reality. We work jobs, pay bills, struggle, worry, support our families and try to figure life out like everyone else. That’s where the title came from — we are people like you.

A lot of the emotion in the song also came from personal experience. Around the time the band formed, I was dealing with a lot mentally and trying to reconnect with who I was again after years away from music. So, there’s definitely anger and frustration in the track, but there’s also resilience in it. The message isn’t ‘feel sorry for yourself’ - it’s about enduring, surviving and finding strength in the fact that none of us are alone in what we go through.

There’s a lyric in the song ‘won’t let this life make a victim of me’ and I think that line really sums up the heart of the track. Life can beat people down, but the song is ultimately about refusing to stay there.

4. There’s a strong sense of lived experience in your music. How much of your personal backgrounds shape the themes you explore as a band?

Adam and Stephen both work in trades like carpentry and construction, I spent years slaving away in restaurants before eventually ending up working in finance, and Spencer works an office job as well. None of us have lived sheltered lives or been handed shortcuts, and I think that naturally comes through in the music.

A lot of the themes we explore come from pressure, responsibility, mental health, exhaustion, trying to keep yourself afloat while balancing work, relationships and everyday life. We know what it’s like to wake up early for work after a late-night rehearsal, or to carry stress from normal life into the practice room. That’s why I think people connect to the music — because it’s grounded in experiences that ordinary people understand.

For me personally, growing up in an underdeveloped area where drugs were rampant and violence to some extent was normal definitely shaped my perspective on life. You become aware of struggle very early. Right now, homelessness in our country is at an all-time high, drug abuse is everywhere and a lot of people try to dilute those realities by saying things like ‘it could be worse’ or ‘that happens everywhere.’ But when you grow up around those environments and see the effect it has on people, families and communities firsthand, it stays with you.

I think all of that naturally feeds into the music and lyrics as well. Not from a place of pretending we have all the answers, but from a place of having genuinely lived around these things and wanting to express the emotions and frustrations that come with them.

5. You’ve already shared stages with major acts like Xentrix, Chelsea Grin, Avatar, Fozzy, Jinjer, and Evil Scarecrow. How have those live experiences influenced your approach to performance and songwriting?

Between all of us, we’ve actually built up a fair bit of experience over the years, both good and bad. Before Charnel Crown, I was in bands called Call To Arms and Antidotes, and we got opportunities to play with some incredible bands like Chelsea Grin, Jinjer and Avatar alongside some of the other bands mentioned. I was only about 18 or 19 at the time, so realistically I was still just a kid, but I listened carefully to every piece of advice those bands and people around the scene gave me. I was lucky enough to build a pretty decent reputation with promoters around the country through that period as well.

Spencer also came into Charnel Crown with a lot of experience through his previous bands Unmaker and Saint Slaughter, including doing an Irish tour with Xentrix. So collectively, we’ve all seen different sides of being in bands — the highs, the disappointments, the chaos, the lessons that come with it — and I think that experience has helped shape how seriously we approach Charnel Crown.

One thing we all know is how important a live show is. Heavy music should feel physical and memorable when you experience it in person. Even though July 10th in Fibber Magees will technically be Charnel Crown’s live debut for now, we’ve approached it with a lot of thought and preparation. We actually wrote the EP before focusing heavily on live shows, and once the songs became tighter, we started rehearsing them specifically in a live context — discussing transitions, crowd interaction, pacing, atmosphere and different moments within the set. We want people leaving that room remembering the experience, not just the songs.

6. Your upcoming EP Such Is Life is on the horizon—what can listeners expect in terms of sound, themes, and evolution from the debut single?

“People can expect a groove metal EP made from the f**king soul. Charnel Crown isn’t interested in making background music — we wanted Such Is Life to feel emotional, aggressive, human and real from beginning to end.

We have ‘People Like You’, which was released on May 1st, and then our second single from the EP, ‘In For A Penny’, drops on June 1st alongside a lyric video created by Very Metal Art UK. I genuinely think people are going to be surprised by the diversity across the EP. We’ve said from the start that we’re not trying to reinvent the wheel, but at the same time the four of us have a ridiculous number of influences between us, and I think that naturally comes through in the songwriting.

There are straight-up heavy tracks on the EP, there are songs built around groove and aggression, and there are moments that are a lot more emotional and atmospheric as well — almost ballad-like in places, dare I say it. There are tracks you can bang your head to, tracks you can bop to, tracks you can dance to and honestly tracks you can f**king cry to if you want.

Lyrically as well, we’re telling stories that come from our own experiences. We’re writing about people we grew up with, people we’ve lost, people we’ve loved and the environments that shaped us. A lot of it comes from real hardship, but at the same time, isn’t that what makes life worth living in the first place? At least we had something to feel deeply about — something to be sad about, angry about, happy about. That’s what makes it f**king worth it.

At the core of it all, nothing on the EP was written to chase trends or algorithms. We just wanted to make music that genuinely reflects who we are and what we’ve lived through.

7. Dublin has a strong underground metal scene. How has being part of that environment shaped your identity as a band?

Honestly, Ireland has produced some absolutely stellar bands over the years. Bands like Dead Label, The Scratch when they were still Red Enemy, Broken Habit, New Enemy, Pain In Vain, If It Bleeds, Ritual Effect and Boyracer — every one of those bands sounds different from the next, but what they all did was make the rest of us want to raise our level and play better.

The scene is definitely different now compared to what it was ten years ago, but it’s still incredibly vibrant and passionate. There are people in this country working unbelievably hard to keep heavy music alive. We’re lucky to have promoters like Bad Reputation putting on events like Siege of Limerick every year, which is honestly one of the best stages an Irish metal band can play. You’ve also got Our Divide Promotions constantly showcasing local talent and Overdrive.ie who have done massive things for heavy music in Ireland for years — they actually put our EPK together as well.

What’s shaped our identity most is probably that sense of community and resilience within the Irish scene. Most bands here aren’t coming from massive industry machines — people are balancing work, real life and music because they genuinely love it. That creates an atmosphere where bands really have to earn their place and support each other at the same time.

We’re fully independent ourselves, so the amount of support and press we’ve received already from Ireland, the UK, Germany, Spain, Greece, America and Brazil has honestly been overwhelming in the best possible way. But at the same time, we genuinely feel like we’re only getting started.

8. You describe your music as “no gimmicks, no pretence.” In today’s music industry, do you feel pressure to adopt trends or aesthetics, and how do you resist that?

There’s definitely pressure nowadays to constantly chase trends, aesthetics and algorithms because that’s the reality of the modern music industry. Bands are expected to constantly create content, build a brand and keep attention spans alive 24/7. And to be fair, we understand that side of things — promotion matters and you have to adapt to the times you’re living in.

But I think the danger comes when the image starts becoming more important than the music itself. For us, the songs always have to come first. We never want Charnel Crown to feel manufactured or overly calculated. If people connect with us, we want it to be because they genuinely feel something from the music and the energy behind it, not because we’ve forced an aesthetic or copied whatever trend is popular that month.

We’ll use social media; we’ll promote ourselves and we’ll work hard to grow the band — absolutely. But at the end of the day, we’re still just four lads who want to write heavy music and put on unforgettable live shows. That’s the core of it.

9. Groove metal has a rich legacy with bands like Pantera, Lamb of God, and Machine Head. How do you balance honoring those influences while carving out your own identity?

“Honestly, we love all the bands mentioned there. Pantera, Lamb of God and Machine Head all helped shape heavy music into what it is today and you’d be lying if you said those kinds of bands didn’t influence you as a metal musician.

But I think the important thing is that we’re not just taking influence from one lane of music. We’ll take a hundred different influences and turn them into whatever naturally comes out when the four of us write together. That’s why I think the EP moves through so many different moods and dynamics. There are peaks and valleys throughout it — different writing approaches, different emotional tones, different energies from track to track.

I think every band eventually finds its footing and its identity over time, and honestly, I feel like we’re already starting to discover ours naturally through the songwriting process. We never sat down and said, ‘this is the exact sound we need to have.’ We just focused on making music that excited us creatively, and I think that’s where a genuine identity comes from in the first place.”

10. With your debut EP coming and more live dates planned, what does success look like for Charnel Crown in the next year?

Success for us over the next year is really about getting the music in front of as many people as possible and continuing to build things organically. We want to be featured on as many radio stations as we can, get onto as many playlists as possible, play shows all over Ireland and hopefully start properly breaking into the UK scene as well.

Right now, everything still feels like it’s only beginning for Charnel Crown. We have our second single ‘In For A Penny’ coming out on June 4th and we genuinely can’t wait for people to hear it because the reaction and press we’ve received so far from ‘People Like You’ has honestly been phenomenal. The support from Ireland, the UK, Europe, America and Brazil has completely blown us away.

The EP Such Is Life is coming this summer and we’ve also got a few live shows in the works that we can’t officially announce just yet because we’re still waiting on final confirmation from the promoters’ side. But the goal is simple — keep growing, keep improving, keep putting on great live shows and hopefully build something that lasts.

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