{"id":604693,"date":"2026-05-26T11:58:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T11:58:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/604693\/"},"modified":"2026-05-26T11:58:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T11:58:12","slug":"urne-metal-hammer-interview-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/604693\/","title":{"rendered":"Urne Metal Hammer interview 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

Urne frontman Joe Nally is in record nerd heaven. He\u2019s holding a vintage vinyl copy of Deep Purple<\/a>\u2019s iconic 1970 album, In Rock, with the reverence most people would reserve for a religious artefact.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is incredible,\u201d he says of the record, which is held up as one of metal\u2019s foundation stones. \u201cPlus you look at the family tree of that band, and you\u2019ve got the best education on heavy metal you could dream of.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

He\u2019s properly nerding out now. Deep Purple leads to Rainbow, he explains, the band formed by guitar wizard Ritchie Blackmore and featuring a young(ish) Ronnie James Dio. Which in turn leads to the latter\u2019s eponymous band, Dio. Which in turn leads to\u2026<\/p>\n

Latest Videos From Louder<\/p>\n

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\u201cThat\u2019s where the title of our new album came from,\u201d says Joe, referring to Urne\u2019s recently released third album, Setting Fire To The Sky. \u201cThere\u2019s a quote in Dio\u2019s book where he said that he used to stand back and watch Ritchie Blackmore set fire to the sky \u2013 it\u2019s our little thank-you to the people that created us all.\u201d<\/p>\n

We\u2019re in Across The Tracks, a record shop in Brighton, an hour along the coast from Joe\u2019s hometown of St. Leonard\u2019s-On-Sea. We\u2019re here to talk to him about Urne and Setting Fire To The Sky, but he\u2019s suggested it won\u2019t hurt to do a little record shopping first. Right now, he\u2019s enthusiastically pulling out pre-loved copies of everything from his favourite Thin Lizzy album, 1979\u2019s Black Rose, to original pressings of albums by the 60s soul bands he loves, from The Four Tops to The Drifters.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just love music,\u201d he says with a grin, as he digs through the crates in front of him. \u201cHow could you not? How can you not respect these giants and the things they did?\u201d<\/p>\n

URNE – Be Not Dismayed (Official Music Video) – YouTube
\n\"URNE<\/p>\n

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Unsurprisingly, Joe\u2019s passion for music extends to his own band, who he believes might just be the best-kept secret in British metal right now. Urne \u2013 completed by guitarist Angus Neyra, drummer James Cook and recently added second guitarist Kurtis Bagley \u2013 have been on a serious hot streak. 2018\u2019s The Mountain Of Gold EP was promising, 2021\u2019s debut album Serpent & Spirit was a significant step up in quality, and then came 2023\u2019s A Feast On Sorrow, which was one of the finest metal albums of that year.<\/p>\n

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We get compared to Mastodon quite a lot, so we were a little nervous at sending Troy Sanders something to work on.<\/p>\n

Joe Nally Urne<\/p>\n

Produced by no less a luminary than Gojira<\/a>\u2019s Joe Duplantier, who heard Serpent & Spirit and reached out personally to the band to offer his services, A Feast On Sorrow saw the Urne singer\/ bassist expressing complex and unfiltered emotions about his father\u2019s battle with dementia to a soundtrack of sludgy yet powerful and epic metal. It drew comparisons with Mastodon\u2019s Crack The Skye and Gojira\u2019s Magma, yet it didn\u2019t propel them forwards in the way they would have hoped.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wish more people had heard that album at the time, yeah,\u201d Joe admits over a post-record store geek-out roast dinner at The Connaught pub. \u201cI guess it was just the wrong time. I have had a few people discover the album since, I\u2019ve had lots of messages about how it helped people who were in a similar situation with a family member. They said it really captured that helplessness they felt.\u201d<\/p>\n

He sighs and rubs his temple for a second. \u201cWhich is obviously great that they connected to it like that,\u201d he continues. \u201cBut I\u2019m just a normal bloke. It\u2019s hard to know what to say to them. So, we had to go another route this time.\u201d<\/p>\n

What to read next<\/p>\n

I focused on what gave me joy, which brought me back to the music of my childhood, my safe space.<\/p>\n

Joe Nally, Urne<\/p>\n

The route he\u2019s talking about involved realising that they couldn\u2019t replicate the emotional heft of A Feast On Sorrow, so there was no point even trying to match it. Instead, with Setting Fire To The Sky, Urne have delivered a set of instantaneously massive ragers designed to be chanted along to by thousands in a festival field.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s definitely a lot more uplifting,\u201d says Joe. \u201cThere\u2019s still some sorrowful stuff on the album towards the end, but the overall vision is much more one of positivity. I focused on what gave me joy, which brought me back to the music of my childhood, my safe space.\u201d<\/p>\n

Joe is never more than a couple of sentences away from bringing up his musical heroes. It\u2019s refreshing these days to talk to a musician who seems incapable of not enthusing about their favourite music at any given moment.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do think that there\u2019s a problem with a lot of new bands not really digging back into the past and discovering what inspired their heroes,\u201d he says. \u201cYou love Metallica, yeah\u2026 well, what made Cliff Burton tick? Go and find out, it can only make you better as a musician. But I see a lot of hate and dismissiveness online at stuff being \u2018old\u2019 or \u2018irrelevant\u2019. It does my fucking head in!\u201d<\/p>\n

His own passion came from being brought up in a household full of music \u2013 classic rock from his dad and soul from his mum. But he was also inspired as a young lad by his godfather, dance DJ, A&R rep and studio owner Jeff Young, who would let him come to the studio and listen to albums, demos and unmixed projects by a variety of artists.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was mad as a young kid to see these people,\u201d he says. \u201cOne day [Stone Roses frontman] Ian Brown would be coming in, then [Oasis\u2019s] Noel Gallagher would be in the room across from me the next day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Joe and Angus themselves have had an unlikely flirtation with the mainstream music industry. Pre-Urne, they were both members of much-missed stoner-sludge punks Hang The Bastard. The latter band were signed to Jay-Z\u2019s Roc Nation management company \u2013 an unlikely union on paper and, it turns out, in reality too.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt wasn\u2019t right,\u201d says Joe of being stablemates with the likes of Rita Ora. \u201cJust not the right people around us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, the experience made Joe hungry to climb the ladder once again. Urne are signed to Spinefarm and, he says, have the right team around them to succeed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve never felt so much support and belief from a label before,\u201d says Joe. \u201cOur manager said this is one of his favourite records he\u2019s worked on in 30 years. That\u2019s nice to hear. That makes you feel good.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"Urne\n<\/p>\n

(Image credit: Andy Ford)<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a measure of Urne\u2019s upward march that, three years after Joe Duplantier produced A Feast On Sorrow, they\u2019ve bagged a couple of impressive guests on Setting Fire To The Sky. Virtuoso cellist Jo Quail adds atmosphere on powerful album closer Breathe, while the epic Harken The Waves prominently features Mastodon<\/a>\u2019s Troy Sanders on vocals.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do get compared to Mastodon quite a lot, so we were a little nervous at sending him something in the first place,\u201d says Joe. \u201cWe just said, \u2018If you like it, that\u2019s great\u2019. He came back saying, \u2018I love it, I\u2019ll do it for nothing.\u2019 We thought, rather than just give him one verse or something, let him do what he does with Mastodon but on an Urne track. He was so great.\u201d<\/p>\n

So now, with this momentum and support, there\u2019s really no reason for Urne not to fulfil the potential they\u2019ve shown for so many years. Right?<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, I guess so,\u201d comes the reply. \u201cI do think that there have been a lot of other bands that have been getting the press and the hype more than us for a long time, but I hope that this changes with this record. Then that opens the door for some of the even bigger ideas that we\u2019ve got. We\u2019ve got grand designs, mate, don\u2019t you worry about that!\u201d<\/p>\n

And you\u2019ve always got the music haven\u2019t you?<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, big time,\u201d says Joe. \u201cWe\u2019ve always got that family tree. We\u2019ve always got Dio.\u201d<\/p>\n

Setting Fire To The Sky is out now via Spinefarm. Urne play Bloodstock in August and tour the UK in November. <\/p>\n

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