Finding the Path to Enlightenment:

An Interview with Jeff Shirilla and Alan Seibert of

By Bob Ignizio

Left to right: Alan Seibert, Jim Simonian, Jeff Shirilla, Ed Stevens, Aaron Dallison

Abdullah’s website describes their sound as “the place where beauty meets darkness.  They showed the world what they meant with their self titled debut on Meteor City Records in 2000.  That album’s mix of Sabbathesque riffs and melodic vocals brought the band a respectable cult following both in the U.S. and abroad.  For their second full length, ‘Graveyard Poetry,’ they’ve picked up the tempo and expanded their influences.  “It was a conscious decision to change so we wouldn’t be labeled as a doom band forever,” says guitarist Alan Seibert.  “Our first album was perceived as doom by most people, and that’s not really what we set out to do.  We want to be able to show more variety and pull in some more of our influences from the new wave of British heavy metal, stuff like early Motley Crue, or simple thrash and death metal.”   Still, for anyone familiar with the band ‘Graveyard Poetry’ is unmistakably an Abdullah album.

For those who don’t know much about the band, a little history.  Vocalist Jeff Shirilla had been recording demos at home under the Abdullah name for some time.  “Demo #3 pretty much laid the groundwork for the Abdullah sound,” Jeff explained, “but the first 2 are almost like excursions into noise: primal and experimental.  It would be fun to rework some of that material one of these days.”  He hooked up with guitarist Alan Seibert through an ad at a music store in 1999, and the two of them wrote and recorded the ‘Snake Lore’ demo.  “It got picked up by Rage of Achilles in England, and then we got signed to Meteor City here in the States for our first real album.  ‘Snake Lore’ was just supposed to be a demo,” says Alan.

When it came time to do their first official album, the band chose to record at Suma studios and produced it themselves with the assistance of engineer Paul Hammond.  Unable to put a full band together in time, they did the album as a two piece with help from Jamie (Boulder) Walters and Ed Milich on bass.  Jeff played the drum parts himself.  Since then they’ve put together a killer line-up with Ed Stevens on bass and Jim Simonian on drums who make their recording debuts with the band on ‘Graveyard Poetry’.  They also recently added second guitarist Aaron (Keelhaul) Dallison, although not in time to appear on the new recording.

The tracks for ‘Graveyard Poetry’ were once again laid down at Suma, a situation the band clearly likes.  With regards to engineer Paul Hammond, Alan says, “He offered help as far as making sure the pitch on the vocals was good.  He had a better ear than we did.  He helped out when we wanted things to sound a certain way.  He does help us with the production.”  Despite having a full band this time out, Alan says recording their second album wasn’t all that different.  “Jeff demoed the drums, and Jim pretty much played those parts.  The bass is more Ed doing his thing, so that was different.  The album was still written mainly by Jeff, and then I’d write my solos. I also wrote the music for 3 songs.  The next one will probably be more of full band collaboration.”