Jonny Maudling
Encyclopedia
Jonny Maudling is an English composer, keyboard
player and former drummer
for the band Bal-Sagoth
. Maudling's primary instruments
are Roland
synthesizer
s when playing live. He comes from a musical family and was classically trained on piano from an early age. He has contributed to three My Dying Bride
studio albums, provided session orchestration on material by Sermon of Hypocrisy, and played guest keyboards on a full length release by the Ukrainian metal band Semargl. He composed music for the video game Adellion. Currently Maudling is a producer and engineer, operating his own recording studio
called Waylands Forge Studios
in Yorkshire
, England
.
Although he composes music mostly in the symphonic metal
/black metal
genres, Maudling's main influences include mostly non-metal bands such as The Police, Tangerine Dream
, Queen
, Pat Metheny
, as well as classical
composers such as Wagner
, Stravinsky
, Tchaikovsky
, Messiaen
and Holst
.
, and grew up in Sheffield
, Yorkshire. In Kent, Maudling's parents lived opposite a music store. The store owner, Terry Bradford, who ended up representing Britain
on the TV show A Song For Europe
in the 1970s, was a friend of Maudling's father and received free records, most of which were classical
, contemporary music and Jazz
. Jonny grew up listening to these records, educating himself in a wide variety of musical styles
. He had private piano instruction, working through the Royal Academy of Music
grade system under Elizabeth Hydes.
At school in South Yorkshire
, he learnt to play guitar
and bass guitar
. He played in various bands in his teen years, performing gigs in pubs and nightclubs around the area. He started song writing at this time. He bought his first synthesizer
in the mid 1980s with the money he earned working on Saturdays. After completing school, Maudling tried out for music college, but was considered a borderline candidate with substandard sight-reading ability. He opted instead to concentrate on band work.
outfit called Ignitor. Brought together from Maudling's musical friends, this band recorded two demos and performed gigs around England, the most high profile of which was a support slot with prominent thrash metal outfit Xentrix
.
Through Alistair MacLatchy, a former bandmate of prominent extreme metal drummer Nicholas Barker
, Maudling was introduced to vocalist/lyricist Byron Roberts
in 1993. For several years, Roberts had been looking for talented musicians with whom to launch his symphonic black metal
band Bal-Sagoth
, but had been unable to meet anyone willing to commit to the project. As a result of MacLatchy's introductions, Jonny, his brother Chris and Byron began working together in a band environment.
This new outfit went loosely under the provisional name of "Dusk" for several months, as MacLatchy did not like the name Bal-Sagoth, nor the symphonic black metal direction which Roberts had suggested.
Because of creative and musical differences in direction and style, the band soon parted ways with MacLatchy. With the introduction of keyboards, the band found their focus. Roberts had the creative team he had long sought and brought a conceptual vision to the band. For Maudling, this presented a creative musical freedom which set the outfit apart from the rest. Roberts, an English post-grad with an interest in 20th century pulp sci-fi writers, could finally implement the ideas he had had for years. Bal-Sagoth was thus born during the summer of 1993.
On the strength of their demo which they recorded during December 1993, the band were signed by Cacophonous Records, a then small subsidiary of Vinyl Solution
based in London. Later, they would sign to Nuclear Blast
for three albums, recording a total of six albums to date.
Maudling composes the music for Bal-Sagoth, sometimes incorporating ideas from his brother, guitarist Chris. He played drums on the first three albums and during subsequent tours, using a session keyboard player, but in 1999 Maudling opted to concentrate full time on keyboards and composition, handing drum duties off to Dave Mackintosh
(Dragonforce
).
Maudling also played keyboards on the My Dying Bride
albums The Light at the End of the World and The Dreadful Hours
, and composed and recorded all the music for the My Dying Bride release Evinta
, based on the existing compositions as originally written by Andrew Craighan
, Hamish Glencross, et al. He has also contributed keyboard session work to bands including Semargl and Sermon of Hypocrisy.
Keyboardist
A keyboardist is a musician who plays keyboard instruments. Until the early 1960s musicians who played keyboards were generally classified as either pianists or organists. Since the mid-1960s, a plethora of new musical instruments with keyboards have come into common usage, requiring a more...
player and former drummer
Drummer
A drummer is a musician who is capable of playing drums, which includes but is not limited to a drum kit and accessory based hardware which includes an assortment of pedals and standing support mechanisms, marching percussion and/or any musical instrument that is struck within the context of a...
for the band Bal-Sagoth
Bal-Sagoth
Bal-Sagoth is a symphonic black metal band from Yorkshire, England, formed in 1993.Originally formed as an epic/symphonic black metal band with strong death metal elements, vocalist/lyricist Byron Roberts took the name 'Bal-Sagoth' from the Robert E. Howard short story "The Gods of Bal-Sagoth"...
. Maudling's primary instruments
Musical instrument
A musical instrument is a device created or adapted for the purpose of making musical sounds. In principle, any object that produces sound can serve as a musical instrument—it is through purpose that the object becomes a musical instrument. The history of musical instruments dates back to the...
are Roland
Roland
Roland was a Frankish military leader under Charlemagne who became one of the principal figures in the literary cycle known as the Matter of France. Historically, Roland was military governor of the Breton March, with responsibility for defending the frontier of Francia against the Bretons...
synthesizer
Synthesizer
A synthesizer is an electronic instrument capable of producing sounds by generating electrical signals of different frequencies. These electrical signals are played through a loudspeaker or set of headphones...
s when playing live. He comes from a musical family and was classically trained on piano from an early age. He has contributed to three My Dying Bride
My Dying Bride
My Dying Bride are an English doom metal band formed in 1990. To date, My Dying Bride have released eleven full-length studio albums, three EPs, one demo, one box set, four compilation albums, one live album, and one live CD/DVD release. The band released their tenth studio album, For Lies I Sire,...
studio albums, provided session orchestration on material by Sermon of Hypocrisy, and played guest keyboards on a full length release by the Ukrainian metal band Semargl. He composed music for the video game Adellion. Currently Maudling is a producer and engineer, operating his own recording studio
Recording studio
A recording studio is a facility for sound recording and mixing. Ideally both the recording and monitoring spaces are specially designed by an acoustician to achieve optimum acoustic properties...
called Waylands Forge Studios
Waylands Forge Studios
Waylands Forge Studios is a digital recording environment owned and operated by Jonny Maudling of the band Bal-Sagoth. Located in Yorkshire, England, the studio was created in 2001 as a comprehensive work environment to compose and record music for media, tv, film, and the video game industry.The...
in Yorkshire
Yorkshire
Yorkshire is a historic county of northern England and the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its great size in comparison to other English counties, functions have been increasingly undertaken over time by its subdivisions, which have also been subject to periodic reform...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
.
Although he composes music mostly in the symphonic metal
Symphonic metal
Symphonic metal is a term used to describe heavy metal music that has symphonic elements; that is, elements that are either borrowed from classical music or, as with progressive rock music, create a style reminiscent of it, e.g...
/black metal
Black metal
Black metal is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal music. Common traits include fast tempos, shrieked vocals, highly distorted guitars played with tremolo picking, blast beat drumming, raw recording, and unconventional song structure....
genres, Maudling's main influences include mostly non-metal bands such as The Police, Tangerine Dream
Tangerine Dream
Tangerine Dream is a German electronic music group founded in 1967 by Edgar Froese. The band has undergone many personnel changes over the years, with Froese being the only continuous member...
, Queen
Queen (band)
Queen are a British rock band formed in London in 1971, originally consisting of Freddie Mercury , Brian May , John Deacon , and Roger Taylor...
, Pat Metheny
Pat Metheny
Patrick Bruce "Pat" Metheny is an American jazz guitarist and composer.One of the most successful and critically acclaimed jazz musicians to come to prominence in the 1970s and '80s, he is the leader of the Pat Metheny Group and is also involved in duets, solo works and other side projects...
, as well as classical
Classical music
Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...
composers such as Wagner
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
, Stravinsky
Igor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....
, Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (Russian: Пётр Ильи́ч Чайко́вский ; often "Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky" in English. His names are also transliterated "Piotr" or "Petr"; "Ilitsch", "Il'ich" or "Illyich"; and "Tschaikowski", "Tschaikowsky", "Chajkovskij"...
, Messiaen
Olivier Messiaen
Olivier Messiaen was a French composer, organist and ornithologist, one of the major composers of the 20th century. His music is rhythmically complex ; harmonically and melodically it is based on modes of limited transposition, which he abstracted from his early compositions and improvisations...
and Holst
Gustav Holst
Gustav Theodore Holst was an English composer. He is most famous for his orchestral suite The Planets....
.
Early days
Maudling was born in KentKent
Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...
, and grew up in Sheffield
Sheffield
Sheffield is a city and metropolitan borough of South Yorkshire, England. Its name derives from the River Sheaf, which runs through the city. Historically a part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, and with some of its southern suburbs annexed from Derbyshire, the city has grown from its largely...
, Yorkshire. In Kent, Maudling's parents lived opposite a music store. The store owner, Terry Bradford, who ended up representing Britain
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
on the TV show A Song For Europe
A Song for Europe
A Song for Europe may refer to:*A Song for Europe, former name of British pre-selection competition for the Eurovision Song Contest, now known as Eurovision: Your Country Needs You...
in the 1970s, was a friend of Maudling's father and received free records, most of which were classical
Classical music
Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...
, contemporary music and Jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
. Jonny grew up listening to these records, educating himself in a wide variety of musical styles
Music genre
A music genre is a categorical and typological construct that identifies musical sounds as belonging to a particular category and type of music that can be distinguished from other types of music...
. He had private piano instruction, working through the Royal Academy of Music
Royal Academy of Music
The Royal Academy of Music in London, England, is a conservatoire, Britain's oldest degree-granting music school and a constituent college of the University of London since 1999. The Academy was founded by Lord Burghersh in 1822 with the help and ideas of the French harpist and composer Nicolas...
grade system under Elizabeth Hydes.
At school in South Yorkshire
South Yorkshire
South Yorkshire is a metropolitan county in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England. It has a population of 1.29 million. It consists of four metropolitan boroughs: Barnsley, Doncaster, Rotherham, and City of Sheffield...
, he learnt to play guitar
Guitar
The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
and bass guitar
Bass guitar
The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
. He played in various bands in his teen years, performing gigs in pubs and nightclubs around the area. He started song writing at this time. He bought his first synthesizer
Synthesizer
A synthesizer is an electronic instrument capable of producing sounds by generating electrical signals of different frequencies. These electrical signals are played through a loudspeaker or set of headphones...
in the mid 1980s with the money he earned working on Saturdays. After completing school, Maudling tried out for music college, but was considered a borderline candidate with substandard sight-reading ability. He opted instead to concentrate on band work.
Bands
In the late 1980s and early 1990s Maudling played bass, sang and composed songs for a thrash metalThrash metal
Thrash metal is a subgenre of heavy metal that is characterized usually by its fast tempo and aggression. Songs of the genre typically use fast percussive and low-register guitar riffs, overlaid with shredding-style lead work...
outfit called Ignitor. Brought together from Maudling's musical friends, this band recorded two demos and performed gigs around England, the most high profile of which was a support slot with prominent thrash metal outfit Xentrix
Xentrix
Xentrix were a British thrash metal band of the late 1980s/early 1990s hailing from Preston, Lancashire. Xentrix were one of the leading lights of the British Thrash movement. They had videos for their songs For Whose Advantage and their cover of Ray Parker, Jr's Ghostbusters theme. They had...
.
Through Alistair MacLatchy, a former bandmate of prominent extreme metal drummer Nicholas Barker
Nicholas Barker
Nicholas Howard Barker is an extreme metal drummer .- Biography :He was the original drummer for British metal band Cradle of Filth, playing on the first three albums. After leaving in 1999, he joined Norwegian symphonic black metal band Dimmu Borgir...
, Maudling was introduced to vocalist/lyricist Byron Roberts
Byron Roberts
Byron Roberts, also known as Byron A. Roberts, is the vocalist/lyricist and founder of the British symphonic extreme metal band Bal-Sagoth.Originally hailing from Yorkshire, England, and also holding full Canadian citizenship, due to many years spent living in Ontario and Quebec, Roberts graduated...
in 1993. For several years, Roberts had been looking for talented musicians with whom to launch his symphonic black metal
Symphonic black metal
Symphonic black metal is a black metal subgenre that emerged in the mid to late 1990s. The genre is known for its symphonic and orchestral elements and is centralized in Europe.-Characteristics:...
band Bal-Sagoth
Bal-Sagoth
Bal-Sagoth is a symphonic black metal band from Yorkshire, England, formed in 1993.Originally formed as an epic/symphonic black metal band with strong death metal elements, vocalist/lyricist Byron Roberts took the name 'Bal-Sagoth' from the Robert E. Howard short story "The Gods of Bal-Sagoth"...
, but had been unable to meet anyone willing to commit to the project. As a result of MacLatchy's introductions, Jonny, his brother Chris and Byron began working together in a band environment.
This new outfit went loosely under the provisional name of "Dusk" for several months, as MacLatchy did not like the name Bal-Sagoth, nor the symphonic black metal direction which Roberts had suggested.
Because of creative and musical differences in direction and style, the band soon parted ways with MacLatchy. With the introduction of keyboards, the band found their focus. Roberts had the creative team he had long sought and brought a conceptual vision to the band. For Maudling, this presented a creative musical freedom which set the outfit apart from the rest. Roberts, an English post-grad with an interest in 20th century pulp sci-fi writers, could finally implement the ideas he had had for years. Bal-Sagoth was thus born during the summer of 1993.
On the strength of their demo which they recorded during December 1993, the band were signed by Cacophonous Records, a then small subsidiary of Vinyl Solution
Vinyl Solution
Vinyl Solution was a record label of the late 1980s and early 1990s, the offshoot of an independent London based record store based at 231 Portobello Road . The label signed many unconventional acts in a number of uncompromising genres, such as skatepunk thrash band The Stupids, Britcore rappers...
based in London. Later, they would sign to Nuclear Blast
Nuclear Blast
Nuclear Blast is an independent record label and mail order record distributor with subsidiaries in Germany, the United States and Brazil. The record label was founded in 1987 by Markus Staiger in Germany. Originally releasing hardcore punk records, the label moved on to releasing albums by melodic...
for three albums, recording a total of six albums to date.
Maudling composes the music for Bal-Sagoth, sometimes incorporating ideas from his brother, guitarist Chris. He played drums on the first three albums and during subsequent tours, using a session keyboard player, but in 1999 Maudling opted to concentrate full time on keyboards and composition, handing drum duties off to Dave Mackintosh
Dave Mackintosh
Dave Mackintosh is the drummer for the British power metal band DragonForce. Mackintosh also appeared on power metal band Power Quest's debut album, Wings of Forever and The Power Cosmic and Atlantis Ascendant albums, by the symphonic black metal band, Bal-Sagoth.He is influenced by Neil Peart,...
(Dragonforce
DragonForce
DragonForce are an English power metal band from London. Formed in 1999, the group is known for its long and fast guitar solos, fantasy-based lyrics, and electronic sounds in their music to add to their retro video game-influenced sound. Guitarists Herman Li and Sam Totman are the only two...
).
Maudling also played keyboards on the My Dying Bride
My Dying Bride
My Dying Bride are an English doom metal band formed in 1990. To date, My Dying Bride have released eleven full-length studio albums, three EPs, one demo, one box set, four compilation albums, one live album, and one live CD/DVD release. The band released their tenth studio album, For Lies I Sire,...
albums The Light at the End of the World and The Dreadful Hours
The Dreadful Hours
The Dreadful Hours is an album by My Dying Bride released in 2001. It contains a remake of "Return of the Beautiful" from the band's debut album, As the Flower Withers...
, and composed and recorded all the music for the My Dying Bride release Evinta
Evinta
Evinta is a My Dying Bride album released in 2011. It is a development of many of My Dying Bride's older musical themes and riffs, which were re-written for a variety of classical instruments, rather than the traditional metal music instruments; these riffs were combined with new vocals and music,...
, based on the existing compositions as originally written by Andrew Craighan
Andrew Craighan
Andrew Craighan is one of My Dying Bride's guitarists. Along with Aaron Stainthorpe, he is the only original member of the band still in the lineup. He played the guitar from 1989 to 1990 in the band Abiosis....
, Hamish Glencross, et al. He has also contributed keyboard session work to bands including Semargl and Sermon of Hypocrisy.