Who actually played bass on The Harrowed debut release for Massacre?

Actually, several people had a crack at the bass on that album, but ultimately Darren ended up playing the bass due to the poor quality bass sound on the previous efforts.  It was recorded just before Daniel joined the band.

Has Ricky always been blind?

He's actually blind due to disease called Retinitis Pigmentosa and has been fully blind since his early twenties.

Is Ricky really blind or is it a marketing gimmick?

Yes he is, but he doesn’t really like to focus on it too much.  He prefers to think that people will be getting into our stuff because of the music.

What bands do you guys sound like?

Well, we originally wanted to be a mix between early Metallica (you know, the non-gay stuff) and early Pantera, but even our early stuff sounds nothing like those bands. We find that reviewers struggle to make comparisons, and if they do, it's rare that any two reviewers name the same band as an influence. We like to think that we've got a reasonably unique blend of old school thrash with a modern brutal twist, but you should just listen to a few tunes and see what you think.

Who did your cover art?

Anthony Clarkson did the cover for the album.  He’s also done artwork for Blind Guardian, Kataklysm and Exodus, amongst a whole stack of other great bands.

Why did you leave Broken Hill?

Go there and you'll find out. Actually it was for a few reasons; Darren was leaving to do university studies and Broken Hill was too small to find high quality musicians, so we needed to broaden our pool to choose from. Ironically, everyone that's in the band now is from Broken Hill, and the band is now based there.

You visit similar themes in the lyrics. Is that intentional, and what is the underlying meaning?

All the lyrics have specific themes dealing mainly with inner turmoil and the adversity faced by the human spirit, also the many facets of the human personality and humanity en masse.

How did you come up with the name The Harrowed and what does it mean?

We originally went under the moniker ‘Fury’, and we’d done a lot of work with that name.  By the time we signed with Massacre a lot of other bands named Fury had appeared in the metal scene so we needed something to give us a bit more identity.  The Harrowed was the theme for a concept album that we we’re working on as a future Fury release, so we decided to reappropriate it as the band name.