Drafting My Feature Article

For my magazine I would have to create a double page spread, for this double page spread an article is needed. To write this article I looked at others in a similar style that I wanted to follow before writing my first draft. Here is the draft I eventually created:

Darkest Days: Darkest Heavens

It has been three years since their fourth album, Darkest Heavens, was first announced. And this month the album is finally going to be released. We talk with Darkest Days’ lead singer, Matt Hall, on the tragic production of their long awaited album.

Your finally releasing your album, how does it feel?

It’s great. Yeah. We’ve waited a long time for this day. And it feels great!

You had a hard time working on the album, you even stopped all together for a whole year, how much did this affect the album, do you think?

We didn’t stop for a whole year. I think it was almost ten months. But, yeah, it’s true, the album was greatly affected by [Ian] Harper’s passing a year into production. A few of the songs were written after in [his] memory.

How much of the album features Ian’s work?

About half of the songs were recorded before he died. So, about five… six?

This album is the first of yours which feature covers of people like AC/DC and Def Leppard.

That’s true, yes. Harper was our major writer. He wrote most of our classics. We kinda ran out of ideas. [Laughs]

So, will this affect you next album?

Next album? I don’t know if we’re going to get that far. We’ll see how this year’s tour goes.

This could be the end of Darkest Days then?

I would hope not. But, Harper is irreplaceable, it’ll be hard but we’ll have to find someone permanent eventually if we want to carry on.

You had guest bassist on the album after Ian.

We did, yeah. And they were great. They were very supportive and respected all our music. They worked hard to not make the album sound very differently than Harper would’ve.

You have your new tour coming up at the end of the year. Who’s going to be in Ian’s place?

No one. No one will be in Ian’s place. They’ll have their own stop. Guests in the band.

Guests? Do you have multiple people?

We have a couple of the guest on the album, but nothing’s set yet.

You’ve been absent from touring for five years now, what will it be like to start again?

It’s hard work. We are all gonna have to work hard to get to the same standards as our last tour. It’s exhausting work. We are all getting older now as well. It almost feels like a natural end to our music, actually.

If this is the end for you, are there any plans to go solo?

Personally, no. But I know a couple of the others have been thinking about it. We always knew that if we lost one of us then we wouldn’t want to go on without them. Maybe an anniversary tour or album in, like, twenty years. But, we’ve all thought about solo careers sometime over the last year.

This album is called Darkest Heavens, it, like all the others, uses the word Dark. Was this planned?

No, I don’t think so. It sort of just happened. I don’t come up with titles though. You’d have to ask someone else.

So you don’t have any input into the titles.

Well we can suggest ideas. I just can’t come up with anything half as good as the other guy’s do. Darkest Heavens was Ian’s idea. I wouldn’t say it was the best. But it was his best. And we wanted to respect his ideas. He still had a lot of input after his death.

Well, good luck with anything you and the band decide to do in the future.

Thank you. We shall see what happens and do what we feel is best.