Interview by Kris Peters
They say good things come to those who wait, and if that's the case, Gold Coast melodic technical death metal outfit Snake Mountain have some damn fine times ahead of them.
Rather than trying to force themselves onto the international support rollercoaster from the outset, Snake Mountain have preferred to bide their time, practising, waiting, and networking until they felt their product was of high enough standard to put out there.
It has been a long and sometimes painful path to the open market, but one gets the impression it will bear the fruits of progress much sooner rather than later.
In recent months, Snake Mountain have opened for international heavyweights Fleshgod Apocalypse and Wolfheart, as well as teaming up with Australian royalty in Black Rheno and Witchgrinder, in the process proving their suitability and diversity on any metal lineup as long as it's loud.
Following the release of two crushingly brutal singles - Everliving and Extinction Through Fire - Snake Mountain are in the final stages of the long-awaited release of their debut EP Villainous 1: Reverence on July 5. Not content to give the fans new music, the boys have also announced a string of shows along the East Coast over June, July and August so they can share their musical triumphant far and wide.
HEAVY cornered Snake Mountain frontman Neville Pearce to find out more.
"I'm pretty excited about it," he measured when asked about the looming release date. "And I am nervous for people to hear it because I guess it represents where we've been. It's part of a bigger picture that we're trying to paint. We put a lot into it - it's only four tracks - but it shows the different mini-era's of the band and the different members influences that have weaved in and out throughout that time. And I'm really proud of that. That's exactly what the title is in reference to is paying those respects."
We ask Pearce to dive deeper into the music side of the EP.
"It's - as we said before - each song represents, not only the members, but I guess the year they were written," he explained. "The first track, Extinction Through Fire, which we recently released digitally, goes right back to the beginning with Dan Maynard. Then we've got Hunted which was with Dan Maynard, and we have that one with Jamie and Dario then it goes on to All Of Eternia which was Dario and Jamie, and it progresses from there onto the last track Everliving, which was the last single we released. You can sort of tell within those styles how the band has changed and where we've come to now. Which doesn't really represent who we are now with our technical stuff, but it's definitely part of the journey." 
In the full interview, Neville discusses the length of time it took Snake Mountain to release their debut EP and why, the timeline of each song and what part of the band's history it represents, scoring support slots and what it means to the band, the guest artists on the EP and what they brought to the sound, his transformation from one of the good guys off-stage to a raging demon on, their upcoming shows and more.