With their new album set to release on June 20th, Prisoner—a heavy metal band from Calgary, Alberta—has plenty to be excited about. Their sophomore record, Kill The King, marks a bold and dynamic new chapter in their musical journey, featuring exciting solos and a compelling mix of fresh tracks. Just before the album launch, we sat down with frontman Murray Emery to discuss the creative process behind the record and get to know the band better.
Natalia: Do you mind briefly introducing yourself and your band?
Murray: My name is Murray Emery. I play guitar and sing in a Calgary, Alberta-based band called Prisoner. We’re from Canada. We started in 2020, and I’ve had many lineup changes since then until about 2024, when I spent some time in Eastern Canada. Then I moved down to Los Angeles, lived there, and tried to understand why people had gone there for so many decades to be a part of the music scene and the arts industry. Ended up moving back to my hometown in Calgary and building my own space to record music and do all that fun stuff, and this is where Prisoner has lived ever since. We’ve been gigging in and around Canada for the last three to four years, put out our debut record three years ago and then re-released it as of last year, and now we’re just kind of rolling with this current lineup into our new record called Kill The King.
Natalia: I am going to ask a typical press question – which song on your new album has given you the most challenges and arguments in the recording studio?
Murray: I think the most controversial song on the record was the ballad Cold Light. That was something that I had written in twenty minutes when I was 19. It was a creative off-the-cuff thing that originally was supposed to be for a school project. Then when we were going through all of the music that I had previously written with the guys to figure out what we wanted to use as the baseline to make this record, the entire band was like this is unbelievable, this is a thing, we have to do it’ and I was like no, not at all, this is the silliest thing, it’s not not even remotely close to what I want this to be. They continued to talk to me about it, and I think they pulled the walls down because, you know, it’s a slower song, it’s a little bit more sensitive. It was something that I needed to grow with and grow on to understand where they were coming from as an outside listener, and make it their own. When we worked on it together structure and lyrics remained essentially the same, but the way that Trevor incorporated the bass to create an ebb and flow around the vocals and Carl’s drum parts because he has a a jazz background rather than a metal background, we were able to create something that I think was very unique. In the final mix process, we’re arguing over a filter on a guitar part in the beginning and ultimately, we just kind of went, you know what? We just need to let this happen instead of overanalysing and just let it be.
Natalia: In Prisoner lore, there was a name that cropped up – Davey. Who is Davey?
Murray: Davey is our character that we use for all of our artworks. Think of Eddie from Iron Maiden or Vic Rattlehead from Megadeth. What we wanted to do with our artwork was to create a concept story from album to album. You can see the development of a character through a story, and you can hear in the music where the band is developing as well. In our first record, he’s in a cage. He’s very small. His body language is very condensed to show this emotion, and there’s, of course, meaning behind the birdcage and things that he’s in. Then, in the EP, you see that he’s a little bit more magical, as he’s out of the cage. In this record, he has killed the king and is sitting on a throne, holding the crown. It’s a moment of power. Everything that we do is hand-painted or hand-drawn, so there is a level of commitment to the artistry because we truly believe that if you’re going to do something, go all out and provide something for people that you’ve put the time and effort into, rather than using AI art. This character, he’s named Davey, because I actually had a twin brother who was supposed to be named David, but didn’t make it when we were born. He’s the other person who is supposed to be with us on this journey.
Natalia: Have any tracks changed their direction in the recording studio? Last minute changes and new ideas?
Murray: The biggest one musically was Over the Magic. You can probably hear that we are all massive Black Sabbath fans in this band, influenced by the slower, heavy riff-driven music. We had everything up until the bridge, and were trying to figure out does this song needed a solo. Does this song need a breakdown? It’s already so slow. How do you incorporate something into this song that makes it fit in the ebb and flow of the album?
What we ended up doing is we just sat down with the band all together in this room and we played the song over and over and over again and then just let it bleed into whatever happened and I came up with this kind of polyrhythm idea over Carl’s drum parts and we did this in thirty minutes before he recorded the part. It was all set up ready to go, and we were thinking we have to finish it, we have to do something, let’s just create an interesting instrumental that creates this invoking emotion that feels finished, so that it makes sense being the last song on the record.
Also, Feel the Heat was my least favourite song on the album when we started recording. It was written when I was 18 and was one of the songs that didn’t make it onto the first record or the EP because I was not the singer for it yet. I did think back then that it’s got potential and it’s worth holding on to. Our vocal producer, Reid Alton, sat with me and we went through the song. He’s like: “Okay. Why don’t you like this? How can we make this a little bit different?” He had some great ideas in changing some of the lyrics, some of the phrases, some of the choices to build the song up. We ended up adding that first guitar solo and a few of the other vocal parts that created what it is now one of my favourites, just because it’s such an easy listening rock and roll song.
Natalia: Which song holds your favourite guitar solo on your album? And what song has the best ever written solo in your opinion?
Murray: I think the most structured overall solo that I think makes the most sense is Stress Fracture, which actually comes out tomorrow as a single. There are bits and pieces from a lot of my influences through, people like Marty Friedman, Alexi Lejo from Children of Bodom. There are moments where the song, in terms of the solo, has a start, middle, and end. I try to structure all of my solos that way, where it’s like almost in the sense of a book like Lord of the Rings, where you have two different things going on with Frodo and Sam and then everybody else doing other things, all within the realm of Middle Earth. Where the solo fits, it’s just a random side quest; it’s relevant within the setting, but has a beginning, a middle, and an end, and then bridges back into the rest of the music.
Natalia: You’re touring Canada this summer – what are the logistics of doing it in such a large country?
Murray: We are driving with lots of pillows. I ended up investing in an old airport transport bus. It’s like a 15-passenger bus, so that we have a place to stay, and I can stand up in it because I’m quite tall. We have a place to sleep and try to save money on accommodations as much as we can. We also have a 16-foot box trailer that we tour with that has all of our gear. I’m the audio guy, I have a full PA and everything, because some of the venues that we’re playing don’t have the best equipment. So we try to bring our stuff in, do everything that we need to do, travel with a sound and lighting tech, and, you know, be at that high level. Then with the trailer we got a barbecue and I think the next step is to install solar panels on the roof so we can put a mini fridge in to store meat and things like that so we can try to be as healthy as we can. I’m the oldest guy in the band, and I have a lot of young guys who also haven’t been on the road before. So it’s trying to set everyone else up for success and, again, provide something for the community so that we can be successful, sleep well, eat well so that we can perform well and talk to people and be present in the moment rather than just ‘okay we made it, oh my god I gotta go play, I’m so tired, I’m so hungry’ it’s whatever’ You know? I think it sets you apart from everybody else who just plays music for fun.
Natalia: It kinda makes me wanna come on a tour with you guys because it just feels like a nice little road trip.
Murray: Absolutely. It’s tons of fun. Lots of jokes.
Kill The King is out on the 20th of June.
