Interview: Doug Scarratt and James Fogarty (Venger)

Interview: January 2026

Following a chance meeting at a gig in Brighton, Doug Scarratt - known for his work in Saxon - and James Fogarty of In The Woods began working together on a project that would become Venger. Having released their debut album on 9th January (review here), Hotel Hobbies spent some time talking with the duo about the new album, their approach to composition and their shared love of adventurous tales.

Hotel Hobbies: You met by chance at a gig in Brighton which led to what became Venger. What was it about that conversation that sparked an interest in working together?

James Fogarty: Well, me and Doug have got a mutual friend we've both known for over 30 years. He'd been meaning to introduce us years ago but it just never happened. I did meet Doug once briefly at Graspop 2016 when I was playing with a band and Saxon were one of the main bands for the day. Then I didn't see him for about 8 years. I just happened, completely randomly, to see him because he was at a pub where his son was playing upstairs. I thought, if I don't go and introduce myself now, then we'll never end up meeting properly. So I kind of introduced myself and then we got together after a few weeks and I showed him some of the material I'd been working on, which I didn't really have a home for because it's very different to my other projects.

Doug Scarratt: It’s crazy because we only live five minutes apart as well!

Hotel Hobbies: Well you obviously hit it off! I know one thing that you both wanted from the Venger album is a sense of cinematic adventure. Why does that sort of storytelling and music appeal to you both?

Doug Scarratt: It's hard to say why really. It's just the kind of thing I've always liked.

James Fogarty: Yes! There are bands and artists that write stuff about signing on and going shopping. That’s a no for me. It has to be something big, something overblown and ridiculous; a lot of metal is basically like that, isn't it? It's all epic. It's like the Conan the Barbarian of music. That was the first thing I loved about classic metal. I've kind of always had a bit of a cinematic thing going on with whatever I've done, really. That’s what I wanted to get out of it. We're film fans and fans of fantasy fiction like Lord of the Rings and Star Wars and Star Trek and bands like Hawkwind. Something that's escapist but also interesting.

Doug Scarratt: I've always been a big film fan because my dad used to just take me to the cinema maybe twice every week. He would pick me up from school and we'd go and see Western movies and war movies. Although I really enjoyed all the war movies and the Western movies, I soon discovered that my favourite movies were things like Sinbad, films with Ray Harryhausen’s monsters and things like Mysterious Island. In Mysterious Island they escape from a prison in a hot air balloon and land on the island and it's full of giant crabs. I discovered that fantasy was the thing that made me the most excited really. When I was maybe ten or eleven, I discovered that I had a really big love for movie themes. I noticed how much the music would affect me and it would stay in my head for ages and make me able to kind of re-see the scenes in my head.

Hotel Hobbies: That definitely comes across on the album. You have not restricted yourself and have explored lots of escapist themes and ideas. You have songs about everything from aliens to the Ancient Egyptians and the album is a mix of exciting adventures.

Doug Scarratt: Yeah, that's what we intended so it's great that you're picking up on that.

Hotel Hobbies: It is definitely an album that, in a good way, rushes past and its one that makes you want to go back the start straight away.

Doug Scarratt: That's great to hear.

Hotel Hobbies: After you met and realised you wanted to work together, how did it go once you actually started writing together?

Doug Scarratt: We initially had some first basic ideas. James has got a small recording set up at home where we would record the guitars digitally, very, very quietly with programmed drums. I am lucky because I have a studio at home at the end of the garden. So then we started to do live drums. Once we'd got three or four songs, it just made sense to re-record everything properly. We re-recorded all the guitars with amps. My son is a drummer and a producer and an engineer. He was free to work with us, which was great. Once we'd got the kind of basic rhythm guitars and some solo parts into quite a good shape, we sent them to James's friend Sven, who replaced the program drums with real drums. In regard to singing, James does a lot of the backing vocals and spooky harmonies.

James Fogarty: But in terms of like a lead vocalist, it's a different range. I can’t do the (raises fist and fake screams) but that's what we wanted and that's what it needed. I remembered that a friend of mine had shared a video of his friend's bands with me about five years ago and I'd made a mental note of it. I had thought that if ever need that type of vocals, I would see if he (Roadwolf vocalist Franz Bauer) was interested. Luckily he was free for enough time to be able to record the vocals, which was great. We are really pleased with how it sounds.  

Hotel Hobbies: Talking about a few tracks on the new album, it opens with From Worlds Unknown. It's like an opening roar and we dive straight into the escapism. Was it a track that was always destined to be an opener or did that come together later on?

James Fogarty: Actually, it was one of the last ones we wrote. We were thinking that we needed another song. So I told Doug I had this demo from a while ago and I’m not sure you’ll like it. Doug helped rework some of the riffs. Once you decide you're going to use something, then you're kind of on the spot to come up with some vocal melodies and stuff. It was one of those that came together quite quickly and quite easily.

Doug Scarratt: Not that it's poppy, but it's probably the most accessible track. It is radio friendly. I loved the song and when we had finished it, I thought it sat well with the other songs. The album then goes straight into Pharaoh's Curse after that, which is much heavier and darker.

Hotel Hobbies: Speaking of Pharaoh's Curse, it has, as do some other songs, sound effects such as the tomb being opened at the start of the song. It also has the Egyptian musical motifs. Is Ancient Egypt an area of interest for you both?

Doug Scarratt: I like anything with some kind of mystery that you can't really quite understand. All the stuff about Tutankhamen, the curse and how some of them died mysteriously is Tintin kind of stuff isn’t it?  It is like the books you read as a boy. There is still a genuine mystery there, isn't there?

Hotel Hobbies: Navigate the Labyrinth is pure adventure even down to the retro-video. How did that whole concept come together?  

James Fogarty: That came to mind when I was re-watching Ulysses 31.

Hotel Hobbies: Now that takes me back!

James Fogarty: It's one of the best cartoons ever made because it's literally the Greek myths set in space. It was absolutely brilliant. The story of the labyrinth one came up and then I remembered watching something else about this. There's almost a reference to it in some of those Sinbad films and so on. I thought, has got to be done. Has it been done before by a metal band? Probably a billion times, but it doesn't matter because it fits.

Hotel Hobbies: What really comes across talking to you and on the album is that the whole project was really great fun.

Doug Scarratt: Absolutely. It was nice in so many ways, really. I'm very, very busy with Saxon, and I do have to guard some of my free time just to stay sane. However, James lives five minutes away, I have the studio at the bottom of the garden and my son's a producer. I put a lot of effort into this obviously but it also fit quite conveniently. I'm not having to fly somewhere to do the guitars and be away from home for another two weeks on top of all the months I'm away with Saxon. It has been a lot of fun.

Hotel Hobbies: A track such a Crystal Gazer completely changes the mood. When you’re thinking about the guitars on an album, how do you approach trying to balance mood and atmosphere with grit and power?

Doug Scarratt: Wow. That’s a really interesting question. It’s not totally unlike Saxon in that way. I'm very used to kind of power metal riffs in Saxon and sometimes the choruses break down into half-time and are much more open. I really like open sections of guitar, whereas quite often in metal, even on our album at times, the solo sections are quite intense and full on and there's not so much space. As we were writing the songs, we were finding our way with what works because I like to improvise solos and just let it flow and see what happens. But also I like the fact that we've mixed that with written melodies on some of the solos. On The Legend Still Remains, there’s a big thematic open solo. The album has given me some freedom to do different things.

Hotel Hobbies: Another thing that comes across on a track like Séance, for example is that you haven’t limited yourself to what the music can be. There are acoustic sections, spoken word and a barnstorming solo.

Doug Scarratt: Yeah, I really like that song actually and I really enjoy that section because I like the moody atmospheric parts. It's great to be able to just play a bit of acoustic and then, as you said, the solo really kicks in hard before becoming more melodic. We have been working on three new tracks today and we are planning more atmospheric sections that build in that way. It's our first album, so we're finding our feet still but it’s really working well.

James Fogarty: The music that made me want to start writing music was early to mid 90s black metal. It was so musically innovative. You could have a two-minute long intro on keyboards; then you could go into an acoustic section and then it would be ridiculously over the top noise. Then it would break down into something else completely. Some of those bands were just so free to just do whatever they wanted. Some of it's absolutely brilliant. It's when they kind of got set in their ways and started doing what was expected of them that they started getting a little boring.

Hotel Hobbies: Both of you seem to be saying that Venger gives you new spaces to explore. Some you might not with your other bands.

James Fogarty: Yeah, exactly. Doug has literally gone down from writing with four other people to writing with one other person, which must be massively freeing for him. As for me, I don't have another outlet for this genre of metal.

Hotel Hobbies: With starting to write new tracks already, do you think you will ever try to fit in any live shows between every else you have going on?

Doug Scarratt: The plan was that this would be a studio project but it’s grown. When we started writing, we did it because it was fun and we had everything available to us to do that. My schedule with Saxon sometimes is pretty intense. So the thought of doing more touring would be a very difficult decision. However, we are discussing it now and looking at the possibilities. Everything would have to be right logistically. There is a lot involved because we're not all living in the same country. That works for Saxon because we've been doing it for years and it's like a well-oiled machine now. For Venger, a lot depends on the response to the album. We are definitely going to make another album. I've got a break now until April so we do want to utilise this time to try to have at least enough material for another album.

James Fogarty: We’re on our way. We have five or six tracks taking shape. Once you've broken the back of an album, you can kind of stop worrying. It's getting that first four or five songs done that is hard. Writing comes in bursts of two or three tracks and then you do something completely different for a month or two and then you go back to it. Doing the same thing all the time can be quite mentally exhausting.

Hotel Hobbies: You mentioned the response to the album. I really enjoyed listening to it and writing a review. I have seen a lot of positive press.

Doug Scarratt: Yeah, we're quite excited about that, actually. First and foremost, you write songs and try to make them as good as you can. But you do it for you and do it until you're happy with it. I’ve read a lot of positive stuff and I am really pleased that people are liking it and seem to be understanding what we're trying to do.

Hotel Hobbies: The album is amazingly well played, sounds great and it is definitely a fun listen. You set out to entertain listeners and it certainly does that.

Doug Scarratt: Yeah, that's great. As I said, I have the studio in the garden but we don't have a massive equipment budget. My son does a really, really great job with limited equipment. It was all done and mixed here. It’s as good as it can be for what we have so I think people can understand that. Some things today are so clinically produced. I'm not saying that's always a bad thing. I love it as well. I'm an absolute music fanatic. I love hi-fi. I will sit and listen to the tiniest details but sometimes you just don't need that. I'm very pleased with the way our album sounds.

Hotel Hobbies: The album cover also adds details of its own. Almost every song is represented there. It links completely to that sense of adventure.

James Fogarty: Definitely! I wanted it to look like a film composite typical of a 1980s summer blockbuster film. That's what I had in my head. I wanted it to look like The Neverending Story meets Star Wars. I did do a mock-up version to show the artist kind of what I wanted. He added a lot more.  I can do artwork that's good enough for an underground black metal album but when it comes to doing stuff that needs to be a few levels higher in terms of its execution, you do need to get people in that really know this stuff.

Hotel Hobbies: While we are talking Doug, I have to mention Saxon. You have been a member for over thirty years now. Saxon are regarded as one of the pillars of heavy metal both in the UK and around the world. What do you think has kept Saxon's spirit and energy alive and the consistency of your music so high for so long?

Doug Scarratt: I think all of us really care about it. Sometimes it's hard to pull yourself together and start writing and making another album when you've just played however many shows and flown all over the planet. It is mentally and physically exhausting. But we care so much that on stage, everyone gives it a hundred percent every time. It is the same when we are making music. We don’t want to let our standards drop. Yes, we're human but each one of us cares. We've never become complacent nor thought, oh, well, this will do.

Hotel Hobbies: For both of you looking back over time as a musician and over your careers, what is the most valuable lesson you have learned?

James Fogarty: For me, it's you can't buy credibility. It takes a long time to build up that credibility and it's quite easy to lose it. It's worth its weight in gold. The bigger the band, the more important that is. I've always been very kind of low level stuff relative to what Doug's done. I think that's true of whatever level you're at. It's very, very easy to, I mean, how many bands have done something and then lost credibility. It's like Metallica with the Load album. No disrespect to Metallica but they had all that credibility and then it just all disappeared. And they're still, even now, trying to recoup that credibility.

Doug Scarratt: With any band that has a career that long, its almost impossible not to go through a dry spell. You keep kind of saying you can't always be brilliant. I'm a massive David Bowie fan right from the very early stuff. The guy was continually reinventing himself, even to the point where for even such a massive fan as myself, he lost me for a bit. When he became the Thin White Duke, I thought this just isn't David Bowie. I liked the alien more. I'm not saying that was a completely bad period for him. I do think you have to keep experimenting otherwise you totally will go stale. Every band has that dip.

I think one of the biggest lessons I think that I've learned, is something that I heard and stuck in my head from when I was a teenager, trying to become a professional guitar player. I can't even remember who said it but it's always there in my head. And it said, try whenever possible to have a very sober judgment of your own talent. I think that I didn't really learn that much until I started to record things. I'd obviously reached a certain standard as a guitar player. I was doing session work and I liked a lot of genres of music, so I was kind of going this way and that way, blues, soul, funk. I'm a huge fan of Nile Rodgers. I know that’s not really important but when I was asked to do certain sessions, it came back to just have a sober judgment of your talent. Can you do it? And if you know can't, don't do it. Don't do anything badly because it will always bite you.

Hotel Hobbies: To round things off, when people listen to the Venger album, what do you hope they take away from the experience?

Doug Scarratt: I just hope they really like it, like the vibe and feel the energy. I think there's an energy there, considering the fact that some of us recorded it separately, even though me and James recorded guitars together in the studio. There's still an intensity to the riffs and the power of the songs. I just hope people feel that.

James Fogarty: If someone gets to the end and they want to listen to it again, that's good. There are a lot of bands doing this kind of music at the moment. I don't think we're doing retro metal. We're just taking a starting point from classic metal and doing something original with it. I hope in years to come when people listen back to albums that came out this year, that ours will be seen as high quality.

Hotel Hobbies: Thank you both so much for taking the time to speak with me. I have had a great time. Good luck with the album.

James Forgarty: Thanks so much. Take care.

Doug Scarratt: Cheers, it was fun.