Interview by Ali Williams
There are bad weeks, and then there are weeks where the rehearsal studio you spent a year building burns for 4 days, TEMPLES ON MARS guitarist and vocalist James Donaldson joined HEAVY’s Ali Williams somewhat later than originally planned, although his excuse was considerably better than forgetting to check the calendar. Back in the end of June, the London building housing the band’s newly completed rehearsal space and studio went up in flames, bringing 150 firefighters and 25 fire engines to the scene and taking 4 days to extinguish.
Nobody was hurt, which remains the only part of that story worth celebrating, but the timing was particularly brutal given TEMPLES ON MARS had only just finished creating the space in the first place.
Building their own headquarters had been a practical answer to the expensive and restrictive reality of London rehearsal rooms. After spending the better part of a year getting everything operational, the band finally had somewhere they could rehearse and record on their own terms. After having a rehearsal there on the Wednesday night, by the following Friday , they were receiving photographs of the entire building burning.
There are probably less brutal ways to discover whether your insurance policy is adequate. This method is not recommended. The aftermath meant cancelled shows, rearranged commitments and the miserable process of discovering what equipment had survived. Thankfully, their works in progress were safely stored in the cloud, although several guitars were damaged beyond repair, James was under no illusion that an instrument carrying years of personal history can simply be replaced. What he also refused to do was turn the situation into some grand declaration about overcoming adversity. TEMPLES ON MARS were dealt a spectacularly shit hand, but they did what needed to be done and started getting themselves back onto stages.
Their return to live duties included London before threading to Bloodstock Festival, for the 25th anniversary edition of one of the UK’s major heavy music gatherings. James’ enthusiasm was obvious, particularly because he remains a genuine heavy music fan himself and has never adopted the strange professional habit of pretending you stop getting excited about bands once somebody hands you an artist wristband.
TEMPLES ON MARS are currently putting most of their live attention behind The Last Ship, released in October 2025. This was their first full length studio album and features Josh Freese (Foo Fighters, Nine Inch Nails, A Perfect Circle) drumming on several tracks. The album sits within a creative identity that deliberately leaves the band enough room to explore ideas of awareness and mortality as showcased on the album.
Even the name TEMPLES ON MARS carries that freedom, emerging after numerous alternatives had been discarded and James landed on something that drew from both humanity’s real attempts to reach Mars and the considerably more entertaining theories suggesting ancient civilisations may already have built structures there.
Conspiracy theories aside, speculative thinking does make its way into the band’s writing, although James has no interest in forcing every song through a rigid concept. Instead, TEMPLES ON MARS gives them permission to leave ideas open, allowing listeners to draw their own conclusions rather than receiving a compulsory interpretation with every lyric.
James handles most of those lyrics, regularly collecting phrases and fragments in his phone, while the musical side is considerably more collaborative. Ideas are passed around between members, developed, altered or handed over when somebody else can hear what the original writer cannot, and James believes those individual contributions can be precisely what shifts a good song into something the band genuinely believes in.
There is no shortage of future material either, with TEMPLES ON MARS already sitting on a substantial stockpile of ideas waiting to be developed. The problem is not finding something to write but deciding which idea deserves attention first, although “we have too much music” remains one of the more tolerable problems available to a band.
Australia also remains firmly on James’ wish list. With family and friends across this part of the world, he would happily bring TEMPLES ON MARS south if the logistics could be made sensible enough to justify hauling a heavy band across the planet. The band previously made a South African tour work through their bass player’s connection there, although James freely acknowledged it was hardly an exercise in wealth creation.
As he neatly pointed out, if they were doing this for the money, they probably would not have chosen heavy music. For now, TEMPLE ON MARS have The Last Ship to keep pushing, live shows back on the calendar, more music waiting and considerably more reason to look forward than spend another year staring at what disappeared in that fire.
James ultimately reduced the decision to two possibilities: you can pack everything up and go home, or you can keep going. TEMPLE ON MARS chose to keep going, without the heroic speech, inspirational slogan or accompanying violin section. And somewhere between Bloodstock, insurance claims, unfinished songs and possible ancient Martian architecture, the band keep showing up and playing live and loud refusing to let it get the best of them.
