Be sure to read part one of this interview to hear Charles discuss all things Ne Obliviscaris.

Tim Charles, violinist and vocalist for Ne Obliviscaris, is a busy guy. On top of duties in one of Australia's most celebrated metal acts, he is director of a promotional group, composes both as a solo artist and as a member of a jazz trio and even found the time to guest on sleepmakeswaves' debut EP, In Today Already Walks Tomorrow.

OzProg: What's your musical background?

I started playing the violin at six years old, so I've been playing for 20 years now. Pretty much my whole life. I studied violin classically, I still continue to do so. I did a Bachelor of Music at Uni, majoring in Performance and minoring in Composition. On top of that, ever since I was a teenager I've always been hugely passionate about metal. At about 17 I decided I was going to be a touring classical violinist [laughs].

OzProg: Do you still have plans to record or tour as a solo violinst?

I do. As much as I love metal, I love different types of music and as somebody who loves to compose I like writing different styles too. Absolutely I'll be releasing some solo material in the future, but when it comes out depends on when I have the time.

I have a few things I'm working on at the moment, including a violin metal suite I debuted a few months ago. It's basically a piece for two violins, it's a classical work that, to me, sounds strongly influenced by heavy metal. I'll probably be recording that and doing some performances sometime in 2009. I also have a couple of male vocal pieces that I'm working on at the moment, it's all just a matter of time.

OzProg: On top of all that, you're director of Welkin Entertainment, what made you decide to set that up?

Welkin Entertainment started because after a year of Ne Obliviscaris being on the live scene, Xenoyr and myself decided that we could promote ourselves. We started talking to promoters, finding out what it was all about and what needed to be done.

The way a lot of things work, if you can do something for yourself, it works out better—you have more control over where you're playing, when you're playing. The first show we ever did as Welkin Entertainment was the launch of the demo.

OzProg: And it has grown quite a bit since then.

Yeah. We have lots of friends in the scene, bands we're big fans of, we started getting requests from people to put on shows for them. We started expanding, promoting shows without Ne Obliviscaris on the bill.

Last summer we opened up the booking agency branch of Welkin Entertainment, it's basically a way to help out some of the bands we really like, to try to help them get more exposure and take their music further. There's definitely more plans to expand it further too, it all depends on how much time we have [laughs]. I'm currently talking to a few bands about joining our booking agency and we're looking at doing some quite big things in the future.

OzProg: Sounds exciting. On to sleepmakeswaves – you recently contributed guest violin to their EP In Today Already Walks Tomorrow. How did you get involved with them?

I first met Tom (guitarist) in about 2006, at one of Ne Obliviscaris' first gigs. He was down in Melbourne seeing Opeth and somebody recommended our show to him, so he came along. After a while I started hearing about his band, I heard the music and thought it was fantastic. There was a big mutual appreciation of each other's bands. We started talking about me guest performing at a live show when they came down to Melbourne.

Around January I had a day off and decided that if they were going to come down in a couple of months I should probably have an idea of what to play. I've got home recording equipment, so I improvised over one of their tracks. We'd been talking about me guesting on "One Day You Will Teach Me To Let Go Of My Fears", so I did a quick improvise over that song, I sent them an email with the mp3. I got a call the next day, they were in the studio and the producer really wanted to use the violin on the CD. They were already mixing by that stage, so I quickly recorded all the violin at home, sent it up to Sydney and it was all mixed in. I'd never met the rest of the band until I played with them in August.

OzProg: Your MySpace page mentions an 'untitled jazz trio' with Brendan and Scott Young of Alarum. Is it still around?

Yes, our rehearsals are very infrequent but it's definitely still something we're planning to do. When we get the time, we'll hopefully do a recording, some live shows around Melbourne and possibly elsewhere. Brendan and I are both very good friends with Scott and have huge respect for him as a musician, we all love playing together. It's one of those things, when you love playing with somebody you want to share that everybody you know.

Ne Obliviscaris are playing in Melbourne through October and November, before heading up to Queensland in December. You can also catch them supporting Psycroptic in New South Wales, the ACT and Victoria. Stay tuned to OzProg for further tour details.