Probably Smug.

Recently, I had the opportunity to interview Wolves in the Throne Room for SLUG Magazine, a local magazine here in Salt Lake City, Utah. I was given permission to post it here on Probably Smug as well…

With raw production, blazing guitars, shrieking vocals and blasting drums, black metal has always purported an extreme display of individualism, making every effort to reject all things politically correct and socially acceptable. Like everything however, human beings have turned those sparks of individualistic expression into hackneyed, formulaic practices, which have become little more than parodies of themselves. It takes an overwhelming dose of praxis for this cycle to be broken. The somewhat reclusive members of Wolves in the Throne Room who hail from Olympia, Washington and are some of the few individuals who strive to break these patterns. Not only do they defy most typical black metal forms of tradition, but also black metal culture as a whole. “We have no intention of contributing anything to traditional black metal. The orthodox thinking involved in the construction of traditional black metal is repugnant and stifling” Rick (no last name given) states.

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Several months ago I was contacted by Nate, the sole member of Wormtongue, to do a review for his EP “Memorial to a Golden Age”. The more I listened to it, the more I became interested in this project, due to his direct approach to well written music, without using the black metal pretense to define an “image”. Hailing from Richmond Virginia, Wormtongue plays a style of black metal that utilizes folk elements tastefully without going overboard on the raw production for the sake of the stereotype. Recently, I had the chance to contact Nate again and ask him several questions about his project, in anticipation for the release of his new EP, “The Solstice Funeral”.

How long have you been writing music and how did you get inspired to record your own music?

I’ve been playing in bands for something like 6 or 7 years. After a while I just decided to record everything myself, and that’s what I’ve been doing ever since. It’s completely different than being in a band with other members because I have as much freedom as I want to do whatever I please with my own music.

What are your thoughts on the Black Metal scene as a whole? It seems you mostly try to avoid giving yourself the typical corpse paint and moniker to call yourself.

I’m proud of the music I make and I don’t feel the need to hide behind corpse paint and a moniker. I guess you could say I don’t try to associate myself with most of the black metal scene because a lot of its ideologies are pretty ridiculous. This is a genre in which a lot of bands try hard to sound as shitty and extreme as possible, but it loses its appeal after a while when most of its members sound like angry teenagers and look like they belong in a Kiss cover band. To me, it’s all about the music, not an image.

What are your influences for writing music in general?

I just write the music I want to hear. I have so many musical influences, including all genres of metal to folk music to classical music, and everything in between. I try to include all of my influences into my music to create songs that I would enjoy listening to even if they were written by another band.

Many solo musicians seem fairly staunch about remaining solo, do you also intend to keep Wormtongue a one man project? If so, why?

Who knows? Although I created this project to be an output of my personal musical creativity, I might bring in other musicians in the near future; most likely a drummer. I do understand where other solo musicians are coming from, though. Dealing with three or four other musicians in a band and trying to write music is such a strenuous process. When you write and record everything yourself, there’s no one to argue with your ideas and it’s easier to let your creativity flow. Unfortunately I can’t play the drums, so I might have to get the help of a drummer. I still plan on writing everything myself though, so I guess that means Wormtongue will continue to be a solo project in a sense.

What are your hopes and intentions for the future of Wormtongue?

Soon I’ll start looking for a label. The do-it-yourself thing is tiring. If the opportunity arises there might be shows in the future. I just deal with things as they come, and I basically do whatever I feel is right at the time. As you can probably tell, I’m not one of those extremists who want to stay as underground as possible and sell 10 copies of their demo. Wormtongue will always be underground but I want people to hear the music and I’ll do whatever is possible to get the name out there. Basically, my main goal is to get the music of Wormtongue heard.

Tell me more about the new EP coming out.

It’s called “The Solstice Funeral” and it will probably be out within the next month. It’s too bad it wasn’t finished in time to be released on the summer solstice. I could wait until the winter one comes around, but I would probably receive a few angry emails about that. Anyway, the EP will probably have 5 songs (and a longer running time than the last one). I wouldn’t call it a “concept album,” but lyrically all of the songs sort of fit into a certain underlying theme. More about that when it comes out. Musically, expect some different styles this time around. Most of the same elements are there, but there is probably a little more experimentation on this one. The response to the two new songs that were posted online were great and I hope everyone enjoys the others just as much.

How will it be distributed?

I could be screwing myself over because I haven’t completely decided yet, but I actually might be releasing it online for free, along with some hard copies if some people are actually inclined to pay for it. Without a label and the proper distribution, this seems to be the easiest way to do it without charging too much for it. Once again, it’s not final, but that’s what I’m thinking right now.

What equipment do you use to record? It also sounds like you’ve made upgrades between “Solitude” and these new tracks you’re releasing, what equipment / technique upgrades have you been using?

I mainly record with a Gibson Explorer into a Marshall head. The only difference between the other recordings and the new songs is that I’ve upgraded to ProTools and have better techniques. On the last releases I wasn’t really trying to make it sound great, but I felt that with better songs should come better production. I still do everything myself on a computer.

Including Wormtongue, there seems to be several other one-man projects from Virginia including Plaguewielder, Wrnlrd, Furcalor. Is there a good community of Black Metal fans / musicians out there? Or does everybody seem to be hiding anonymously in their homes?

I don’t know any of the above musicians personally. Virginia doesn’t have much of a black metal scene, so it seems as if most of the solo musicians are hiding out anonymously, as you say. Sadly, that’s how most of the U.S. black metal scene is. Everyone wants to hide away from society. However, we have a great metal scene here in Richmond. There’s hardly any black metal but tons of great death and thrash metal bands. Most of the musicians know each other and it’s very close-knit.

What albums are you most looking forward to hearing once they’re released this year? What have you been listening to recently?

My most anticipated releases are the new Behemoth and Drudkh albums. Lately I’ve been listening to the new releases from Finntroll, Dimmu Borgir, Swallow the Sun, Porcupine Tree and Dark Tranquillity.

You can check out clips of Wormtongue’s new songs, as well as download the “Memorial to A Golden Age” EP for free, on the Myspace page.

There’s something to be said about a humble band from the eastern United States who, with limited promotion, has already started building a global fan base after their first and only album release. Rosetta is one of these bands who have shown that accomplishing this takes little more than putting out an album that is worthy of the word of mouth it has received since October 2005. I had a chance to speak with Dave earlier this month, who plays bass in the quartet, about future releases, their 2006 tour, and other things.

I was able to see you guys twice during the Summer 2006 tour, first in Portland, and then again in Salt Lake City. Aside from the tour having to end early for several reasons, how would you say it went over all?

Over all the tour went really well. We had a chance to travel to numerous places we’d never been before and play to people who had never heard of our band before. It was also great to meet people who had The Galilean Satellites but had never had the chance to see us before. We got to play with great bands like Day Without Dawn, Tides and The Heuristic.

I’ve read hints about The Galilean Satellites being released on vinyl. Is that still a possibility?

As of right now there will be a version of The Galilean Satellites on vinyl but I’m unsure of when it well be released.

Do you have any comments on what you’re doing for the next album? Two new songs were played in Portland, and both were pretty solid. Would guys you say those are sticking around for the next release or are you still just testing things out?

One of those new songs is actually on a split with our friends in Balboa that will be out in April on Level Plane. The other song will be on the album. So far we have 3 songs done and have a couple others that still need some work. As of right now we are going to start tracking drums march 17 in Brooklyn with Colin from Dysrhythmia / Behold… The Arctopus / Byla / Infidel / Castro.

The concept of the last album felt tangible in a way where a listener could make sense of not only the story through the lyrics, but the mood and feelings that exude from it thanks to the music. Are there ideas for a concept of the next album, or would it be too early to say?

It’s a little too early to say what the concept for the next record will be. Armines kicking around some ideas but I don’t think he has anything set in stone yet.

Are you planning to use similar methods of recording, producing, and mastering the next album? I remember reading that Matt ended up mastering the final copy himself after some trial and error with other helpful hands.

We are going to do part of the album with Colin and than record the rest of it ourselves. Matt most likely will end up mixing it but he probably won’t master the new album.

What albums have you been listening to lately on your own time?

Intronaut – Void, Day Without Dawn – Demos, Giant – Song, Jeff Buckley – all, Bjork – all, Russian circles – Enter and King Crimson - Beat

You can hear clips of Rosetta’s album on their Myspace page or visit their website here.

Summoning’s latest album was released in March of 2006 and has been hailed as their best work in years. While it holds the traditional styles from the past albums, it also mixes several methods that had been known to distinguish previous albums from each other. Earlier, I had the chance to ask Protector and Silenius some questions about the past, present and future of Summoning.

Now that Oath Bound has been out for a while, in retrospect, are there any changes either of you would like to have made? Or are you still satisfied with the final product?

Protector: I am still 100% satsified with the release (as always after a release). This does not mean that we will stick strict to this way for the rest of our life, sure in futures there will be also slight changes as there always have been from release to release. But we have to work on new songs in order to get new ideas and new tastes in music and sound. This all comes naturally and is never planned or discussed.

Lyrically I’ve felt like Oath Bound is perhaps the most conceptual album Summoning has done yet. Would you agree with this, or have most of the previous ones been just as topical?

Silenius: Yes and no. Maybe you mean this because this time we have more songs referring to the same story but otherwise we again have not made an album with just one concept or just one story.

While you guys don’t play live, do you feel like there ever might be a possibility of a Summoning DVD project? The music is very visual, and could effectively be paired with video for a potentially great experience.

Protector: For now there are no plans like this. Actually this is also a matter of the budget of Napalm Records. As long as we could keep our privacy on this DVD we would not mind any DVD, but there is always the problem if the label considers a DVD as worth the price, cause there are not a lot of shows that would play it nor many people would buy it.

How is the mini CD project coming along?

Protector: For now only 1 songs is existing, that actually already existed before the release of oath bound but which did not have place there as we did not want to make this CD longer than 70 minutes. Apart from mixing this song very fine we did not spend any time with summoning since the release of oath bound. This is what happends adter each release; we simply start to work on our other projects which have for us the same importance as summoning. We really would not like to finish a summoning CD and then right after that start with new songs. For us those rests delaling with totally different styles of music makes the work for each of our projects including summoning much more interessting and fresh and is surely one of the reasons why we are still together and not bored about summoning at all, despite of all those years we are working together.

There’s going to be a release of some Summoning albums on vinyl soon, could you please tell us about that from your perspective? Also, how much are you going to be involved in the final art direction of the packaging?

Protector: Yes i heard about some planned vinyl release in the future, but i don’t know much about it. The layout will be based on layouts of the CDs, there is not much more i know about it. Actually I don’t even have a vinyl player at home and only listen to CDs (and prefer them to vinyl) so I am not the right person for questions like that ;-)

Have there been any instruments or various other elements you’ve been wanting to incorporate into Summoning songs, but have not for whatever reason?

Protector: No cause if we would have wanted we would have done it, but there is no need for it as we are totally satisfied with they sound our keyboards, guitars and vocals can create. Well on “land of the dead” we used a real flute, but rather as a detail not as a future plan. As we don’t want to immitate classical music or sound like it we also have no desire for real orchestras as wel and think that with the samples sound and the better controll over the effects and sound we can achieve much more fantasy styled music than with real instruments that are better for creating a real word not a fantasy one.

One song I’ve always enjoyed has been “Khazad Dúm” from the Dol Guldur album because the primary melody quite literally details what I’ve always imagined being inside Moria might feel like. Do any specific songs come to mind where either of you are particularly satisfied for the same reason?

Protector: Actually I almost forget the older songs after a new album appeared. When I hear them again by chance i am still satisfied with them of course, but normally a newer song simply removes the memories of an older song for me, so I can just talk about oath bound where I personally prefer the song “Across the Streaming Tide” most as it sounds very mighty and slow.

Creatively speaking, can you talk about what the future might hold for Summoning? Any particular hopes or expectations you may have set for yourselves?

Protector: As I already said we never make real plans. But I dont see any reason why in future Summoning should suddenly change the sound drastically. We will keep on making keyboard based epic music of course, and put all our other musical preferences in our other projects and not abuse the music of Summoning for some stupid trendy experiments.

In closing, do you have a favorite passage from any of Tolkien’s books? Perhaps something that might have influenced the incarnation of what Summoning has become?

Silenius: No not directly, but after having read “LOTR” and “The Hobbit” I think “Silmarillion” is the most fascinating book because after having read LOTR you really get hungry and totally fascinated about the word around this book and about the complete mythology of this world and all the answers can be found within the Silmarillion. Although it is of course more difficult to read and all the bloodlines are a bit boring with the time, but nevertheless I think this book is the best and most influencial for me.

You can hear clips of Summoning’s work on their Myspace page and visit their website at http://www.summoning.info

Recently I had a chance to check out the recently released album “Skogskvad” from Galar. It reminded me of the first few times I listened to Ulver’s “Bergtatt”. However, this album is not only solid for the similarities and influences it has, but is able to stand on its own thanks to some rather unique aspects. Slagmark (Vocals, Guitar, Bass, Programming) took some time out of his day to answer some questions for me.

Is there much story behind the previous band “7 Inches” and how it came to be what is now Galar?

7 Inches and Galar are two completely different bands. I used to play in 7 Inches together with Fornjot about six or seven years ago. The musical style back then was influenced by ska and punk rock. Later I got more and more interested in metal and decided to form Galar.

Please tell me about musical influences… not only for the album you all recently recorded, but even just in general.

I believe there are many bands which inspires me to make music. I usually get very inspired, and get an urge to make music when listening to good music myself. Good bands which I like to listen to right now are for example Solefald, Borknagar, Ensiferum, Vreid, Susperia, Windir and a many many more.

As you can understand I personally find much inspiration in metal and am influenced by several bands in this genre. Fornjot (Clean vocals, Keyboards, Grand piano and Bassoon) on the other hand doesn’t really listen that much to metal. He is more of a classical music kind of guy. He is actually studying music, and bassoon is his main instrument.

Having different backgrounds is also something we have tried to exploit when it comes to the song writing because we believe that this will make the songs even better.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a band where a member has been credited only the lyrics writing. Can you tell me how Smaug came into place and why lyrics are his duty?

Ha-ha… You don’t see something like this very often, that’s for sure, even though Immortal has something of the same with Demonaz writing all their lyrics. Smaug is a childhood friend of mine and we like all the same music. He also has a lot of knowledge on the subject we base our lyrics on, which is the Viking era. Therefore the choice to include him in the band and to put him in charge of the lyrics was an easy one to make.

Robert Høyem has done a great job with both your website and album artwork, do you plan to work with him in future projects?

I have always been of the opinion that the cover artwork and layout is of great importance. I very often look at the cover artwork when I go searching for new bands which I’ve never heard of. Therefore I wanted the cover artwork to be perfect! Robert (www.attheends.com) did a great job, and I think it turned out just the way I wanted it to be!! After he made such an amazing front cover and great layout for the album, I also asked him to redo our website. Something which he did, and that also turned out amazing! He is also a great guy to work with so we will most definitely work with him on future projects!

Have you guys had any promising drummers try out to take Tordenskrall’s place?

Drummers are actually kind of hard to find here in Bergen where I live. There are some good drummers here, but they all play in good and established bands! But we have one guy on our shortlist which we are going to try out sometime next month, so we will have to wait and see what happens.

What is the song you like best from ‘Skogskvad’?

That’s a hard question. It really depends, but I am really satisfied with Hugin and Munin.

Obviously the drums are programmed, but what are the biggest improvements you see between the Demo and ‘Skogskvad’?

As you said the drums on the demo were programmed, so to use a real drummer on the album was the biggest improvement. The vocals have also improved a lot since the demo, especially the grim vocals. Least but not last, the production is also a lot better than on the demo.

Do you have any intentions of performing live in the future?

We would very much like to perform live, but this really depends on whether we manage to get a solid live line-up together or not. We are currently working on it, and hopefully we will have something sorted out soon!

Any last words for the readers?

I would like to take this opportunity to say that I hope that as many of you as possible who read this will check out our band and new album at www.galar.no. The album is available for sale through our website!

I would also say a big thanks to you for taking the time to do this interview!
Cheers,

Slagmark

You can hear clips from Galar’s album “Skogskvad” on their Myspace page at www.myspace.com/galarmetal