Transylvanian tapes Artist- Swamp Witch Interview up
1. So you have released an Ep and two full Blackened Sludge Doom releases what brought Swamp witch to the sonic styling we hear in 2019?
Dead Rituals is an album that incorporates a lot of our interests in heavy extreme music that draws inspiration from the realms of Death Doom, Psychedelic Sludge & Black Metal. It sounds like a natural progression, most bands start out with their heaviest and most brutal albums, but we have always said we wanted to keep getting heavier and more experimental. How do you make Doom even heavier and more pissed off sounding?> incorporate the ferocity of Death Metal and memorizing nature of Black Metal. At our core we are a Doom band but Doom in the sense of terrible horror and inescapable death.
2. When recording is it the music or lyrics that drive the creation and recording of the material?
Jacob - The imagery in the lyrics certainly inspires elements of our songwriting but it is not the sole influence. Sometimes we finish the lyrics after the song is written, too. It really just depends where the individual track takes us.
3. With Songs many over the 9 minute mark do you feel this style of music need the room to breathe? Does this limit or focus the fans of Swamp witch even more?
Jacob - It's safe to assume Doom fans are ok with really long songs but writing long songs that can engage listeners really is the challenge of playing slow music. Anyone can play an open chord over and over again at full volume but keeping listeners involved isn't as easy. Whether or not we can keep the attention of listeners is something I'll let them decide, haha.
4. I hear elements of bands like Crowbar, Cavity, Grief, Neurosis, Buzzoven, Mournful Congregation, Thergothon and Bolt Thrower all in the mix what bands inspired you to come to this place?
For the most part we dig on all of the aforementioned bands listed. We also dig on bands like Noothgrush, Corrupted, Eyehategod, Laudanum, Asunder, Graves At Sea, Down, Pagan Altar, Iron Monkey, Type O Negative, King Crimson & Flower Travellin' Band, all of these certainly influenced us to traverse down the path we have taken musically with Swamp Witch. We listen to a lot of music outside of the spectrum of Doom Metal, beyond our friends in Brainoil & Hell, the current state of Doom is pretty fucking dismal and boring. Dont get me wrong, when a Doom band is ON there is nothing that can compare to it and that is something that resonates with us deeply but there is something primal and attractive about Death Metal & Black Metal that has always grabbed our attention as well. We like dark music.
5. Transylvanian Tapes seems to be your label home and a label members own correct? Is it just better with good PR today to be a underground band that is DIY?
I run Transylvanian Tapes and am also the vocalist of Swamp Witch, it makes sense to release our own music because I have built a platform to do so. We have worked with a couple of boutique labels and ultimately they invested in our band and we have physical releases out so that is cool, but if you can afford to do it yourself and you have the drive and dedication to push it, why the fuck not, you know? We pay for our own recordings and fund everything ourselves so we dont have anyone telling us what we should or should not be doing with our band.
We have worked with a couple of PR folks now, on "The Slithering Bog" we worked with Liz from Earsplit PR and she did right by us. We decided to try working with someone new with "Dead Rituals" and it was definitely a learning experience, and at the end of the day we tried and figured some stuff out, so whatever, sometimes you just have to take a loss.
There is a pretty cool quote from the movie "A Bronx Tale" that I try to reflect on from time to time, there is a guy trying to collect some money from someone else that he wants to put a hurting on and one of his wise older friends tells him "sometimes hurting someone ain't the answer, look at it this way, it cost you ____(blank amount) of money to get rid of them, they are never going to bother you again, they are never going to ask you for money again and they are out of your life for ___(blank amount) of money. You got off cheap, forget it."
6. How do Slithering Bog and Dead Rituals differ and what are the themes of Swamp Witch songs?
Jacob - The Slithering Bog focused more on actual swamp imagery, a kind of landscape where our weird and warped sounds are supposed to exist, and I think the artwork and song titles point to that in a pretty obvious but effective way. Dead Rituals is intentionally a bit more vague in the purpose of its themes in art and lyrics and I'm more interested in what listeners say about those things than me telling them what it all means.
7. If you could make a proper video off any track of Dead Rituals, How would you want to look and be presented?
Something tripped out, hazy, and disorientating that makes you feel uneasy but is hypnotizing enough to hold your attention. We have talked a lot about doing videos, but that is something we have not really explored too much. We have put a lot more thought into creating a strong artistic aesthetic for the band that is easier to control with ink since Jacob illustrates everything but manifesting it into a physical form is harder to convey the same atmosphere and power. Animation in the vein of the work of Ralph Bakshi(Wizards) or Rene Laloux(Fantastic Planet) or stop motion claymation in the vein of Fred Stuhr(Tool's Sober & Prisonsex) would be wicked. Music video directors like Paul Fedor who did the last Alice in Chains video "Get Born Again", and worked on some outside of the box stuff for Marilyn Manson, Deftones, Adema and more would be rad. Outside of our realm of possibility working with a brilliant mind like Rob Zombie would be pretty fucking ultimate. We havent pulled the trigger because we dont want to do something half assed, we want to do something great and memorable and the money that something like that would cost is beyond our means.
8. If someone didn't see the band live and just listened to the music how would they hear and visualize you differently live . Is it the same best at heart?
When we play live we try to make it more of a visceral experience, so sometimes we will play our songs heavier and more drawn out or sometimes it will be faster and shorter it all depends on the mood and atmosphere of the event. Our live sound is pretty immense and punishing and our recorded music is more dialed in and trance inducing with repetitious hypnotization, we try to play on that effect with our music when we record but live we focus more on just crushing.
9. How has Bandcamp, Podcasts, Youtube and the Digital age made working in underground music very different to lets say 10 yrs ago?
The Digital age is pretty weird, we have lived in a time where we saw the fall of physical media. It is easy to look at piracy like the worst thing in the world, but at the same time when we started out about a decade ago nobody gave a fuck about us or our band and we gave away our first album "Gnosis" for free and the last time I checked the upload we hosted had over 100,000 downloads, which is pretty fucking cool. We definitely didnt sell that many copies of our album, but people downloading it and listening to it even just once alone in itself is pretty amazing.
With that said, piracy doesnt really bother me much. I have learned throughout the years that if people have to pay for something they tend to stick with it more and pay more attention to it since they actually invested in purchasing it and that is pretty important, that is definitely one of the reasons I charge for our music and for the music that I release on my label. I am not at a point where I really give a shit if people are bootlegging our music, if they want it that bad, go for it, hell they could just write us and I would most likely send them a download for free anyway.
Platforms like Youtube, Bandcamp, & Podcasts are powerful and useful tools. I dont understand a band that doesnt use the internet in this day and age, it is great to be able to connect with like minded individuals and artists. Usually the bands against a digital presence have social media profiles themselves and are the worst shitposters so it is kind of fucking stupid but whatever people can do whatever the hell they want. I am not here to tell fools what to do, just like I dont expect anyone to try and tell me what to do.
10. If a label like Century Media or Nuclear blast came to a band like Swamp Witch would it even interest them or are you better off keeping it all in the inner circle for music of this style and creation?
We are definitely open to working with a label that can elevate our band and give us opportunities to grow. I am not trying to sound like a pompous shithead but I think that if you dig on underground Sludge/Doom/Deathdoom music there is a chance you may have heard of our band or our music already, but it is the casual listeners and followers that larger reputable labels have garnered over the years that would be killer to tap into. I don't know one working metal band that has set out to remain as obscure as possible, even the bands that dont play live shows have pretty prolific outputs.
11. What new bands are impressing you being that you are from Oakland a hot bed of extreme musical ideals?
Killer new(ish) bands from Oakland that we think are worth checking out when it comes to Death Metal: Mortuous, Necrot, & Vastum. For Black Metal: Funeral Chant, Dispirit(members of Asunder/Weakling), & Ails(members of Ludicra). For Post-Punk/Darkwave: False Figure, Esses, & Altar De Fey
Hardcore bands that I think are worth checking out are: No Right, Korrosive & Khiis
12. How does the artwork of Dead Ritual play into the aesthetics of album and over all presentation?
Jacob - It's foggy and weird but still menacing and tremendously dark which is overall a nice way to sum up the album.
13. s Occult and Esoteric themes seems to follow you around a lot what does that mean to members of Swamp Witch?
Jacob - Occult themes are prerequisites to most Doom and metal in general but bands tend to bury themselves when trying to get into conversations about it. Esoteric imagery always adds to the allure of a band for me regardless of how trite it has become.
14. Are the band member reading any thing interesting right now ?
I know that one of the guitarists and myself are reading "Sapiens" right now, I am also reading Metal Blade Records For The Sake of Heaviness. Over the last couple months I read Jung's "The Undiscovered Self", "How to Ruin a record label" about Lookout Records, Pimp by Iceberg Slim, autobiographies by Paul Mooney, Dick Gregory and Richard Pryor & The Books of Blood with some Conan and lovecraft sprinkled in to fall asleep to.
15. When on the road can you all agree what to listen to in van or vehicle or is it just a shit show ?
We hit the road last weekend and spent a good amount of time listening to Longmont Potion Castle, Alice In Chains, and Pink Floyd. We also listened to dISEMBOWELMENT, Inverloch, Krypts, Thergothon, and some Black Metal that I thought was good listening to at home but on the road it was kinda boring. On the longer trips we have taken we tend to just stick with the classicks. We've been at it for a long time now and know what we all dig on so it is not some sort of pissing competition to show one another the most obscure shit possible we'd rather just stick with what we know is good.
16. At the end of the day what does Swamp Witch want to be remembered for ?
Since we are a band it would be cool to be remember for the music that we have made. We are pretty private individuals so anything in our personal life is meant for those that know us on a deeper level
17. Do the Members have other projects you like to expose my readers too?
Yeah. Check out Evulse a Death Metal band I am doing vocals for with members of Mortuous and Augurs, Gravecoven is a Black Doom Metal band band that I am doing with Phil from Swamp Witch. Xenotaph is a wicked Black Metal band that our guitarist Zack leads. Zack also plays in a Black Death Metal band called Dearth. Our other guitarist Phil plays in a Doom band called Occlith and is a hired gun for the Doom Metal band CHRCH. Phil has another band that he recently resurrected called Enhauntus and he also used to play in a very heavy band called Bog Oak. Phil, Jacob, and myself along with the former drummer of Bog Oak worked on a gloomy Funeral Doom band called Wandering that unfortunately never got to see the light of day.
18. Thanks for the time any closing thoughts here.
Thanks for giving us the time of day/night. Hopefully we will make it out to your neck of the woods sometime in the future.
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