The band got started when Garrett and I met in our freshmen year of College. We found we had very similar taste in music, and we were both looking to start/join a band, so we decided to go for it! The only thing was we both played bass, so we just decided to have a band with two basses and no guitar. We really wanted something different anyway, and that was a good way to accomplish that goal. we are very happy with the way it turned out, we dont regret no guitars. We may decide to add additional instruments later on, if we meet the right person; it might be guitars, it might not. Actually we are experimenting with Garrett playing flute, although it hasn’t gotten very far yet. Garrett and I have been playing together for about two and half years, we had different drummers on our demos, which was recorded in 95' and Dan's been with us for about a year
2. How would you describe your music?
On phrase we like to use to describe our music is "Gothic, Sabbath-inspired Psychedelic Doom". Another is "Gothic Stoner Metal" our original vision was to create music mainly influenced by Black Sabbath, Kiss, Type O Negative, and atmospheric death metal, but we've kind of evolved into more gothic , psychedelic sound due to large part to being introduced to music like that on the project label stuff like Eden, Lycia, and Love Spirals Downwards, and also to acquiring cool "psychedelic" pedals to play with. However, we are still very influenced by Sabbath and other heavy acts I mentioned among others. A lot of people say we sound like Witchfynder General, for some reason, some of us have ever heard them. Marco Barbieri of Ill Literature/Metal Maniacs said we sounded like a cross between doom and "an almost new wave British heavy metal feel" and that we had a "Pentagram-ish vibe". That was based on our demo, though which is rawer sounding then we are now. We have mostly melodic vocals, with some death metal/black metal growls/screams
3. What are your biggest influences?
I guess I sort of already answered this one. I'd say our biggest musical influences are Black Sabbath, Pink Floyd, The Doors, Kiss, Amorphis, Mercyfulfate, EyeHateGod, and Tiamat
4. Who if any do you consider the bands idols?
Its hard to say, we all have our personal idols, I guess, but I dont know if we have "band idols". Some of my personal musical idols are David Gilmour, Jim Morrison, Geezer Butler, Les Claypool, Geddy Lee, Ken Owen, Bill Steer, Frank Zappa, John McLaughlin, Sam Rosenthal, Trey Azagthoth, David Vincent, Jerry Cantrell, and numerous others. Lyrical idols are Roger Walters, Dani Filth, Layne Staley, Jeff Walker, and David Vincent. Some non musical idols are Edgar Allan Poe, Abraham Lincoln, Friedrick Nietrchze, George Orwell, Jean-Paul Sarte and anyone who defies traditional conventions
5. What made you want to be in the band? And if you weren’t in the band what would you be doing now?
I wanted to create music. I know I have at least a little bit of talent, mostly vocally and I wanted to be able to express it. Music is a huge part of my life, I listen to it all the time and I just wanted to make some. Plus I guess I wanted to write stuff that I wanted to hear, which to some extent isn’t really available out there, at least not this combination with this instrumentation! As far what else I'd do, we’re not really big enough for this take up that much of my time, so I'd just have to find something else to do with my free time. If I weren’t in this band I'd definitely start/join a different one. But if I couldn’t be in a band at all I'd probably write more or just do drugs and listen to music
6. What are some of your favorite bands that are really popular today?
Most of the bands are pretty underground, but as far as REALLY popular bands go, I like: Alice In Chains, Pink Floyd, Black Sabbath, this is a hard question to answer because I dont really know what you mean by REALLY popular. Let's see Rush, (a lot these are pretty old too), Deep Purple, Helmet, Tool, Primus, The Doors, I dont know, most popular music nowadays really sucks. Fear Factory, Kiss, Hole. Indigo Girls,, I dont even really know what’s popular, so I'm not going to try to answer this anymore
7. How many demos/albums do you have? Tell me about them!!
We have only one demo released in 95'. It's called "Born Into Death" and it has 5 originals and a cover of Sabbath's "Paranoid". The track listing is as the following: Born Into Death, The Love of Sanity, Casualty of War, Lost Soul's Dream, In The Dim Moonlight and Paranoid. It was recorded on a 8 track, the sound is alright, but not as crunchy, as I'd hoped for but hey, a friend did it practically for free. It's still available to the public for a nearly $4.00. See the end of this interview for our contact address. Since the recording of this demo, we have written four new songs entitled: In My Pale Lover's Embrace, Thrall, Lament, The Iconoclast. We have also changed most of the stuff on the demo at least a little bit, some we re-arranged, some we added parts to or took parts out and we also added effects to some parts when we got some new pedals, making them more psychedelic. We hope to record something new as soon as possible, realistically speaking it probably wont be until the summer of 98' at the earliest. We're just trying to play out as much as possible to perfect our shit and write more stuff until then
8. What does the future hold for the band?
I just told what the near future holds, after we record something (more professionally this time) we'll probably sent it to some labels and see what happens, after that who knows. Garrett and I have been discussing starting a side project of dark mimimlistic ritual soundscapes in the vein of Raison D'Etre, Consono, stuff like that that's on Cold Meat Industry (that's a record label in case you didnt know). Also want to do something "industrial" like Godflesh/DeadWorld/ Scorn with disturbing samples. Who knows, "The futures uncertain and the end is always near"!
9. If you could play with any band who would it be and why?
If I could play with any band it would probably be Pink Floyd, just because they always have such huge worshipful crowds and an awe-inspiring light show that goes along with to what I'd be playing. What a feeling of power that must be! Plus, they have a huge catalog of songs to play, which would also be cool. I'd also quite obviously like to sit in for either Geezer Butler or Ozzy in Black Sabbath , the coolest of that doesn’t even need to be explained
10. Who writes the majority of the music?
Garrett and I pretty much divide it up 50/50, we’ll just write complete song lyrics and all on our own and then tech it to the other guys. Sometimes we'll collaborate and combine our riffs, we did that on Lost Soul's Dream, and sometimes we'll solicit help for lyrics. As far as drumming goes, usually we'll have some ideas of what we want for a song but Dan pretty much makes it up and it pretty much works out that I wrote 4 and Garrett wrote 4 and we wrote Lost Soul's Dream together. But like I said there is some overlap and we'll usually modify what the other guy wrote for us to play a little bit to unite our own style or what we think sounds better
11. Who has been the favorite band you’ve played with and why?
We've actually only played with three other bands so far, and they were all "College Rock" type bands so there's really no point in answering this question
12. Where did you get the band name from?
We got our name from the Type O Negative song "Black No1" where he sings "Little wolf skin Boots and clove cigarettes, and erotic funeral for which she's dressed." We thought it was cool combination of words and it fits in well with our goal to be, as we call it "Catalysts for Moral Decay"
13. Describe what the band is like live?
We are pretty loud, we like to have some good feedback going (thats where the EyeHateGod influence comes in) we try to move around and stuff and put on a good show. Sometimes if we're feeling crazy Garrett will spit some blood or something (his tribute to gore). We always have a portion of the show dedicated to creating as we call it, a "Cacophonous Wall of Sound" . It's usually at the end of Casualty of War or The Iconoclast, we just sort of morph into psychedelic, like an early Pink Floyd thing (kinda like Saucerful of Secrets), then it just gets more noisy and incomprehensible. It's great fun and quite cool sounding especially if you've got a fat buzz on
14. If you are gonna do any kind of video what would be in it?
You know, we've talked about it, and we just dont know. We're pretty sure we'd like to have scantily dead women in it, probably some coffins too. That would fit with the whole Erotic Funeral concept. That's kind of a tongue-in-cheeck type thing, though we haven’t given it that much thought because trust me, we're not gonna be making any videos anytime soon, other than just live performances
15. Are there any touring plans made; if so tell me about them?
We cant really tour we couldn’t afford it money-wise or time-wise, we're just gonna try to play anywhere that will have us that we dont have to spend too much money on gas getting to. We'll probably play this summers in Grand Rapids Detroit and hopefully Lansing and Kalamazoo
16. Where do you think the band will be 20 years from now?
Well, if we're still around we'll probably be making more studio-oriented music, with more effects and stuff. We'll probably have some additional instruments by then, like keyboards percussion. Maybe we will evolve into a huge ensemble like latter-day Pink Floyd. We'll probably be doing other stuff by then though. I cant imagine carrying through this particular band concept for 20 years but hey who knows, not me, that's for sure. Well this interview is over thanks for caring
*I havent heard anything on the band but they seem to put on a good show*