Wolves in the Throne Room

Tuesday February 20 2009 (La Boule Noire)

Prior to the rest, we would like to thank warmly Martin Hörsch for his kindness and availability. Thanks also to Aaron Weaver for his patience during all this long interview so close of the show.

Roadburn's 2008 edition buzz, Wolves In The Throne Room is an American band mixing different sort of influences, merged around a deep black metal atmosphere. This interview took place just before their show in Paris. WITTR will be present at the HELLFEST 2009 and WALDROCK 2009 (NL). Their third full length album "BLACK CASCADE" will be released by spring on SouthernRecords

Fab: Could you present yourself and the band for those who wouldn’t know you yet?
Aaron Weaver: My name’s Aaron, I play drums in WOLVES IN THE THRONE ROOM. Also in the band is my brother Nathan who plays guitar and does the vocals. And our other guitar player is named Will Lindsay who’s actually just joined the band in the past six months or so.

Fab: What is your musical background?
Aaron: Well, I mean, WITTR is mostly what people call a Black Metal band. But we have a sort of contradictory relationship to Black Metal because, you know, we’re playing this music for our own reasons and we’re coming from a very specific sort of place. And we have a different motivation than European Black Metal bands do. We come out of more of a punk or hardcore kind of background, I think it’s the best way to describe it. We’re more interested in ecological issues, we’re interested in sort of spiritual issues.

Spirit: Anything behind the WITTR name? A special signification?
Aaron: Yeah. It has a lot of meanings. It conjures an image, and the image says what the band is all about: And it’s the idea of wilderness being unleashed, some sort of primal energy being unleashed. So the idea of wild and vengeful beasts tearing down these constructs, you know, attacking the king or what the king is.

Spirit: Something about the new LP to come “Black Cascade”? Did Will Lindsay brought something new ?
Aaron: Yeah. I mean, whenever someone creates music, I think they add their own sort of energy to it, and their own sort of spirit. And yeah, having Will taking over our guitar from previous guitar player Rick Dahlen was his name, definitely changed the spirit of the band a little bit. I think it’s a better, really good addition, we were really good friends of Will from a long time (NDR he was the previous live bass player) and we’ve known him for years before that, just through underground music culture.

Spirit: Is there a concept on the new album?
Aaron: (laughter) There’s always a special signification. Well, the title is, the title forwards to a lot of thing: the region we live is called “Cascadia”, referencing the “Cascade Mountains” ¹ which is a big mountain range near Seattle and Northen Oregon which is, kinda where we live. And so that’s one meaning, and it means a bunch of other things. But that’s the one that I’m kind of putting up there into the world.
As far as the theme of the record, there’re four songs: and each song corresponds to a different sort of archetype, which is represented by a card in a tarot deck: The first card is the foul, the second car is the devil, the third car is the emperor, and the fourth card is the world. So, on one level, kind of superficial level, the album is a progression of sorts, a spiritual progression from the “jumping off a cliff”, which is the image of the fool in a tarot, this person who is about to step off into this precipice, into the unknown, and then undertaking a journey of sorts, and reaching some sort of conclusion. And so, that’s kind of the first level of the concept. But of course, there are other sorts of meanings that are hidden within there, and the lyrics have multiple meanings. And there’s also contradictory meanings as well, because you know, we’re not necessarily a happy band who thinks that you can reach enlightenment so easily. I think, a part of us think that we’re doomed, and there’s this ever prevailing sense of dread, that is, you know, looming over the whole affair. That even know at the end of the record, the characters, in the story might have, you know, reach some sort of sense of completion, that’s not necessarily a happy thing, that’s not necessarily a positive thing. Well something has changed, something has been transformed.

Fab: It’s why there’s always four songs on your albums?
Aaron: Actually, numerology is really important to us. But actually, and I’ve been asked this before, that numbers of the songs, is coincidental. That’s not an intentional thing. I think because, you know, we write the record as a whole, so we can see if we have an idea for the whole record. And (then) we have an idea for themes, and how the record is divided into songs is kinda comes up after the fact. And it just so happens that the previous two records, and this one now have four tracks on. That’s a kind of coincidence, but who knows, maybe there’s a deeper significance that we’re not aware of, and we’ll only understand later.

Fab: As you’re lovers of Nature, and you can talk about your way of living if you want to, you want to keep your sound as “natural” as possible, you ‘ll really never ever use a computer or any overproducing stuff in recording studios? It’s a way of conduct?
Aaron: Well, let’s start in the beginning I guess. There’ve been a lot of rumours about our lifestyle at home. Some people say that we’re living in a one room shack in the mountains, with a single candle and these sort of things.

Fab: In a cave (laughter).
Aaron: Yeah, in a cave (laughter), and of course that’s not true. We have a high-speed DSL connection at our house, but in the same time, we have a working farm, me and my wife, well, we’re not married technically (laughter), we’re able to grow almost all our own food, and we’re very interested in removing ourselves from mainstream society as much as possible. And we have a bunch of friends who live with us, who have similar sort of dreams, and similar sort of goals.
(About the second question)You know of course, in modern recording at some point it goes onto a computer, because you need to send the CDR to the pressing plant. But it’s true that we do all of out basic tracking on analogue equipment. We’ve recorded, “Black Cascade” on a really amazing 1973 NEVE console, the one with the two-inch tape. It was recorded by Randall Dunn., recorder of Sunn O)), Earth, and so many other really amazing bands. And so it adds this very analogue live sound to it, we don’t really see the idea of triggering on the drums and you know Pro Tools, the way that some many bands make music nowadays. I think that really does the track from the spirit when you’re just piecing it together on the computer without actually playing it. Soulless. And that’s the exact opposite of what we wanna do as a band, we want to touch something primal, something ancient and deep. And yes, we want the sound of our record to reflect that desire.

Fab: Do you revel in the fact of not being easily musically labelled? To “lose” people as you play different styles in your music.
Aaron: Yeah, I mean, I go back and forth as to whether or not Black Metal is a good label for the band. Because clearly we’re…even though we have a certain sort of things in common with a band like Ulver for instance, or Emperor, I think it’s really clear to me and clear to other people that we’re coming from a very different point of view. And that we’re trying to do something very very different that what these European Black Metal bands are doing. So yeah, for that reason, I can take or leave the Black Metal label, and I think that as our band evolves, that that label becomes less and less fitting. But for the time being, you know, you have to put a label on things, everyone demands it, but for the time being, I’m happy with that label.

Fab: The use of female vocals is really great, it adds another layer, but we doesn’t hear this that often in Black Metal. So why did you add this? A need for creation?
Aaron: The reason that we’ve included those kinds of vocals in our records… I think Black Metal usually is this very extreme thing, it’s very masculine, and very violent, very aggressive. And it says (that) we’re in to destroy the world, you know, the world is an evil place, I mean, to start from scratch. There’s a deep sense of nihilism to it. Our music doesn’t have that same sense of nihilism. I think we’re just trying to express the transcendent, we’re just trying to express something that’s eternal, and for that reason we want our music to feel balanced. And so it’s good for us to introduce that sort of feminine spirit into our music, through the inclusion of those kinds of voices.
On a purely musical level, it creates a sense of dynamic flow, and it creates these sorts of ebbs and flows and energy which is important into the craft of making a record. But on the level of spirit, I think that having someone like Jamie Myers (Diadem) and Jessica Kinney (Two hunters) sing those parts introduces the feminine sort of divine energy to the song. Unfortunately the new record doesn’t have any female vocals on it, we considered it and Jamie flew from Texas to sing parts, then we all decided that it wasn’t a good idea, this record was too dark, and it was best, as just the band, the three of us. But definitely it’s something that we’ll work more with in the future, for sure.

Fab: Do you relate to CULT OF LUNA’s way of creating and recording music? (they were living in a isolated woodhouse cabin in the middle of a forest, in the cold winter).
Aaron: Yeah, that’s really important. We’ve talked about doing that, of setting up a temporary recording studio at some place, very far away from civilization. But, you know, we write our music at our farm, and I spend enough time being totally removed from civilization. But in the same time, I think it’s very important to remove yourself from other people, and focus entirely on making the record. So, for making “Black Cascade”, as we spent a solid month never really leaving the studio, we recorded the basic tracks on that NEVE console, then took the tape back to Randall Dunn’s home studio called Aleph, as she has a very nice little quiet piece of land with a stream running through it, just right in Seattle, just kinda on the outskirts of Seattle.

And we got really really deep inside the record, we worked for twelve or fourteen hours on the music and just fall asleep right there on the floor sometimes, and wake up and get right back to it. And we’ve done that for weeks, and I think that’s a really important thing to do, because you forget everything else, you forget everything else in your life. Seems you focus entirely on that very specific piece of, that specific spirit of energy that you’re trying to create with the record. We all gonna be a little bit crazy, we got all estranged, but I think that makes for good music when you sort of lose touch with reality a little bit.

Fab: Would you consider your music as complementary to black metal, often seen as satanist, as another level, another step further? Or it is completely something else? Different, unusual and/or political?
Aaron: It’s a very good question. I don’t think that it’s something, …I wouldn’t want to say it’s an evolution, because an evolution is saying something better, and I don’t think that we’re better than anyone you know? I think we’re doing our own thing. So the way that I see ourselves is that we’re doing something totally different, because I don’t think that there’s many bands who have the same sort of interests, the same sort of motivation of playing music. So I guess we feel like a little bit isolated maybe sometimes, that there’s maybe not so many, we don’t have so many peers in the “greater” musical community. We do have a lot of peers in Olympia, in our very small underground scene. They are quite a few people who are working with similar themes, using Metal music, or Black Metal if you will, to…as a way to transform your consciousness and unleash something primal, something ancient. But most of these people are deeply non-commercial, and you know, would never release a record on a record label, and go on tour and do the things than WITTR have done.

Fab: Congratulations about the great pictures on your website, with several photographers. Very moody and beautiful. Whose idea was it, or What’s the idea behind it?
Aaron: Oh thank you. Well, we’re very interested in the visual side of things. And me and Nathan conceive evolve the visuals. I’m especially proud of the pictures for “Black Cascade”, which I don’t think you haven’t seen yet.
Fab & SpiriT: No. But we can’t wait.

Aaron: We went to the Cascade mountains, the mountains range that I’ve mentioned earlier, and camped out for a few days, and have created all the images with models and with props. It’s quite interesting. I really think you’ll enjoy that. It’s quite good. We worked with a friend of ours, a photographer who’s also a musician, he’s interested in Black Metal music, he’s interested in shamanism, spiritual journeying, esoteric things. His name is Johnny Delacy. He’s actually in a band or a musical group called FAUNA which just released a record on Aurora Borealis (record label), their music is available in Europe. I mean, they’re completely amazing. I wish that more people were able to see what they do, because their live show is so intense and so powerful. But they’re both really reclusive men, the two fellows in FAUNA, and they’re far more reclusive than WITTR. But thank you for the compliment on the artwork.

Fab: A word about your interest in Rudolf Steiner?
Aaron: Yeah. I’ll say a few words. I think that Rudolf Steiner is one of the people that was maybe ahead of its time. And I think that, you know, modern people were deaf to that spiritual reality that I think our ancestors maybe had more immediate access to. I think that 5000 years ago, people were in dearly contact with the other world, or with an esoteric reality. And then you know, during the enlightenment, as the modern world was created, the modern physical world was created, I think that the trade-off is that we’ve lost that connection to that spiritual reality. And I think Steiner is probably one of those prophets of a real awakening and awareness. And that’s why I’m so interested in him. He’s someone who had an immediate connection from childhood with the fairy world, the astro-world or whatever you wanna call it, with the angels and demons and deities of all sorts. That’s really inspirational to me because that’s a sort of connection we all want to create in our life. And I think that’s gonna be a growing thing, when more and more people are going to wake up to the reality of that, that spiritual dimension, that hidden dimension that lies just beyond the veil, it’s here right now but it’s just right beyond our everyday conception.

Spirit: A little “french question”. What do you think about Jean-Jacques Rousseau and his “theory of natural man”.
Aaron: I think that we were in high school when we read Rousseau, so tell me if I’m wrong, his theory is that the natural state of mankind is living in a natural harmonious way with the natural world. I think I know what you mean. Part of me really disagree with that, because that’s a very romantic notion, like things were so perfect before Christianity, before the advent of agriculture, and everyone worshipped the goddess, there were no war, and everyone lived up to be 111 years old, and seven feet tall…(laughter). I don’t buy any of that sort of “romanticization” of things.

And I don’t make value judgments, necessarily about whether modern life is good or bad, or whether our primitive way of living is good or bad. Our band is not about making…judging things, and so, within the same time I think you can’t deny that, I think I said this earlier, modern people think in a very different way than ancient people think, we perceived the world in a lot of different way, so I’d disagree with Rousseau, I wouldn’t say that we were corrupted, that we were in a state of grace, that we used to live in Eden and then we were cast out. I would say that we’ve changed, we’ve moved from the ancient way of being to this modern way of being. And what WITTR wants to do is really questioning that, and really sort of deeply understand what that really means. And to consider transforming again, to take control of our own lives, to take control of our relationship with the spiritual world, and consciously take a step towards something else. And again, not judging, not saying that we’ve been casted out of Eden by some angry creator, and should be, go back there. But something happened for sure, just to be aware of that, and to take that seriously.

Spirit: As death & destruction of humanity are recurrent themes in your lyrics, do you think human could really exist in the modern society without a rebirth through destruction?
Aaron: Yeah, I mean, that’s a crucial question. But I think that’s why our band, that’s why we play this Black Metal music. A part of me is deeply pessimistic about things. That’s why we’re not a “hippie” band, that’s why we’re not playing “Jam” music, or The Grateful Dead or something. I think that the hippies in 1971 thought that everything was, just change, and people were taking acid or whatever. And, there would be a sort of revolution of consciousness, and everyone would just agree to have this new way of living and this new way of looking at the world. But you know, people of my generation who saw that the hippies failed, for a million reasons, me and my peers, we can’t help but have this sense of dread, that there’s some sort of apocalypse looming. And I think that’s especially strong in America, because America is such an extreme country, that has this way of living that I dislike, America invented it: with factory farming, and with treating animals the way that we do, and with being, you know, this imperial bully. People like me, who hate that sort of thing, we have an extreme reaction (towards) the other way.
But as to whether or not there’s gonna be some sort of apocalypse, or some sort of destruction in order to be reborn, I don’t know, I can’t say. I mean it’s hard to judge, because there’s always been a certain segment of society that believes that the apocalypse is coming. You know, I’m sure that in the year 1200, there was some prophet that said “God is coming back and the world is gonna end”. The year 1200 passes and nothing happens. What I think is that there’s always a possibility for an apocalypse, in your own mind, because the word “Apocalypse” means “to reveal something”, it doesn’t necessarily means a fiery demise. So I guess my dream is that everyone can have their personal apocalypse. But in the same time, you can’t help but to be pessimistic about the world, the way…things just can’t continue the way they’re continuing, with everyone do live the way that Americans do, with all their consumption, and a greedy lifestyle. Something has to give. And I hope that it’s not gonna result in suffering for millions or billions of people. I don’t know, we shall see, time will tell.

Fab: As Americans, a comment about Barack Obama’s election?
Aaron: Well, WITTR is not a political band. Someone said to me that “you should be interested in politics because you have these ecological concerns, and that’s a political issue”. Georges Bush passes a law that says that we can sell these public realm forests to private companies and the trees being cut down. It causes an effect, it’s a political thing. Well, I disagree, I mean I think that the reason why that whole thing takes place, and the reason why we have the world as we do is because of that spiritual thing, because we were cast out of Paradise, as we also said, we’ve been corrupted in some way, or we missing some sort of…

Fab: We’re slaves of the world we’ve created?
Aaron: Yeah, it’s a great way to put it, exactly. So, you know, I voted for Barack Obama in the elections. But in the same time, I don’t think it’s necessarily…It’s the kind of thing like it can’t hurt, that’s the way I look at it, I mean, he seems like a nice fellow, and when you’re so nauseated by Georges Bush for eight years, he’s just such an embarrassment you know? And I’m saying this just like a private citizen, not as an artist or as a musician, or as an outsider from society. But this is like a human being when I listen to that idiot talk. It’s obviously a positive change on that level. But I don’t think that bringing Barack Obama on the oval office, is gonna bring us on the edge of awareness.
It might be too late. Think of…the history is full of, these huge sorts of calamities, World War II, atomic bomb, the Black Plague, I mean, something horrible will happen eventually. And I don’t think that Barack Obama is gonna be able to stop that. It might just be our destiny.

Fab: Are you happy to be on the HELLFEST 2009’s bill?
Aaron: I think so. It’s an interesting thing for us, you know, we don’t have this sort of festivals in the States. It’s a different culture. I’m interested just to see what it’s like to play on those sort of big stage, perhaps during daylight.

Spirit: It will be different than the Roadburn Festival. It’s a bigger audience, but you will probably play on the tent stage, which is usually in front of 2000 people and obviously in the dark.
Aaron: Well, that seems reasonable. That’ll certainly be the largest audience we’ve played for. So, and I’m very curious to see how we’re gonna be received. Because we’ve never expected that our music would be heard by anyone off the rest of us.

Spirit: Anyway, you had very good echoes from last year Roadburn’s Festival.
Aaron: Oh, thank you. I hope that we’re be able to… I think we delivered a good performance at that festival. This festival was so fantastic through and through, the people that putted it on are just so dedicated to make the best festival possible, and just so committed to music and to art. They created the situation where bands can really be at their best. Often times on tour, it’s stressful, like the sound is bad, or you’re late to the show, and you can’t focus 100% on just the art or the spirit side of things, you have to worry about these mundane things. But a festival like Roadburn which is really about the music, and about the art. And I hope that the HELLFEST is a similar experience (NDR hope so …).

 Spirit: A last question, how would you describe your performance on stage? What is your state of mind?
Fab: The visual mood.
Aaron: That’s a very important thing to us. We want to create a space, where people, if they wish, can really sort of lose themselves in the music. To me Black Metal is almost like shamanism in a lot of ways, because of the hypnotic drumbeat, and because of the intensity of the sound, I mean, these were techniques that humans have always used to transform their consciousness. And so I think that’s what we’re trying to do in our own way, is to create the possibility for people to gaze inward. And that’s why at our concerts, people aren’t moshing, jumping around and this kind of things. People, generally, are very quiet and still, and I think focus on themselves, and that’s what we’re doing when we play, it’s trying to journey inward and find some sort of deeper sense of strength, or catharsis, unleashing things that are in our subconscious mind, lurking within, that don’t come out the everyday, but are accessible when doing these very extreme things, you know, playing the drums the way that we do, screaming… It’s a very physical kind of act, and I think that the atmosphere, and we do the best we can, giving that we’re playing on a stage in Paris rather than in the forest at home, taking control of that atmosphere, I think, makes it easier to sort of like, go out of your conscious mind and go someplace else.

1. Cascadia : Defined as the watersheds of rivers that flow into the pacific Ocean through Noth America’s temperate rainforest zone, Cascadia, or the Pacific Northwest, extends from northern California to southern Alaska –along a coastline once cloacked in nearly continuous rainforest- and inland as far as the continental divide (Northwest environment watch)