Philip A. Wickstrand is a contributing freelance writer for Metal Psalter Webzine. He had the opportunity to catch up with vocalist/guitarist/bass guitarist Lord Serpent at Plan B in Portland, OR on July 23, 2010.

There are two things the Pacific Northwest is known to have in abundance within the Metal realm - excellent Doom and Black Metal. With such abundance, it sometimes becomes hard to stand out, but that is a problem that Battle Ground, Washington's CEREMONIAL CASTINGS have never had to worry about. Not only do they write and perform Black Metal of a very high quality, they also have great dedication and work ethic. Coming off a forced hiatus of nearly a year, CEREMONIAL CASTINGS have returned with a vengeance.

Phil: You're just off a year long hiatus in the last few months, tell us what you've been up to.

Lord Serpent: Actually, we've been just basically busting our ass to get back to where we are now. We had some unfortunate events where we ended up losing every single piece of gear that we owned, went like five months without owning a guitar, which is probably the worst time of my life. It was just hard, you know? Going from doing something every day of your life to not being able to do it anymore, so in that last year, it was just everything we could do just to save what we could to get all the equipment back and now we're back, better and stronger and, well, more equipped.

Phil: You're going to be releasing the Beast in Black EP soon - tell us a bit about that.

Lord Serpent: We had planned what was supposed to be released, I believe last fall before these unfortunate events, and we had planned to release this double disc; it was going to be a bunch of old demos re-recorded, that were supposed to come out… a lot of stuff that we had released back in the early 2000s that we thought was some of our best material that people haven't heard. So a lot of it we were going to re-record and then we've got a handful of new songs and some unreleased stuff and we thought it'd be cool to do this double disc in celebration of our thirteenth year of existence. Unfortunately, that didn't happen. So what we've done is we've got the project started - we've got all the guitars recorded and both discs are in the works of being finished, but we've decided to split them up into two different releases and unfortunately, we're not going to be able to finish the first of the releases until next year. So we figured, "You know what? Let's put an EP out." We've got some live tracks, we've got some unreleased demos, an unreleased cover - we're planning on adding in our version of a VON cover that we did for a tribute and we just want to put something out to let people know that we're not going anywhere and we're still around; kind of hold them over until the next release is finalized.

Phil: Was some of this supposed to be on the split with VADIMVON that was supposed to come out last year?

Lord Serpent: Nope, nope. Actually, the split with VADIM is still in the works, still coming out - all the guitar tracks are recorded for that. We plan on releasing that next year and I believe that's four brand new songs, plus a cover song that we're going to be doing.

Phil: Alright, tell us a bit about the March of the Death Cult album.

Lord Serpent: March of the Death Cult is gonna be our next release, which we're hoping will be released at the Black Circle Fest next year. That's gonna be a lot of songs from our Midnight Death Cult Phenomena and our Universal Funeral March demos that were released in 2003. We handpicked a number of songs from each album that we thought would best represent what we do and then there's also going to be some of the original demos just remastered that we're going to throw in on the end. And once again, cover songs - I have this obsession with cover songs, so unfortunately, maybe we do that too much, but I like it, [laughs] so we keep doing it.

Phil: From songs that are actually new, what can we expect from them?

Lord Serpent: Well, it's different. It's hard to explain. Within the genre and style of music that we play ourselves, I feel like each album is kind of different in its own way and we have these styles… of the style that we play, so the VADIMVON one is very, very brutal and fast, much like Barbaric is the Beast, where it's got a lot of that Death Metal… more of that Death Metal influence. And then the other one is going to be more on the lines of Immortal Black Art, where it was more… still had that Death Metal influence, but it was more very fast Black Metal. And then another album that I'm working on now… that I'm writing right now that hopefully will be out in 2011 is kinda more along the lines of Salem - it's a lot of stuff that didn't make Salem, a lot of riffs that were written for that album, but I never actually used in the songs, so it's got kinda more of that mystical, depressing kind of… to me, it's like a lot of old school ABIGOR type of riffs and stuff like that. But yeah, the new stuff, everything's going to be different, you know? I have a problem where I can't concentrate on one thing, so everything is scattered.

Phil: You mentioned it a couple of minutes ago, but tell our readers about the festival you put on every year.

Lord Serpent: Every year, and this last one a few months ago in May was the second annual and it's just this thing that I wanted to do for a long time, which was bring a Black Metal festival to the Northwest. Especially in the Northwest, I think we have a really good scene… it get missed, you know. There's a lot of publicity out there in this and that scene and this band and I hate to throw the term scene around, but I don't know what else you wanna call it.

Phil: Community.

Lord Serpent: And that's a good word for it - it really is. But you have all these bands up here in the Northwest and you've got these great acts that… and it's funny because it's like, you've got all these bands, it's not all the bands are like friends, nobody's daily talking to eachother, nobody's hanging out with eachother on a daily basis, but we're all doing our own thing and it all makes up what we have here and I think, personally, (it) is the best scene, especially as far as Black Metal goes, in the States. I really do. And it's something that I wish would've happened and I finally just got courageous enough to take it on and do it and so far, so good. Next year, I've got some big plans, nothing I can really talk about, but I'm hoping I can kind of do… and this year, I kind of wanted to kinda bring more of the Cascadian in. I had a few bands that came in and I highly enjoyed. Hopefully next year I'll get more of those.

Phil: When you say Cascadian, you're talking stylistically bands like WOLVES IN THE THRONE ROOM, FOREST OF GREY…

Lord Serpent: Absolutely. Actually, FOREST OF GREY played last year, too. We actually had talked to WOLVES about last year and it was close, but unfortunately we couldn't come to, so they'll be one of the first few that I get in touch with this year and FAUNA's another one on my list that I enjoy that I could hopefully bring down.

Phil: You should try to get ADDAURA, too.

Lord Serpent: Sure, sure.

Phil - They're really good if you haven't heard them.

Lord Serpent: No, absolutely. Yeah, ADDAURA and L'ACEPHALE, you know.

Phil: ALDA, as well.

Lord Serpent: ALDA is very good, yeah, yeah. I mean, there's a lot of bands, it's just going to be who's willing and who's not, you know? It's different… and I love those bands and I love what they do… and of course, our stuff is different and then of course your typical Black Metal scene is very different and sometimes it's hard for everybody to come together. And honestly, like you said earlier, community. And that is kind of what I had in mind when doing this is bring what I can into each other, 'cause there's no reason to work against eachother or to ignore eachother. I mean, we're all here and that's why this place is awesome and I'm just doing what I can to help to hopefully bring people together.

Phil: What are your thoughts on the commercialization of Black Metal that's been happening in the last few years?

Lord Serpent: Depending on how you look at it, I mean, there's always positives, there's always negatives and I know your typical younger teenage kid that's now just getting into Black Metal and BURZUM, MAYHEM and DARK THRONE and nothing else and I was there once. In fact, I was listening to that stuff right at the time, right after all the crazy shit in Norway was going on, so… not that I want to tell people how old I am, but… [laughs] but I remember those days and I remember right after it all happening, it was the same mentality that the whole Black Circle in Norway had was where it was everybody had to be this way and it was very close minded at the time and unfortunately, there's a lot of people that get close minded today and whatever - it's what it is. To me, it's like, you have the new SATYRICON that everybody fuckin' hates and I absolutely love. I mean, to me, it sounds like a new version of VENOM and I don't know why your typical Black Metal people would not like it, but I think, like you said, it's the commercialization. You've got bands like, of course, DIMMU and CRADLE that paved the way and now you have bands like SATYRICON and EMPEROR and even BEHEMOTH now, they went a little more Death Metal with their stuff, but I think it's good to open up the minds of the people that would not normally know what it is or maybe not witness it and just happen to witness it. I mean, you have all these people that are against everybody getting into it, against knowing what Black Metal is and the whole poser thing. To me, it's like, who cares?

Phil: You like what you like.

Ceremonial Castings' Lord Serpent

Interviewer: Philip A. Wickstrand

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Formed 1996
Washington, USA
Label: Black Forest Productions
Genre: Black Metal

CURRENT LINE-UP:

Lord Serpent (Jake Superchi):
                        Vocals, Guitars, Bass
OldNick (Nick Superchi): 
                          Keys/Synths/ Pianos
Blood Hammer (Matt Mattern):
                                                   Drums

DISCOGRAPHY:

Demo '97 (Demo-1997)
13 Roses (Demo-2000)
Vampiria - The Second Coming
                                         (Demo-2000)
The Garden of Dark Delights
                                         (Demo-2001)
The Chaos Chapter (Demo-200)
Fullmoon Passions EP (2002)
Into the Black Forest of Witchery
                                                    (2002)
The Extermination Process
                                       (Demo-2003)
Midnight Deathcult Phenomena
                                                   (2003)
Universal Funeral March (2003)
Immortal Black Art (2005)
Barbaric Is the Beast (2006)
Salem 1692 (2008)

(Click on Photo to Enlarge)

September 16, 2010

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PHOTOS BY PHIL A. WICKSTRAND

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