This interview was conducted with vocalist/guitarist Jake Superchi at the Hawthorne Theatre in Portland, OR on November 23, 2011.

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. Their most recent release, March of the Deathcult, came out in late 2011.

Phil: Tell our readers a bit about your new compilation album, March of the Deathcult.

Jake: March of the Deathcult is a release that we just did that consists half of songs from our 2003 demos, Midnight Deathcult Phenomena and Universal Funeral March. The first half of the songs are songs we particularly like, some of our favorite tracks that we decided to re-record and then the last were just bonuses, remastered demos that we threw on there and it’s just our way to put it out there for fans that are newly getting into us that may have not heard our past releases and a way for them to get into the old stuff, as well as the new stuff.

Phil: How much did you go back and change on the re-recorded tracks?

Jake: We actually tried to keep everything pretty much the same. Some of the songs, like I said, are some of our favorites, a couple of them that we just didn’t think the demo did justice and we wanted to re-do them.

Phil: What was the time in the studio like for this particular recording?

Jake: Hectic. Everything came down to the last minute. Once again we gave ourselves a deadline that we had to rush… not purposely procrastinated, but just things took more time and basically I had two days to record the vocals and mix everything together so we could get it down to the duping place to get it out on time. It was pretty stressful; I mean, it was two days where I think I worked twenty-some hours straight both days just trying to get everything. Of course, there was a lot of issues…we decided to use some new software and try things differently this time, so that’s why it was such a pain in the ass and took so long ‘cause I was kind of learning as I was going; I won’t be making that mistake again. [laughs]

Phil: What would you say are your favorite songs off the CD?

Jake: I definitely would say “Midnight Deathcult Phenomena” is one of my favorite tracks that we’ve ever written. Although, we’re always doing new stuff and I’ve heard the new material, so luckily I know that the new material’s even better, but from the older stuff and that album, that’s definitely one of my favorites and I like “My Kingdom of Cold Sorrows”; the lyrical content in that hits close to home, it’s very personal feelings and stuff in that song, so those two are definitely top for me.

Phil: You mentioned new stuff you’re working on; tell our readers a little bit about that. I understand there’s going to be a Cthulhu album.

Jake: There is! I just finished the guitar tracks for the whole album, I think two nights ago. It’s going to be a concept album, much like our Salem 1692 album, but all based on the Cthulhu mythos. Musically, it’s just as brutal as Barbaric and then it’s very captivating and atmospheric like Salem. I think it’s the perfect harmony between the two and it definitely has potential to be the best thing we’ve ever done.

Phil: Now when you say the Cthulhu mythos, are you strictly working off Lovecraft or are you also working with what others have added onto it?

Jake: I haven’t gotten to the lyrical content of it yet. I don’t want to say strictly Lovecraft because I plan on putting my own spin on it as well, much like Salem, I want to incorporate my own ideas and thoughts and play around with that, so it will definitely be based off the Lovecraft theme and strictly based off that during the first part, but like I said, I’d like to play upon it and put my own spin into it.

Phil: You recently completed a West Coast tour; tell us how that went.

Jake: The tour was great. We started up in Seattle and Everett, came down to Portland, Eugene, down through Sacrament, Fresno, played a show in Garden Grove, then a couple festivals in Los Angeles and it was success; every night was pretty good, pretty packed, played in front of a lot of big crowds. Sometimes when you do your own headlining show with no label support and no way to promote it but yourself, it’s hard to know what you’re going to get and we were very pleased and sold a lot of merch, played in front of a lot of people, came home with a few bucks in our pocket, so we didn’t have any expenses that sucked us dry, so that was good.

Phil: I understand you talked to some people at Century Media about possibly distributing CEREMONIAL CASTINGS.

Jake: Yeah. We talked to a guy down there, a really nice guy, gave me his card and I in fact need to email him right away ‘cause I have yet to do that since I’ve been so busy with the recording since I got home and getting prepared for the MAYHEM show that I haven’t… well, I shouldn’t even say we got prepared; we didn’t even get to rehearse for this show, but just preparations of selling tickets and everyday life. But yeah, I’m definitely going to get in touch with him and it looks like they are going to be interested in moving some units for us and I think we’d do very well with them and I don’t see our albums not selling through their distribution, so hopefully it all works out the way we hope it does.

Phil: What have you been up to with your SERPENT LORD project lately?

Jake: I’ve had an album for SERPENT LORD recorded since 2005 that’s just been sitting and I really would like to finish it one of these days [laughs] but I flood myself with CEREMONIAL CASTINGS stuff and we’ve got so much material to record and finish and put out that it’s just been kind of sitting. Plus I want to do it the right way, I don’t want to just put it out as a CD-R demo and that’s kind of been stopping me. But I do plan on that and then I have another project called THY EMPTINESS that I do with Nick that’s a little more Doom/Goth Rock oriented. Maybe like a cross between CEREMONIAL CASTINGS and MY DYING BRIDE type of material that should be coming out soon. In fact, I think I only have vocals left to do for that project.

Phil: Are you going to be playing live?

Jake: The Doom project, no. SERPENT LORD, there’s been talks of it; we’ve been talking about it for the last few years. It’s a possibility, it might happen; it’s just one of those things if we can get the time to sit down and rehearse the material and do it right, then yeah, I’d like to bring that out for the Black Circle fest that we do every year, but only time will tell, I guess.

Phil: Segueing into that, as I was going to ask about that…

Jake: See - I’m reading your mind! I know every question you’re going to ask before you ask it.

Phil: Well, that’s because you’ve gotten to know me and as everyone who knows me will tell you, I’m actually fairly predictable. [laughter]

Jake: I think it’s actually just lucky guesses. So the festival, this year it’s going to take place at Branx in Portland once again, same place as last year, Friday and Saturday, May 18^th and 19^th. I don’t have too much info; I’m working on some headliners right now, just waiting for a couple bands to get back to me with their rider so we can discuss details and make sure I can make it happen, but so far, so good and if it works out the way I’m hoping, it should be an interesting year.

Phil: Gonna make sure bands don’t back out this time?

Jake: [laughs] Yeah, I don’t know what was up with that. I mean, it was all the Seattle bands, other than two, that decided to bail, so maybe it’s just the Seattle bands that were having a hard time getting down here. I don’t know what it was. I talked with a couple of them, I know a couple of them had lineup issues, you can’t control that, but we’ll see what happens. I can’t control what anybody else does. But when you get the opportunity to play in front of that many people at a fest that’s pretty well known, it’s kind of a ridiculous thing to not be able to make it happen. Maybe we’ll have better luck this year.

Phil: Recommend a book for our readers and then explain why you recommend that particular work.

Jake: A book? I don’t read books!

Phil: You’re doing a Cthulhu album and you say you don’t read books. Tisk tisk tisk!

Jake: I know, right. That’s an e-book that I have. [laughs]

Phil: An e-book counts as a book; just because it’s not in a paper format…

Jake: Honestly… you asked me this last time and I think I made a joke about Cycle of the Werewolf ‘cause it had nice pictures.

Phil: Yeah.

Jake: I still recommend that book, though - that’s a great read. You know, one of my favorite books that I’ve ever read, I believe it was a Dean Koontz book.

Phil: Uh oh.

Jake: [laughs] I can’t remember what the name of it was, but it was about this kid that got taken away by some weird demon and it brought him to this weird house and there were other kids there and it was like every day consisted of four seasons and then all the major holidays and they celebrated the kid’s birthday everyday on the hour, but it was just a way to trap the kids in…

Phil: That sounds like The Thief of Always by Clive Barker.

Jake: Yes! Clive Barker, not Dean Koontz! Thank you! I recommend that; I really liked that read.

Phil: That was the first Clive Barker book I ever read; I liked that one.

Jake: Likewise. I read that in fifth grade or something for some book report.

Phil: Shit, I just read it a couple years ago; I just sat down and read it in a single evening.

Jake: I like it, I really liked that book. I don’t read a lot, honestly. I don’t read a lot of books. I’ll study stuff, I’ll read up on history and stuff like that and skim through things, but to actually sit down and read a story is really tough for me. My mind wanders far too much.

Phil: So what you need is a book of short stories then.

Jake: Maybe. My mind wanders so much that I’ll get past the first or second page and then I’ll forget what happened or where I’m at. [laughs] I have to be really into it, but my mind does not stay in one place. I’ll be reading and all of a sudden I’ll start thinking about music and it gets out of control.

Phil: What are your plans over the next year for CEREMONIAL CASTINGS?

Jake: We’re not going to have any shows in 2012 until the Black Circle fest; that way we can focus on recording the Cthulhu album. Unfortunately that album’s not going to be coming out for awhile; we’re going to shop that to some labels and hope that somebody picks us up and decides they want to put that out for us. In the meantime, if all goes as planned, we’ll be putting out our live album next, which is completely finished; we just need to get artwork from Kris Verwimp once again. We might release that at the festival. After the festival, there’s talk of maybe doing an East Coast tour next year and probably another full-length at the end of the year. It just all depends what happens.

Ceremonial Castings' Jake Superchi

Interviewer: Philip A. Wickstrand

January 15, 2012

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TO THE TOP

(Click on Photo to Enlarge)

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-2001)
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)
Beast in Black Comp (2010)
March of the Deathcult (2011)

PHOTOS BY PHIL A. WICKSTRAND

(Click on Photos to Enlarge)