This interview was conducted by Philip A. Wickstrand with vocalist/bass guitarist Jacqui Rae, guitarist Melissa and drummer Ansel Vickery on November 20, 2010 at The Know in Portland, OR.

Portland, Oregon has always been a breeding ground for the arts. I don't think it's so much that Portland people are more creative than those in other geographic areas so much as we are more open and embracive of the artistic talents of others. That open mindedness allows our music scene to flourish and thrive like few places do.

With the requisite influx of talent this creates, we get a lot of really good bands. One such is CULL. Forming in 2007, they brought with them plenty of stage experience from prior bands, not just in the Metal genre, which allows them to take things at a bit of a different angle than most. They have a sound a bit similar to LUDICRA in that they are somewhat akin to melodic Black metal and often run at a moderate pacing, building mood rather than blasting their way through their songs and have aggressive female vocals. Their live sets are immensely enjoyable and they don't bring to mood down with a bunch of pompous posturing, opting rather to just enjoy themselves and enjoy the fact that the audience enjoys the performance.

They have self released the "Erosion" EP and a demo tape thus far and are looking to gain a wider audience through a record label who can put their name out there a little bit. That's not too much to ask considering their talent and the fact that there have been many bands far, far less deserving to go far in the current Metal scene.

Phil: First of all describe your sound and your influences.

Jacqui: Not Doom.

Ansel: In years past we were totally labeled as a Doom band.

Melissa: Yeah, but we can't seem to get away from it. [laughter]

Ansel: Yeah. It's a little faster now, but I don't know. It's melodic, mid-tempo Black Metal, kind of?

Jacqui: Kids who listen to THE CURE and SONIC YOUTH and weird Hip Hop and weird Indie Pop playing Metal that doesn't really sound like Metal. And like nineties Crust Punk definitely is in there, also.

Phil: Tell us a bit about the history of CULL.

Ansel: Well, the three of them, Dillon, Melissa and Jacqui, sort of formed the band out of remnants of other bands, kind of. Or in addition to other bands and Dillon's my older brother and I had just left and band and they asked me if I wanted to play drums [laughter] and I have no real Metal pedigree at all. But they asked me if I wanted to play drums and I said sure.

Jacqui: Yeah, she (Melissa) and I were friends. I was the singer for her other band, ORDER OF THE GASH, for like…

Melissa: A minute. [laughs]

Jacqui: Uh, three weeks. [laughter] And they kicked me out and I was really butt-hurt about it and mostly just bummed out 'cause I wanted to still be friends with them and then we ended being friends. Dillon answered an ad for a guitar player for another band I had and that ended up not working out, so we all got together and decided that we needed to play music. I had always done vocals for bands and I couldn't find anyone to play this, so I decided that I was going to have to learn how to play an instrument, so these people taught me how to play bass. It's their fault if I fuck up. [laughs]

Melissa: Oh, what? [laughter]

Ansel: And that was… three years ago?

Jacqui: Yeah, almost.

Phil: I understand you released a new tape this year - tell us a bit about that.

Melissa: The tape was in lieu of an album, like on vinyl because we need to find someone to put that out. So we did a tape so we'd have something to tour on.

Jacqui: And we're looking for someone to put it out.

Melissa: It sounds a lot better.

Jacqui: Amazing. So we released the tapes as a demo just to put it out there and have something besides our old CD to tour on and now we're in the process of trying to find a home for the rest of the recordings.

Phil: Ideally, what kind of label would you like to sign with?

Melissa: Just someone who will put out vinyl for us.

Jacqui: Yeah, with distribution.

Ansel: I mean, that's the thing - we're just looking for distribution. Whatever someone wants to pay for it, that's fucking awesome, but like really, if you have to press it, whatever, but if someone can just sort of…

Melissa: Get it out there.

Ansel: If we just get distro, that's kind of what we're looking for. I don't know that we even have an ideal situation… or an ideal situation, sure, but not an ideal specific.

Melissa: We're taking baby steps. We have small goals.

Jacqui: We have a list.

Melissa: We want a vinyl and that's as far as I'm thinking.

Jacqui: Yeah, for sure.

Phil: Tell us a bit about your thoughts on the general perception of women in Metal.

Jacqui: I think that…

Melissa: I think it's getting better.

Jacqui: Anywhere but here it's an anomaly.

Melissa: Oh yeah. I keep thinking in Portland terms. In Portland it's not bad, but yeah, if you take a step outside…

Jacqui: Just a lot of eye candy, which is not to say that I don't want to look at hot people who play music, but it always bums me out when I see some gorgeous woman who's only purpose in being in a band is to be a gorgeous woman.

Phil: Yeah, like "Look at me, ignore my vocals."

Jacqui: Yeah. Or like, "Look at me, ignore my band mates," which when I assume vocals for bands is something that would happen frequently and it really well bummed me out. It's a tough line because, like, I don't want the fact of lady-ness to be the point but I don't want it to be ignored and finding that middle ground is really tough.

Phil: Well, with people staring at you when you were the vocalist, that could just be because most people just put their attention on the vocalist regardless, but…

Jacqui: Totally, totally. But the way we would get written up or any flyers, like the only thing they'd ever say was "female-fronted" and it's like, "I didn't write any of these songs, I can't even play an instrument, these people are incredibly talented and that's why I'm in a band with them, like, pay attention to them; they're awesome." I think in Portland we kind of travel in a herd with a bunch of lady Metal bands.

Melissa: I don't think it was always like that, though. We definitely created our own little cocoon.

Jacqui: All of our friend bands and it's one of the reasons I moved to Portland, it's just so many badass things.

Melissa: And also involving other women, too. Like teaching you how to play bass and also in one of my other bands we got our friend Alessandra to start playing with us because she'd never been in a band, but had always dinked around on guitar and wanted to be in a band, so it's like the encouragement. Saying like, "Who cares if you haven't been in a band before? Who cares if you just picked up the bass?" Like, let's fucking play! Not being discouraging.

Jacqui: And also just the scene in general, which is like booking stuff, art, photography and booking at venues and stuff, like there's a lot of women in the music industry in Portland which is amazing and totally encouraging.

Phil: What are your short term goals?

Melissa: Getting our full-length released 'cause the cassette tape is missing two songs, one song?

Jacqui: One song.

Ansel: Short term, although we've been around long enough for it to be long term at this point, but we've never played at the Doug Fir and I'd really like to do that.

Melissa: I've never even set foot in Doug Fir.

Ansel: It's great; it always sounds good and there's really good touring acts that come through and that's one thing that I think is in some way a mark of local attention and local success is playing, let alone headlining, but just playing at the Doug Fir and opening for a touring band. I think that's a really cool thing to do and we haven't played there yet, so I'd really like to do that.

Phil: That'd be cool. I think I've been there all of twice since it became Doug Fir Lounge, when it was the Chinese Tea House originally.

Jacqui: Yeah. They had someone come in and acoustically engineer that room downstairs. It sounds amazing down there.

Phil: It used to be a real shithole, too. The first time I went in there after they started calling it the Doug Fir was just like… I couldn't believe it was the same place.

Jacqui: Their booking policy is such that it is totally a milestone if you can get booked there, like you are doing something right 'cause they won't even talk to you until you can basically guarantee that you can fill the room up by yourself.

Phil: Tell us about our other musical ventures.

Melissa: I play in tons more bands. I play in ORDER OF THE GASH and we play a mix of Thrash, Black and Death; we're weird. And I play in SEI HEXE and we also play really weird Punk, Metal… I don't know; it's my band with my roommates and my friend Alessandra.

Ansel: I don't play in any other bands. I do not. This is my sole… how you say, creative outlet.

Jacqui: I am not playing with anyone else right now. I was in ANON REMORA, which was also with Dylan. Dylan right now is playing in a Goth band with Ayla, who was also in ANON REMORA. They're going to play their first show in a couple weeks.

Phil: What happened to ANON REMORA.

Jacqui: ANON REMORA decided to call it quits while we were ahead. [laughs]

Phil: Just more personal curiosity than anything relevant to the interview since I got to see you guys once and it's like, "Wow! They're awesome!" and then didn't hear about any other shows.

Jacqui: Yeah, no. We went on tour last August knowing that we were going to be done when we came home.

Phil: Yeah, that was the show with GREY at Plan B I saw.

Jacqui: So that was our last local show and there's the outside possibility that one of these days we're gonna get it together and play a reunion show, but I have no idea when that will be.

Phil: What kind of song writing process do you have when you write songs for CULL?

Jacqui: Oh God. [laughter]

Melissa: The process that Ansel hates.

Jacqui: Basically what happens is…

Melissa: We write a song in reverse and the we try to build a beginning on to it.

Ansel: There's no such thing as writing a song in this band.

Melissa: No.

Jacqui: Just like seventeen riffs.

Ansel: Pieces which, maybe some other people do the same thing, but it's never like a rough draft or a sketch of a beginning to end thing. It's always like, "Hey, I have this and this and this, let's figure out what goes where" and…

Melissa: Make up parts in between and it's a very laborious, torturous process and Ansel hates it.

Jacqui: And a lot of it is just because all three of us are in different tunings and we don't spend very much time playing the same thing as eachother, so there's a lot of layering and figuring out. Like, I have to figure out basically exactly what both of them are playing and start to figure out what I can play.

Phil: So it's more of a cobbling process than a writing process.

Jacqui: Totally. Real occasionally, someone will come to practice and be like, "I have the skeleton of a song."

Melissa: That happened in the very beginning of the band, not anywhere in the last couple of years.

Phil: Which song of yours are you most satisfied with?

Jacqui: "Failing Language" - the last one.

Ansel: The one we haven't written yet. [laughter]

Melissa: Tough question. I love… there's certain riffs in each song, like "Ah, that one was killer," but I don't know if there's a song where… I don't know. We always want to write something bigger and better, you know.

Ansel: Yeah, I think that's thing, like you could be satisfied, but you're never actually satisfied; you always want to make something better. So I think that we're all content with the songs that we have but I think looking forward and striving to grow as a band and grow musically and creatively I think is one of the most important parts of being in a band. So wanting to progress. And never really being completely satisfied.

CULL

Interviewer: Philip A. Wickstrand

April 22, 2011

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TO THE TOP

(Click on Photo to Enlarge)

Formed: 2007
Portland, Oregon  USA
Label: Eolian Records
Genre: Crust Punk / Black Metal

CURRENT LINE-UP:

Jacqui Beast:  Growled Vocals & Bass
Dylan Benedict:  Clean Vocals & Guitar
Melissa:  Guitar
Ansel Vickery:  Drums

DISCOGRAPHY:

Erosion EP (2009)

PHOTOS BY PHIL A. WICKSTRAND

(Click on Photos to Enlarge)