Metal Psalter Ludicra Interview Page 1

Philip A. Wickstrand is a contributing freelance writer for Metal Psalter Webzine. He sat down with drummer Aesop Dekker, vocalist Laurie Sue Shanaman and guitarist Christy Cather of Ludicra, at Berbati's Pan in Portland, OR to conduct this interview.

The Bay Area has always hosted a vibrant music community, so it should come as no surprise that they also have what is quite possibly the best Metal community in the United States. One of the best acts in a city full of great acts is LUDICRA. Having been working hard at their craft for a decade, LUDICRA have made a good name for themselves in the underground, releasing albums on Life Is Abuse, seminal Punk label Alternative Tentacles and most recently, Profound Lore. LUDICRA have always been a band that makes some amazing music and it's about time the Metal community at large knows it.

Phil: First off, what are your expectations for the "Decancellation", AKA "What's A MAYHEM?" tour?

Aesop Dekker: Well, we know that we're going to play a lot of fucking shows. My expectations are that some of them will be great and some of them won't, but in retrospect, I am glad that we're doing it this way instead of with them. Right?

Laurie Sue Shanaman: Yeah.

Aesop: I would say that this is for the better.

Laurie: Now we can kind of look at the bigger picture of it all. It seems more of…

Aesop: More us than going out with them and, I don't know, like having it being a smaller band on a big tour, playing for a lot of people that aren't really interested in us or whatnot. This way, we're probably playing to smaller crowds, but it's more pure, like people that are actually coming to see us.

Phil: What's the number of markets that you've been able to make up versus the ones you're not able to hit?

Aesop: Well, we rerouted slightly, so we're hitting a lot of the same cities… actually, we're hitting more than we were. I think some of the only… I'm trying to think if there's anyplace that we're not going that we were supposed to go with MAYHEM and off the top of my head, I never really paid that much attention to what the route was for MAYHEM, so I think we're going further south than we were going to. We're playing three more than we were. But it was twenty-eight shows before.

Christy Cather: I'm glad to be playing all the shows in a row.

Aesop: Yeah, days off suck.

Christy: I'd rather just play every night.

Laurie: I'm down to giving it a try.

Aesop: No, there's no try babies, there's only do babies.

Laurie: I don't know my throat capacity will go; I'm a little worried. (laughs) But it seems exciting and I feel like bands have done this for years, bands who tour six months out of the year. METALLICA, I mean, shit - they played every night forever and ever and ever for I don't know. We can give it our best shot. Might as well now that we're all approaching forty.

Aesop: There was a year that THE MELVINS played 320 shows in one year. That's forty fucking days in one year that they did not play a show. That's kind of fucked up. (laughter)

Phil: Are there any shows in particular that you're excited about as far as playing with local bands?

Aesop: Well, I mean , we're always excited about Portland, 'cause Portland has always been really good to us. New York is really exciting 'cause we'll be playing with CASTEVET, who are a fairly new-ish band that I think are really great. The shows we're playing with KRALLICE are going to be really exciting 'cause we love them and we're playing with LAIR OF THE MINOTAUR in Philly, which is cool 'cause we were going to play opposite them, so we were able to combine forces. The band that was THE GREAT TYRANT from Fort Worth, who unfortunately… they're one of the best bands we ever saw on tour and we were scheduled to play with them in Fort Worth and their bass player died two weeks ago. But the remaining two members were just like 'fuck it - we're going to play." So I'm really looking forward to that 'cause I think that's gonna be pretty intense and emotional.

Laurie: Yeah, 'cause that was a memorable show years ago in Fort Worth.

Aesop: Fort Worth them!

Laurie: Jokingly, Fort Worth it, Fort Worthwhile. Fort Worth, Texas was a great show, good people and kind of like Aesop said, there'll probably be some bad shows along the way, but there'll be the good ones, too. I look forward to Philadelphia, I'm from there, I'm from New Jersey, so we'll get to see family. (laughs)

Aesop: Playing with BLESSURE GRAVE in San Diego, who are one of my favorite active bands right now and we were able to squeeze them in on it. And we're also, I should mention, playing a home coming show about four or five days after we get home with FELL VOICES and KOWLOON WALLED CITY who are, like I think two of the best Bay Area bands that we've never played with, kinda new bands who we don't really know them as people, so it's kind of like really cool that we could invite them to play this special show instead of the usual bands that we play with all the time.

Phil: Let's talk a bit about the new album, "The Tenant" - tell us a bit about the stylistic progression you've made in the music for this album.

Aesop: I think that any stylistic progression is sort of really unintentional and kind of comes from the fact that we just get better as musicians and as song writers. Basically, when we make a LUDICRA record, we just make a LUDICRA record and it's always better than the last one I think in this sort of natural progression. I often make the connection, like it feels kind of like what VOIVOD did with each of their records. Now I always have to back it up by saying no way are we as great as VOIVOD, but I always like the way that every record was just a little bit better than the last one - not drastically, but you could tell that they put in a lot of work and I think that's just what LUDICRA does. There's never a whole lot of "Let's make this record more like this" and even if there is, we can never do that. We can only just make LUDICRA records and they're always going to be better we just get better and more comfortable with being LUDICRA.

Laurie: One thing I learned now after this record's out, I've actually only listened to it a couple times, (laughs) like I'm still trying to digest it, you know? But what I've learned is that there is something a little more… the music that's changed for me, everything Aesop said, I felt something compelling, more aggressive, like some kind of anger. Like, when I listen to it now, it's angry - it's just an angry record. Or at least I felt that way. That was kind of my stylistic change or idea. So there's a lot of anger and aggression to get out.

Aesop: Yeah, it's angry. Maybe it's angrier than the last record.

Phil: Tell us a bit about the lyrical themes.

Laurie: It's all kind of in the same theme. I felt like this I wanted to be more the observer, you know, even though a lot of it is angry, aggressive. Frustrating.

Aesop: Uatu The Watcher from the Marvel comics. (laughter) Forbidden to intervene.

Laurie: I don't know. You live in a city, you see so many different people and so much diversity. A lot of similarities, too. A lot of mental struggles.

Aesop: I think all the past LUDICRA records, with the exception of maybe the first one, it's about San Francisco, but maybe a little more blatant. People are always like, "Oh, they're this Black Metal band that sings about the city" and I think maybe we kind of really went with that theme on this record more than we were ever comfortable to do in the past.

Laurie: I agree, I totally agree. Each individual, together, you know - "The Tenant". It kind of makes sense; we're all in our little room in our box and our different little things, you know - life, hiding behind that, exposing it too much. It's kind of vague, but it all sort of fit and made sense together, which it usually does for our records.

Aesop: Yeah, everything sort of just falls into place.

Christy: For a long time we were confused, what's going on here? It's definitely more together than any previous release. It's more of us, like just what we've been playing and kind of what we've grown into. It's like the grown up version. (laughter)

Aesop: I said that.

Christy: You did? Already?

Aesop: Yeah. Kinda sorta.

Laurie: We're stoned. Sorry. (laughter) Spacing out.

Phil: Did you do anything different with the production this time?

Aesop: No, it's almost the exact same route we took with "Fex Urbis", which was the first record where we figured out what works. Like, recording with Justin and the way he does things and letting him record. But basically, for us, recording is setting up just like we do at practice and playing through the songs just like we do at practice or at a show and then building on that. But we didn't do anything different.

Christy: We did record twice the guitar tracks.

Aesop: Okay, it has twice the guitar tracks.

Christy: Yeah, as the last album.

Aesop: Yes, one hundred percent more guitar than the last album! But other than that, no - same place, same engineers, same setup, everything, 'cause that's what works and that's what we're going to do I think from here on out.

Laurie: Vocals, done afterwards. We had to reschedule - I had the swine flu. So I did a few songs and then I came back.

Aesop: Yeah, we might have taken our time.