Lord Defiler:  Vocals
Fraust:  Backing/Clean Vocals, 
               Guitar
Vesper:  Guitar
Mars:   Bass
Swordan:  Keyboards
Guyzus:  Drums

Sudbury, Ontario  CANADA
Label: Archaic North Records
Genre: Melodic Black Metal

CURRENT LINE-UP:

The country of Canada isn’t quite on the level of the United States when it comes to the metal scene, with only Kataklysm being able to claim a sizeable following nowadays. Just like the snows from the bitter cold winters though, there are good bands to be found if you’re willing to see beyond the obvious. One such band to emerge is the Sudbury, Ontario band Wolven Ancestry. Having only been in existence for a few years, they have managed to put themselves on the map with their self-released debut album, The Wrath of Gaia, in 2006. The Heathen Crusade Fest in November was a part of the band’s 2008 fall tour with fellow Canadians, Woods of Ypres. The following interview took place a few hours prior to the band’s set at Heathen Crusade, in which they discuss playing live, the progress of the work on their next album, and philosophies about the environment.

Peter: For those who either aren’t seeing Wolven Ancestry at Heathen Crusade or really just don’t know about the band, would you say a few things about the band?

Fraust: We’re a folk-tinged black metal band from Canada and we will rip your face off.

Lord Defiler: Basically, we started this because we all love black metal.  We all love writing music, we’re all musicians, we all like playing it, and we wanted to write the music that we feel needed to be out there, so that’s why we started this.

Peter: Currently, you are on tour with fellow Ontario band, Woods of Ypres.  How did that come about and how is it going so far?

Fraust: We’ve known Woods of Ypres for quite some time now. Actually, we’ve unfortunately never been able to play a show together, but there was one lined up in Toronto in 2006. We were supposed to share the stage with them, but the show got cancelled, so none of us were able to play together. But now, a couple of years later, we finally got the chance to do so in the form of touring together. It’s really great to be touring with them. Hopefully, they’ll say the same about us. We’re going to have a good time, I’m sure. I know myself, Lord Defiler [vocals], and the drummer Guyzus, we’re big fans of Woods of Ypres and have been big fans of the band for a while, so it’s really great to tour with them.

Peter: What are some of the things that you hope to have happen at Heathen Crusade?

Fraust: People will enjoy our music, people will have a blast, and we will try to give 100 percent for people who just want to have a good time.

Lord Defiler: We want people to hear Wolven Ancestry maybe for the first time, maybe for the second time. We just want them to hear our band, hear our music, and we don’t care if they like it or not; we just want to play for them and show them what we’re made of and what we have to offer because we are definitely a live band. You have to see us live because we put on a damn good live show, and that’s half of it. Half of it is the music and half of it is presenting it.

Peter: In the near future, you guys are going to have an album out. What are some of the things you can say about it at this point, such as an album title and what people can expect from it?

Lord Defiler: The tentative title, at this time, is undecided. Amongst the whole band, we haven’t decided if this is the actual album title, but we’re thinking The Looming Cold of Autumn, but again, that’s the tentative title. We’re not going to choose the name of the album until we know we have the right title for it. At this time, we have seven of nine tracks completed.  We have the two other songs written, but we haven’t jammed them out in their entirety yet, nor are there any song titles, so we’ll wait until all the songs are completed before deciding on an album title. We have working titles for the songs already. Some of them are “The Sounds of the Arboreal,” The Trail of Blood and Snow,” “Memories of Life Forgotten with Time,” and “March Forth under Tortured Skies.” Those are a few of the working titles.  “The Burying Descent” and “Queen of the Fallen” are some of the others, so we do have working titles for most of the songs.

Peter: Currently, you guys are pretty much running your own label and of course, releasing your own material.

Lord Defiler: At this time, we are looking for a bigger label. If a label is interested in Wolven Ancestry, we would definitely negotiate with them and work something out, but we’re not going to sit around and send out demos and stuff like that. We’re a hard-working band and we’ll put out the record ourselves if we need to.

Peter: In the meantime, what distribution companies are also releasing your material?

Lord Defiler: None, unfortunately, because our first album was printed without a bar code, meaning there was no way to track it in any system like that. A lot of big distributions haven’t taken the album because of that. At this time, we just trade with small distros. In the States, we bring CDs to trade with small distros when we’re given CDs on wholesale price to distribute ourselves; so basically, we distribute our CDs ourselves and have been from the start.

Peter: Naturally, with a name like Wolven Ancestry, one of the first things that come to mind is the wolf. What are some of things about wolves that attract your attention and what are some of the organizations that you support in favor of wolves?

Lord Defiler: Actually, our drummer adopted a wolf from Minnesota. We were hoping to meet him, but we don’t have the time to go see the wolf he adopted. We care a lot about wolves and nature. Wolves are a dominant creature where we’re from in Canada. On top of the food chain, there are bears and wolves.

Fraust: To us, the wolf is a symbol of community and the power they have is created by the back. To us we are, in ways, telling people that if we work together we can overcome the hardships that are put forth by a higher power.

Guyzus: If there was a life after death, we would be wolves.

Peter:  Of course, not everyone agrees about the views of wolves, as there’s been the whole delisting in the United States and aerial hunting in Alaska, as examples.

Lord Defiler: There’s that one...

Fraust: ...Sarah Palin...

Lord Defiler: ...Sarah Palin shooting wolves out of a fucking helicopter and things like that. We should shoot her out of a helicopter and see how she likes it. I wish I could put a bullet between her eyes for that, but that’s not how you’re going to make change. You can’t just go and do things like that. It is unfortunate, even in Minnesota. I’ve heard that in northern Minnesota, they shoot wolves on sight because there’s a lot of farmland there. I’ve watched documentaries on this where wolves cross onto their property and they shoot them right away. Some people shot five to six wolves alone and it is quite unfortunate. There should be other methods of controlling the wolves because we’re not alone on this Earth. We’re sharing this Earth with other animals and the wolf just happens to be another animal, a beautiful and majestic animal at that. When we’re shooting them off, it’s sad for us. We don’t like to see it. We don’t like to hear it, either.

Fraust: For some people, it becomes an economic issue, as in, “Ah, here comes a wolf.  It’s going to hurt our business, so let’s get rid of it.”

Peter: The issue of thinning out certain species isn’t exactly limited to wolves. What are some of the other things you support?

Lord Defiler:  You mean like naturally?

Peter: Naturally, yes.

Lord Defiler: I’m definitely in support of science; at least, it’s my belief. Science is almost like my religion. There are a lot of things in science that have shown me the truth in things.  Religion is like a blindfold; it’s like a blindfold that’s put on the person soaking the religion in and it’s trying to control that person in everyday life. There shouldn’t be that control, there should be an everlasting, vast quantity of knowledge that you’re soaking in as an individual and that should be your religion. They should go back to Pagan roots, but the Roman Catholics and the Christians way back in the day, decided to put their foot down and rule over. They took Pagan worship sites and destroyed them and built churches over them, which is really unfortunate. It’s funny to see religion fail now, with the Christians and Roman Catholics getting less followers these days and the Pagan ways starting to come back and starting to resurface, but in a more modern time, so it’s a little bit different.

Fraust: It is definitely involved Paganism, sometimes we like to refer to it as Neo-Paganism; it’s like science mixed with Paganism. Once you have science, you can overcome religion because you realize that it’s all false and lies designed to control the people.

Peter: Anything else you would like to add?

Fraust: Knowledge is power.

Lord Defiler: Knowledge is power. I would suggest that every human being that reads this interview, goes out there today and watches these documentaries and goes out and just learns about what goes on around them so that they can feel a part of what goes on around them because a lot of people are distant from that and we are all one. The air we breathe, the water we drink is all a part of us. That’s one thing we need to understand.

Wolven Ancestry

February 6, 2009

Interviewer & Photographer: Peter

DISCOGRAPHY:

The Wrath of Gaia (2006)
Silence of the Boreal (2009)

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