This interview was conducted by Philip A. Wickstrand with drummer Aaron Weaver via telephone on August 20, 2011.

The Pacific Northwest has been garnering much more attention in the Metal community over the past years with an influx of talented bands from the region. One of the more recognized bands is Olympia, Washington’s WOLVES IN THE THRONE ROOM, currently signed to Southern Lord. At the forefront of the subgenre dubbed Cascadian Black Metal, they are known for their atmospheric, cathartic and long running songs. Their fourth full-length album, Celestial Lineage, comes out this September.

Phil: First of all, tell us a bit about the new album, Celestial Lineage.

Aaron: Fuck, man - what do you want to know? It’s the last record of a trilogy that also includes Two Hunters and Black Cascade. It comes out on Southern Lord September 13^th.

Phil: Tell us what the song writing process was like.

Aaron: We kind of forced ourselves to do things differently on this record. It’s always good to try to push yourself to adopt new strategies to… to really push yourself in the song writing and the way we did that on this record was to build a recording studio at our practice space in Olympia and that really opened up a whole new spectrum of possibility for us ‘cause we were able to take a lot of time with the song writing and we were also able to record a lot of the record at the studio in Olympia, so that really freed us up from a lot of the constraints of money and time that you face when you’re in a recording studio, when sometimes you’re forced to lay something down really quick in the interest of staying within the budget. And sometimes that can be really good, to be forced to work quickly, ‘cause it allows you not to over-think things. But with this record, we knew we wanted to get really, really deep into it and I think that we were pretty successful - I’m actually really happy with the way that this record turned out. Definitely, I feel that this is the most fully realized thing we’ve done and it’s definitely the record I’m most personally happy with.

Phil: Yeah, I can definitely tell. It’s probably the most majestic sounding album I’ve heard from you guys yet.

Aaron: Cool, thanks. We definitely tried to do that.

Phil: With having your own studio, did that change your production process?

Aaron: Yeah, it did actually. For one, we were able to create really detailed demo versions of all the songs before we brought Randall Dunn, the producer, on board. Nathan and I were able to spend a few months basically creating a complete skeleton version of the record in our studio in Olympia and so I think that’s the reason why the record flows so well, is because we were able to think out every transition, the dynamics of each song and not just as a song, but how the song fits into the greater scheme of the record.

Phil: There are a lot more female vocals on this album, kind of going back to the first album - what made you choose to incorporate those?

Aaron: Well, it’s mainly that we wanted to work with Jessika Kenney again, who performed vocals on Two Hunters, the record that came out in 2007, because we knew that her unique style and just her spirit and personality would really fit into the concept of the record. Jessika is a person who has a background in really extreme underground Punk and Metal culture. She was a street punk for years and years and had dreads and a torn up REPULSION T-shirt; she was that kind of person. But nowadays she’s really deeply immersed in traditional and ancient religious music; Persian classical music specifically, but she’s also really well versed in a number of Western religious musical traditions. And really, that fits in really, really well with the concept of Celestial Lineage, which is about the idea of exploring traditions and exploring orthodoxy and finding the sort of hidden mystical wisdom that exists in religious traditions, even if we despise the church and have no interest in bowing down to any sort of priesthood or any sort of orthodox religion, there’s still a mystical core that can be explored and you can really find something beautiful in it.

Phil: Tell our readers a bit about you new guitar player, Kody.

Aaron: He didn’t take part in the recording at all; Nathan and I did all of the writing and recording for this record. But Kody has been playing guitar with us live for the past few months… more like the last tours we did and winter of last year. And he’s an absolutely perfect person to have on stage with us. He’s also someone who’s been involved in the Northwest underground Black Metal scene for years. He’s played in bands like L’ACEPHALE and FALL OF THE BASTARDS, who are bands I both like a lot and feel a certain kinship with. Yeah, he’s an absolutely perfect person to have with us on the road. I’m really glad that he was able to join the band for our live shows.

Phil: What do you feel are the strongest points overall on Celestial Lineage?

Aaron: I guess the thing that I like the most about it is the way that it fits together as an album. When we were making this record we were thinking a lot about truly classic albums from a previous age of music. It seems like nowadays it’s more common for bands just to throw songs together or for people to be just concerned with singles or concerned with one song at a time. But we’re really interested in the era of music, going back into the ‘70s maybe, when bands would really craft an album from beginning to end. Whether it’s Dark Side of the Moon or Master of Puppets or whatever, these are albums that exist as a whole - it’s not about the individual songs, it’s about the flow and the narrative that’s created over the course of the whole record. So that’s something that we really worked hard to do on this record and I think that we succeeded.

Phil: You’ve got a tour coming up and I noticed that the date you’d had planned in Olympia was cancelled because you couldn’t find an appropriate all ages venue - what is the importance of all ages shows to WOLVES IN THE THRONE ROOM?

Aaron: I’ve always really hated playing in bars ‘cause I don’t like the idea of a concert mainly being about selling a product to people and having music take a backseat to that. It’s definitely my preference to always play in DIY venues and play in non-commercial venues. Over the past few years we’ve done a lot of playing in clubs and that’s something we’re not going to be doing anymore. We’re only, for the most part, going to be playing in underground spaces, warehouses, you know, non-traditional venues. So we won’t have that layer of bureaucracy and control that you’re going to find at a bar or a club where the primary focus isn’t about music, it’s about the club making money and the band just is serving a role to that end. And also it’s important for me not to exclude people under the age of twenty-one. I remember what is was like to be sixteen years old and wanting to go see MORBID ANGEL, for instance. I had to stand outside in the alley. That’s just not something that I want to be a part of. And we’ve had to play twenty-one and over shows in the past, but I always regret it - I always wish that we’d worked harder to find an all ages option.

Phil: What do you think one thing the average person can do to help protect the environment would be?

Aaron: I don’t know. I don’t like to talk about that kind of stuff. WOLVES IN THE THRONE ROOM gets pegged sometimes as an environmental band and I don’t think that’s accurate at all. Obviously, our music is really concerned with nature and the occult spirit of nature, specifically the energetic reality of the Northwest, and I think that people are absolutely out of touch with that level of reality, but I’m definitely not here to tell anybody to do anything; we’re making this music entirely for ourselves and people can take from it whatever they want. We absolutely have no political message, we have no environmentalist message… it’s purely art and it’s purely about spirit. It’s not about doing anything in the physical world. You know, obviously we all have lives and we all make choices and I would hope that WOLVES IN THE THRONE ROOM inspires people, but I definitely don’t want to tell anyone how they should be inspired and what message they should take from listening to the music.

Phil: Speaking of things you don’t want to be pegged as and non-political, have you had any recent trouble with the rather fascist anti-fascist groups?

Aaron: No, not at all. Years ago in Germany there was a bad translation of an article where I was talking about how important to us to be connected to the land here in the Northwest. In translation that didn’t come off so good in Germany. And yeah, there was a bit of a short firestorm around it and we were very briefly castigated as some sort of a neo-Nazi band and obviously that’s just ridiculous. That very quickly blew over and the tour after that one, the one where there was the controversy, I saw a lot of those same sort if Antifa kids in the audience and talked to them after; they all felt very, very sheepish. I think everyone realized that it was just one of those situations where people just don’t think and they believe rumor and don’t really look deeply into something. I think the people that helped propagate those sort of rumors felt quite, quite silly about it in the end when people realized what WOLVES IN THE THRONE ROOM was all about.

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

Aaron: Let’s see… I have to think about it. What’s the last book I really got into? [pauses] What was I reading recently? I was reading Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander. He’s an architect that I’m really interested in who has a very traditional approach to architecture. I’m interested in building a lot; I’m interested in architecture and how building and the built environment affects our consciousness. And basically the book asks the question “How come everyone hates being inside a modern office building and why does everyone think that your average suburban tract home is a hideous place, yet everyone still chooses to continue to build those kind of structures and continue to live in them and work in them?” Christopher Alexander, I think, approaches that question from a very interesting, almost mystical perspective. It’s an interesting fusion of a very scientific, rationalistic take on those sort of questions and also a spiritual and mystical approach as well. That’s the last book I read and I would definitely recommend Christopher Alexander to anyone who’s interested looking deeper into why we all feel a certain sense of unease about life in the modern world.

Phil: I think that’s the most interesting answer I’ve ever gotten to that particular question.

Aaron: Oh really? What’s the last book someone mentioned that you checked out?

Phil: I’m trying to think… I’ve checked out a couple of books that I’ve had recommended, ‘cause this is the question that I ask in every single interview. I think the last book I checked out that was recommended to me was one called Hard Core Logo.

Aaron: What’s that about?

Phil: It’s a fictional account of a Canadian Punk band that gets back together for a benefit show and then decides to do a reunion tour across Canada that ends up completely disastrous. It’s done in poetry and prose and it only takes about forty-five minutes to read, but it’s pretty good.

Aaron: Interesting. Sounds pretty cool.

Phil: Is there anything else you’d like to add?

Aaron: That’s it, man. Thanks a lot for the interview; appreciate it.

Wolves in the Throne Room

Interviewer: Philip A. Wickstrand

August 25, 2011

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(Click on Photo to Enlarge)

Formed: 2003
Olympia, Washington  USA
Label: Southern Lord Recordings
Genre: Black Metal

CURRENT LINE-UP:

Nathan Weaver: Vocals & Guitars
Kody Keyworth:  Guitars
Aaron Weaver:  Drums & Synths

DISCOGRAPHY:

Wolves in the Throne Room
                                       (Demo-2004)
Diadem of 12 Stars (2006)
Two Hunters (2007)
Live at Roadburn (2008)
Malevolent Grain EP (2009)
Black Cascade (2009
Celestial Lineage (2011)