Interview with Metallian Magazine - November 2009

6 years since we last heard of you : what the hell happened ? I thought the band had died with Rage Of Achilles...

After having done WHW for more than half of my life, it would take a lot more than the collapse of a label to do us in! In fact, the label we’d signed to after Rage Of Achilles, Black Lotus Records also went bankrupt unfortunately as well, and while this certainly contributed to the delay in the realization of “Vast Oceans Lachrymose,” there were quite a few other factors beyond this. You know, it’s just not as easy to do things with the band the older you get; with time and maturity comes more responsibilities and other priorities. As much as we’d all like to just go out on the road and tour non-stop, it simply isn’t possible due to primary careers, families, other commitments. These were some of the very realities we simply had to accept – obviously the birth of a child or a marriage is a higher priority than any musical endeavour. Add to this the fact the rest of the members also have other working bands (Twisted Tower Dire, Brave, etc.) with plans of their own, you can surely understand how this becomes rather complicated. Throw in more line-up changes after the 2004 tour, my attention to a deep romance that came and went (leaving me devastated once again), and “mission” to reconfigure the entire bands’ backline, then it becomes rather apparent the delays were unavoidable. The biggest factor however, undoubtedly was financial – since the beginning, WHW has been 100% self-financed as far as recordings are concerned and given my propensity for extremely accurate realizations of my visions (some call this “perfectionism” haha), plus my want to deliver the best possible sound to our audience, WHW recordings tend to be VERY expensive…but absolutely worth it, even if it takes longer and often results in a great personal sacrifice.

The coming of Rain as your new vocalist was quite a surprise. How did he came in, what were the reasons for him to join you (or you to capture him)? What did he brought in term of composition, of recording?

Rain first contacted me via our MySpace page, just to tell us how much he enjoyed the “Of Empires Forlorn” album and subsequently we exchanged a few Emails. It dawned on me that this was the same Rain Irving who sang on the Altura album “Mercy” back in 1996, and then I realized he lived in the same state as I do, so the wheels began to turn in my mind; I’d been seeking a dedicated vocalist (who wasn’t a diva or a psychotic) for many years – in fact, since I took over the vocal duties around 1992 after we parted ways with our second singer, and not only was I familiar with Rain’s voice already, we clearly had quite a few influences in common. Beyond this, it was very apparent from even our earliest dialogue that he would fit perfectly within the chemistry of WHW, which is of the utmost importance, considering we’re basically family. To elaborate upon the exact reasons for my relinquishment of the lead vocal duties, I can tell you they are multi-fold: I’ve never truly been comfortable or pleased with my vocal abilities, the guitar has always been my main instrument, and I always felt as if I could only devote 50% of myself to each role in a live setting – which is totally unacceptable for me given my desire to give nothing less that 110% onstage. Additionally, being that in many ways, “Vast Oceans Lachrymose” is the sound of WHW coming “full circle” back to our somewhat more diverse beginnings, it made a lot of sense to return to my original vision of the band as well. When all is said and done, Rain brings to WHW a world-class voice, the work ethic of a musical soldier, and has been able to interpret my lyrics and melodies extremely well. The fact that he is also a songwriter and multi-instrumentalist in his own right can only be an asset in the future (once we’ve finally cleared out the remaining material in the “WHW archives” – of which there’s still at least 2 albums worth).

Musically, you seem to have expanded your horizons deep into Prog lands. To be precise, VOL sounds to me like Pallas or mid-period Pendragon covering Solitude Aeturnus. There’s even a Crimson Glory feeling sometimes. What brought you to sail in those seas that are rather uncharted by Metal boats?

That’s a very interesting description of “VOL” indeed, and I think you’re heading in the right direction, however though I enjoy a bit of neo-prog occasionally, I primarily listen to 70s symphonic progressive when I’m not battling for metal! You know, early Floyd, Crimson, Pulsar, Ange, Grobschnitt, Novalis, etc. I don’t really hear much in the way of Solitude or Candlemass on “VOL” personally, but certainly early Fates Warning, Crimson Glory, and early Queensryche are in there, as they’ve always been major inspirations. Anyway, there’s always been a progressive element within WHW – all of the characteristics of prog have been omnipresent: high quality of musicianship (not speaking for myself as much as the great musicians I’ve had the honour of working with), deep emotional content, intelligent arrangements, long sweeping epics, walls of vintage keyboard sounds, complex time signatures (etc.). We’ve always simply experimented with various ratios of our key elements – sometimes the doom aspect is more prominent, others the classical, and still others the more progressive/spacey sounds. If you go back to “Thus With A Kiss I Die” from the first album, in the bridge section we changed time signatures 33 times in 3 minutes (!), and I’ve always viewed “Of Empires Forlorn” as a modern version of 70s symphonic rock ala Jane, Novalis, or Pulsar…I think it’s just that “VOL” is just a bit more obvious in terms of it’s progressive nature, but still isn’t merely complexity for the sake of it – and it does sound more like classic US underground metal than Dream Theater.

There’s also this 70’s german feeling in some quiet parts. Krautrock? You’re fan of it? You know you could actually scare some metalheads that don’t know Amon Düül II...

I’m a massive fan of Krautrock indeed, but I’m in no way limited to German music alone! Deep progressive aficionados are all aware that there are very distinctive qualities that distinguish German prog from French, Italian, and English prog…and there’s quite a bit of music truly worth experiencing from all of these countries – and this isn’t even starting to address Eastern Europe, Japan, or South American bands! I know quite a few people who are quite content to live within the “tunnel vision” of the “denim and patch” crowd…that want to drink beer, bang their heads, and have no interest in anything but straight up bastard heavy metal – hell, that’s where I come from too…it just so happens that as a music teacher, composer, and avid listener, I have always required something more as well. I certainly won’t underestimate the capacity of our audience to be open-minded, and further, perhaps more importantly even, if our music helps to bring attention to bands long forgotten and keep their wonderful music alive, then it’s worth the “risk” (not that our music is so intentional; it all comes via revelation and emotional catalyst rather than force, but you know what I mean I think).

The lyrics also are linked to the sea, and the travel there-in. A topic that seems to be recently adopted by the Doomers everywhere (Ahab, Ocean, Culted...). What brought this idea of sea-inspired lyrics? How those lyrics relate to some personal part(s) of your life, if any?

I’m not really sure why so many bands are releasing ocean-themed albums at this time, but at least in the case of “Vast Oceans Lachrymose,” it’s been in development since 1995 at least! In fact, not only did all of this material exist prior to the recording of “Empires,” some songs date as far back as 1993! Regarding the lyrics, I’ve always one to use quite a few metaphors to describe the magnitude or emotions, and there’s probably none greater than that of the ocean (or nature in general) as far is relation to the human experience. Further, the ocean also represents ambition, adventure, mystery – things that have a particular allure for a large amount of the world’s populace. That said, as with all WHW lyrics, those found on “VOL” are quite literally another chapter of my life – as always, every song is derived from my own experiences, relationships, situations…but I’d rather not get too specific, so as to leave them open to each listener’s own interpretations. This is also why they are always written in first person (though I have to thank the cosmos for revealing the words to me – as I’m but a channel, filtering them through my own experiences and soul).

How would you compare VOL to Empires..., your previous album?

“Empires” opened up many doors for us musically, allowing us to expand further, diversify without completely shocking our audience – well, at least to some extent; I know quite a few people have reacted with surprise to “VOL.” I’d say “VOL” is a much more concise statement, further developed in terms of musicianship and production, and as I just mentioned a much more diverse affair. It’s the revealing to the world of many more facets that we, as a band, have always known to exist, but hadn’t displayed until now (again based upon the fact that we’re drawing from material written over the time span of two decades). That being said, after all this time, we have developed something of a signature sound, that can only be described as “WHW music” rather than any single particular genre, as it’s perhaps more of a “universal metal” with a bit of something for everyone I’d like to think. Of course, it is our own emotional, spiritual, and musical needs that come first and foremost, but we certainly don’t want to disappoint anyone either – I think by staying true to ourselves, any perils are worth the risk. Ultimately, “VOL” is an entity unto itself, related to, but different from our past releases, and likewise, every album that follows will be the further shifting of our existing elements in different ratios.

This year marks also the 20th anniversary for the band. What shall be done to mark this? Special gigs, reeditions of hard to find albums?

Our biggest priority to commemorate this important milestone, is to get out and perform as much as possible, in as many places as possible (especially in the EU)…with a setlist that runs the gamut from our earliest years to the present. Regarding the often-asked question about past albums (all of which have been out-of-print for years), what I can tell you is that we will indeed offer limited-editions of the previous albums in gratitude for all the support we’ve received over the years, and to help combat outrageous eBay prices people who’ve discovered WHW in later years have been forced to pay. I’m quite sure we’ll have some very cool merch available throughout the year as well.

If you had the possibility to go back in time, what would you change in related to the band? What mistakes, if any, would you correct?

Aside from a couple business decisions that complicate a few things to this day (i.e. dividing up recording costs between several members, some of whom are no longer in the band now), the only regrets I have are the rushing out of the “Sorrow Of The Angels” album at the behest of various colleagues – I was unsatisfied with the results the moment I left the studio with the master, something I’d never allow again (and will rectify eventually) and the gamble we took touring in 2004 without the actual full-time band members – and this is in no way a slight against Fred (from Whispering Gallery) or Angelo (currently with Slough Feg) as they did an amazing job, but it was foolish to try to create a functional touring band without the possibility of numerous rehearsals; by the time we were “becoming a real band,” the tour was over! Thus, we’ll be much more practical with regards to these things in the future, and besides that, the internal morale depends largely upon the participation of the actual band members as well.

Apart from the die-hard fans, the US Doom scene is rather unknown in the french media. Now I want you to tell my ignorant readers what bands, besides yours, they SHOULD check instead of the new Deathcore trend, to gain some measure of good taste.

There is a rather strong Doom scene in the US, with new bands coming along all the time, but it’s really the unsung veterans that are offering some of the strongest material to date – I’m referring to bands such as Revelation, Iron Man, Pale Divine, Orodruin, etc. Recently, there have been quite a few interesting offshoots from these bands that fall into more traditional as well as more progressive categories (but still retaining aspects of their mothering bands) such as: Sinister Realm, Argus, Cyrus, Against Nature, Blizaro, and Falcon. All that said, there’s no way we could talk about new, up-and-coming bands without speaking on an international level, with great new music from Griftegard, Procession, The Lamp Of Thoth, and Lord Vicar (amongst many other fairly new bands). Just for the record, despite my long involvement within and around the doom scene, as I said before, to me, WHW hasn’t been a pure doom band for a long time (though that foundation will always be there).

This is the tricky question, as there are as many answers as there are people : what is your definition of Doom (be it musically or in term of feeling)?

The simple answer is that I always refer back to what it meant when WHW began, when there weren’t more than 20 bands in the entire world playing what people first called doom metal: it was the sound of slow, heavy metal inspired by Black Sabbath and their immediate offspring – Saint Vitus, Trouble, and the “black sheep” Candlemass…the bottom line is, if a band doesn’t sound like these bands in some capacity, they’re not pure doom. Period. And this is exactly why WHW should NOT be considered doom metal any more than slow death metal or ambient bands should be. Sure, bands like WHW, Paradise Lost, or some sludge all have doom aspects, but it isn’t pure doom. Just because something is slow or dark or heavy, doesn’t mean it is doom METAL. Take for example tons of post-rock bands, gothic bands, purveyors of drone…these are entirely different things from both doom and metal. I’m sure I could wax poetic for days about this subject, but despite being “an authority” on the matter, I rather focus on doing what WHW does best…WHW music

And to end : what happened while heaven wept?

An infinity of angels shared the tearstreams I poured away…