Feature Interview with Chris Black of Superchrist
(posted December 2006)
(interview by Dave Burns)
Chris Black is a man who has a few irons in the fire. Nachtmystium, Dawnbringer and Pharaoh have received varying degrees of attention in the press, but the prominence of each band in the public consciousness has grown by leaps and bounds this year. Superchrist, on the other hand, has receded into the background in the midst of this three-pronged assault, and Black's main metallic vehicle has become a band which seems to be falling through the cracks and well on its way to achieving a "cult" status.
Yet, while it would be going too far to say that Superchrist is returning from the dead, it is safe to state that band is born again. New members, new labels, and a new recording approach have all combined to transform a rough and tumble band into a hard and fast group that will be difficult to ignore. Although albums like Back & Black and South of Hell were fine slabs of heavy metal mottled with rock and punk, Headbanger should be an album that will take many people by surprise based on the three songs I have heard. There have been no bold experimental detours or radical changes in direction, but everything is now sharper and tighter than everything else that has been composed and released by Superchrist in the past, and I was taken aback by the fierce, focused classic metal attacks unleashed in "Black is Beautiful," "Fuck Like a Priest" and "No Color."
Which is a longwinded way of saying I have more than a sneaking suspicion Headbanger is going to be a bad-fucking-ass album that will scorch and sear anyone who comes within ten feet of it. Similar advisories could be issued about the cocky, crude and rude demeanor forming the lyrical backbone of Superchrist, but the crassness and confidence rests on a rock-solid foundation of sincerity and integrity when it comes to metallic matters. This is why it almost goes without saying that when Black types, people should read closely, and I did just that as we batted questions back and forth by email.
Reviewers have called Superchrist "ridiculously derivative," "karaoke superstars" and a band that does not "challenge their listeners." Do these characterizations say more about the people writing the reviews or Superchrist as a band? Do you have a "challenge" for listeners? If you do, would they even be willing to accept it?
Our songs are intentionally easy to swallow, and they'll stay that way. Our lyrics are also kept fairly basic so that they can be remembered and also so that our international fans will be able to pick them up without much trouble. What can I say? In 2001 we challenged our fans to collect all three versions of Dark & Dirty, and only a few were able to do it. But musically, handing down a challenge to one's listeners is a dubious undertaking, as it presupposes a less sophisticated or somehow differently-tuned ear on the part of the audience. We consider our audience to be equals as far as tastes and appreciations go, and that's why it works. The other two characterizations are fairly accurate, I guess.
Hank Bitchlover and Whorepuncher have exited the Superchrist ranks without much fanfare or drama. What prompted this shake-up of the line-up?
Oh, there was drama. At least with Hank. It just wasn't public because nobody gives a shit. And that's still the case. Suffice to say it was a difficult but correct decision to stop working together. Ultimately it was for musical reasons. Hank did not live up to his potential. He chose not to become the guitarist he could have been. Whorepuncher wasn't the same situation at all. He was simply unable to commit on any kind of regular basis for recordings and shows outside of a fairly narrow geographic area. We've worked together outside of Superchrist before, and I hope to again.
Do the less well-known and less confrontational names of their replacements, Ron Rokken and V. Dee, indicate a fresh, clean and friendlier start and slate for the band?
Indeed. We're gearing up for a tour of high schools and nursing homes, reworking things like "Stand Up and Shower," "Fuck You Nice," etc.
Some of the material on both Back & Black and South of Hell had roots extending back to the years when Julie was Right was playing keggers in Pennsylvania in the late '90s. It appears that none of the songs on Headbanger, the next album, will be based on tunes from those bygone days. Does this represent a new beginning of sorts for Superchrist?
Several of Superchrist's musical threads and in fact some of our more enduring/endearing songs do date back to the Julie Was Right era. Actually, the first Superchrist lineup as such was me on drums and vocals, JWR bassist doublebee, and a guitarist named Clark Kent. All this lineup did was record the 2-song demo in 2000, but it's not insignificant that this also happened in Pennsylvania. I'd never be able to sever those links even if I wanted to. When I moved to Chicago in 2000 and also moved out from behind the drums, having that stash of material gave me (and soon, Hank) a great starting point for establishing Superchrist. I knew I didn't want to change much in terms of the general direction of the songwriting, and especially the lyrical direction was already there to back it up (or vice versa). I wrote probably 70% of the music and lyrics, if not more, for Julie, so there was no reason not to hang onto that stuff. So Hank and I sorted through a lot of it and kept what was worth keeping. The Dark & Dirty album has eight Julie Was Right songs and two that Hank and I wrote together. By now, all of the musical material on offer from Julie's catalog has been used. The bridge of "Strangers in the Night" was actually originally in a Julie song, one of the first ones, called "Twelve Inch Pianist." I think that was the last scrap to be picked up. There are a couple of riffs from a song called "Latex Shuffle" that never got used and might be in the future.
I don't think the listening audience really knows or cares about the distinction, or would even consider it perceptible. On one hand, I see a clear division, since it's underscored by my physical move and a complete overhaul of the lineup. On the other hand, it's all part of the same continuum. I've been writing rock songs (i.e. songs with simple structure and featuring a tuneful vocal) since 1998 and following the same path regardless of the band name, lineup, or even what instrument I'm playing. And I would have written the main riff from "To Hell and Black" down on a scrap of paper at my job during the summer of 1999 regardless of what was going to be done with it. Getting back to the point: Headbanger was all written between 2004 and the week before we went into the studio. Maybe it will sound fresher as a result. Maybe it won't be "dated enough!" Damn, should have used that "Latex Shuffle" hook just in case. You know, for protection.
You have released albums on Bestial Onslaught Productions and Autopsy Kitchen Records, both of which tend to lean much more towards the extreme and black metal end of the spectrum. How did Superchrist, which leans more towards the classic sounds of the early '80s, land on these labels and have they been a good fit for the band?
Actually, Autopsy Kitchen did a great job of turning a lot of people on to the band. Bestial Onslaught also did this, but only on a local level. Autopsy Kitchen's roster itself is pretty diverse, so I don't think too many people found it to be an aberrant release. South of Hell made it into a lot of distributors in a lot of countries, and that seems to be the album that most people have discovered. I get emails regularly saying, "I love South of Hell, how can I get your other albums?" So that tells me that Autopsy Kitchen did its job, and well.
But it points to a relative failure on Bestial Onslaught's part. Whereas the guy at AK was already a friend (he released my first collaboration with Nachtmystium, Demise), BO kind of approached us and said, "Hey, got anything that needs releasing?" We had, by coincidence, just recorded the live album Heavy Metal Tonight, and that seemed like a good way to test the waters with this possible new relationship. Anyway, for a while, BO was really on the ball with promoting Superchrist, or at least they managed to create that illusion. They actually flew us to Boston for a one-off gig and made a big batch of shirts, which was great. By then, I had been talking with AK about doing the Back & Black CD, but having seen that BO was really willing to spend some cash, I asked them to do it instead. But BO went downhill pretty fast in terms of actually being even the basic business that it was, at least in my relationship. He would stop answering emails, take months to send me CDs, etc. He still owes me half of the fee for the Back & Black release, as a matter of fact. But there's been literally zero communication from him, so I don't know what the fuck is happening.
I did very well with my copies of the BO releases, which I at first mistook for a reason to continue working with them. But in reality, it's because he did such minimal distribution that so many people were just buying them directly from me. I would buy them sometimes 50 at a time from BO just to resell them. With some hindsight, it was really Autopsy Kitchen's effort, along with my own, that was creating the interest in the other CDs and in the band. BO hasn't done shit with our CDs, and it's my error not to have another release on AK.
But to actually answer your question, for the most part, it's within the metal audience that our audience exists. It's no secret that a lot of people into the more bestial forms of metal also have a warm love for its more formative sounds (Motörhead, Maiden, etc.) Some black metal people even like Mötley Crüe, who I think suck in all possible ways and on all possible albums, but the point is that a lot of metal fans really are pretty open-minded. So to that end, yes, it's been a great fit for us on these underground labels. We've been embraced by a variety of metal fans as a result. It probably also helps that most of our higher-profile gigs have been with metal bands.
Are you committed to any label for Headbanger or is it something which is still up in the air at this point?
We have an informal agreement with a very cool German label to release the album on CD and LP in Europe. We are just waiting on getting the paperwork in order to confirm that deal. It's a partnership that will probably surprise some people but that should be ideal for us. This informal agreement includes the opportunity to do a US version via other channels, which gives us some flexibility there. We've talked to a few possible companies about doing the US release, but that's very much up in the air.
As far as having separate labels for Europe and North America goes, is there a possibility of two different release dates for Headbanger? Is this something you really want to avoid or does it not matter in the larger scheme of things if the album comes out a couple of months earlier or later in a region of the world?
I'd say it's a likelihood that if we do find an avenue for a separate US release, that the dates would be a month apart or more. Whether that matters, I couldn't say. It would be in the favor of whichever label got its release out sooner, I would think. I don't imagine there will be any kind of sophisticated promotional push around a release in the US or anywhere else, just the usual promos mailed out and flyers made, so in that sense it doesn't really matter on the timing.
The "Ladycutter" 7" was recently released on Famine Records, and I can imagine that you were very happy to finally have some vinyl with your name on it out. Are there any plans to release all or any of the earlier Superchrist albums as LPs? Do you think that the Superchrist albums would sound better on vinyl than compact disc?
I'm not sure that the albums would necessarily sound any better on vinyl, but I would like to have them all available in that format simply because there are fans who prefer it. Ideally, all of the albums would be in print on CD, LP, perhaps cassette, and available digitally, just so that the listener can enjoy it in whatever his or her preferred format might be.
It was great, yeah, to finally get a piece of vinyl out there. Famine Records did a really nice job getting it done professionally and spreading it around the world. In this case, we weren't thinking about it as a vinyl release in the early stages. We recorded an album's worth of material during 2005, but it didn't really come together. Luckily, we were able to salvage these two tracks, which I think make a very good single.
Much to the consternation and confusion of some, the song "Ladycutter" contained an instrument with keys. Was this a momentary flourish, a test balloon or an opening wedge for rampant experimentation?
Here's the real deal, which no one has even considered: Hank couldn't fucking play it and couldn't be bothered to practice. That's the only reason it ended up being an organ instead of guitar. I happen to like it this way, but it wasn't the original idea. The European fans have responded better than the American fans did, generally.
The word on the street is that Tower of Power is on the shortlist for guest appearances if Superchrist ever decides to invite some musicians into the studio. Are these rumors true, false or flat-out malicious lies?
My ultimate vision for Superchrist on stage has been a huge band with horns, backup singers, etc. You have to admit that "Make You Famous" would sound pretty cool with horns playing the main riff. It would be a long way down the road for that to even be possible in terms of venues and economics. And obviously I don't write anything dependent on such instrumentation in the meantime, and I think I'd start with a second guitarist if I wanted to expand the stage sound. So yeah, Tower of (Black) Power is just about right, or Cold (Baby) Blood, but I think of it as more of a live enhancement than one for the studio.
Opening an album with a cover didn't do wonders for Doro's career. What made you decide to kick off South of Hell with a cover of "Running Free?" Was this the aural equivalent of putting your balls on the table, flipping the middle finger up in the air or something done without a second thought?
We were using it as a set opener around the time we recorded South of Hell, so it was a fairly easy decision. It really wouldn't fit anywhere but first on that album, except maybe third, which is its position on Iron Maiden. But then we'd have blown our wad having "Hurry Up and Bleed" first. Arranging tracks in the best order on an album is hugely important. Most recording contracts actually give the label the final say on track sequencing, but labels don't take enough into account in doing it. You have to look at tempo, key signature, and the opening bars of each song very carefully, and then compare that against whatever emotional curve you are trying to plot. I should be careful not to reveal trade secrets, though.
A few albums open with covers and get away with it, Reaped in Half being the one that springs to mind. The Supersuckers were opening a series of Motörhead shows in 2000 and opened their own set with a different cover every night. Nifty.
Superchrist has also covered "Poison" and "Metropolis," as well as playing the entire Overkill album live. Why not "On Your Feet or On Your Knees," "I Don't Believe a Word" and the entire Orgasmatron album? Are you restricted or limited to the "classic" Motörhead period for one reason or another when Superchrist is involved?
Not at all. We did "We are Motörhead" and "I'm So Bad (Baby I Don't Care)" live in 2003 as well as rehearsed "Dr. Rock," "Devils," "Mean Machine," and "Brave New World" regularly around that time. Oh, and "Rock and Roll." I don't accept the notion of a classic Motörhead period except in quotes, as you've done. It's a fact, though, that the stuff they did with Eddie Clarke is a lot easier to pull off than the later stuff. I would love to do "No Remorse," "Crazy Like a Fox," "No Voices in the Sky," and many, many others. A lot of my favorite more recent tracks are not necessarily ones that would come together live, though: "Make 'em Blind," "Dead and Gone," and indeed, "I Don't Believe a Word."
When I was still in Chicago, there was what I took to be fairly serious talk of getting a working Motörhead act together with two other musicians who are very well known to the metal underground. It would have been great fun and very pro, but unfortunately it just never happened. So we started doing a lot of Motörhead with Superchrist instead. In reality I would much rather have had a separate tribute band, but what can you do. Superchrist did a good job with that material.
As long as we are talking Motörhead, what did you think of Kiss of Death? How does it stack up to the vast back catalog by your reckoning?
Somewhere in the bottom third. I think it's better than March Or Die but about on par with We are Motörhead, No Sleep at All, and Rock and Roll. Not quite Inferno, but almost, and definitely no Hammered. It's in the box with the comparatively dull and underworked Motörhead albums. I could go on for a while about it, but I'll just say it's got roughly the same strengths (variety, vocals, riffs) and weaknesses (lyrics, drums, song development) as Inferno, just that the strengths aren't as prominent here. Oh well, it's still a Motörhead album! Did you hear they're doing "Snaggletooth" on tour in Europe right now?
No. That is not shabby at all. But I'd rather see "Riding with the Driver" slipped into the set. As far as that goes, I'd like to see one set only composed of songs from 1916 on up, but there is no way in hell that is going to happen…so much material that would sound incredible live that is neglected. Yeah, after the initial rush of having a new Motörhead album in my hands wore off, Kiss of Death is a step down from Inferno. Strangest thing about the past couple of albums is that they have been framed as a "return to form" by more than a few people when there are some damn fine albums sprinkled across the past fifteen years.
That's very much true. Although a good friend was arguing recently that if you treat Hammered as an anomaly, you could draw a downward line of quality from Bastards right up to the present. I'm not sure it's a uniformly downward slope, but I tend to agree with his view of the trend. That being said, they're all excellent albums and I doubt they'll ever make an album that I would not buy on CD and LP and then substantiate with a ticket purchase a few months later.
But you're right, they'll never do an oldies-only tour, a "rerecorded classics" album, or a reunion with the "classic" lineup. So much of the current conception of "fanhood" is based in nostalgia, you know, with all of the VH1 programs and the internet's unique capacity to make highly-informed hardcore fans out of us all. Motörhead isn't really part of that. They shun that, Lemmy in particular, because he does not see the band as having "peaked" or having had a "golden era" or anything like that. Nothing has changed. That's the point.
So unless "Eat the Evidence" is a lyrical reworking of "Eat the Rich," it looks like there will not be a cover on Headbanger. Was this a conscious decision or just the way things turned out?
It was a conscious decision. I used to get very annoyed when rehearsals were spent discussing possible cover songs to add to the set instead of working on original material. We used to do a lot of covers live. They were excellent versions of excellent songs, but in the end the motivation was questionable. When we played with metal bands, we'd dip into some Saxon, Bathory, and Venom. And when we played with punk bands, it would be Turbonegro and Misfits. It was our way of connecting with what we assumed the crowd would be wanting. Later, I realized that we should have just been ramming their ears with our own songs, and if they didn't like it, they could go fuck themselves, and if they did like it, they could go fuck someone else.
It's quite a lot of fun to rip through "Bursting Out," obviously, and we'll never abandon covers entirely. But I would think that they'll be confined to b-side and/or "bonus track" status where records are concerned, and that a rabid audience will have to really holler if they expect more than one or two covers from us on stage in the future. We recorded "Fire Down Under" recently, and it won't be on Headbanger, but maybe on a b-side, and probably not on stage unfortunately, because it's murder on the voice.
Superchrist hit the East Coast on the Loser Leaves Town Tour last year, and I was wondering if you consider the trek a success and if the live circuit, crowds and venues out East differ from those in the Midwest in any shape or form?
Calling it a tour was a stretch (six shows in seven days.) But the trek was a success by some measures. We just about broke even, and we got to play with some great bands. For a first time out, booked by myself, those were good accomplishments. Crowds on the east coast are kind of like the Chicago crowds of five years ago, which were more vocal and lively than they've been more recently. Maybe they got a bit spoiled? Who knows, everything happens in cycles right? Stupid clichés. Anyway, Boston in particular has been a great crowd for Superchrist, both of the times we've been able to play. They did a lot of headbanging and seemed to know a lot of the songs, so the band and audience stayed really locked in. Bestial Onslaught has done a lot of word of mouth promotion and fanbase-building for us there. If we had a similar effort in other towns, I'm sure we could catch on as well, but for now, except for Chicago and Boston, audiences are generally curious but not very engaged. We simply haven't done the amount of touring it takes to cultivate (or have reason to cultivate) more widespread support of that kind. People all over the world are discovering our albums all the time, however, and that is extremely satisfying. For them, of course!
Is it in the cards for Superchrist to play out in the near future or is the band restricted to the studio for the time being?
I am trying to get the right people together for a Chicago gig in April (or thereabouts) of 2007, to celebrate the release of the new album. It has been too long. As I've said, Whorepuncher would likely do it. I might be able to persuade Ron, or more likely, try to get Ron and a rhythm guitarist. Or maybe I'll have a new, dedicated lineup together by then. Let's wait and see…
In "I Am Your Hero," you say that you "don't like the Stones or the Ramones" and "hate the Dead." Was there a particular reason these bands were singled out in the song and why do you hate the Dead and merely don't like the Stones and the Ramones? Or maybe this is the opinion of the "immigrant" who appears as in the song?
Stones and Ramones rhyme. And I don't like either of them, but that's incidental to the song, and the narrator is not me. Thank you for being one of those astute lyric-readers who has the decency and sense to know that equating a first-person narrator with the author is an interpretative fallacy of the foulest order! Anyway, that song is about the American way, basically.
You claimed that Superchrist lyrics being "mostly nonsense" was nothing new when South of Hell was released. Is there no rhyme or reason to the lines and subjects tackled in the songs? Is it just a loose and limber stream of consciousness approach where whatever happens to be at the front of your mind gets set down on paper?
I believe that comment was in reference to "Strangers in the Night" in particular and was made in a not-entirely-serious context. But anyway, that particular song was rewritten so many times that, at least to me, it makes no sense at all, precisely because I do write with a subject in mind. "Strangers" is an exception, as the title also changed several times, but I'll usually have a snappy title that points to a hot topic, and I'll just go from there. I'm also working in the constraints of a certain melody, which what makes the process a real challenge.
Experience has taught me that I get much better results by putting words to a melody, rather than trying to write a melody for existing words, so I'm always working in that direction. And doing so, I'm right away very confined in terms of syllables and scansion (that is, the pattern of accented vs. non-accented syllables.) So it's a struggle to get the right combination of words out there, one that fits the melody while sounding natural, but also one that manages to project some kind of meaning or at least narrative. My levels of success are variable, and I've learned also to be patient and revise as needed.
Just last week I did write probably half of the Headbanger lyrics in the early morning before it was time to work. I had bits and pieces for everything, and melodies to work from, but for example "Fuck Like a Priest" and "Eat the Evidence" were both very new sets of words when I sang them last week.
"Mostly nonsense," yeah, "Strangers in the Night" doesn't seem to go anywhere, although it's got several smaller parts that have more of a point! It's loosely about various bizarre encounters--musical, sexual, chemical… that themselves don't have much of a point.
The name Superchrist shares some similarities with the designation "Jesus freak," if I squint my eyes really hard, and it seems that there could be a case of mistaken identity or two given the religious overtones of the band name. Has anyone ever thought that you played contemporary Christian music composed for the greater glory of the Heavenly Kingdom or have you ever been cornered by the type of people who hand out New Testaments and cartoon tracts by Jack Chick while going about your business because of Superchrist?
No one has ever gotten too confused, as far as I know. One glance at our songtitles will straighten out any ill-founded assumptions as to our name. I do stress about it sometimes, though. Not because I worry that someone will buy our CD expecting Christian music and counter with a nasty letter, but because of the opposite possibility: that someone would pass us by, mistakenly thinking that we're a Christian band, rightfully not being into that sort of crap, and therefore writing us off. Hmm.
I gave it some serious thought, whether Hank's departure and our relative inactivity during 2006 would be the right occasion for a name change. I decided it's too late. It's not as if we've had a lot of success as Superchrist that would be put in jeopardy, but there's the foundation of a brand that's been laid with our independent releases and gigs. We've built a tiny following, and to change the name would be a form of quitting. Besides, it would only resort to confusion when the new band plays two-thirds Superchrist songs in its live set. Nope. The path is cut. The music is not going to change. Our future albums will deliver the same things that our past albums have, and vice versa. So it's got its drawbacks, but it'll have to do. At least it's easy to remember.
Well, the cover of Heavy Metal Tonight is a picture of an isolated church and on the steeple is a weathervane in the shape of what seems to be the official Superchrist symbol. You have certainly not exploited the religious themes and topics that could be brought into play, given the band name, but are there gospels, icons or rituals associated with Superchrist that the uninitiated cannot see or comprehend?
No. And yes it's true that we haven't used much religious imagery per se. The church itself on HMT and a few turns of phrase in "Julie Killed Jesus" are the only examples that spring to mind. Oh, I guess the devil makes a brief appearance in "Aim Low" as well. See, while I'm not averse to an occasional turn of phrase or visual image that draws on those themes, I am personally very opposed to religion, to borrow Hank's line, "Whether it's the Vatican or two guys in a canoe." Accordingly, Superchrist has absolutely no spiritual, supernatural, or metaphysical essence. Superchrist is about the riffs in your ears, your hands in the air-guitar position, and the words that can't help but form in your mouth. It's reality. Superchrist is designed for your central nervous system and your goddamn DNA, not your eternal soul.
That all being said, I would love to redraw the customary nativity scene as an abortion procedure, or perhaps explore the Stations of the Cross as a sequence of sexual positions. Hmm… or the Stations of the Cross-dresser. What do you think?
I'm not too big on Catholicism and the infatuation with the crucifixion, so that could be a bit too ornate for me and might also rehash material found in the Kama Sutra. I don't know…sacrilegious art defiling Christianity is so commonplace in the realm of metal that it is almost passé now. Do you think that such artistic themes still have the power to offend, shock and provoke strong reactions from people?
I do know what you mean about anti-Christian imagery being rather commonplace within metal. I guess it's an easy target. Those were just a couple of ideas. I have other institutions to attack, but I always try to keep the God-knife sharp in the meantime. There are messages to spread which do not relate purely to religion but whose origins certainly lie in those domains. Prohibition and abstinence, by way of example. An attack on these principles is in some ways an attack on the religious orders of the world.
Superchrist has vowed to keep "bringing the pure heavy metal hell" with the Headbanger album in 2007. What would constitute contaminated or tainted "heavy metal hell" and how can we tell the difference between what is pure and not pure?
Impurities would be perceptible instantly, because they are not of rock lineage. Heavy metal is the consummation of rock's evolution, and its pure forms do not feature growling vocals, blastbeats, or synthesizer orchestras. There are exponents of heavy metal that of course do feature these elements, and more, and some do so rather enjoyably. But with Superchrist, you get words to comprehend, rhythms for headbanging, and guitar solos to enjoy in every song. The term "pure" is to indicate that we don't fuck around. We know what to do.
You are involved in a couple of other bands besides Superchrist. Do you make a concerted and determined effort to keep them distinct when you are in songwriting mode or do they intermingle, influence and inform one another? Do you have separate times you set aside to get in a Superchrist space free of anything related to Dawnbringer or Pharaoh?
I do, but it's more the other way around, in that I will give Dawnbringer or Pharaoh temporary precedence when necessary. I am never in "songwriting mode" in a generic sense. For the past several years, my writing has been a deliberate process, where I know what I am trying to do as I am sitting down to do it. It's as if I've given myself an assignment. I never write a song, and rarely write a riff, without it being already attributable to a larger whole. There are a couple of exceptions, riff-wise, as my parts in Pharaoh's "Slaves" were originally Dawnbringer bits, but even this is a stretch, as Pharaoh did not yet exist when those parts were developed. So yes, the pursuits are distinct. The boundaries are clear. Lateral influence does occur, although it's more common that an outside influence will leave a mark on more than one of my trajectories than for one to inform the other. Although that does happen in terms of production, and by that I mean things like realizing during the course of making The Longest Night that I'm selling the Superchrist material short by trying to produce it myself, and conversely that I could successfully produce a Dawnbringer album by myself in light of persevering through South of Hell. Wow!
But even the songwriting processes and the technological mechanisms are different, and this further keeps the fences up. With Superchrist, I write in my brain. A riff or vocal hook will appear in "my mind's ear" and I will often chase it up and down those corridors for days and weeks before exploring it on the bass or in the rehearsal room with my mates. The end criteria is significant too: it must be a thrill to perform live and for the audience to sing back in my face. For Dawnbringer, I am single-handedly responsible for writing a dense concept album, using a synthesizer and a computer to compose. It will never be performed live or even rehearsed, and therefore there aren't really any limitations regarding the instrumentation. It is a different challenge. Finally, with Pharaoh, I am writing a small piece of what will be a rich and diverse album, usually using the synthesizer to flesh out details but working in tandem with my internal composition mechanisms. It is unknown whether it will be performed in "real time," and that leads to some interesting decisions to weigh along the way.
Superchrist is my priority. I see it as having the most potential for long-term commercial success, and it's also been the more "authentic" band in that neither Pharaoh nor Dawnbringer do any rehearsing or live work. So, I am always "working on" Superchrist, whether rehearsing, performing, recording, or simply trying to move some CDs and make some new fans. But for example, when it is time to prepare for a Pharaoh session, it becomes the priority. And these things happen with enough warning that I can be well-prepared. One of the up-sides to not being tied to more professional labels is that I am setting my own schedule for the most part. No one will ever be up my ass to get Dawnbringer into the studio, if you know what I mean. I do it on my own schedule and when it's ready to be done.
With Superchrist recording in a studio instead of at home, what effects did this have on the overall sound and scope of the album and were you able to achieve or flesh out anything with the band that you could not on the previous albums?
Well, you'll notice on a very basic level that there's a fidelity, clarity, and heft to the sound that was simply impossible with the recording equipment we used on the previous albums. Without getting into too much "shop talk," I knew that we'd have the potential to make an excellent album quickly, thanks to the technological side of things. For example, I didn't have to spend several days messing with different cheap microphones and compressors to find a sound that worked for my vocals. We simply stuck me in front of a Neumann and I let it fly. It's not to say that good gear sounds good automatically, but that crappy gear definitely doesn't, and you have to have a lot of patience if you're working under those conditions. Another time-saver is something really simple but significant, namely the amount of time saved when you don't have to rewind and fast-forward on tape machines. With a disk system, you just click over to wherever you need to be. The "transport" is virtual.
Basically, I have always wanted to have a professional-sounding Superchrist. The band's very first recording was a two-song demo ("James Dean's Car" and "Brown Eye Sees All") in a nice studio back in 2000. It was never the intention to slug away in the rehearsal room for album after album. But that had to be reconciled with economics and also my growing interest in sound recording, so it made sense to make a couple of things on the cheap. I spent a lot of time on that stuff. Hours upon hours. You can hear everything I learned if you compare the sound of Dark & Dirty to South of Hell. But I hit a point where without spending a large sum of money on additional equipment, I couldn't do any better. Given that I don't really shop my services to outside clients and don't really have an interest in sound engineering as a full-time job, it made more sense to instead put Superchrist back in a proper studio, which is, as I said, its original (and natural) recording habitat.
Being in that environment was extremely refreshing for me, because I could concentrate on the material and some of the "broad strokes" instead of worrying about microphones, compressors, punch-ins, etc. I didn't have to push any buttons or twist any knobs. Just had to play and holler at Ron. This was a huge change from the previous albums, and honestly, I'm never going back. I still have all of my equipment, which I'll continue to use for songwriting, making demos, and the occasional outside session. But I'm not making my own albums at home anymore.
More to the point of your question, actually, working with Ron Rokken let me achieve a few things that were impossible on previous albums. He's simply a more schooled guitarist, and once he agreed to do the album, I prepared a lot of little guitar parts (the "Riot Run" before the second verse of "No Color", for example) that would really spruce up the songs, add a bit of production value, and also let him stand out a bit. There were certain limitations that simply don't apply to Ron, so I had a bit more freedom in preparing the material for recording. Looking forward, I'll continue to develop the songs a bit further with each album, meanwhile hoping that a guitarist of Ron's caliber (if not Ron himself) will be at the ready to execute my various ideas.
It almost seems that Superchrist has been somewhat eclipsed in the wider metal media by the other projects you are involved with. Do you feel that people regard Superchrist as a kind of side project at times and do you think that the attention The Longest Night received is going to create a shadow that Superchrist may not be able to step out of when Headbanger is released?
Not only in the media, but in the market as well, my other affiliations have been more widely recognized. Of the CDs and LPs that I have sold as musician and/or producer, half are Nachtmystium and the other half are Superchrist, Pharaoh, and Dawnbringer combined. I think Superchrist is simply more underground, farther off the radar, than these other pursuits, but also that not many people have made the connections and discovered one band based on my involvement with another. In other words, with releases on so many disparate labels and targeted in such different ways, there's very little overlap in exposure. Nachtmystium and Pharaoh are a good example. Musically there is little, if any, cross-appeal between the two bands, despite my being very embedded creatively in both. Simply put, my involvement in one is not a selling point for the other, and that's true to a lesser extent with any other combinations.
As far as media attention goes, with a couple of exceptions, I'm generally interviewed as a member of a particular band, on the occasion of a particular album release. And unless the writer has done some research, which is an occasional pleasant surprise, I'm not prompted to discuss any outside activities.
Whether this will continue to be the trend…I can only guess that it will. When Headbanger is released it will have to stand on its own, because nobody will construe it as a side project of any other thing, because it's not, just as those other things are not side projects but entities unto themselves. Just how much attention it gets in comparison to for example, The Longest Night, will depend on fortune and of course the effort on the part of the label. I think it will be a far stronger statement than any other Superchrist release has been to date, so maybe the slices in my pie chart are about to shift.