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An Interview with Aaron Weaver
by Matt Smith
With their third full-length release, Black Cascade, under their belts, Olympia, Washington's Wolves in the Throne Room have again created a slab of atmospheric Progressive Black Metal that pushes the boundaries of what extreme music can be. I had the pleasure of speaking with Aaron Weaver, the drummer of WITTR, and we touched upon the current state of Black Metal and subjects that make this existence worth living and experiencing.
GASP: I really love Black Cascade, the production is really great, you can really tell it was recorded on analog equipment.
Aaron: Yeah, it was done using an old console tape machine and using old amps and that's how you get that sound.
GASP: Yeah, it sounds really good. I love analog equipment, I mean I still do a lot of my home recording on a TASCAM Portastudio cassette 4-Track recorder.
Aaron: I had one of those back in the day as well. They definitely have a sound to them, there's something to be said about that lo-fi approach to recording, it makes you work really hard to get the sound that you want.
GASP: How was it working with Randall Dunn? Have you worked with him before?
Aaron: Yeah, Randall recorded Two Hunters and he also recorded the EP we recently released Malevolent Grain, so this is our third outing with Randall and we have a really good working relationship going with him.
GASP: Yeah, he knows what you guys are after.
Aaron: Yeah, we can tell Randall, "we want this part to sound like an underwater ritual with a silver aura floating on a pedestal with a drug-fueled psychedelic drug mirror" and he'll say "alright" and he'll dial it in.
GASP: (laughs) Nice. With every release you seem to expand on that atmospheric vibe you have going on and it makes you really stand out among the whole Black Metal genre.
Aaron: Thanks, we really do try and push ourselves in the studio to use new techniques and to create new sounds we haven't used before and not fall into the same thing on every record. It's very important for us to expand on our sound.
GASP: Yeah, it definitely sounds like that. How do you feel you've progressed since the pre-Southern Lord days?
Aaron: I think with each release the band becomes more self-confident. When a band first starts you're no more than a sum of your own influences and you're just trying as fast as you can, by the seat of your pants, to create a record that is your own and I think we're at the point now, we're at our third full-length, that we've got to the point where we can confidently go into the studio or practice space and make music that is very much our own and it's not referencing Led Zeppelin or Black Sabbath. It's a spontaneous creation and it's a good place to be because it takes years to get there and I feel like we've just now reached that level.
GASP: I agree, you guys sound like you're very comfortable with the sound and nobody sounds like you guys, you have such a unique sound and that's what I always look for in a heavy band, whether it's Black Metal or Doom, or Thrash. Unless you're pushing the boundaries, I mean I can't sit down and listen to Black Metal all day, I get bored too easily.
Aaron: At this point Black Metal has become dogmatic and it's more just about being part of the scene and to be a part of the scene you have to stay true to the established orthodox sound. I think it's really bad for music when it becomes less about individuals creating the music they want to create or feel they should create than more about than staying true to what they're supposed to sound like.
GASP: Exactly, I agree. I know it's something I always wanted to do back when I was playing Death and Black Metal but no one I ever worked with shared my desires to add in some kind of trippy accents or sections.
 Aaron: Those are the Death Metal bands that have stood the test of time, the ones that have really pushed the boundaries.
GASP: Yeah, that's one reason why I quit playing Death Metal back then because I couldn't find any one that wanted to push the boundaries, they just wanted to be as dark and evil and brooding as they could be. And I was into a lot of psychedelic rock and I was experimenting with so many different kinds of music like early Industrial like Throbbing Gristle, early space rock like CAN, Kraut rock, and those guys just looked at me and didn't want anything to do with it.
Aaron: Yeah, and that's the nice thing because were all really interested in that kind of music and we go beyond Death Metal and Black Metal which of course is music we all love but we love music that is avant garde and pushes the boundaries of what ever era it came from. Where are you located any way?
GASP: Worcester, Massachusetts
Aaron: Oh yeah, my partner Megan is from Leominster, I was just out there last year.
GASP: Cool, I just started a new band last fall and we jam in Fitchburg.
Aaron: That's cool, I know that area really well. It's a really interesting post-industrial landscape and it would be really inspiring for Death Metal music, it expresses this urban decay and nihilism that comes with it.
GASP: Yeah, exactly and the stuff that we're doing is Psychedelic Doom and the city is definitely an inspiration for any kind of extreme metal music.
Aaron: Yeah.
GASP: You're average song length is about 10 minutes or more and I was wondering if you guys have had any negative reaction to your music from so-called "True Black Metal" bands or fans?
Aaron: I hear from people who say "it's boring man, why do you have to repeat it?" and obviously those are the people who just don't get it. The whole idea of our music is to experience an altered state of consciousness. I think that all great Black Metal music is trance-inducing and is music that through extreme repetition and through simple brutal drum beats allows one to truly journey to a different plane of consciousness. Fundamentally that's what it is to us and extreme repetition is a big part of that. I don't really care what people say about it either way, I mean I'm glad people like it and people think they're good records and we're good live but I don't care if there's people who don't appreciate it.
GASP: Yeah, because you're doing it for yourself and if any one else likes it then that's even better.
Aaron: That's absolutely our attitude, we play our music for us, to satisfy our own desires and if other people get something out of it then that's cool.
GASP: Yeah. I totally agree with what you were saying earlier about achieving a trance-like state of mind. I mean today at work I was listening to Wolves and I had the whole discography loaded and three hours passed and I barely even noticed it. Your music just transports the listener and you don't even notice the time passing. I mean a 20 minute song like "Diadem Of 12 Stars" seemed like 10 minutes.
Aaron: I know, isn't that weird, I had the same experience and it really speaks about how our experience of time can really be altered depending on what mind state we're in or what sort of stimuli we're exposing ourselves to.
GASP: Yeah, and the same thing happens when I'm listening to a song I don't like and it might be a three or four minute song and I'm like "when the fuck is this song going to be over?" (laughs)
Aaron: You wonder if one could create the perfect song that would make time stop entirely. Maybe it's possible?
GASP: That's something I want to achieve in my lifetime.
Aaron: Yeah, that's a worthwhile goal.
GASP: A lot of the stuff I did on my 4-Track recordings was really trying to get to some kind of level like that, some more successful than others. And most of the time I wouldn't even realize I had been playing a riff for 7 minutes or something. (laughs)
Aaron: Yeah, sure.
GASP: You have a lot of spiritual themes in your music, whereas most Black Metal has Satanic and blasphemous topics, you try to have lyrics that try and connect with the universe. What are the band members philosophies on life, religion, existence?
Aaron: I'll try and distill it down for you. Well, it's my feeling that religion as we understand it, in terms of organized religion, tends to stifle a true spiritual experience. I think that human beings should have an immediate and direct access to the divine on a very personal and unmediated level and there shouldn't need to be any hierarchy or authority figure casting judgment on what one can and can't do. We have a very anarchistic outlook in regards to spirituality, and in regards to all this shit. I think we're coming from a perspective of anarchical primitivism, with our music we're fundamentally questioning the basic assumptions of civilization, not just modern civilization but all civilization. We believe when human beings stopped being hunter-gatherers living in immediate and very primitive way with the natural world and began to settle down and began to cultivate grain and began to practice agriculture and domesticate animals that was the moment when absolutely everything changed. It's not a good or bad thing, but it's something I really need to question on a very deep and fundamental level, like what does this mean to our consciousness to be civilized and domesticated people? What does it mean for our capacity to experience the divine for our relationship with the natural world and the way we interact with it and the way that we treat it? So we have a deep and all-pervasive critique of not just modern individuality but as the modern world as a whole. I mean it goes very very deep.
 GASP: Yeah, I definitely picked up on that vibe, that's why I asked that. I definitely get a sense that you guys are trying to connect with the true meaning of the universe and transcending all the bullshit that comes with living this life, whatever this life really is. I stopped questioning the meaning of life and just realized the meaning of life is just life itself, being able to experience this, it's a gift. So absorb as much as you can and try and transcend all the fake bullshit in the world and what people tell you is right. I mean, for me I was raised in a Christian household and I was taught to believe in the bible and that if I didn't believe in Jesus and accept him as my savior I would go to hell and I got to a point where it just stressed me out so bad because I was told I couldn't listen to Ozzy or any heavy metal that had a dark themes to it and I felt like giving that up was giving up the things that made me happy and it stressed me out because they were telling me it was leading me away from God so I ended up abandoning it all so I could live my life the way I wanted to.
Aaron: And that's why people are drawn to the blasphemous side of Black Metal because they have these experiences of what they're told by authority figures is so contrary to what they feel intuitively to be true. They just want to say "fuck you, fuck your God" and I think it's a very natural reaction and I think it's like you were saying, something you also grow out of. It's like throwing a tantrum and it comes to a point in life where you should stop throwing tantrums, you should be able to move on from that initial sort of visceral reaction to the Christian oppression.
GASP: Right, exactly. I think one thing that really helped me to break away from that whole mentality was the first time I took an acid trip.
Aaron: Yeah, that opens a lot of doors for people, sure.
GASP: Yeah, and I took acid to expand my way of thinking and to have some sort of spiritual experience to help me understand what the fuck I'm doing here and not to just get fucked up and escape. And after that I've had a completely different outlook on the way I think and how I view life and other people.
Aaron: Yeah, and with those drugs, it's a very interesting thing and you wonder where they come from and you wonder why they exist. You wonder if there's not some other force that's guiding their appearance in the world.
GASP: It's like the comedian Bill Hicks said "pot and mushrooms grow here on the earth, God put them here for a reason and to make them illegal seems unnatural", you know. Do you and the guys in the band feel drug experimenting gives you a spiritual experience or some kind of mind expanding visions?
Aaron: I think everyone I know has had those kinds of experiences, it's like a big part of the culture. It's also not everything, I've had just as many experiences just walking outside and looking up in the sky and feeling the air crack with energy and know it's a special moment and receive some sort of knowledge from that. I think it's really dangerous when people rely on psychedelic drugs as their only sort of portal to another level of awareness. I think you're immediately snapped into this shamanic or spiritual reality that other times you would have to work very very hard to get there and nowadays you can just get there immediately with the aid of chemicals. There's good things and bad things about it, but I'm certainly no expert on the subject.
GASP: (laughs) I totally agree with you, the last time I tripped on acid was 1994 and I decided I didn't need to do it any more.
Aaron: Yeah, the door is open and it will stay open.
GASP: Yeah, exactly. I think the only thing I still would like to try someday is mushrooms because everyone tells me they're a great experience.
Aaron: Yeah, you should do it.
GASP: I'm thinking for my 40th birthday.
Aaron: Yeah, that would be a good move.
GASP: (laughs) Yeah, celebrate the half-way mark, hopefully, who knows, if I make it to 40.
Aaron: I'm sure you will.
GASP: How about life after death? How do you feel about that?
Aaron: I have absolutely no idea. I'm not even going to speculate on it.
 GASP: So no beliefs in reincarnation?
Aaron: I'm open to any possibility but I have no strong ideas one way or the other. I might develop them as I get older.
GASP: Exactly.
Aaron: I don't believe I'm going to go to Hell.
GASP: Me neither, I mean how the fuck could somebody come up with such a horrible twisted concept as Hell? I read Dante's Inferno and thought to myself what kind of twisted fuck came up with this shit that says unbaptized babies will burn in hell?
Aaron: Yeah, people who were sexually repressed I think.
GASP: Yeah, Dante himself had some serious issues.
Aaron: They should just relax and have some fun.
GASP: Exactly. How has Will Lindsay been working out for the band?
Aaron: Really good, he's a really old friend of ours, we've known Will for 10 or 12 years probably and he had been playing bass in our touring line-up and Rick, who had been playing guitar in Wolves had a baby in Olympia and Will was right there to fill the position and it's been a great and natural transition for us.
GASP: Very cool. How's the scene up there in Olympia?
Aaron: Well, it's interesting because Olympia has a really well-known underground DIY punk culture and there's labels here like Kill Rock Stars...
GASP: Yeah, the whole Riot Grrl movement started there.
Aaron: Yeah, and bands like the Melvins and Nirvana so that's kind of the scene we were involved with growing up. We were metal heads always focusing on playing in metal bands and focusing on that kind of stuff but at the same time we were really inspired by the DIY ethic, which I think transcends genres. A Riot Grrl band or a Black Metal band would still have to have a commitment to the underground. And things are different nowadays, those indie rock bands have all sort of moved on and nowadays in Olympia there's a lot of people who are doing similar things to Wolves in the Throne Room, they're moving beyond Punk music or moving beyond metal music and really consciously create something new. And trying to affect some change on a spiritual level, that's what a lot of the bands have in common, there's a metaphysical aspect which wasn't there 10 years ago. It wasn't on the table and now it is.
GASP: Do you guys think you kind of started a trend?
Aaron: It was definitely already there. it was a spontaneous cultural movement. A lot of people grew up in the same community and had the same ideas and were exposed to the same kind of influences and it tends to create a movement. So WITTR have a lot of peers who created the same kind of music and operate on the same kind of level.
GASP: So playing local shows, are there shortages of any bands that could play on the same bill as you guys?
Aaron: We do okay, there's a group called Fauna, they're really good friends of ours and I've played drums with them in the past. They're a really interesting group and I think people should really check them out. They're operating on a similar level as WITTR but I think are far more uncompromising and far more intense. They never go on tour the way we do and they don't do interviews and that sort of thing and they create a very powerful sense of mystery and the mastermind behind the music is a really intense and powerful person, he really IS a shaman.
GASP: That's cool, I will check them out.
Aaron: As far as music taking Black Metal to the next level and expanding on the possibilities spiritual expansion in music they're it. They're performances are literally the most intense and powerful out there now and I've seen bands all over the world and nothing compares to what they're doing. They only perform a couple times a year, only on the Winter and Summer Solstice and maybe a few Equinoxes, like four times a year. It's really intensely underground.
GASP: Wow, that's cool. It's not cool if you want to see them (laughs)
Aaron: Well, it should make other people start their own underground thing.
GASP: Exactly. I'm going to the MD Death Fest and heard you recently got added.
Aaron: Yeah, I just heard that, it should be a cool show.
GASP: Me and my buddies are driving down and we're really looking forward to it, what an amazing line-up.
Aaron: Yeah, it's going to be cool. You know Ross Sewage from Impaled? He's been playing bass on the road with us and he's a good friend of ours but he's not going to be able to play with us, he has to focus on another band, but we'll see him there, it'll be a nice treat for us.
GASP: Yeah, very cool. Aside from the MD Death Fest, what other touring plans do you have?
Aaron: We've got quite a bit, we're going to do two weeks on the West Coast with Pelican from Chicago, we're going to South by Southwest with them and then we're touring up the West Coast, then were doing the Roadburn Festival in Holland, in April which will be killer. And then starting in May we'll do a full US tour and then some Festivals in Europe, Hellfest and a bunch of big festivals. That will be an interesting experience for us to be on a big stage and see how the music translates.
GASP: Have you guys played many big festivals?
Aaron: No, not really and I'm not sure if it's the right thing to be doing because we like our music to be very personal and we want the concerts to be very intimate, you know?
GASP: Yeah
Aaron: So we'll have to reassess how we'll play and how we'll approach it. I'll talk to you next month and let you know how it went.
 GASP: Exactly. Who are you touring with for the US dates?
Aaron: Krallice and A Storm of Light.
GASP: Cool, I just saw Storm and they were great.
Aaron: Yeah, have you heard Krallice?
GASP: No, not yet.
Aaron: A very interesting band, you should definitely check them out.
GASP: Cool
Aaron: Really interesting, and they're bringing Black Metal in a really interesting direction. Check it out.
GASP: I will. Sounds like a killer bill.
Aaron: Yeah, it should be cool!
GASP: Because this site is half-horror/half metal I always ask the question, what are your favorite horror movies and directors?
Aaron: I'm not much of a movie person, I rarely watch movies and I'm not too much of a horror buff. I wish that Ross was here, he's a big gore fan. I'm actually interested in seeing some because so many people take it so seriously but I've never really considered it. I wish I knew more about the genre.
GASP: Well, there's something to explore. Cool, it was awesome talking to you and I'll see you in Maryland.
Aaron: Yeah, come up and say hello, I'd love to meet you in person.
GASP: Yeah, definitely, talk to you then.
Aaron: Later man, have a good night.
GASP: Yeah, you too, bye.
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