1. Can you introduce the band to my readers?
We are Mount Cairn, we are from Loveland, Colorado..at the Foothills of the Rocky Mountains. Demothi is the vocals,
Atilli plays guitar, Aarzen plays bass. And I (McDonald) play drums.
2. How would you describe the musical style that you are going for?
Demothi and I started this as an ambient black metal project late last year. We knew Atilli already but we didn't start playing with him until June of this year...After Atilli joined it gave us a lot of diversity with what we would be able to do. He is an amazing Guitar nerd and he is one of those people who you can talk to about riffs all day and he can just come up with something and layer it, he's got a great organic sound that was perfect for what we set out to do. Aarzen the Giant's family is from Norway, and he was living with Atilli in the Mountains here when we met him...They're big Metalheads so they were students of many metal styles. I think now we're focusing on classic black metal. Burzum, Bathory and Darkthrone are the roots of the tree for us..Starting from the beginning
3. What are some of the lyrical topics and concepts that the band touches on?
Demothi has written all the lyrics for the first seven songs. A lot of our lyrics are written like stories. We have a lot of Native American perspectives. We can't write or begin to understand what it was like from a Viking perspective. We are from here. The Christian church not only plagued Europe. When they got here to what would become the U.S. they were so fucking scared of the natives. They had just fled a religious tyranny in Europe and had come to someone els'es home only to become the same monster they had orphaned themselves from. Indians here experienced a genocide orchestrated by these Christian settlers. Demothi and Atilli are Native Americans, so they're ancestors are remembered as tragic warriors in some lyrics.We live in some of the biggest mountains on Earth, and there are places we go that haven't been sacked by humanity. We go to these places to understand and appreciate the last pure humans. We have a deep contempt for what religion is taking from the world...an antipathy in our words.
4. What is the meaning and inspiration behind the bands name?
A "Cairn" a Gaelic word referring to a towering rock pile usually made as memorials or to mark the peak of mountain. They've been made all over the earth by all kinds of early humans. Its just such a primitive symbolic image. We build one whenever we camp in the mountains, it's a tradition for us. We chose "Mount" to give lineage and respect to where we live.
The arrangement of "Mount Cairn" for me evokes the geographical imagery we are inspired by daily.
5. Do you have any plans to do any shows in the future?
Originally we weren't thinking too much about playing live when it was just Demothi and Myself. Since we joined with Atilli and Aarzen we spend a lot of time jamming. Playing live with other metal bands that share
our views of the world would be a great opportunity for us to exchange knowledge. We now have a session guitarist named Scanlan who will be with us when the opportunity comes.
6. Do any of the other band members have any other experience playing in other band before forming this one.
Myself and Demothi have been in bands, but that was ten years ago, we both started families and put our focus on other Artistic mediums. Demothi isn't a loud outspoken person at all, when I heard his vocals for the first time I was fucking shocked....Atilli's Father is a Guitar Wizard, so he's learned theory his whole life and been in and out of small Death Metal garage projects.
7. How have people reacted to your music, that have actually heard it so far?
...we don't know many fans of Black Metal around here....but most people think it sounds like "all that other bullshit" we listen to....so i guess tha'ts a decent reception...if not a honest one...haha
8. What can we expect from future songs?
More songs about the occult....devotional blackness,an impregnated by rage Sorceress. Nature, Misanthropy..anything that drowns out Christianity.
9. Do you have any plans to release a demo in the future?
Yeah we are recording a three song demo called "Fire in the Hills". We had a lot of wildfires in the mountains where we live this summer and it was powerful yet horrible to see all these trees burning across the whole western horizon. Humanity caused them and i think it's a sad example of careless....so the title seems appropriate.
Peter Slivkanch (of And Hell Followed, Wolves of Hate, Flight of Sleipnir) lives in the next town over, and he knows a lot about recording black metal and especially the classic feel we are going for.
10. What are some bands or musical styles that have influenced your music and also what are you listening to nowadays?
We listen to a lot of Black Metal...All day at work Demothi and I geek out about new shit we are always discovering...We listen to Classic Rock a lot too..Black Sabbath at least once a day...but other shit too..
there's some skeletons in everyone's playlists haha.....maybe our biggest influence is Wrest (Leviathan and Lurker of Chalice), a bit further along the branch of the tree..but his contributions to American BM
are comparable with many of those in Europe who birthed what we have today. A local Denver band "Vision of Mara" is another band we like a lot too, we listen to them all the time haha. Its fucking awesome to have local bm bands to be into..Nightbringer, Cobalt are other Colorado bands we've really been into...Craft and Sargeist are a big European influence as well. We don't try to play outside our means though, when you hear the first bm bands recordings you feel a creative force, it sounded raw...You listen to it and such poor recording quality didn't do anything but enhance this energy and feeling..so we want to start there.
Raw sounding, ambient classic black metal.
11. Does Occultism, Satanism, or Paganism play any role in the music?
Absolutely....we understand them not as religions but the alternative..We find lessons in the living world..humanity was not meant to be shackled by religion...Man has all the world as an example to him. Ones own personal interactions shape them..most people fall short of themselves, putting faith into a void. Not taking things into their own hands. We connect deeply with our surroundings, its the best possible atmosphere for
envisioning.
12. Outside of music, what are some of your interests?
Art, all the fruits of the free mind..Life is ours to drink up.
13. Any final words or thoughts before we close this interview?
Thank You for the opportunity to do this, we are at the beginning of our journey and hope to contribute to something to Black Metal with more minds like yours.
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