1.For those that have never heard of you before, can you tell us a little bit about the band?
The band started as a solo project in 2015 basically on a lark. I'd purchased a little multitrack recording system and wanted to try out some black metal material. I'd been a fan of the style for ages and wanted to see if I could put my own spin on it. I was also inspired by the emerging wave of "raw black metal" that was gaining strength at the time. Since then, it's grown into a full band composed of long-time friends and scene veterans. Currently, the lineup consists of myself on guitars and vocals, Astoroth on bass, Langeloth on guitars and backing vocals (though I may enlist him into doing lead vocals on a song or two in the future), and a to-be-announced gentleman on drums.
At its core, the members are united in their appreciation of straightforward, second-wave-style black metal. However, each musician brings a set of other influences that's blended into the band's stylistic pallette. It benefits no one to take the classic sounds of Norway, Sweden and the LLN scene and just Xerox them over and over again (and hope no one notices). If you want to make something enduring, you have to add an element of yourself. After all, Darkthrone didn't just copy Celtic Frost and Bathory on A Blaze in the Northern Sky, they brought these influences together and made something totally their own. This strikes me as a solid guiding principle.
2.In May you have your first album coming out, can you tell us a little bit more about the musical style that you went for on the recording?
Think of it like a house, with a foundation and studs built using pure black metal materials. From there, you can piece together the siding, interior and other parts from death metal, dungeon synth, grindcore, hardcore, grunge, progressive metal, death rock, and so on. This will become more evident on future releases, as some of the songs here are re-recordings of the demo-era tracks, and the vision for the music came together organically rather than as a set plan.
3.The band has been around since 2015 but waited until 2023 to release an album, can you tell us a little bit more about the earlier years?
In recent years, I've adopted a catch-phrase: "Life has a way of getting in the way." In the early years, Cemetery Moon was mostly a hobby that I would go back to when I had time away from the constellation of other life commitments. If it were up to me, Astoroth and I would have banged out the entire thing in 2020. But we're not high school kids with zero obligations or other interests. So it was less a matter of waiting than one of persevering and finding the right opportunities to get enough songs recorded and assemble a full crew.
4.A lot of your lyrics cover stories from New England, which topics from this region do you cover lyrically?
It was my intention to explore those topics in the early days, though I've moved on from this. The songs that really dig into this are on the Castle in the Mist demo, but we've re-recorded a couple of them on the new album and will give the same treatment to a couple more on the next one. "A Voice in the Woods" is loosely inspired by witchcraft and the hangings that took place in the colonial era. Another good example is "Ghosts of Salem," which we haven't re-recorded just yet. Interestingly enough, the impetus of this was not the stories of the witch trials themselves but my reading of Nathaniel Hawthorne's The House of the Seven Gables. I highly recommend the book to black metal listeners, as a lot of the gothic themes and imagery hit the same aesthetic notes with stories of curses, a dark family history, and the conceit of the portrait of Colonel Pyncheon. It's overshadowed by Hawthorne's short stories and The Scarlet Letter, or as an afterthought on some elementary school curricula, but as we say about certain records, "don't sleep on this." Otherwise, "House of Usher" is of course inspired by Edgar Allen Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher.
5.You also cover Occult Mysticism lyrically, how would you describe your views on this topic?
Again, this was more of a passing fascinating with me, particularly around the song "The Bleak Universal," which I wrote in 2018. At the time, I was exploring the history of gnosticism and its insights into meaning and existence. Astute listeners will also notice that the clean-sung lyrics in the bridge are partially lifted from Hamlet's "to be or not to be" speech. Aside from that, I find occult mysticism interesting in its attempt to gain access to forbidden knowledge or to unite different ways of thinking into a universalist understanding of life and the world. In practice, unfortunately, a lot of it manifests as New Age spirituality for people who wear black and own a lot of candles. I'm sure if you took a Sylvia Brown book and swapped a bunch of the words with stuff about "ouroboros" and "the void," you'd have legions of people lining up to buy it at Newbury Comics and using it as a status symbol (while never actually reading it, who's got time for that?). Wait, I should write this down...
Anyway, when it comes to lyrics my approach is now to take things from my personal life and observations about the world and use "black metal imagery" as a metaphorical vehicle to push those thoughts into the world. This allows the music to be incredibly valuable to me while giving the listener the space to find something of their own in the words. This makes for lyrics that are less "on the nose" about what happened and when, and more about a feeling or impulse that transcends my own experience while still retaining it.
6.What is the meaning and inspiration behind the name 'Cemetery Moon'?
To be honest, it was a name I thought of many years ago in college. I thought to myself, "Maybe one day I'll make a black metal band as a joke. I'll have to use the most cliche name I can think of. Something like Cemetery Moon." Years later when I became a much greater fan of the music I realized, "Wait a minute, that name kind of rules!" So I stuck with it. At a certain point, being a detached, irony-poisoned snob gets really old, and it's better to fully embrace something on its own terms.
7.Can you tell us a little bit more about the artwork that is presented on the new album cover?
Much like the band's music and lyrics, it's a statement of intent and an abstraction people can explore to derive their own meaning. I wanted the cover to have the look and feel of old black and death metal demos from the 80s and 90s, but still be sharp enough to look like a proper album cover. I like that it's clearly a castle, but there's a lot more going on if you look closely.
8.Originally the band started out as a solo project, what was the decision behind expanding into a full line up?
Some artists are able to produce a prodigious output all by themselves, toiling into the night on release after release. What I found over the years is, I am very much not that person. I'm not an antisocial introvert or a shut-in. And while I have a fundamental vision for what I want, I find greater motivation working with and learning from others. It's just more fulfilling that way.
9.Has the band done any live shows or open to the idea?
We haven't played live yet, but are in the process of rehearsing and getting into proper gig-ready shape.
10.Currently the band is unsigned, are you looking for a label or have received any interest?
At the moment, I'm content with keeping this as an independant, underground operation. But if the right label wanted to work with us, I obviously wouldn't be opposed. When a band reaches a certain point, it's hard to scale the various "label services" on your own. But it's early yet. Perhaps one day.
11.On a worldwide level, how has the reaction been to your music by fans of black metal?
As one commentator used to say when an interviewer would ask him how he was doing that day: "Too soon to tell."
12.Where do you see the band heading into musically during the future?
The first album represents the evolution from my little hobbyist workshop project to a fully-operating band. Future releases will have more dynamic and intricate songwriting for listeners to dive into and explore. However, it will still be driven primarily by memorable riffs that make you want to listen, and relisten. And then do so again.
13.What are some of the bands or musical styles that have had an influence on your music and also what are you listening to nowadays?
As I said earlier, the classic second-wave black metal sound is the greatest influence on the band. Otherwise, we each have a set of ingredients we add into the mix. Astoroth likes a lot of experimental and progressive metal, and so I want to let him find ways to express that through his bass lines. Langeloth spent a lot of years in the punk and hardcore scene (as did I when I was a teenager), and his guitar playing has a lot of roots in DC-hardcore and the various alternative and post-hardcore sounds that grew from that most fertile soil. His main on-record contribution for this release is the hypnotic lead guitar lines on "Eyes of the False God." Expect (much) more from both of them in the future. And our new drummer has set out very clearly that he wants to challenge us and push us to up our game, musically. I'm all for it.
For me, I can't help but let some of my other influences bleed into the music. I'm a huge fan of grunge, and listeners will hear this most clearly on "Life's Enduring Lie." But I also love any death metal that sounds like Incantation and Immolation, so I want to find ways to make those big riffs work in this style as well. At the moment I'm listening to a lot of Plague Bearer, Calderum, Majesties, and Esoctrilihum. Been on a big Mortiis kick as well. Really dig the reworkings of the album covers done by David Thiérrée.
14.Before we wrap up this interview, do you have any final words or thoughts?
Thank you for the interview, and thank you to anyone reading this who takes the time to check out our music!
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