Bury Them And Keep Quiet Interview

 

1.Can you give us an update on what is going on with the musical project these days?

For the past year or so, I've mostly been buttoning up a lot of these unfinished musical sketches I have laying around. One of the songs from my split with Feminizer was actually written like two years ago, and I only recently got around to re-recording it and cleaning it up. Aside from that, I'm currently working on a handful of weird remixes and rerecordings of songs from my first release EXTINCTION, which has been super fun reimagining those very blackened-death ideas into a style that fits my musicality more these days, and I'm about halfway toward another half-hour-long release that is as of yet untitled. I've been listening to a lot less strictly second-wave stuff, so I'm excited to see what comes of it.

2.You have a split coming out in May, musically how does it differ from the stuff you have released in the past?

I would like to think that my music is constantly changing. Each release has been more of a reflection of what I was listening to when I wrote and recorded it, and this one is no different. If I really had to hone in on it, I'd say that this one relies more heavily on synthesizers for the melodies, and my vocals are maybe the nastiest they've been. The drums are pretty punchy, too.

3.What are some of the lyrical topics and subjects you have explored over the years with your music?

With Bury Them And Keep Quiet, I started the project with the intention of being explicitly anti-fascist, anti-speciesist, and anti-idolist. It was a reaction to all the rage from being in America in 2016. I had actually only just gotten into black metal a couple of years before, and was finding all these bands I thought sounded so good, and then I'd stumble upon something saying that the vocalist and the lyrics or whatever were just a bunch of racist trash. It happened so often that I was like "fuck this I'll just make my own." I've been vegan for about 17 years now, and so much of what people do to animals on such a massive scale is more brutal than anything we can come up with in our imagination, so that was also a topic I wanted to touch on. As I put out more music, the lyrical themes have taken on a more environmental approach. Now I'd say a majority of what I write has been basically "humans are making this planet unliveable thanks to our own stupid desires that are totally made up, and so many of us are powerless to stop it, and it will kill us. The earth will survive in one form or another. Then, after a while, it will be like we were never here at all." There's a lot in there about retreating to the woods and dying and decomposing and becoming one with the trees and plants. There is also stuff about the intangibility of life and humanity's place in the universe as a whole. Now that I look back on it, there's definitely a progression of ideas.

4.What is the meaning and inspiration behind the name 'Bury Them And Keep Quiet'?

Francisco de Goya made a series of prints called Los Desastres de La Guerra that depicted the horrors he saw when Napoleon invaded Spain. One of the prints is called Enterrar Y Callar, and it depicts someone burying a pile of bodies, basically saying “hey fill in that mass grave and don’t tell anyone about this.” War isn’t glamorous or glorious, it drives people to commit atrocities they never thought possible. 

5.Can you tell us a little bit more about the artwork that was present on last years full length?

The bat skeleton was on display at the American Museum of Natural History when I photographed it. I've always struggled with the fleeting tangibility of life, which is suspended in the very idea of existence inside of the universe, which itself may be just as temporary. It led to a big mental breakdown in my early twenties (which led to the creation of my other project Ocean Of Ghosts). There's a quote that King Henry VIII says in The Tudors (so maybe it's actually just from the show and not from the man himself) and it's something about how life is like a sparrow flying through a church. We are sitting in the pews, and we see the sparrow fly in on one end. We don't know where it comes from, and once it leaves out the other end we don't know where it goes. We just know it was here and we saw it, and that's all we have. That bat skeleton, suspended on a black background, spoke to me in the same way. It was this mammal that defied the terrestrial confinement of all other mammals, and it was it once had parents, felt hunger, felt fear, biological urges to reproduce. It had no idea it would someday end up being seen by millions of people a year in a box, suspended in flight. We don't know what its life was like, and it had no way to even conceptualize what would happen once its life was over. I think of my own life in the same way sometimes.

6.You also have another solo project 'Ocean Of Ghosts' how does the music of 'Bury Them And Keep Quiet'; differ from your other musical project?

Ocean Of Ghosts is definitely slower and heavier. It’s my opportunity to experiment with ambient and drone elements in doom and sludge and lately has gotten heavier and more angry. When I started it I was listening to a bunch of Nadja and thought, what if I did this, but HEAVY? 

7.With both of your projects you record everything by yourself, are you open to working with other musicians or do you prefer to work solo?

I am always open to working with other musicians! I've been in bands before and played a ton of shows and I loved the energy. Right now, though, I have zero time to coordinate any practice sessions with people so this is out of convenience. But if anyone is out there and wants to do a guest spot on a song, or wants me to, hit me up!

8.In the last couple of years you also have been a part of a couple of split, can you tell us a little bit more about the other projects that had participated on these recordings?

I've only done one other split, and it was with this amazing English artist called Nietzu. I stumbled upon their first EP and it was described as "dungeon synth with vocals" but it was absolutely some of the most amazing, lush, melodic black metal stuff I'd ever heard. The production style was perfect to scratch that itch I had. That first year they released like ten or eleven EPs and they all had a similar vibe. Haunting clean vocals and old-school synth sounds mixed with ambient recordings and huge sounding guitars. I reached out to them and asked if they wanted to do a split, since at the time I was fresh off of my Winterblot EP and was riding this wave of more lush recordings with simpler riffs and I thought we would fit well together. That was very much me fangirling and wanting to release something with an artist who inspired me.

9.On a worldwide level how has the reaction been to your music by fans of black metal?

I think pretty positive. I’m American so of course I think the world revolves around us, and my view stops at the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean. I know I have fans in EU since I’ve had a few labels release tapes out there, and I’ve had people reach out to me from like Azerbaijan and Croatia and Russia. 

10.Where do you see yourself heading into as a musician during the future?

I’m really not sure. I hope to continue progressing and expanding my sound. I want to make more instrumental non-metal stuff and I’m working on another project that is more grindcore influenced, called GROOMER so keep an eye out for that. 

11.What are some of the bands or musical styles that you are currently listening to nowadays?

Non-metal stuff: Ethel Cain, Tami T, Black Dresses, 8485, Life On Venus, Quest Master

Metal stuff: Sleep Token, Lorna Shore, Jakub Zytecki, Sadness, NONE, Wolves In The Throne Room

12.Before we wrap up this interview, do you have any final words or thoughts?

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