Great Dragon Interview

 

1.For those that have never heard of you before, can you tell us a little bit about the musical project?

 

1: Great Dragon is a melodic black metal project from East Tennessee that is focused on, above all else, stories about vampires being miserable. I don't personally consider it raw black metal, as I prefer the term underproduced, I feel as though the label "raw" should be reserved for trve kvlt guys who put on corpse paint before they record and not people who put their phone up to a guitar amp.

2.You have an ep coming out in April, can you tell us a little bit more about the musical style that you went for on the recording?

2: The Aria of Sorrow EP was actually recorded back in September of 2023, and is only seeing the light of day now. It's, in a way, a spiritual predecessor to some of the ideas I'm exploring in my more recent output. Previous to the EP, I had focused on making very noisy, atmospheric, and chaotic black metal, and while this release isn't exactly bereathed of those stylistic leanings, it does show the start of my interest in melody within my heavier output.

3.You are also involved with a few other musical projects, what is it that you bring into the music of 'Great Dragon', that you have not been able to do with  your other projects?

3: I think the sort of outwardly silly venere and attitude of Great Dragon allows for more eclectic stylings than my more (aesthetically) traditional projects do. It leaves me some room for experimentation and whatnot, and while I don't think the EP is exactly groundbreakingly innovative, it does do a lot of things that are normally outside of my comfort zone.

4.What are some of the lyrical topics and subjects you have explored so far with the music?

4: Aria of Sorrow (EP) is, as the name implies, based heavily around the lore of the Castlevania series (and vampires in general.) Pretty stock-standard black metal fare, horrible nights to have curses and whatnot.

5.What is the meaning and inspiration behind the name 'Great Dragon'?

5: Honestly, I've always been fascinated by mythical creatures, the bigger the better. The original name for the project was Fetid Wyvern, but I decided that was a bit too brutal for my tastes and dumbed it down to Great Dragon. The power of synonyms!

6.Can you tell us a little bit more about the artwork that is presented on the ep cover?

6: Drew it because Miss Fiadh (I would use her real name but I'm not sure if that's like, public knowledge, sorry if you're reading this!! Love you!!) needed something formatted for J-cards. I figured "what the hell" and went with it. It's a little wizard!

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

7: I work with other musicians all the time, although most of mine are solo. I'm actually in a local metalcore band and an emoviolence band, so I'm not opposed to working with others. I do find, however, that for better or worse I am able to produce music very, very quickly. Having other people around to run it through tends to slow me down so it can be inconvenient, but I don't hate it.

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

8: No idea! People seemed to really like the Zirnytsia EP (3 sales on bandcamp, ain't I just the bees knees?) but other than that, my music hasn't really reached very far. Part of this is probably on my end, to be fair, I don't go hard with promotion often so I'm relegated to the field of black metal esoterica.

9.What is going on with your other musical projects these days?

9: Well, Zirnytsia has a single dropping on March 8th and an album dropping with tapes by JEMS Label sometime soon. Alongside that, I'm also working on a split between my projects Sunchild [a new one, 8 bit black metal] and Healslut [one I've sort of abandoned, synthy emo.] The first Toothpuller album is also dropping sometime in March, although I don't think I'm legally allowed to speak of that one yet, for fear of death, and I'm organizing a compilation in memory of my friend who passed away. In other words, spring is stacked.

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

10: Not for sure! I constantly hear my music improving as I create it, so maybe one day I'll release a well-produced 60 minute long black metal magnum-opus which will be remembered for years after my passing and go down in history. More likely, however, I'm going to keep making little songs about little sorrows and little goblins.

11.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?

11: My favorite band ever is The Mountain Goats, an American Folk/Indie Rock outlet with a keen focus on literary lyricism, but as far as heavy stuff goes, I've been listening to a lot of Stormkeep, Cloud Rat, Black Breath, and Bethlehem. As far as inspirations go, I've always found myself going back to bands like Dissection (as much as the members are total fucking losers) and Lifelover. I'll also always take opportunities to plug my buddy's bands, so I think you should listen to Black Stag Rising, Captain Jazz, Prosperity Gospel, Hermit Knight, Centurion, Septum Bone, Every Promise Kept, and emilygrimm (who, at the time of writing this, just released a fucking AWESOME ep).

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

12: East Tennessee Music forever, tip your waitress, stay in school (because raw black metal ain't profitable), keep the faith, god bless us all, may we one day all be healed, listen to Jordaan Mason's 2009 album "Divorce Lawyers I Shaved My Head" before you die.

 https://gleth.bandcamp.com/