WOLVES IN THE THRONE ROOM
The black metal masters hit the UK for a tour this June
HOW HAS YOUR NEW ALBUM, THRICE WOVEN, BEEN GOING DOWN LIVE?
AARON WEAVER (DRUMS): “So well! That’s always the question when playing new songs live: will people respond to it, or will they just go, ‘Man, I wish they play that song off Two Hunters that I love so much’? But when we started playing The Old Ones Are With Us, Born From The Serpent’s Eye and Angrboda, people are immediately into it, perhaps even more so than the old songs, which feels really good because I love this album so much.”
THERE’S AN EPIC AURA CARRIED THROUGHOUT THIS LATEST ALBUM. HOW DO
YOU TRANSLATE THAT TO A LIVE SHOW?
“Atmosphere is so much of it. That’s what drew us into black metal originally; it’s not just music, it’s a whole experience. And one of mankind’s oldest tricks is to use atmosphere, music, smoke, light, fire and costuming to shift our consciousness and to get into a totally different place. That’s how we do it onstage; we bring the atmosphere and the spirits with us.”
YOUR LIVE PERFORMANCES USE INCENSE, CANDLES, AMBIENT LIGHTING AND A TON OF OTHER VISUAL ELEMENTS. HOW LONG DID IT TAKE TO PERFECT SUCH AN ELABORATE SETUP?
“It’s a part of what we do. The very first shows we were doing in crustpunk squats and basements, we’d always bring candles to the show. Fifteen years ago in a basement, no one else was doing that. It’s like our band and our studio; we’re always building it. We’re never satisfied, and we always know we are going to improve something, or make something deeper or heavier, or make the music tighter. We just finished a US tour, and that was the first tour where we used these metal totems that we’d created – I’ve a friend who’s a blacksmith. We keep adding in stuff like that.”
WHAT DO WITTR HAVE PLANNED AFTER THIS TOUR?
“There’s a big tour in the works that we can’t quite speak about yet. That’ll be in both the US and Europe at the end of this year, start of next year. So the schedule’s pretty jam-packed, but we want to get into the studio soon.”