Mysterious
and obscure Book of Wyrms was revealed in Richmond, Virginia by
dedicated scholars of doom. They are Jay Lindsey (bass), Sarah
Moore-Lindsey (vocals), Chris DeHaven (drums), Kyle Lewis (guitars)
and Ben Coudriet (guitars). First result of their research was their
demo-record in 2015 which lead the band to debut their big work
“Sci-fi / Fantasy” released by Twin Earth Records.
Having
this information you already can conclude that Book of Wyrms is about
lady-fronted doom with lyrics about space, dragons and probably about
dragons in space as well… I’m not sure about the last thing so I
mailed the band decision to clarify this as soon as possible.
Hi there! Twin Earth
Records just released Book of Wyrms debut “Sci-fi / Fantasy”,
what are you going to do now with the finished release on your hands?
Jay: Writing
some more songs, booking a few little tours, reading fantasy books,
listening to Mercyful Fate.
Sarah: We are
trying to play as many shows and festivals as we can the rest of the
year, and we hope to do a lot more songwriting.
The band was born in
around 2015, and I see that you started with one guitarist Kelsey
Miller on the nameless 3 songs long demo. But then second guitarist
Ben Coudriet joined Book of Wyrms, and together you recorded the
first full-length. How soon did you get the effectiveness of twin
guitars approach?
Jay: Actually,
Kelsey left completely after helping us record the demo. Ben came on
and brought Kyle with him. We all love Tony Iommi and the way he’d
put a different lead on each channel so that was a technique we were
into from the beginning. Ben and Kyle are really good about working
together on that so the rest of the band just gets to sit back and
enjoy.
I saw that only Jay
played metal before Book of Wyrms, what is the musical background of
others?
Jay: Chris
(drums) has always played metal.
Sarah: Ben and
Kyle have been in a variety of projects, mostly rock and psychedelic
bands. I was in chorus in high school and hung out with my first
band. We tried to cover “White Rabbit” by Jefferson Airplane.
Then I’ve done a lot of solo stuff accompanying myself on bass,
ukulele, and banjo.
Besides two guitars
I would hear very atmospheric vintage-styled keyboards you accurately
use in your songs. Who’s in charge for effects in the band?
Sarah: I use a
little touchpad called a mini Kaossilator, and it creates some pretty
cool sounds. Jay usually comes up with some cool ideas and I
implement them with my own twist. We just added another small synth
to my arsenal, so I’m excited to try out some new sounds live.
How do you share
duties in the band? Do you have main song-writer there?
Sarah: Jay has
come up with most of the initial riffs, and then we begin song
building from there. “Transcendental Migraine” was mostly Ben’s
initial composition. Jay or I come up with a compelling song title
and I usually write the lyrics about what the song title invokes in
my mind. I let the guys know what the working titles are, so they
know, for instance, that one of our newer songs is called “Dust
Toad.” They craft their parts accordingly haha.
Jay:
Everyone gets in each other’s business a little bit – Sarah
probably writes like 95% of the lyrics but someone might have a small
idea or concept to add; jay will ask the others to pick between two
bass ideas he wrote, Sarah will ask the guitarists to support her at
a certain part. So everyone’s mostly on their own but we all try to
coordinate.
Book of Wyrms –
Leatherwing Bat
There were 3 songs
in the demo – “Nightbong”, “Sourwolf” and “King Mildew”,
2 of them are in the debut but you didn’t include there the last
one. Why didn’t you save it for the full-length?
Jay: King
Mildew was just different enough from the others that we ended up not
playing it live and it sort of fell out of favor. If we hadn’t
managed to write so many other songs we might have still used it on
there, but something had to give if we wanted to fit everything.
“Sci-fi / Fantasy”
is pretty long album - 7 songs, 53 minutes. And I wouldn’t say that
you focused only on repeating riffs, you have more complex songs’
structure than one could expect from doom band. What is a range of
your influences?
Jay: modern doom
is largely based on the genius of Black Sabbath, but it’s a
caricature of what Sabbath really sounded like. The idea that every
Sabbath song was slow and low is just not true. what makes them such
a special band was their versatility – quiet, loud, fast, slow,
major, minor, they did it all in a very dynamic way. To answer the
question, though, we like a lot of different shit. Hawkwind, NWOBHM,
Iron Maiden, the Melvins, OM, but a lot of things that aren’t heavy
at all, too.
Sarah: We all
like heavy music. But Beth from Portishead was a major influence on
me. Here is this bad-ass woman who sings with loud, sometimes
uncomfortable instrumentation surrounding her, and she’s still the
most potent thing about the sound. Sharon Jones, Grace Slick, Ella
Fitzgerald, and Thom Yorke all were and are huge influences.
Jay: It’s how
a lot of little old used book stores abbreviate the sign for the
Science Fiction/ Fantasy section of the store. For me, it’s the
coolest section, where you just feel like a kid about to discover a
new world – hopefully through some ragged trashy used books with
crazy cover art! And of course those used books are always from the
70’s and 80’s, so the vibe is just a very particular set of
feelings and memories that the album title hints at.
“Nightbong” is
one of the most remarkable songs on the album – groovy main theme,
melodic vocals, that creepy amazing keyboards’ tune… What’s the
story behind this track?
Sarah: Well, we
love to exaggerate and joke around, so we came up with the song title
one night and I was intrigued. That name was just too cool to not do
anything with. I envisioned a fantasy where there was this mystical
bong that is always full of weed and transports your mind and body to
all kinds of places. But it’s also kind of funny because it’s
like a typical stoner concept just really embellished and so serious.
What are your other
songs about?
Sarah: Well I learned from Steely Dan that it's a good idea to keep things ambiguous so that people can form their own meanings of the songs and then it becomes that much more personal to the listener. But there are some, for instance, "Infinite Walrus" which refers to a King of the Hill episode of the same title. Cosmic Filth is our comment on man's detrimental impact on his surroundings.
By the way, Book of
Wyrm reminds about “Mysteries of Wyrm” (or something like that) –
a fictional grimoire from Lovecraftian writings. Do these books
connected between each other?
Where did you take
speech samples for “All Hallows’ Eve” song? And by the way,
what does this celebration mean for you? Do you take part into it?
Jay: I was on a
trip through Tennessee, and they had taped sermons for free at the
truck stops so that truckers can listen on their long rides and, I
guess, find salvation. So I saw this one that said “The Truth About
Halloween,” and I grabbed it and brought it home. This old dude and
his wife are just ranting for 90 minutes – mispronouncing terms,
making insane generalizations, and freaking out about the sinister
motive behind little kids dressing up and having fun. It’s a little
eerie because of their accents and how serious they are, but it’s
hilarious as well - like the Venom philosophy of “if you are dumb
enough to believe in Satan, you deserve to be frightened.”
Sarah: Halloween
can be really cool, and I love the magic and sense of foreboding that
the night has. Some of my best memories are from Halloween shows or
parties.
Jay: Halloween
to me is another bullshit holiday to sell crap to people who don’t
need any more crap. Whatever meaning it had was subverted long ago,
first into Christendom and then into the marketplace. I support the
exploration of evil and darkness, and of prechristian celebrations
based on the seasons, but I think it would be cool to find one that
hasn’t been made into a child-safe shopping spree. Roodmas, for
example, is promising.
I bet that you
recorded the album on your own, how is this process expensive? And do
you plan to return some funds with gigs and merch? Everyone knows
that you will no gain money with doom stuff, but you need some
incoming to pay costs.
Jay: I’ve
seen LP’s with $15,000 budgets but we paid our engineer out of
pocket. Thankfully he charged way less than he’s worth and
thankfully our label helped with the manufacturing end. We have no
idea what to expect money-wise but it’s important to just play a
lot of different places and have a variety of merch so the people who
do like you can help you continue.
Sarah: We will
hopefully be getting embroidered patches soon, and we are working on
small batches of t shirts. We are looking forward to releasing the
album on vinyl in a few months and will hopefully recoup some of our
costs with those and gigging as much as possible.
How far do you
already go to playing gigs? Is Richmond good enough to play there
periodically?
Doom
scene is overcrowded with bands who use old school approach and who
have ladies on vocals. Don’t you think about competition within
genre, about obstacles new band like Book of Wyrm meets on its way to
listeners?
Sarah: I honestly try to focus on my own music and material and not think about what other people are doing. You can drive your self crazy if you focus on that at all. I agree that the genre has sort of exploded and there seem to be a lot of bands in the stoner/doom category. But I don't feel like having a female vocalist is a "gimmick" or a type of music. I think it's a general acceptance of heavy music becoming a little more mainstream. Also, when your instrumentation is so low, you have to be able to fill in the gaps with higher notes at times. It worked for King Diamond, but he's a beast.
Okay, that’s all for today! Thanks for your time and I wish you all the best on promoting Book of Wyrm music. How would you like to sum up our conversation?
Sarah: Thank you so much for taking the time to ask us these questions. We are looking forward to what's next.
Words by Aleks Evdokimov, Sarah Moore-Lindsey and Jay Lindsey
Sci-Fi/Fantasy is available to buy from Twin Earth Records now.
Links
https://www.facebook.com/Bookofwyrms
https://bookofwyrms.bandcamp.com/
