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This blog is for unsigned Metal bands and bands on small labels. Whilst setting up my promotions company, I noticed that a lot of sites don't cover demo bands and bands just starting out. Hopefully this small corner of the internet will have redress the balance, ever so slightly


Tuesday 28 October 2014

Deep Underground UK - A Dying God




A Dying God is a band without absolutes, without objectives, only the will to create, the will to rule, and the will to overcome. Since forming in 2012, A Dying God has released a single, Zarathustran Blues, and their demo EP, Anthems To Ascension. Drawing heavy conceptual influence from great philosophers such as Nietzsche, Plato, and Hobbes; A Dying God seek to explore ideas of power and the self through their ventures and flirtations with the enigmatic sounds of Black and Extreme Metal. We are the Gods now.

There are a few religious, or possibly anti-religious references in your music, band name, song titles etc…  What inspires the band?
I wouldn’t say that we are an explicitly anti-religious band (our name is more of a tribute to Celtic Frost and Tom G Warrior, who’s music has been a gargantuan influence on myself and others in the band) but overall we take a lot of influence from philosophers like Nietzsche and Hobbes whose ideas indeed criticised or at least contrasted to a lot of religious ideas. Lyrically we aim to explore ideas of power through the medium of these thinkers and their works, but this isn’t restricted purely to how religious these ideas were; for example currently I’ve been writing a lot of lyrical material inspired by philosophers such as Plato who were massively influential on the religions of today and we have an upcoming split with songs inspired by the English Protectorate in the 1600s. No-one in the band is particularly devout to any faith but I’d hardly say we’re as militant with our atheism as some of our contemporaries. The ‘God is Dead’ aspect is more of a homage to Nietzsche than a rallying cry against the faithful.

Musically, you’re quite difficult to pin down. Apart from the more obvious blackened tones, you mix everything up rather nicely, without conforming to any particular genre. Is hard to make your music different than the countless clones out there?
Finding your sound as a band is definitely a hard milestone to reach and we still aren’t sure we’ve hit it yet, our sound has matured significantly since the days of Anthems; but with regards to that release it was written under a constant shifting of influences which kept the musical ideas fresh and varied. On some songs I’d be writing riffs inspired by Ihsahn and Mastodon and on others the influence would come from bands like Winterfylleth and Anaal Nathrakh; back in those days we weren’t too sure of what we wanted to be as a band but as of late when writing for the new release the music has become a lot more coherent and there’s definitely more of a refined, structured, style to it with a much greater presence of black metal. Making different music isn’t hard necessarily, just requires a wide range of inspiration.

Your Anthems To  Ascension has been out a while now. Have you any more releases planned? And did you do a physical release or was it only available via Bandcamp?
Currently we’re writing for a new EP and a soon to be recorded split release when we procure ourselves a new vocalist, Cromwellian Knights, that we’re doing with Morvidus (our drummer’s solo project which I’d highly recommend), the details of which will be released at a later date along with the artwork. Anthems To Ascension did indeed have a 25 copy cd run which we sold at our last two gigs (we still have a few left) and a few may still be available in the demo section of All Ages in Camden. We have no plans yet to create any more copies due to it being free on multiple sites online.

As your drummer has moved a couple of hundred miles up North, how will that affect the band over the next few years?
Hopefully his relocation shouldn’t hinder us much as a unit, rehearsals would be less frequent but we’ve been playing together for around 2 years now so there’s enough chemistry between the band members to account for the slight reduction in full band rehearsals. In terms of writing, the process will become more dependent on internet communication and sending tabs over between us but overall this shouldn’t drastically affect our ability to compose and rehearse. There’s even been talk of recording and gigging up there in the (hopefully) near future.

What’s the biggest hurdle for a band just starting out in an ever changing music scene / industry?

The hardest parts of being in a band these days is finding a style or image with which you can really promote yourself, the other is getting gigs. With the increased availability of music technology the number of bands, especially in London, has greatly increased making getting a gig a bit more of a competitive process. That said, the current Metal scene in London is quite amazing, with bands like Premature Birth, Anoxide, Morktar, Voices, and Exquisite Ending putting out powerful, solid releases that really keep the scene interesting.

Any last words?
Thanks for the interview and the support! All of our music can be downloaded for free at our bandcamp: adyinggod.bandcamp.com, for any updates on our latest musical affirmations you can find us on Facebook and follow us from there. Our Cromwellian Knights split with Morvidus will be released earlier next year, with more details to be released in the following months.


Deep Underground United Kingdom is available for just £2 from Bandcamp

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