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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