Locusts And Honey Interview

 

For those that have never heard of you before, can you tell us a little bit about the band?

Stephen: We are a doom band from the UK.

Tomás: I’ll go along with that! With some black metal and dark ambient flourishes. 

So far you have released one album, can you tell us a little bit more about the musical style that you went for on the recording?

Stephen: It's a sort of blackened funeral doom with a cinematic bent. There's more of a mix of influences and styles in there than that, but essentially we wanted to write and play slow, heavy, bleak and sorrowful metal.

Tomás: I went for a dense, suffocating, wall of sound production style… not sure I achieved this but it was certainly my intention.

Both of the band members are also involved with other bands and projects, what is it that you bring into the music of 'Locusts And Honey' that you have not been able to do with your other groups?

Stephen: Slow, heavy music has been a go-to for me since I was a kid. My previous bands have been on the sludge side, so it's been great to shift over to doom. It's a different palette to work from and can be very emotionally charged. In the last few years I've had to come to grips with some mental health stuff, so it's a great release for me.

Tomás: I too have been playing loud music since I was young, black metal in particular. I currently have two other working projects, Gergesenes and Penitent Whisper. They are black metal and dark ambient respectively. I wanted to be freer of some of the constraints self imposed within those genres when starting Locusts and Honey I guess. 

Your lyrics are inspired by the bog bodies that were found in Denmark and Ireland, can you tell us a little bit more about your interest in this topic?

Stephen: Tom messaged me and said he was getting inspired by the bog bodies and asked if I wanted to be involved in what he was writing. So I started reading up on the phenomenon a bit. There's still a lot of mystery around the sacrificial practice, but also a lot we can deduce. However, when I heard the music Tom had written, what I heard was dark but very human and relatable, and immediately it made me think of how death sharpens our appetite for living, especially living well.

Tomás: The inspiration came from a reading of Glob’s seminal The Bog People: Iron-Age Man Preserved. If I’m honest it was the grainy photos therein that really affected me. Some rereading of Seamus Heaney’s bog poems, The Grauballe Man was perhaps the starting point. I visited the National Archaeology Museum in Dublin a few years back - viewing the remnants of those bodies on display there whilst suffering from a corruscating hangover left me wanting to create something for some reason! 

What is the meaning and inspiration behind the name 'Locusts And Honey'?

Stephen: It's a Biblical reference that Tom used for a previous project of his, and we both still quite liked how it sounded.

Tomás: Yes, the name was used almost twenty years ago for a rather maudlin slowcore project I had at the time. I mainly resurrected it to avoid the rigamarole of settling on a new name. Somewhat strangely, the two friends I was working with back then are now in this current version of the band. 

Can you tell us a little bit more about the artwork that is presented on the new album cover?

Tomás: The artwork was created for us by Samuel Guillet or Sam Rictus (https://www.instagram.com/samrictus). Sam was given a fairly loose brief to be honest - I’m very happy with how it turned out and strongly recommend others to check out his work. 

Currently there are only 2 members in the band, are you open to expanding the line up or do you prefer to remain a duo?

Stephen: We’ve recently been recruiting for a full line-up, which is great. When you get the right people it's a real pleasure to come together to create music, and I'm pretty excited to see the impact it will have for us in the near future.

Tomás: Yes, we have nearly solidified a full conventional band lineup. 

The album was released on 'Hypaethral Records', can you tell us a little bit more about this label?

Tomás: I sent the recording to various labels who I felt may be interested in working with us. I had heard some of the bands on Hypaethral before, like QAALM. so I was happy when Chris from Hypaethral said he was interested and it has been a pleasure to collaborate with him ever since! I’ll actually let Chris chime in himself here and let him give you some further information…

Chris: We started up Hypaethral Records back in 2012, with the goal of helping underground bands get their music out in physical and digital formats. We mostly work with doom and blackened metal. Locusts and Honey have been the first international band that we’ve worked with (outside of North America), which was an exciting new step for the label. 

Tomás sent me a cold email with a stream for the full EP and I knew immediately that it was something that we wanted to release. It absolutely blew me away on the first listen!

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

Stephen: The feedback I've got so far has been pretty positive. I think a lot of people understood what we were going for with the record and the band in general, and that is incredibly gratifying. We’re extremely grateful for all the support and love we’ve received so far.

Where do you see the band heading into musically during the future?

Stephen: I see us just slowly evolving. We have a strong idea of the themes and feelings we want to evoke with our music, so however we progress it will be with these in mind.

Tomás: We have been writing new material with our new members. A totally new approach and one I am personally enjoying very much. I hope the future involves new music and touring too. 

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?

Stephen: Our influences are pretty varied, but I suppose the most apparent influences would be the likes of Bell Witch, Cough, Corrupted, The Body, Asunder… I don't ever have a band or record in mind when I'm writing, I just trust the influence of the music I love will come through naturally, filtered by my own thinking and emotions.

As to what I'm currently listening to, I quite often go back and listen to old favourites. At the time of writing this, I’ve just revisited the small but cracking discography of Carol Ann. Of new releases on the heavier side of things that I've been enjoying, there's Thou’s Umbilical, Cowardice’s Atavist, Simian Steel’s Missing Fucking Link… But it's always down to where my mood takes me.

Tomás: I feel I have less of the conventional ‘doom’ influences than perhaps Stephen does. I guess I draw most of my influences from the black metal spectrum… I have been close to the genre since I was a teenager in the mid nineties. Much as I have tried with lots of recent raw black metal it does still feel like my primary influences are those names from the Norway we all know so well. Also, I guess The Caretaker, William Basinski, Deathprod have influenced our more ambient moments.

I don’t listen to huge amounts of new heavy music I must say. That said, I enjoyed watching Sanguine Relic and Black Cilice play in London the other evening… Some other stuff I’ve recently enjoyed listening to of late have been Myriam Gendron, Warren Zevon, Jackie Edwards, Joanna Sternberg, Carme Lopez, Spirogyra, Washington Phillips, Tucker Zimmerman, Peter Bellamy… always a lot of Dylan too & lots of classical music - I’m getting on in years. 

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

Tomás: Many thanks for the interview and interest. 

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