Wolves In The Throne Room Australian tour is imminent beginning in Perth on November 28th and ending in Canberra December 2nd. Soundworks Direct are bringing the American Ambient/Atmospheric Black Metallers over for their second time, the previous visit nearly a decade ago in 2010. We welcome them back to our shores and are eager for their shows in the next months. We had the opportunity to speak to Aaron Weaver, co-founder and drummer and this is what we found out.
Perth is excited to have you with the teasing of a tour that was cancelled, we are glad you are making it over. This is your first time here isn’t it – I believe you’ve been to the East Coast in the past, but this will be your first time in the West Coast?
Aaron: “That’s right it was about ten years ago so it’s been a long fucking time, and, yeah, never been to Perth before, so we are very excited to see what it’s like over there on the Western side of that massive continent.”
Curious about that I ask, what was your experience like last time you were here?
Aaron: “Haha that tour was crazy, I was just thinking about that. It was seat of the pants, for some crazy reason we were driving between the cities and it was about a twelve to twenty four hour drive in some cases and it was a psychedelic experience to be sure.”
Is there a country or venue you would like to perform at that you haven’t had a chance yet?
Aaron: “We’d love to play in Indonesia, it’s a place I’ve always wanted to visit, we’ve got some friends who have toured through there and they say the metal scene is huge and people are very enthusiastic and I like the music and culture of Indonesia a lot so that’d be a real treat. Also, we’ve never been to South America, we’re so close but we’ve never played in Mexico so hopefully we’ll get to hit at least Mexico City this year.”
That sounds amazing. What have been your inspirations for your music?
Aaron: “Oh man it’s all about the forest for us, we live in this very special and beautiful place right on the edge of this massive rainforest, ancient trees and huge craggy mountains and waterfalls and the Pacific Ocean comes in down through the Sailor Seas so we are close to the salt water that goes out to the great ocean. Salmon come up here through the rivers and bald eagles, mountain lions and bears and even some wolves coming back up in the remote mountains and that’s it for us, just being in these woods and listening to the spirits of the old ancestors and doing our best honour them with music.”
I love that, I feel it through your music too, you can definitely get the foresty feel from it, you’re taken there, you close your eyes and it exports you there, its well done, in my opinion at least.
Aaron: “Haha, I’m glad we succeeded in some small way.”
Yeah, haha, I think you did. So, did you have any other influences in your musical journey, like any mentors or influences that lead you to music?
Aaron: “Hmm, well we grew up in a town that had a very vibrant DIY punk scene and that’s how we got turned onto music, well I guess there was two streams of influences, one was getting hold of tapes and CDs of death metal music from the early 90s I think Altars of Madness was one of the first records me and Nathan really got into as kids, so that was one part of it, in those old days it was hard to get hold of underground and extreme music so it was like a quest for us to find the heavy stuff beyond just Metallica and Megadeath and these sort of things that were easier to get to. We were also really lucky to have a cool venue in town that hosted a lot of underground bands and one that made a big impression on me was seeing Neurosis on the Silver and Blood tour, so it was ‘95 or ’96, so I would have been about seventeen years old or so, and I remember helping, we used to work at the local DIY venue just helping the sound guy load in vans and setting stuff up so we helped Neurosis load in and I was just fucking blown away. I had never seen anything like them, such intensity, such a spiritual and powerful energy coming off a band, it was a mind expanding experience we are still kinda dealing with to this day.”
Wow, that’s cool. Where do you hope to be in five or ten years?
Aaron: “You know it’s so clear to me we can play this music until we are old, old men because it comes from our hearts and it’s just our way of expressing our connection to the earth and to this place we live, it’s a lifelong path for us. So, in ten years I’ll be doing pretty much the same thing, living on the land, growing food, spending time in the forest, celebrating the heathen holidays with our community here in Olympia and we’ll be on the road doing music as well.”
That’s inspiring. Do you have any favourite local or upcoming bands in your area?
Aaron: “Yeah definitely, it’s hard to pick but the one that sticks out the most, they’re not really local anymore they used to be based in Oregon, a couple of hours south, but now they’re based in Denver, it’s a band Blood Incantation, check them out, they’re, I’d say kind of an atmospheric death metal band, we just played with them at a festival in Jackson, Wyoming which is in the middle of the Tetons which is when you maybe think of Western America, it’s that; huge mountains, buffalo wandering around, grizzly bears – it’s a very wild and beautiful landscape. We played a festival called ‘Fire in The Mountains’ which is right in the middle of this national park and we played with Blood Incantion and they blew me away. I see a lot of bands and they were just one of those bands that I was fucking impressed and blown away. It was especially cool coz I’ve known those guys since they were young kids coming up and it was really inspiring to see how they found a very strong path in music and are doing a really cool thing, so I definitely encourage people to check them out.”
Nice, I will and hopefully some other readers will too! What are your guilty pleasures, musically and otherwise?
Chuckling, Aarons says, “Music, Well I don’t feel guilty about anything. I think that’s a nice thing about heavy music and heavy metal, guilt is one of those feelings you throw out the window, you love what you love and if someone else doesn’t like it then they can fuck off, that’s what music and this culture is all about. I can talk about music that isn’t metal that I like. I dunno, ACDC I guess, If you think about a band that’s not underground, not extreme in anyway but I love, I’d say ACDC, and I’m not just saying that because I’m talking to an Australian Journalist, they’re one of my favourite bands, they’ve got a groove man. That’s one thing that we always try to bring in our music, a feeling that comes from the guts and you lose that in a lot of metal because now days people record everything to a computer and chop it up in Protools and move all the drums around so it sounds like a drum machine, but we don’t do that. We like music that moves the body and gets inside the spirit in a very magical way and ACDC definitely do that.”
I can get that, yeah. If you couldn’t play music what would you do?
Aaron: “Oh yeah, good question, I’d be a carpenter, I guess. I like building stuff and in addition to music one of my big passions is natural building, building out of clay, earth, straw, raw timbers. That’s what I do. There’s a lot of similarities between carpentry and music because you’re always building and always trying to create these structures, whether it is out of wood and earth or out of sound, they have to have a strong foundation and they have to have beauty woven through it and I think that’s what I’d do. “
Wicked, that leads perfectly to my next question which is do you have any other hobbies or interests, other than that?
Aaron: “Not a hobby necessarily, but just living life here in this forest, I love to go into the woods and look at plants and identify plants and learn more about them, how to use them. I really like to spend time outdoors hiking and doing that kind of thing. Maybe another guilty pleasure, if you want to call it that is dancing, I’m a huge dancer. I’m down to go down to a rave and get into it as long as the music is good and the energy is good, I like that kind of thing. I think there is a connection between Extreme Underground Electronic music and Black Metal, it is all about cracking open the head and getting your mind and your soul into a different space.”
That’s really interesting! Alas, time is drawing near so with my final question I have to ask, since you’ve been to Australia before, have you cuddled a koala or do you want to? It’s the thing to do when you visit, they are endangered and cute but have horrible stories told about them calling them drop bears.
Aaron: “No, I haven’t, but I’d like to, I’m down to cuddle any of the bizarre koala bears and strange ass marsupials you have down there! I’d feed it Eucalyptus if I got the chance to hold one!”
It was a pleasure to talk to Aaron and I highly recommend checking out Wolves in The Throne Room when they come to a city near you. If you haven’t heard them check them out their latest album from 2017, Thrice Woven. My favourite albums are Celestial Lineage (2011) and Black Cascade (2009) so give them a listen if you haven’t already. Get ready Perth, and other Australian capitals except Adelaide and Hobart (sorry guys!) for some amazing Black Metal coming our way.
WOLVES IN THE THRONE ROOM performing at:
Nov 28 – Perth, Badlands
Nov 29 – Brisbane, Crowbar
Nov 30 – Melbourne, The Corner
Dec 1 – Sydney, Crowbar
Dec 2 – Canberra, The Basement
TICKETS ON SALE NOW
PERTH – http://soundworksdirect.eventbrite.com
MELBOURNE – http://soundworksdirect.eventbrite.com / https://cornerhotel.com
ALL OTHER SHOWS – http://soundworksdirect.eventbrite.com / www.oztix.com.au
