Stephanie Jewell recently sat down with one of the bands playing the upcoming Stormrider Heavy Metal Festival, Woewarden, to learn more about who they are and what fans can expect. Hailing as a depressive black metal band from Perth, Western Australia, Woewarden are made up of long-time friends John Pescod (vocals), Dan Jackson (guitar), Thomas Major (guitar), Connor Wilson (bass) and Herb Bennetts (drums).
Steph: John, thank you for giving me your time today. Please tell me about yourself and the band.
John: I’m John Pescod and I am the vocalist of Woewarden, we’ve been around since 2016. We were originally named Cancer but chose to change our name about 3 years ago, following one of our co-founding members’ departure. We became Woewarden and here we are today.
Steph: Tell me about the Woewarden origin story?
John: Really interesting story actually! Long story short, I was asked around the time of 2016 to fill in for another black metal band who were very well known around Australia, Advent Sorrow. It was to fill in for a show locally, they were going to be supporting Inquisition and I got really, really excited about the opportunity. Unfortunately, on the morning of the show, we got a phone call from the promoter saying that their whole tour of Australia had been cancelled. I was livid to say the least and I decided to go out that night to a local dive bar in Perth, Joes Juice Joint, to let off some steam and vent my frustrations to one of the co-founders of the band at the time. At the spur of a moment, he said ‘well lets just do something of our own’. I was thinking at the time ‘yeah, whatever’. But within 3 days he had managed to call up some friends and within a week we had written our first EP, which was ‘Terminal’. So that’s essentially the story behind the band, just literally a handful of phone calls between close friends, and one after the other they all said yes. It was all very sudden and very much a surprise, I didn’t think within a week we would have a band and an EP out, but it all came very naturally to us.
Steph: Between 2016 to now in 2024, what have been some of Woewarden’s highlights?
John: Its hard to pinpoint an exact moment, I feel like I could say there are a few key highlights for me. For example, playing in Japan a few years back. That was definitely an exciting moment, but just also dealing with the different culture and the way that the crowds interacted, made it very interesting. I think also last year, the release of our record, ‘In The Art Of My Caged Existence’ was probably my proudest moment with the band. I feel like its our most cohesive record that we have done to date, and the tour that followed that. We got to meet some really great people and had some really great reception in certain parts over east. Brisbane was probably my favourite stop on the tour. I think earlier this year, getting over to Tasmania was another real key highlight that comes to mind. I never thought I would be playing there at any point of my life in all honesty. I tell you what, there must be something in the water down there because they absolutely love their metal, and they really punch above their weight in Tasmania.
Steph: Those are some impressive highlights so far. What is Woewarden working on at the moment?
John: Behind closed doors, we’ve written all the demos for our next record, so we have about an hours’ worth of material that we are going to just continue to polish slowly over the course of this year. We aren’t looking to finalise that in terms of a final product until next year. That is purely because there are so many different other projects that band members are in – Dan in Crypt Crawler, Tommy and Herb in Deadspace. We felt like we kind of needed to have a solid period where that was our focus, and those other bands are ramping up with their own releases this year. We will get to our album early next year. We are very, very happy with how it is coming along and I think its going to be a really interesting mix of early influences. A lot of the usual depressive black metal and banshee wails that I use, but then it is also going to be incorporating a lot more heavier, almost death metal components in this next record. It will be quite a variety of different songs which I am hoping more people will enjoy.
Steph: Speaking of influences, if you could pick a perfect line up of any 5 bands for a festival, who would you choose?
John: That is a tough one. I would probably have to go back to arguably my biggest musical influences, I’d say. So, it will probably be a bit of a mixed bag, but I would say first of all, my number one would be Shihad. They were like, THE band that, when I was a teenager, really transgressed me from being a kid that was playing violin, piano and classical music while listening to a bit of electronic music on the side, to actually going down the rabbit hole of heavier and heavier music to eventually where I am today. So they would probably be an opening band, and then I would say there would be a combination of Emperor, Opeth, Moon Sorrow. Maybe some old school stuff as well, like Black Sabbath, maybe a bit of Led Zeppelin, they would be the headliner to get everybody into the stadium or wherever that may be!
Steph: Speaking of festival line-ups, how did Woewarden and Stormrider Festival come about?
John: We have been involved with Stormrider previously, I think it was about 2 years back. Stu was very kind enough to reach out and ask us to come onto the line-up. We thought it was a bit surprising to have a power metal festival with a DSBM band on the bill, but we got a really, really good reception and we really enjoyed working with Stu. Its an absolute pleasure to be asked again this year to be part of the anniversary celebrations.
Steph: Is there any band in particular that you are excited to see, this Stormrider?
John: Not particularly, to be honest! I think because there is a very solid line-up across the board. I think its going to be more the fact that the whole experience of having Stormrider over two nights at Amplifier, and the amount of talent that is on board. Its more going to be about the whole experience for me than one band. We don’t get things like this often in Perth and I think the effort that Stu has gone through to pull this together, and that it is going to come to fruition, is what I am most excited about. So get your tickets and come on down, we can’t wait to see you all there!
A big thank you to John and Woewarden and Stu from Stormrider Touring. Be sure to get along to Stormrider Heavy Metal Festival, happening Friday 23rd and Saturday 24th August 2024 at Amplifier over both nights, celebrating Stormrider’s 10 year anniversary. You can catch Woewarden playing the Stormrider stage on the Saturday night. Tickets available here.
You can follow Woewarden: @Woewarden | Spotify | YouTube | YouTube Music | Apple Music | Facebook | Bandcamp
Photos: Supplied by band
