ARKHAM WITCH don’t play stadiums for masses and their albums don’t top bestseller lists. They’re apparently not seeking after this kind of fame. What they stand for is consistency. From the very beginning they have been busy with their doom/heavy metal and Lovecraftian lyrics. This is Simon of awesome ARKHAM WITCH, who talks with me about metal underground, ordinary life and literature.

1.Can you still remember how you felt when you started the band?

- The band was started out of a frustration which still continues to this day and that frustration is that, basically, we had too many songs and I wanted them recorded, so me and Mrs Ningauble went ahead and recorded the first demo. Arkham Witch originally was going to be a side project that just recorded, but at the time I had enough funds and time to rehearse twice a week so I recruited Johnny Demaine on bass. We bumped into our old sparring partner Dodo in the pub and he was after some guitar playing action so he joined – then we recorded the first album and people seemed to like it and Arkham Witch went from there! We still have far too many songs that we can ever hope to record – maybe that’s a good thing – I don’t know!

2. Well, I would like to ask if you guys met each other in the library, or something like that. Or more seriously, why Lovecraft? Weren’t there any British writers to choose from?

- No – we all met through metal. No real literary connections apart from me and Aldo sharing an enthusiasm of Robert E. Howard and the old Marvel comics stuff from the 80s, especially Conan. Emily also enjoys Lovecraft and is a big fan of Stephen King – probably his foremost literary descendant.

Why Lovecraft? Well, his vision was unique – his mythology unlike anything that has come before or since – his sense of mankind’s place in the cosmos depressingly correct – and his emphasis on localism inspiring – but most of all his concepts – his gods, his aliens, his landscapes are just plain the coolest thing I had ever read at the age of fourteen and he stuck with me. I can still remember the day I found out that Conan and Cthlulhu were connected and that Lovecraft and Howard were pen friends and that the cosmic background of ’The Tower of the Elephant’ was influenced by Lovecraft, and then that led me on to the Weird Tales circle and other writers.

As for English writers – of course there are many whose material is perfect for metal songs, as evidenced through the years: Dennis Wheatley, Tolkien, Arthur Machen, E. R. Eddison, Michael Moorcock, to name but a few, but the primal nihilism at the heart of Lovecraft and Howard just seems to find its perfect expression in the loud and discordant shapings of an amplified electric guitar!

3. I can still remember when I first read Lovecraft. Amazing to say the least. Incomparable. What he did, in my opinion, was something implausible. He managed to describe things which are impossible to describe. Do you have any difficulty writing "Lovecraftian" kind of lyrics?

- Not really. Because of HPL’s popularity in these days and with the rise of the internet – everyone has either heard of Cthulhu and his ilk – or knows what they vaguely look like. We tend to take this pop-culture approach in our lyrics, using Lovecraft’s ideas and concepts as kind of a heavy metal shorthand.

Lovecraft has been unfairly lambasted of course, for his liberal use of adjectives and has famously been called a ‘bad writer’ because of it. I actually love his style and his prose – maybe I’m just a philistine – but I have always been drawn to the use of language for language’s sake, something which I feel has been removed from modern literature is the joy of words for their own sake. I love for example E. R. Eddison’s use of a faux Elizabethan prose style in ’The Worm Ouroboros’, and of course Tolkien’s erudite use of language in LOTR and in the same vein I think that in the context of what Lovecraft was trying to do his adjectives are perfectly justified. In a way language cannot accurately describe the world and it is futile for us to try – so Lovecraft approached the problem of describing something that would send the describer into madness with an effective use of adjectivism – we can only approach our subject in slave orbit around its strange gravity – we can never truly know it - one word can only be substituted for another word until the time we learn the primal words that existed before the universe began and we can all speak Aklo!

4. Have you read the biography of Lovecraft by S.T. Joshi? Plenty of reading indeed, and the author did a really good job, I think. What we see is an alienated and rather obnoxious person, Lovecraft…

- I have read Joshi’s biography of Lovecraft and I didn’t get the same impression overall. I felt he did a great job overall of humanising Lovecraft and taking away some of the falsehoods and errors of Sprague De Camp’s biography. Are you thinking of Lovecraft’s time in New York and his racism/xenophobia? Even then he was a social animal and had a lot of friends as I recall, but I think it is true that these attitudes are what give his stories their tremendous power, and certainly from some of the views expressed in his letters the obnoxiousness of the racial views of the time are certainly present.

In Alan Moore’s introduction to ‘The Annotated Lovecraft’ he makes the case that Lovecraft was not really an outsider but an ‘unbearably sensitive barometer of American Dread’ and that his work was really the fear of someone on the inside – watching the walls of their safe reality changing around them – like his protagonists!

5. There are some other influences as well. Like Robert E. Howard and some occult stuff, too. I am myself under influence of British occult horrors from the 70s, and such movies as: "The Wicker Man", "Devil Rides Out", "Blood on Satan’s Claw". You like stuff like that? Can you please recommend anything else?

- Yes – if you haven’t seen it, the recent film ‘The Witch’ – a horror in the style of the above – slow burning and psychological.

Also, one of the best horror films for me in execution and subject matter is ‘The Innocents’, (1961) which is based on Henry James’ ‘The Turn of the Screw’ – the ambiguity of events and the psychological insights into the characters and what they may or may not be projecting onto each other brings what reality is into question – I think the film captures the ‘truly potent air of sinister menace’ Lovecraft found in the book.

But we also love and take inspiration from the sheer atmosphere which can be found in English horror films of the 60s and 70s and especially anything put out by Hammer. I do think that ‘The Devil Rides Out’ is the best film they ever made.

6. I have recently watched this documentary on British black metal: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjCF9P25Go0). The interviewed musicians tell us how inspirational your small and old towns are, as well as the British history. That’s an interesting point as metal was born in the UK, but I would say in some working class neighborhoods. How about ARKHAM WITCH in this context then?

- We have a few songs about our home town – of course the name The Lamp of Thoth came from old Keighley and Bradford occult history – Bradford had one of the few Golden Dawn Temples in the country and we have a lot of songs which cover local history in our repertoire including the infamous ‘We’re from Keighley’ which we cannot play anymore due to our illustrious pure Keighley blood in the band being tainted now from other parts of Yorkshire!

Every town has its history and heritage and its myths and legends and is an omphalos at the centre of the universe waiting to be tapped into. I recently read an interview with Alan Moore about his new book ‘Jerusalem’ in which this quote sums up what I think we felt when we began writing songs like ‘The Lamp of Thoth’, ‘An Oath Sworn on the Ashlar Stone’ and ‘David Lund’, that there was ‘all of that incredibly rich stuff, which is generally ignored by historians because it’s not the ongoing adventures of church and state’.

This stuff had happened in our town or area (granted, we took great artistic licence with some of it), but we had a strong connection to something unique through our experiences and through the landscape of our moors, our mills and our council estates. History (and fiction) comes alive in a different way when you yourself are part of that place and are one day going to be a part of its history and its story. I think that is also what Lovecraft did with Providence and his New England locations – in that sense, every town is an ‘Arkham’!

7. As you already said, you guys live in Keighley, West Yorkshire. A decent place, apparently. Any metalheads over there, eh?

- Bradford and Keighley have always had a healthy and vibrant metal scene in all the years I have been into music and there are plenty of mental and dedicated metal heads around this area – we have a lot of great bands and loads of friends in the scene.

We also have steam trains and real ale and curry, nice countryside, desolately beautiful moorland, and stan pies.

8. I do like your independence and consistency as a band. You don’t want to be a "big" band. Your heavy metal is filthy, rabid and not too oriented toward STRATOVARIOUS’ fans (so to speak). Don’t you regret you aren't doing something more commercial? Be a "big" band?

- Thanks! I don’t know what is commercial these days – what are the kids buying? We just do what we want – the goal of this band is just to make itself sufficient – record, sell recordings – make enough money to make new recordings and to play some great gigs with great people and bands along the way.

I suppose you could say we did something more commercial with ‘I Am Providence’, but I assure you the motive was not financial but artistic! Having said that, if we achieved commercial success, we wouldn’t know what to do with it!

9. How much of your lives do you sacrifice for the band? You all guys claim to have full time jobs and play on the weekends. How do your families react to your expensive hobby?

- They are supportive in their own way but it’s what we have always done so it is no big deal. At the moment we are sacrificing about three hours a week in rehearsal but I think it is at home where all the time goes – learning songs, working out solos etc. Also, when we are recording that can be very time consuming and me, I tend to record a lot of demos at home so I can be sat in a room for hours on end. I know John H. spends a lot of time on his solos and also makes demos. It is hard fitting in the band around family and work and we have all had to make sacrifices, but it is worth it in the end even if just one person tells you they like your music, and at the moment people seem to like us, so we will keep on doing it!

10. You surely can see a lot of different countries. As noticed you have already played in many exotic places like Dubai for instance. How was the reaction to your music over there?

- Dubai was fantastic – a real experience and a real eye opener. The people and the fans were great – the organisers, Sammy, Lena, Fahd and Laham did a great job putting on the event and treated all the bands like royalty – we met some amazing people and bands and the fans had traveled from all over to come to the gig, and of course it was a pleasure to be there also with Pagan Altar and the late great Terry Jones.

But having said that – the underground heavy metal community the world over (or at least the bits we have been to) are the same at heart despite little cultural differences. Overall, there is a real sense of community – a sense of pride in the music and in the tradition of the music. A reverence and respect for the older bands in the scene and an acceptance and welcoming to younger bands, and I hope that never changes. I think a lot of people in the scene, especially in the organising of the smaller gigs and festivals, do it for the love and not the money and should be supported. That goes too to all the fanzines, websites and magazines that support the scene!

11. How about the second band of yours: THE LAMP OF THOTH? You released one album, a piece of great music it is. But it was such a long time ago, indeed!

Well, the Lamp was the first band! We have recorded some of the Lamp stuff with Arkham Witch (third ‘Get Thothed’ EP should be coming next year) but we have yet to officially resurrect the beast that was TLOT!

12. OK, the last question is what do you prefer: beer or whiskey? We have plenty of good hand-crafted beers here in Poland, but when it comes to the beer from the UK or Ireland – well, I know Guinness only. Would you recommend anything suitable for the heatwave we’re experiencing now? Need to know as I want to offer you something to drink when you come over to Poland finally!

- Well, English beer is traditionally served warm, so not sure it’s suitable for a heatwave! At the moment I am drinking Saltaire Blonde and Ilkley Pale Ale. I usually start off on the ale and when I am too full and bloated move on to the whiskey. Our local beer here is Keighley’s Timothy Taylors – Landlord or Boltmaker are the best. Ironically, Timothy Taylors’ Best is not their best!

What’s the best Polish beer? We have a lot of Polish shops in the area, might try it! Is it Tyskie?

Beer and metal! Thanks for the great questions, Łukasz! Hope to see you down the front!

Best wishes, Simon

https://www.facebook.com/ArkhamWitch

https://arkhamwitch.bandcamp.com/merch

http://metal-on-metal.com/bands/arkham-witch

 

 

Interview questions by Łukasz Orbitowski