It's clear that Autolatry is influenced by the history of New England, and you identify yourselves as a New England Black Metal band. Do you think there's anything specifically about New England that draws bands towards playing black metal instead of other genres?
Dave: Stylistically I think black metal is a very effective medium for conveying one’s passion - at least for our band it is. There’s something about gut-wrenching dissonance and melody that black metal can typify that no other sub-genre of heavy music attains, and this is what drew me deeper into the style. We are passionate about the region that we come from so it was natural genre choice for us to fall into. Where other heavy sub-genres such as death metal and grind usually have focuses on technicality and speed, our main focus is songwriting and storytelling. The speed and technicality for us is just a tool to aid in telling the story. Whether it’s something specifically about New England or whether it’s more to do with black metal being the best outlet to write about our home, I’m not sure. The rolling hills and wooded landscape certainly don’t hurt in creating the black metal aesthetic though!"Native" is a concept album that explores the clash between Native Americans and European settlers. What inspired you to choose this topic?
"Native" clearly has black metal influences, but there's a lot of diversity with tracks like "Setting of the Sun". Was it hard to synthesize everything together into a cohesive album or does this come naturally to you?
Dave: The songs Setting of the Sun and Waning Moon were written and placed where they are in the album to separate the different phases of the story. From the profession of love for one’s homeland to the settlers’ arrival, to betrayal and loss of life, to the ruin of an ages-old way of life - Setting and Waning act to distinguish the different moods of the album. While we were actually in the writing process, it was unclear what the order of the songs would be and how they would flow cohesively with each other. Luckily we had the luxury of not being under a strict time budget to finalize the production, and that really helped with getting a grasp on the proper flow of the album. As for the musical material itself, I think the synthesis and cohesiveness of the album is aided in that I prefer to write songs with a concept in mind. If I know that the album is centered around a certain theme, I kind of put together a rough scaffolding of which songs need to have epic outros, which songs need to open explosively, which songs deserve a soaring chorus, and what a completely different-sounding interlude may sound like.
Autolatry has been getting some attention on the national level recently, and your newest album "Native" seems to have been very well-received. How does it feel to be in that situation, and do you feel more pressure because of it?
Dave: We’re extremely proud of how Native turned out and it is quite satisfying to see the all the positive reviews, but at the same time we’re not letting anything get to our heads. If anything, it makes us all want to work harder to create even better music next time around. No amount of success will change the way this band does things, and we’re all just really excited for what lies ahead in the band’s future. I don’t think there’s any more pressure on us at all, really. We don’t have to live up the expectations of a recording contract with a label, and everything in the band is self-financed. We’re going to keep making music this way, and having a damn good time doing it, until we all collectively decide that our hearts aren’t in it anymore.
If you could record a split album with any band, who would it be and why?
Dave: We would love to record a split or splits with a few other New England black metal bands. Three bands immediately come to mind that we would be thrilled to work with on a split album: Obsidian Tongue, Infera Bruo, and In Human Form. If you haven’t heard of or checked these bands out, I urge you to do so. These three bands embody everything that is good about black metal in New England and it would be an absolute honor to put together a split release with one, if not all three of them!
Is there anything else you wanted to add or mention?
Dave: I just want to say thank you for taking the time to write us some fantastic and in-depth interview questions! We truly appreciate that you’ve obviously dug into our music quite a bit and it seems like you’ve got a great understanding of what Autolatry is all about. We’re going to be touring with two of the afore-mentioned bands - Infera Bruo and Obsidian Tongue this summer between July 25 and August 31. It would be wonderful to see you and some of your readers out on tour, so if we come anywhere near your town please come out and hang with us!
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