INTRODUCING: Daedric
To some, DAEDRIC conjures images of the Daedric Princes of The Elder Scrolls, often seen in Oblivion and referred to throughout the game series. To others, they might have just stumbled across the very-deliberately named band DAEDRIC, who had something of an odd gestation to become the alt metal/metacore outfit they are today – and both groups of people are in fact bang on the money. To find out just how the band came to be, the driving forces behind them and the creative process behind both their debut Mortal and second album As The Light Left, we sat down with Kristyn Hope, vocalist and driving force behind the band.
“When Clay [Schroeder, guitarist/producer] and I had AESOP going, we were completely independent. I think that was really the foundation for DAEDRIC. It was my first band, my first experience doing music at all,” she explains over Zoom. That band caught the attention of the other producer in the project, Geoff Rockwell, who wanted to work with her to start a dark synthpop project with her in association with current label FiXT. It didn’t last long; encouraged to bring some of the heavier elements of her previous band into DAEDRIC, she brought in screamed vocals and they experimented with adding metalcore elements.
“We wrote [Mortal] piece by piece, that was our place to experiment, it allowed us to try new things. You can see that progression as each single was released; Wretched had no screaming at all, then with Sepulchre we dived into that, and it has a bit of a breakdown and the darker side of DAEDRIC there.” Though the intent was quite different at the outset, the room to experiment and grow the project naturally paid off, as fans started to take notice of this exciting new proposition.
It was helped by Kristyn’s own sense of humour – something she wasn’t sure whether to share at first, but ultimately it just came out naturally. A cursory glance on YouTube reveals her own channel where she uploaded a song called Heavy Things during the pandemic, a tongue-in-cheek song with a video featuring cleaning products. “You’re the first person to ever bring this up!” She laughs. “I absolutely have always been such a jokester. I always thought that’s kind of annoying, kind of weird. I didn’t know if we wanted to be more polished and mature but I can’t help it!”
That spills over into DAEDRIC partly in some social media, but particularly in an interview skit they published to the band’s YouTube channel around the time of Mortal’s release. In it, Kristyn purports to have a twin who does a portion of the press and social media for the band, who is seen to be “acting out” (throwing cereal on the floor, cutting power cords, and yelling at Kristyn from off screen). “That was Geoff’s idea,” she grins. They pick their moments for it to shine through (“I don’t want to be a joke band”) such as their newsletters and Discord server, but never at the expense of the band or music.
That debut album, Mortal, was often Kristyn writing from a character’s perspective, particularly a character from The Elder Scrolls universe. But she didn’t think that would be where the themes were grounded; “I’m the type of gamer that I shut down. I don’t eat, sleep, shower, I just game,” she admits. “It’s not exactly a source of pride.” Despite this, Geoff encouraged her to bring that love into the music they were sketching out together. “I figured, I really like Skyrim and its visuals and medieval stuff, so bringing that to the real world in a more cyber-ish way would be cool.”
That said, she did have to explain it to her collaborators. “Neither Clay nor Geoff knew what Skyrim was, so I had to explain it to them and I remember sitting there thinking ‘wow I sound like the biggest nerd’,” she laughs, “I saw the glaze go over their eyes!” It worked wonders though, and it’s given them a unique visual language as well as thematic influences. If you glance at DAEDRIC’s visual style, you’ll see that immediately. Photoshoots with swords aren’t uncommon, but there’s a distinct sci-fi bent to the visuals.
Lyrically, As The Light Left draws as much on mental health as it does framing them in the world of Skyrim and The Elder Scrolls. “It’s the darkness or the villain taking over the world, whether that’s Alduin or a Daedric Prince, it’s that horror of the bad guy taking over. But then for me, as someone who has struggled with depression and that feeling of hopelessness, the ‘light’ is the representation of hope dwindling and you’re wanting to give up.” The narrative encompasses that desolate feeling as well as the weight of regret becoming overwhelming.
“It’s important to allow that emotional vulnerability to shine through and be honest with people that are listening,” she concludes. She isn’t writing to reach specific people; it’s to exorcise her own mental state and, if that helps people, then that’s a blessing. With As The Light Left, though there seems to be little light at the end of the tunnel it explores, it’s part of a journey that ultimately she’s grateful to be on. That she’s able to do so through a medium she loves, inspired by a game she loves, and to then have songs processing her own demons connect with people internationally? An understatement – “it’s very heart-warming.”
As The Light Left is out now via FiXT. View this interview, alongside dozens of other killer bands, in glorious print magazine fashion in DS125 here:
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