Vile Creature: Best Laid Plans
What are you missing out on because of the lockdown – your vacation? Your favourite restaurant? A trip to the pub? For Ontarian drone/doom duo VILE CREATURE, they’re missing out on somewhat of a bigger deal; a one-time-only airing of a specially curated collaboration with Nottingham’s finest BISMUTH at Roadburn 2020. For most underground bands, this is the stuff doomy dreams are made of.
“It was going very well and we were nervous, excited, and ready and then the world got all fucked from COVID-19,” explains guitarist/vocalist KW of the band’s preparations for debuting A Hymn Of Loss & Hope at Tilburg’s underground metal Mecca. “At this point we will continue to stay nervous and excited, and try to find new ways to be ready when we do the song at the rescheduled Roadburn 2021.”
Pragmatic future plans aside, how did the collaboration with BISMUTH come about in the first place? “We’ve been close friends with Tanya [Byrne, bass/vocals] and Joe [Rawlings, drums] from BISMUTH for a couple years now,” says KW. “We both played early on the first day of Roadburn 2019 and Walter [Hoeijmakers, Roadburn’s artistic director] approached us after, thrilled at the reception and performances, which was really kind of him. He mentioned he knew how close we were and asked if we had ever considered writing together, and we told him we actually had and he just kind of gave us a wink and mentioned Roadburn 2020.”
“Fast forward a month or so and he sent us both an e-mail inviting us to be a commissioned music piece for the next festival and we were both very excited,” KW continues. “Playing Roadburn was a pipe dream for both of our bands, and now being able to do it a second time and in such a grand fashion is just beyond any hope either of our bands could have ever had.”
While COVID-19 may have disrupted the band’s carefully laid live plans, it is thankfully unable to stop the planned release of the duo’s second full-length, Glory, Glory! Apathy Took Helm! The record’s themes are retrospectively prophetic of the mental strain life in lockdown is putting many of us under. “The record is loosely based around the idea that we as people have to actively combat negative mental mindsets that can come naturally to us, and that feelings such as apathy & ideologies such as nihilism are much easier to delve into than putting the effort into making positive, real world change,” KW explains. “All of this exists in the backdrop of who our band is and what our previous records have been about, namely escapism and finding your way through the troubles life brings you in the best way you can.”
With a name that may draw similarities with fellow Canadians GODSPEED YOU! BLACK EMPEROR’s more esoteric naming practices, how did VILE CREATURE decide on the album’s title? “The title is a tongue in cheek reference to everything I spoke about when it comes to the themes behind the record,” KW says. “We were throwing around a few different ideas and this one came from some stream of conscious writing.”
As with the duo’s planned collaboration with BISMUTH, Glory, Glory! Apathy Took Helm! is an example of the cooperative nature and ‘it takes a village’ ethos of creativity in underground heavy music. Featuring input from Tanya Byrne and Laurel Minnes [MINUSCULE!], how did VILE CREATURE come to involve them in their creative process? “Laurel was the vocalist on A Pessimistic Doomsayer, a song we put out as a standalone like four years ago,” says KW. “She is as amazing of a human as she is a vocalist and we’ve always stayed in touch. Once we started gestating the ideas for the record it became apparent that Laurel, and the choir that comprises her band MINUSCULE!, would be crucial to certain aspects and she was so game and excited to collaborate again. She will always be a part of the extended VILE CREATURE family. Tanya is one of our closest friends and was an easy person to ask to help with some keys and synth as we have been collaborating for a full year already on the Roadburn piece. I don’t think enough people know that she is a full on classical composer and it really shows in what she helped construct for the title track.”
Having formed back in 2014, the VILE CREATURE made an indelible mark on the underground heavy music scene over the last six years, and the impact of an album as ambitious and limit-pushing as Glory, Glory! Apathy Took Helm! is sure to continue reverberate for many years to come. Looking back, how does KW feel the band has changed over that time?
“This band started out with Vic wanting to learn to play drums, and has evolved into releasing records and touring and being able to do amazing things we never thought possible. I think the band has changed naturally as we’ve both grown as people and musicians, but we both are very much the same as when we started in regards to just doing this because we love it,” KW says. “It is our fun, cathartic hobby that fortunately we get to share with a bunch of people and it seems like it resonates with at least some of them. You can’t ask for more than that.”
With the COVID-19 crisis having cast a long shadow over the international live music scene for the foreseeable future, what are VILE CREATURE’s plans for 2020 looking like? “We had a lot of stuff planned for 2020, but obviously the worldwide pandemic derailed ours, and everyone’s, plans. We were going to be doing Northwest Terror Fest and Oblivion Access Festival, along with our first West coast tour, a few short runs in the Eastern and Midwestern USA, and a bunch of dates through Canada,” KW says. “But, as of now, all of that is rescheduled until 2021 or whenever it is safe and reasonable for people to be able to gather. For now we will be at home working, petting animals, eating delicious food, and making bad dad jokes.”
Glory, Glory! Apathy Took Helm! is out now via Prosthetic Records.
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