Strike The Sun: An Interview with Miami’s SHROUD EATER
~By Billy Goate~
~Pictures by Wicked Ways Photography~
This piece has been a long time coming. SHROUD EATER has been a powerful force in doom metal for damn near a decade. Their sound crackles with electricity, with a rumbling low-end that has caused a ripple in the underground and vocals that soar triumphantly above the rubbled landscape. It's inexplicable that we haven't covered them in these pages before. Chalk it up to a scene that has just mushroomed exponentially in size since Doomed & Stoned blasted off in 2013. I came within feet of seeing them at Psycho Las Vegas a few years back, but by that time in the festival I was so exhausted I overslept. So it was high time we gave the Miami trio of Jean Saiz (guitars, vox), Jan Valentine (bass, backing vocals), and Davin Sosa (drums) some love. This has been an eventful year for the band, seeing the realization of their second full-length, 'Strike The Sun (2017 - STB Records), and then having the unenviable experience of seeing this self-same sun "stricken" by a certain hurricane called Irma just a month later. The band was kind enough to oblige me an interview in the days following, including an in-depth, track-by-track walkthrough of their Doom Charting new record.
The new record is a behemoth. Are you finding your approach to writing as a band has changed significantly since the early days? What's your creative process like now?
Jan: First off, thanks for digging the new record! Now, as far as the writing process goes, it’s definitely changed due to changes in dynamics within the band depending on who we’re writing with. I feel that with Davin in the band we are all more involved as a unit. Normally, a riff idea blooms, one of us writes lyrics, things just come together and if it feels right we run with it. Sometimes Jean, being the main song writer, has a solid idea to work off of. Currently, the process has a pretty organic flow.
Most young bands would find it hard to envision five years together and hear you are inching ever closer to 10. I'm curious, how your relationships with one another evolved over the years. Assuming you've always been tight. Would you say being in a long-term band relationship is more or less like being in a marriage? Weird question, I know.
Jan: I personally refer to a band relationship as being very much like a marriage, so not a weird question at all. Jean and I have been together 15 years, have been in this band for about a decade now and have been playing with Davin for a little over two years. Personalities, creative interests, sense of humor, compromise, communication, similar goals -- all among the many things that need to jive in order to make a relationship work. If any of these aspects don’t mesh or there’s no connection it’s very difficult to come together creatively. Writing is very much an intimate experience whereas performing can easily be compared to letting it all hang out so to speak. When shit works, it just does.
What do you all do when you're not creating and performing music?
Jan: Jean is a graphic designer by day and works on commissioned artwork by night. She also runs her cassette label, Primitive Violence. She’s worked on some really killer releases including our limited edition cassette packages for Strike the Sun. Davin is a skilled sushi chef and can also whip up a mean hot sauce. He’s a video game enthusiast and is really good with horses. I’m a full-time photographer, animal lover, dabble in incense-making, and a B-movie buff. I enjoy collecting shitty movies and forcing friends to watch them.
This is your second full-length in 6 years. How is it different for you putting out an LP versus and EP? Does it basically just come down to the number of songs you have on hand? What's special about this LP for you?
Davin: Wasn't here for the whole six, but it's pretty much just that. There's definitely an urge to make the songs on an LP flow better together, while an EP can be presented as a “grab bag” of songs. Aside from being my first longer release with the band, what makes this one special for me is how Jan and Jean pretty much let me do things my way (the dumb, hard way) on the recording front. It was a crazy learning experience, and I’m grateful for the opportunity to have put us all through hell and back.
The sound on 'Strike The Sun' is exquisite. I feel surrounded by fuzz, so thick you could slice it with a knife and gobble it whole! Take us inside the studio and share, if you will, what it took to capture just the right tone and tenor you wanted. For instance, what gear did you/do you find essential to get the sound you want?
Davin: Thank ya! We captured the raw DI signals for guitar and bass in the comfort of our respective homes, and took those dry tracks with us to HiFive Audio in Deland, Florida to be re-amped through the gals’ rigs. This allowed the boys at HiFive to really dial in a great tone without worrying about the strength of our performances. As far as gear goes, Jean’s sound hinges largely on the Black Forest, Pharaoh, and Quantum Mystic pedals, all by Black Arts Toneworks, running full-stack out of a Verellen Skyhammer and Matamp GT 120. Jan also sports a Black Forest alongside the Revelation Superbass, all out of a Fender Super Bassman. Vocals were done at home with me in a similar fashion to the guitar ‘n bass, with drum tracking also taking place at HiFive. All lovingly mixed by Sanford Parker!
Did anything change between the practice room and the recording studio in regard to the songs to more fully realize your creative vision?
Davin: Small things like licks and fills. In a more substantial way, vocal parts got a little more detailed, and a couple songs got the synth treatment. I think the mantra was to not add anything engaging enough to the point where it's absence in a live setting would be noticeable.
You've worked with various producers over the years, but seem to have found your sweet spot with doing the recording yourself. Tell us about the difference it makes having Davin Sosa in the engineer's seat.
Jean: Having someone who is in the band handle the engineering and recording is great for us, because it assures that we have someone who really cares about and will go the extra mile on what they’re working on. He has an exceptional attention to detail, knows the songs from all angles, and he really loves the process of recording; I think that shows in everything we’ve put out since he’s joined us and I feel very fortunate in that respect.
Ok, let's get to the fun stuff. Take us through 'Strike The Sun' and guide us into this landscape of fire, flesh, dreams, and disaster. Is there an interlocking character to the songs we're hearing? Perhaps you can walk us track-by-track through the album, if you like.
Jean: Fire, flesh, dreams and disaster is a perfect summary! There are many references to not being of one flesh or skin, creating a certain sense of unstoppable will power, death, destruction and the lot. So let’s go on that track-by-track stroll:
Smokeless Fire
Strike the Sun by Shroud Eater
This ambient track, in my mind’s eye, sets the tone and landscape, if you will, for the songs that follow. It conjures a barren, desert-like landscape, with a looming maliciousness. The idea of a smokeless fire is one where the fire is pure, molten energy; to me it is the idea of building up our personal will-power into an unstoppable life-force. The last of the lyrics read: “Offer me sanctity from life's agony of desire” -- meaning, to cut the fat from life and live pure and full of purpose, even if that purpose is assassination and death, as is later revealed.
Iron Mountain
Strike the Sun by Shroud Eater
This is one of my favorites songs. I love the long, lumbering riff that opens it and lyrically it follows along the path that Smokeless Fire laid out. In this song, it is the beginning of the quest to find that which was lost, but first you must climb, you must struggle, and you cannot be thrown down or distracted from this climb and journey.
Awaken Assassin
Strike the Sun by Shroud Eater
This is a song Janette wrote, but in the scheme of the album, I see it as the unspoken character has found that which was being searched for, and now begins the work of death and destruction in earnest. The lines I contributed to the song (“Hash smoke open eyes, black toke now you arise, black smoke seeks your demise”) have to do with historical accounts of a sect of assassins in the 11th century led by an “Old Man of the Mountain” that would perform critical strikes of espionage and murder to kill key enemy figures -- but first, the Old Man would have the acolytes fucked up on hashish to instill total loyalty and devotion to the cause.
Another Skin
Strike the Sun by Shroud Eater
This is an instrumental track that was actually one of our older songs that fit into the narrative of Strike the Sun. There’s a lot of different riffs to this song that lend to the idea of wearing different forms or skins; constant change, constant evolution - where every possibility is within you, should you want to access it and bring it to light to achieve whatever goal. The sample we have towards the end is taken from the lectures of Joseph Campbell. In these samples he says, “You are not this body, you are not this ego, you are to think of this as something merely put on to be thrown away again.”
Dream Flesh
Strike the Sun by Shroud Eater
It may seem like a surprise but I really love writing and playing sparse, quiet, droney songs - but I have a rule where I rarely share them with anyone; they are my little secrets. Well, "Dream Flesh" is one such tune, but again, fit into the scheme of the record and made a perfect start to the Side B. The lyrics repeat: “A wound that never heals, A skin that never feels” -- again alluding to not being tied to one form or skin.
It Walks Among
Strike the Sun by Shroud Eater
This is an older one, and a favorite to play live to close out our set (live show spoiler!). This song is inspired by John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982), and when we play it live we preface it with a sample from the “Tape Recorder” scene, where MacReady is logging the intensifying paranoia vibe of the outpost. The words, “Nobody trusts each other now...and we’re all very tired,” echo out before we begin the song. The song itself has a weird pacing to it that I really enjoy. It starts off rather slow and sparse, and builds up into a wall of sound before backtracking to a very quiet and delicate part, so to speak. Lyrically we do pick up some of the dialogue in the “blood test” scene of the movie, but it does lend itself to our narrative of the changing/imitating/not of one flesh overarching assassin-character. The lines “Cleave to mortal flesh and break solid bone, becoming paranoid and trusting in no one” echo the sense of isolation, spiritual blackness, faltering on the path mentioned in earlier songs, and embracing the darkness to come to full potential.
Unseen Hand
Strike the Sun by Shroud Eater
In contrast to the previous track, this song is full of focused will and vitriol from the start. This is the most upbeat and fast-paced song on the record, and serves as a nice jolt of adrenaline. We switch between a few different time signatures on this one, and lyrically this definitely has a renewed sense of purpose and mission. The song closes out with a desperate mantra: “To Fail is to Die,” which leads our narrative perfectly onto the last track.
Futile Exile
Strike the Sun by Shroud Eater
This is my favorite song on the record, and holds a good amount of meaning to me. The loose story of the record comes to a gnarly conclusion, as this song is focused on the hunt for and destruction of this particular person or thing -- they are trying to escape their fate and their past, and hope in doing so person/beast that is pursuing them loses interest or fails. But there is no escape; it will be destroyed, it will be found, as the last lines ring out: “You can’t hide, I will always find you.”
Photo: STB Records
Loving Gordon Grady's album art. What's going on there? Are the figures representative of you three in any way or reflective of the album's content?
Jean: I fell in love with Grady’s art many moons ago and thought the ghostly wraiths he conjures up were a great representation of the vibe we were going for. We really didn’t know what he was going to come up with for us but I absolutely love the finished piece. The figures don’t necessarily correlate to us or the album, although several friends have joked that Jan and I are the two figures and Davin is the puppy in the middle.
Davin: The first thing he sent us ended up being perfect, so there wasn't much room for tying it into themes explored on the album. I do think the ambiguity of the two figures and dog lends to a lot of people seeing them as representative of us. Fine with me, though. I like dogs!
Film by Frank Huang
A lot has happened since the release of your album. You went on tour, is that right?
Jean: We did have a tour, we were very excited about the tour since it would be in support of the new record, and then the tour was cut short right at the mid-way mark due to a hurricane that was threatening (and indeed hit) South Florida and our homes. The tour started off pretty rockin’, with our first show at The Jinx in Savannah playing a benefit for “Friends of Statts.” It was a stacked bill that included Royal Thunder and Black Tusk, and we had a terrific time. We rolled through Winston-Salem, North Carolina at Test Pattern the next day and played with our progressively minded pals Irata, then onto Baltimore the following day to a very cool Metal Monday show with doomy friends in Corpse Light.
By this point in the tour, I should mention, I was receiving about 50 frantic text messages about Hurricane Irma and her projected path of destruction, so between driving, lugging gear, playing shows, etc., the necessity to make a decision about whether we would have to cancel the tour and drive back home was looming very heavily. Tuesday morning we watched one final weather report, and the projected path for the storm was literally a fucking bullseye over Miami. At the time, this was a major storm system with winds reaching up to 180 mph. FYI, a Category 5 hurricane is capped off with sustained winds of 150 mph. So at that point, the call was made: we would travel north to New York City, play our show at Saint Vitus, and then drive like mad back home to have time to secure provisions, prepare our homes, family, and pets for impact.
The Saint Vitus show exceeded expectations, as we played with some very cool bands like Begotten and Eternal Black, met JJ from the Obelisk, as well as Steve “the man himself” from STB Records, and saw our close friends who had moved from Florida to New York. Even though we had to drive 19 hours to get back home, we had that final rad memory to fuel us into the night/day drives.
And the happy ending: We did get home in time to secure everything, and although we all suffered some damage to our properties, we are safe, alive and finally have power back!
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