by Chris Barnes
January 15, 2008
Looking at Hellride Music as a microcosm of misfit Doom and Cult Metal freaks that it is, perhaps no other band has generated as much pure, grass-roots enthusiasm on the boards here as England's own The Lamp Of Thoth. A stunning amalgamation of Doom Metal, NWOBHM ethic and Yorkshireman creed, The Lamp has captured everything that could possibly be great about our beloved Heavy Metal on their debut for Miskatonic Records, Cauldron Of Witchery… even a Cirith Ungol cover! The Overtly Melancholic Lord Strange (Simon to the rest of us) talks in-depth to Hellride Music regarding the history behind the music, what it means to be a Yorkshireman from Keighley and even a bit of politics. So without further ado…
Hellride Music: Simon, time is money, so I'm grateful to you for opening your pocket book and sacrificing a couple of Euros for ol' Hellride here. Let's start with the basics... how you three (or four, if you include Andy) came to be. Give us the story behind the band.
Simon: The Lamp of Thoth has existed as a band for just under two years, bound together by a love of doom and NWoBHM as well as traditional metal bands from all around the globe.
I had almost given up on music. I just left a band that although enjoyable at times, was pulling in all directions musically. I just wanted to play doom and traditional metal and I was having a hard time getting my ideas into the band. The band split up over an argument about money and, after a couple of other musical non-starters, I found myself not caring whether I was in a band or not. I had other interests so I concentrated on them and forgot all about heavy metal for a while. Anything I wrote, I just recorded it at home and then forgot about it. After playing for years in bands and not getting anywhere, I was basically recording songs for my own amusement.
It is due to the insistent and uncompromising Lady Pentagram that The Lamp of Thoth is here at all. She bullied me into jamming with her! We were like the White Stripes of Doom in the beginning, just guitar and drums! We were doing Sunshine at that time I think, along with Wings of Doom and covering Manowar's Demons Whip and Saint V's Mystic Lady.
We had no name and went through a couple of members – both bass players, and so at a final push we decided that it might be easier to find a guitarist, so I switched to bass. Around this time I discovered the local legend of The Lamp Of Thoth, and some strange melancholic muse descended upon me. The first song I wrote was You Will Obey, then came Pagan Daze, the idea behind it being a strange old Lord reminiscing about the heathen ceremonies of his youth; Blood on Satan's Claw soon followed (I wasn't aware of the Reverend Bizarre song at that time!), and our Internet advert was answered by Mr Reaper, on the advice on Rich Walker, who, when it comes to all things metal is a psychic with no small ability!
We met up with Mr. Reaper in the pub and had a good chat about all things doom, and found we shared allot of similar opinions. We'd sent him a CD of home recordings and when we jammed, we'd found that he'd learnt them all and even knew parts we'd forgotten! We were so impressed by this that Randy was in the band after about half an hour! We had a few hiccups along the way: Randy's absence (nobly covered by Andy) and then his triumphant return – that's pretty much how the band stands today!
Hellride Music: The Lamp of Thoth is an outstanding band. As I sit here and flip through the pages of the latest Terrorizer, I'm reminded of how much of current metal really is in an awful state. You guys take me back to when the dam began to burst... seriously, there is something to be said for tradition and purity in an art form and TLoT, for me anyway, channels the approach and sound of the early NWOBHM bands. Is tradition something you are aware of when you write music or do you just plug in and play? Who do you guys look up to in terms of inspiration?
Simon: Thanks, Chris! I don't think Terrorizer and other magazines of their ilk totally reflect the state of current metal, they just present their own particular version of it – which is all anyone can do really. I think there are tons of cool bands out there if you ignore what the media feeds you and go and look for them! What the magazines seem to do is to present this clever deception of some unified critical consensus; that heavy metal is some constantly evolving beast. That may be true in terms of sounds and playing styles etc, but I don't think its true of the attitude. What I (and I think many other people) still look for in a metal band is the same thing that hooked us when we were nippers and first discovered Iron maiden, Venom, Black Sabbath, and Saxon etc – that magic interplay between imagination and music; the epic narratives and the other worlds.
The culmination of this mystical marriage for me personally, is in the NWOBHM, and in the doom bands that came out of the seventies and early eighties, and also in the early thrash bands whose music still had the atmosphere and attitude of the new wave bands. I'm one of those weird people who prefer Show no Mercy to Reign in Blood!
I've lost count of the amount of times over the years, when I've read a bad review of an album I absolutely love, and wondered whether we've been listening to the same thing - but the bad review is usually because that kind of music is not the particular trend of the moment! That's why I don't agree with reviewing in magazines. On the Internet an album review is an organic process and a variety of opinions can be expressed – in a magazine it's set in print and is usually one person's opinion after one listen– literary fascism!
Sometimes I'll hear a good riff in some of these bigger, more fashionable metal bands, but the feel of the song just doesn't grab my imagination – like Metallica's last album, I can appreciate the riffage, the arrangements and song writing, but to me its not heavy metal – it lacks something! I liked it better when they were telling me about that phantom lord or them four horsemen of the apocalypse, or that thing that shouldn't have been. Some people (not all), who write for these magazines think that the metal fans of today have moved on from such nonsense, that the audience is more sophisticated – and as the bands they exonerate get bigger they themselves start to see their music as something which is more important than it actually is.
As a result all the fun has gone out of the metal. You can see the extreme version of it on the telly where you get mainstream metal bands in their thirties singing a song about the pressures of school, and you're thinking ‘fucking hell if you haven't gotten over having your head flushed down the toilet then you never will', but obviously he has gotten over having his head flushed down the lavatory, he was probably the one doing it to other kids – he just knows his target audience! This is acceptable for the mainstream media, but Manowar singing about Odin? – Childish and not worth any attention unless it's in some clever ironic way because we realize now that people actually still like this stuff, after years of telling them it was crap and had had its day, and so we can't ignore it. They pedal this reality which is as much a fantasy as anything Iron Maiden ever wrote; the myths of teen angst; the myth of the rock star etc; and I think this desire to be accepted by the mainstream sometimes rubs off into the metal magazines that are supposed to represent the underground. They try to be too clever. I think for me purity in an art form is keeping the bullshit out of it!
By claiming the fun has gone out of metal I don't mean I don't take it seriously – I do! But there's an awareness of enjoyment that I think is missing from the way most bands are presented. I enjoy listening to doom metal – yes the music is heavy and melancholic, but it doesn't make me depressed, its not some accessory to some cool attitude peddled by a magazine – I don't dress all in black and live on the verge of suicide, or sacrifice babies or animals to the heathen gods, but I enjoy exploring imaginative ideas through the music. Some pseudo pagan lifestyle is not what I want to hear about – the authenticity is in the music. The music is the ceremony and the temple and the albums are the hymn sheets – the gigs and stages are the churches and altars and the places of reverence - that's the authentic transcendental experience- that's what it's all about! These magazines have to sell and so sometimes they have to focus on some kind of sensationalism. But thank God for the underground and the fans that can ignore the trends, deflate the pompous, and uphold the traditions.
I want my music to have that continuity with the bands I respect and love, and I think that's true of most doom and traditional metal bands – they want to do something different within the confines of the genre. The bands that achieve this are the ones that everyone remembers. But therein lies the paradox! As I said I don't really think any true metal fan is looking for something new – but those who are looking for something old want something new – if that makes any sense! I think we all want the same thing: that feeling you get when you hear a doom or heavy metal song with all the elements in the right place, the one which takes you back to why you like it in the first place; the one that raises your hackles! That's something which doesn't seem to happen in any other popular genre of music, and I think that's why traditional doom confuses the hell out of not just the mainstream media, but some of the metal press as well, which is all geared towards the ‘next big thing' and this illusion of ‘progress'. The surface things may change baby, but the substance is always the same!
Hellride Music: Man, you're Bob Dylan to me right now… I couldn't agree more with your take. On to the name of the band… and If you're sick of being asked about the name of the band, skip this one. But if you don't mind indulging the readers, give us the background on the name and it's obvious occult origins. On a side note, do any of you dally in the occult or is the name just a tip of the hat to former townsfolk of old or the occult periodical of the same name?
Simon: The original Lamp of Thoth was the name of a magazine published by an obscure occult group who operated in Keighley around 1888 (the same year The Golden Dawn set up their Horus temple in nearby Bradford.) They sometimes went by this moniker amongst others, and were made up of some very influential people from in and around the Keighley area.
Only two issues of this magazine were originally published (although other people have published magazines on the occult and used the name), and in the short space of their existence (or before they went underground), they managed to put the willies up Madame Blavatsky and MacGregor Mathers who urged their followers to stay well away from the teachings of this group. They accused them of ‘sacrificing goats and raising elementals' and their notoriety was sealed in print through a memo sent to Golden Dawn members, and a warning printed in a Theosophist magazine – Crowley would have loved them!
It's a great story that has a lot of mystery surrounding it, and further investigation into the nefarious activities of this group is warranted! The name is a tip of the hat to this old order, but we also feel a strong connection to the group because we are from the town – we take inspiration from the darkness they unleashed and apply it to our music! I have a theory they are still active and running things from behind the scenes, even manipulating us demonically to play this kind of music. We are just pawns in their game – I probably didn't even write those songs mentioned above, they were probably planted in my brain through hypnotic suggestion!
Hellride Music: You know, that may be the best “what's behind a band name”story I've heard in the almost ten years I've been doing this! Outstanding, for the story alone. Now, I've never been to Keighley, but I've heard it's not exactly a garden spot, with it's roots in the dark mills of the Industrial Revolution. It was quite a spot for Christians of all sorts as well, with St. Andrew's Shared Church and quite a bit of influx from Muslim countries in the last 30 years. I imagine that any combination of these three factors would create some sort of personal or societal tension. What impact, if any, do these factors have on you all as a band? Any impact on how or why you write the music you do?
Simon: I think you have hit the nail on the head there with your articulation of the tensions that surround Keighley, but I'm sure that's true of many cities and towns all across the world. Keighley's history goes way beyond the industrial revolution – it's mentioned in the Doomsday book, the name is Saxon in origin - those two things are metal in themselves! Keighley is a small place and it has a peculiar gravity of its own. The things you mentioned probably do have some subliminal effect on our music, maybe in regards to its melancholic nature. I personally am sick to death of the legions of drug dealers and addicts that live by me, and the drunken trendy fuckwits in the town who want to fight anyone who is different to them, but what can you do?
I once remember being in a pub in Keighley watching the football. It was a few years ago. The place was packed and we were watching England vs Germany. England beat them five nil – a glorious victory. I remember watching the celebrations after the match as the crowds poured out of the pubs and smashed bottles, traffic lights, shouted obscenities at passers by, stopped buses and cars to kick them. I remember being both repulsed and proud at the same time as the police looked on with knowing smiles, waiting for the chaos to subside! That's the kind of town Keighley is! Add to that a steady influx of Muslims and other ethnic minorities due to the government's lax stand on immigration, the effects of terrorism and the war in Iraq on the relations with such communities, the far right using this to try and gain a foothold in the town, and the spineless lackeys of the loony left who seek at every opportunity to undermine England and her heritage with the disaster that is ‘political correctness', and you have the perfect recipe for the keg of dynamite which is Keighley Town, but sadly I think this recipe is one that is repeated all over England.
The only immigration I think that has had a direct effect on our music is when the Saxons invaded, and after that when the Vikings came over. Yorkshire was part of the Danelaw, and a lot of us good Yorkshire folk are descended from them. Like most metallers we have a thing for the old gods such as Wotan, Donner and all the lads and lasses of Asgard, and all their mythology, although we like to filter it through our fetish for the occultism of the Victorian era! We love the myths and legends of Yorkshire – they are something we consciously try to incorporate into our music. There's a rich history of witchcraft, weird creatures – the first spiritualist church in England was in Keighley, even a high rate of UFO's. We have near us many monuments from the beliefs of old; the Druid's Altar, the Twelve Apostles and Swastika Stones in nearby Ilkley and its these things which I think primarily influence our music. We are not really a band that directly deals with social issues, although I think that our emphasis on Yorkshire's past and our local mythical history is a way of reinforcing an identity that is steadily being eroded by our modern multicultural societies.
Hellride Music: Sir Richard Walker of Huddersfield was indirectly responsible for hipping me to you guys. You all obviously share the Yorkshire Bastard Brotherhood, but how did you three hook up with Rich? He's released your EP Cauldron Of Witchery in true Miskatonic fashion... that is, of utmost quality in both sound and form and of limited pressing. As you hear the EP now, what do you think? Anything you'd change?
Simon: Rich managed to get hold of our demo, and because he liked it he recommended that the nefarious Randy Reaper should be raised from the dead and should join us. Randy Reaper has known Rich for nearly a decade. He asked us to play at the Doom Metal Inquisition in Leeds and then offered us the chance to make an album. We are very pleased with the EP, Rich did an amazing job with the layout, and Micheal and Andreas at Rosenquartz Studio in Lubeck, Germany are true professionals. Sound wise and packaging wise there is not a thing that I would change – it sounds great and I'm glad it's been so positively received. My only regret was that I wanted to include an acoustic intro with Frost and Fire that incorporated the first verse, but due to time and me springing it upon the band at the last minute it was not to be. I still think it came out ten times better than I imagined, although there's always that thing of being too close to the music to objectively judge it.
Hellride Music: Speaking of that particular subject, The Cirith Ungol cover was unexpected and very nicely done. Why did you pick that track in particular and was there any argument in covering an American band with England's rich history of Heavy Metal?
Simon: I picked that song because it is my favourite Cirith Ungol track. They are one of my all-time favourite metal bands. They just have a colour and originality to their music, which is beyond most metal bands. There was no argument in covering it – true metal is true metal wherever it hails from! I think also the lyrics just sum up what it is to be alive: somewhere between the frost of the rigid ideal and the fire of the tumultuous passion!
Hellride Music: Let's switch to TLoT live - describe a couple of your finest moments as a live band. It could be playing with another band, a bar fight, equipment problems, errant farts from other band members.. anything that was memorable and entertaining.
Simon: For me our finest moment as a live band was our gig at the Power of Doom festival in Germany supporting Warning and Candlemass. That's the first gig I've played where people have sung our songs back to us and it was quite overwhelming. Met some great people there and had a blast watching the other bands. Germany rules for Heavy Metal – can't wait to go back!
Playing with Pagan Altar in London at the Doom Metal Inquisition was also an honour. The atmosphere was great, all the bands kicked arse and it was a joy to meet all the people who had come from all over the world.
Hellride Music: So you've got the EP out there. Looking into next year, what's in store for the band?
Simon: Next up for us nefarious types is the
Cauldron Of Witchery EP on CD with a couple of bonus tracks and then all being well our first album. In-between we are going to try and play as many shows as we can and try to hone our live act.
Hellride Music: Very good - Simon, many thanks for the interview and the time. You've got a great band there, best of luck in the future. Any last thoughts you'd like to leave us with?
Simon: Cheers Chris, and thanks for the great questions. There's an English Doom Renaissance going on at the moment, with some great bands are out there, such as Sinister Tales, Witchsorrow, Warning, Centurion's Ghost, Iron Hearse and The River, but there's also an English Doom Reformation too, what with the reappearance of Pagan Altar, Solomon Kane, Witchfinder General and Solstice.
Cromwell's severed head and Guy Fawkes' bones! What a time to be a dooming Englishman!
Purchase Portents, Omens, & Dooms and Caldron of Witchery at the Hellride Music Superstore
Listen to an MP3 of I Love The Lamp
Read the Hellride reviews of Cauldron Of Witchery and Portents, Omens, & Dooms
Visit The Lamp Of Thoth website at www.myspace.com/thelampofthoth
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