Promo Ho - Expose Yourself!

Artist Name: Clad in Darkness
Location: Chicago
Genre: Death Metal / Black Metal / Progressive
Label: None
Website: www.cladindarkness.com

Clad In Darkness represents a true passion for the music they pursue and the talent to back it up.

Listen to Anamnesis

Interview with Clad in Darkness

By Ben Leslie

Members

Coy - Guitar
John - Guitar
Chris - Bass
Casey - Vocals
Brian - Drums

I understand it was two of you who originally started the band.

Coy: Yeah, John and I are the founding members. We got together 6 or 7 years ago with the idea, being at the same high school.

John: We pretty much learned to play guitar together.

What made you guys try to expand your goals into a full band, and how did you know that these guys were right for it?

Coy: Well, Chris was the first one... How did we know that he was the one John?

Chris: I owned a bass. (laughter)

Coy: Haha, he owned a bass and that was good enough for us. As for Casey, he had vocal cords. At first, we didn't think he would work. He had these high-pitched Cradle of Filth vocals, and we just said no to that, but once he got that out of his system, we decided we needed to keep him.

And then, Brian is our second drummer. The original unfortunately had to leave the band because of law school so Brian is the replacement. We know he is good for Clad in Darkness because he has a wide range of influences and likes a lot of different kinds of music and I think that helps our music because we need all sorts of different influences and input.

What genre do you guys call yourselves?

Everyone: Ambient, progressive, melodic psuedo-death-black metal, doom, psychedelic. I think were nor-core. (laughter)

Casey: We try and keep it open; we don't try and tie ourselves down to a specific genre. We even try to experiment and throw in different styling just to broaden our horizons.

Talk about your influences throughout the years.

Coy: Well, for me and John at first, Mikael Akerfekdt and John Haughm.

What about now?

Chris: Too many to count.

Brian: We just have different upbringings musically and beyond that we just listen to so many different styles of music- different bands, different genres. I don't even think we pull in as much influence as we have. I think you'll see more of that later on as we keep writing new songs.

When you look at how you've grown as a band, what do you see?

Chris: We started more as a straight up metal band following in the path of Opeth or Agalloch. Now it seems that our new songs are getting less and less metal- based and more willing to venture out into a lot more quiet acoustic and ambient sounding things.

Casey: But there's still that basic core of the band that still has that really aggressive, dark feeling to it. A feeling that's always in the music no matter what style is being played.

Casey: Personally, my vocal style is always growing. Each time we practice I try something new. I try a different styling of vocals just to expand. I've been trying both screaming and cleaner vocals throughout the past couple months.

What does the future hold in terms of new material and on the live scene?

Coy: We don't have any shows scheduled after this. We've been writing more than playing shows recently, but we basically haven't turned down a show no matter what kind of music was playing.

Brian: We don't limit ourselves to the kind of shows because you never know who is going to like what even if they don't normally listen to this type of music.

Where are you guys looking to go from here?

Casey: Everytime we practice we're really opening our eyes and opening our doors and trying new things and really broadening our horizons as musicians.

Coy: Right now were trying to figure out what our art work is going to be for a new demo.

Does the disc have a name yet?

Coy: Ummm, there are a few working titles; we haven't decided for sure yet.

We kind of procrastinate; we're kind of picky; we have all sorts of different ideas for the cover art, but no one can agree so we've been going back and forth about that. So after all thatšs figured out, we're probably just going to press the demo and send it to different labels and see who's interested.

What are you guys looking to take from this personally?

Casey: I think we can all agree that if we're making music we enjoy, as far as success goes, it doesn't matter as long as we can make something that really has a feeling that sticks with us and is something that we enjoy.

Coy: Like I said, John and I have been playing for 6 or 7 years, and wešre still playing the same kind of shows. So, we[re doing what we want to do, and it's just something that we enjoy. We've been doing it for so long that if something happens in terms of a label, it happens, but if not, we're just going to keep playing.

Chris: Yeah, we're just having fun and doing something that's meaningful to us. It would be great if a label would take interest in us so we could make this a full time job, but thatšs none of our prime motivations and none of us really expect that to happen.

Coy: Yeah, our music is not for any specific type of person. We just write music and, I think a lot of different people can take a lot of different things from it. Thatšs just what we're about.

Casey: This is music for us, music that we enjoy, music that we love. No matter what's going on in the world, no matter whatšs cool, whatšs not- this is what we have to say.

Here's your chance to be a PromoHo, plug whatever you'd like in here:

John: I think collectively we'd all like to mention the book Ethan Frome, by Edith Wharton, just because we're the kind of guys who love to promote literacy. If only there were more metal bands like us out there! Also, we'd like to thank Zubrowka vodka and Gunther , for showing the world that it's ok to be sexy and for men to wear shiny lipgloss. (Only Kidding)