Portland, Oregon doom masters Lord Dying have just released their latest platter of sludge face metal called Poisoned Alters. On a very busy press day Erik Olson was cool enough to talk with me about all things metal. We talked about trying to break from the mold of a geographic sound of metal, his excitement for hitting the road once again, and what his thoughts are on the current state of metal.
Lord Dying will be hitting the road on an extensive tour behind Poisoned Alters as support for Canadian metal legends Anvil. The tour will kick off on February 5th in New York City and will wind down on March 20th in Seattle, WA. Be sure to get out there and check out Lord Dying and in the meantime enjoy this interview with Erik Olson.
Erik, thanks so much for taking the time out to talk today. How are you, brother?
Man, I’m doing pretty good. How about yourself?
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You’ve had quite the busy press day.
[laughs] Yeah, it’s been pretty busy.
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I have really been digging the fuck out of Poisoned Alters. This really feels like a step forward for Lord Dying’s sound.
Thanks, man. Yeah, I think our sound is really evolving and that’s where we are currently.
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Erik, 2015 is a brand new year and there are all kinds of cool shit on the books for Lord Dying. What are you looking forward to the most?
Man, we just hope to get out on the road and tour as much as possible. Hopefully we get to get out to a bunch of new places and some new countries. We’re just really excited to get back out on the road and start playing these new songs.
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Lord Dying has a really extensive tour lined up with metal legends Anvil. Are you pumped for that or what?
This is going to be our first time meeting Anvil. The first show will up in New York City in a few weeks. We’re really looking forward to that tour. It’s definitely going to a long tour [laughs]. It should be a lot of fun.
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I was looking at the dates for this tour and it’s a pretty fucking grueling schedule. How do you keep up that kind of pace without burning out early on into a tour?
It can be tough for sure [laughs]. Trying to moderate the drinking is a big help with that [laughs]. We toured so much for the last album and it really got kind of exhausting for me. I pretty much had to quit drinking and tried to get myself a lot healthier by working out and eating better. That’s just kind of what happens. Touring can really wear you down but once you get in the groove you just get going with it.
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Sometimes when there’s a certain movement of metal it gets pegged with a geographic location. Do you feel like there is actually a signature “Portland sound” so to speak?
Yeah, to a degree for sure. There’s a lot of doom oriented bands from here. We try to not sound too much like a lot of them. It’s just in Portland but in the Northwest in general. I think that the sound has a lot to do with the weather being that it’s very gloomy weather. There’s like 9 months out of the year where you’re forced to stay inside [laughs]. There’s always just been this sound up here, especially for heavy music in general. I see that coming through a lot of the bands. We definitely try to not completely sound like everybody else but it is part of that sound.
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So do you feel that Lord Dying works a little harder to try and not sound like the other bands from your part of the country?
Yeah, to an extent. To be honest, we don’t really notice how many of the local bands sound anymore because we’re on tour so much. We know a lot of the bigger bands from around here that have been around longer. Honestly, there are so many bands around here that it’s hard to keep up with what’s going on in the scene [laughs]. There are so many doom and funeral doom bands around here and we don’t really sound like that necessarily. We try and stick out for sure.
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If you had to describe the sound of Lord Dying to someone who has never heard you before how would you describe it?
I would say it’s aggressive and heavy with some thrash and even some death elements in there. There’s also a heavy sludge element in there but to be honest, it’s just metal.
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Over the years metal has seen so many new genre tags getting pinned to it that it’s really gotten out of hand. Do you ever feel the potential to get lost in the shuffle with how people will identify Lord Dying?
Yeah, actually, I totally do. I feel like people like to put a label on everything that makes them feel more comfortable. I don’t necessarily like to do that with us. We’re constantly trying to push what we do in different directions and as the band evolved I think those genre labels words before that or whatever its fine.
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What other bands would you love to see Lord Dying tour with that you haven’t already been on the road with?
I’d love to see us tour with High on Fire. We get compared to them a lot but I don’t think we really sound that much like them [laughs]. I think that would be a great tour though. We’d love to do something with Mastodon or Clutch. I’d love tour with Morbid Angel or Morgoth [laughs]. That would really be cool.
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How do you feel about the current state of metal music and what metal is being perceived as by the general public.
I think that right now metal is bigger than it’s been for a long time or since the 90’s. I think the internet has a lot to do with that which in some ways is really good but at the same time it’s been really bad for record sales. It’s kind of a catch 22 kind of thing. I think that there is so much interesting metal going on that it’s still a really exciting thing to be into. At the same time so much has been done that it’s going to be hard to imagine what can be done in the future.
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Metal music seems to really be experiencing a cycle of sorts as we see a lot of young, up and coming bands playing a more classic, old school kind of metal. Do you think that metal is just going to keep recycling itself over the years and if so is that ok?
Oh yeah. I mean, definitely. I think we’re going to see a big resurgence in old school death metal. I’m already seeing a lot of bands playing that kind of style. Death metal in itself has just become so much different than how it started. I think that everything just comes full circle and I totally see it happening in the future.
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What is it about metal in general that appealed to you and inspired you start playing this kind of music?
Well, I was really into punk rock growing up and I just wanted something more aggressive. That’s where metal came. I just loved the technicality of the music and I loved the aggression and anger. That’s why I love metal to be honest.
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What was the album or band that started it all off for you?
Slayer’s Reign in Blood. What a great album.
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In your opinion, what is one metal album that nobody should go without owning or hearing?
Morbid Angel’s Alters of Madness [laughs]. That album is amazing.
Finally, outside of the huge ass exhausting Anvil tour, what other things do you have planned for 2015?
[laughs] Just to tour as much as possible. We’re still in the process of confirming some stuff. There’s nothing we can officially announce just yet but definitely there will be some more US tours. We’re hoping to get back over to Europe in the fall and hopefully some other countries that we haven’t been to yet like Australia and Japan.
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Erik, thanks so much for talking to me today, brother. Best of luck with the upcoming tour and with the new album. When you make it back to Atlanta let’s have a beer or two in moderation.
[laughs] Right on, man. We’ll do that for sure. Thanks a lot! Take care.
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