A few years back, a friend of mine headed out to The Earl in Atlanta to cover a show for me. The band that was playing that night was Kylesa but later that night I would get a text that would change my life forever. Ok, I know that it sounds drastic but hey, when someone sends you a text that says, “Don, I just saw your new favorite band”, you know that this is kind of a big deal. I asked him the name of the band and he told me that they were a great occult rock band from Toronto called Blood Ceremony. Right away I went to the computer, pulled up Spotify and cranked their latest (at the time) album, The Eldritch Dark. I immediately proceeded to kick myself for missing this show but I vowed to never let this band out of my site.
Since that very night, I have purchased every one of Blood Ceremony’s fantastic, mesmerizing albums and I patiently, well as patiently as I could, awaited for the band to put out some new material. My wishes were finally granted when the band announced that this year they would be releasing a new album entitled, Lord of Misrule. I had the extreme pleasure to talked to lead vocalist/organist, flautist Alia O’Brien via telephone and we talked about the band’s new album, just what it was that inspired her to play music, and what one of her all time obscure rock albums is. This was a great conversation with a truly great and talented person and I hope you will enjoy this one.
Alia, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me today.
No worries, Don. It’s my pleasure.
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How has interview day been for you?
It’s been really good. It’s been fun actually. You are my last one so after this one I get to chill out [laughs]. T
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That’s great. Well hopefully they didn’t all wear you out before this one.
[laughs] Oh no. I’ve had so much coffee so it’s all good [laughs].
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I first heard of Blood Ceremony from a friend who saw you guys opening for Kylesa here in Atlanta a few years back. I immediately picked up The Eldritch Dark and from there I was a diehard fan. Was this particular album a bigger gateway for new fans than say the previous ones?
Yes, definitely. Without a doubt. I think that was the album that wasn’t so much a breakthrough album because we’re not like Ghost going to the Grammy’s [laughs]. I think we did see a big increase in our listenership following The Eldritch Dark. At this point, I think we grew more interest in the art of song crafting. I think that songwriting is a muscle that you have to work on and I think maybe by the time we got to the Eldritch Dark we were a bit more interested in composing slightly shorter, more cohesive songs. We had a lot of long songs on the prior albums. I love a long song just like anybody else. I listen to doom and prog and those are two genres of music where songs are long. I think we had a lot of sort of more concise, paired down material on The Eldritch Dark so maybe, in a way, it was more palatable. I saw “Goodbye Gemini” as a sort of a three minute pop song almost so that’s a sort of good way to enter into the bands repertoire and get a feel for the sound really quick.
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The new album, Lord of Misrule, absolutely blew me away. I’ll be honest, I was a bit nervous about this one because you know when you love a band so much, you always hope that this isn’t the album that will let you down. On this one, the songwriting and performances are your strongest to date and I felt the production once again captured the essence of Blood Ceremony. Production must be a very important facet of Blood Ceremony.
Oh yes, absolutely. We worked with this producer named Liam Watson and he got a really good sound for us. We worked with Ian Blurton for The Eldritch Dark and the single we did afterwards. Part of the success of that album, I believe, needs to be attributed to Ian who really crushed it. He got what we were about and got a nice, richer way of sound. He also got really good live performances out of us. He would make us run the songs over and over until they were beyond super tight. We really owe a lot to him.
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So what made you guys decided to record in England vs. Toronto?
We demoed a song here in Toronto and we just weren’t getting the sounds that we wanted. We knew that we couldn’t record this album unless we were getting a good sound. The entire band was on the same page because we all wanted the album to have that analog sound. We wanted it to sound stark and haunting and even for a pop song like “Flower Phantoms” or a heavy old school rock song like “Old Fires”, we wanted everything to be drenched a bit of downer darkness. Because none of us are producers ourselves, it was hard for us to put into words what we were after. I think we knew we would get it at Toerag Studios. It was a little bit of an impulse decision to make the jump from recording in Toronto to get in as quickly as we could to Toerag in London but luckily scheduling worked out. We called Lee, the head of our label, and he worked things out for us. It was a weird whirlwind thing that just felt right. I’m so beyond glad we did it because it was an incredible experience. I know for a fact that it wouldn’t be close to the album that it is if Ian hadn’t been at the healm.
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When you guys went into the studio, did you all have the songs written already or did you write in the studio?
We had everything written going in, maybe with the exception of a few solos because sometimes it’s nice to have just a little bit spontaneity thrown in there. For our kind of music, you can hear it when things are too intricately rehearsed. That being said, when we got to the studio, Ian actually helped us to re-arrange a couple of the tracks’ instrumental parts. Like for “Flower Phantoms” for example, it had a bit of a busy, almost garage rock feel at first and he really paired things back so that it became this really kind of stark, haunting number. We were re-jigging our parts when we were in the studio but generally speaking, the songs were done. We’ve been in that situation before where we were in the studio and writing. When you have limited time and you have so much to do, it doesn’t feel good to be in that position.
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I would imagine that lyrically the songs can also suffer if you are in an environment where you are feeling pressure and feeling rushed to complete things.
Exactly. You do get a little bit of adrenaline when doing this but you don’t want to be pressed for time and we always are no matter what. I love being in the studio and I try to make it as pleasant an experience as possible.
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I read in a previous interview where you stated that you love being in the studio just as much as playing live but that playing live is still such an essential thing for you. Do you go into the writing and recording process with an idea of how these songs will be projected live?
I think some of them as we’re preparing them for recording we will say, “This is going to be a great live song” but others, such as “Loreley” is a studio song and will probably never be played live. Something like “Flower Phantoms”, our 2nd single, that song as it stands would be hard to replicate live. It would be too difficult but we will re-work that one and maybe revert it back into its more garage rock form and play a different version of that one live. Generally speaking, we have ideas for the studio and we just know that maybe certain songs won’t be played live.
Blood Ceremony gets frequently put into the occult rock category. Is this a place that you feel comfortable residing?
Yeah, why not. For me, when we started out, when I thought of occult rock I thought of Coven and Black Widow and I think that’s sort of what that label was applied to. It was after we became a band a few other similar bands emerged that they started applying that label to us and other bands so it became this kind of neo-occult rock movement. It’s kind of weird because we were a band before we were being called occult rock. Occult rock feels alright even though not all of our songs deal with the occult. In fact, I think very few do [laughs]. I think genres are really weird. I think of our band as Blood Ceremony and we sound like Blood Ceremony and I sing about Blood Ceremony things [laughs]. It’s like it’s a world unto itself in my mind. Having a genre label applied to the band is useful because then we sort of get embedded into this larger scene which maybe more people are paying attention to. I think the way that people consume music these days through streaming services that will suggest new bands for you based on what you’ve listened to so I think it’s useful to be connected to these other groups. I also think that a lot of the bands that fall under the occult rock I really like too so it’s nice to be in good company.
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This music seems like it’s totally been having a renaissance over the last few years. What do you think it is about this kind of music that appeals to the masses?
I have no idea [laughs]. It’s been quite bizarre. We’ve been around for 10 years so when we started, we were listening to bands like Electric Wizard and Witchcraft but there weren’t a ton of bands around doing this. In fact, I remember listening to Witchcraft and being shocked that there was a band today making music like that, the kind of music that I loved. I was shocked that people were listening to it or that people cared about it and that people were making that type of music because there was an appetitie for it. It would absolutely ridiculous today to be surprised that people have an appetite for old school riff rock basically. It’s weird. A lot has changed in the last decade. Part of me thinks that this sort of abundance of re-issue labels specializing in heavy rock and psych rock from around the world has something to do with it. Akarma was one such re-issue label that I remember from ages ago. Now, it’s so easy to buy re-issued, rare heavy rock albums that maybe the sounds are just in people’s ears more. They’re good sounds so maybe people just want to play that kind of music.
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In Blood Ceremony, do any of your personal, spiritual beliefs play a part in the creative process at all?
Not really. Well, it’s hard to say. I don’t want to speak for the other guys. I know they all have their own views on these things but for me I have a fascination with the mysterious and the unknown. For example, I’m doing my PhD in Ethnomusciology and I’m studying Islamic mysticism. I’m not a religious person but I am taken with the idea of things that are that are unknown, that are beyond tangibility. Along the same lines, a lot of great horror and fiction deals a lot with that sort of murky unknown. I think that to that extent, there’s sort of a crossover between my personal interests and sort of the lyrical content of Blood Ceremony songs. I think that songwriting is another form of magic because you are creating something that is going to shape the mental state and cognizant state of other people. It’s a pretty powerful thing to be involved in. We have fun with it but it’s also something to be taken very seriously. None of us really practice witchcraft or anything but we still want to sing about it [laughs].
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But that’s ok because that’s what I love about being a songwriter. When writing a song, you can be whoever and whatever you want!
Yes, you really can. You can play different characters depending on the story that you’re telling. Sean (Kennedy; guitars/songwriter) is a real bibliophile. He collects antiquarian books and brings that sort of literary, storytelling sensibility to a lot of the lyrics he writes which is very cool. We have songs that are small stories unto themselves which is also kind of nice because you can get lost in the world of a song just for a moment while you are listening to it and your immediately reality shifts albeit just for a moment.
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Alia, now let’s talk about you! What was it that actually made you want to play music in the first place?
I don’t know. I’m sure a lot of other musicians would say the same thing but music chose me. Ever since I was young I’ve loved music and obsessed over music. I was an unhealthily obsessed Beatles fan when I was elementary school[laughs]. Later on I became obsessed with jazz and with Jethro Tull and heavy rock. I’ve always played music. I started out playing piano. I wasn’t very good but I’ve always loved listening to songs that I enjoyed and figuring them out on the piano. I could spend all day doing that. When I started playing flute I would just lock myself in the basement and practice for seven hours a day. It was like I was possessed. For me, it wasn’t a conscious decision. It was almost like I had no choice [laughs].
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What is your go to album that you gravitate to whenever you need that inspiration or push?
Oh my God. To choose one is impossible [laughs]. I’m sitting in front of my records right now looking at them [laughs]. I go through these really intense phases. I can speak for where I am right now. For the past five years I’ve been really obsessed with soul music from the late 60’s/early 70’s. Two of my favorite albums are late era Impressions albums. That was Curtis Mayfield’s band. The two albums that are quite incredible for me are Young Mod’s Forgotten Story and This is My Country. I think This is My Country, in particular, I’ve been listening to non-stop. I love it because it’s a soul album but there’s all these really overt nods to mod baroque pop. It’s just a really weird album but it’s really good and the songwriting is outstanding. The rhythm section is on fire. The themes deal with love and loss so it’s very emotional but very positive. It’s just such a great album.
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I love asking people this question because this is how I find some amazing music to listen to. I’m going to go dig this album up as soon as we get done with this.
[laughs] Yeah. As part of my degree, I teach a course every Friday called Global Popular Music. It’s amazing and it’s a very cool course. Whenever I’m doing my first tutorial, I’m sitting there with like 20 students who are all in their early 20’s and as an ice breaker I just go around the classroom and ask them which one album they would take to a desert island or what they’ve been listening to the most lately. I write it all down and then I go and listen to it all so that I can hear where they’re coming from and maybe even learn about some new stuff.
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I’ll share mine with you just because I feel that everyone should hear this one. It’s David Crosby’s debut solo album If I Could Only Remember My Name. Whenever I’m in a mood, I put that album on and it just makes it all better.
That is awesome. I’m plugging that one into YouTube as we speak. The power of music. That is like casting a spell over yourself.
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In your opinion, what is one psych rock masterpiece that you feel everyone should own?
Hm. Can it just be sort of heavy rock?
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This is your interview so it can be whatever the hell you want it to be.
[laughs] Ok, cool. I’m going to have to say the Jerusalem album. The album was released in 1972 and it was produced by Ian Gillan. It’s the self-titled album. There’s one super heavy song on the album called “Primitive Man” but there’s some other really dirty kind of psychedelic garage rock songs on it. It’s just a really good album. I think everyone should have that album. I’ve been feeling that one a lot lately. It was re-released pretty recently so it should be easy to get as far as I know.
Who are some of the more modern doom/occult/psych kind of bands that you have been digging yourself?
Uncle Acid always. I love them. I’m really into Electric Citizen. I think they have a really good sound. I’m a big fan of theirs and they really have their own thing going on. It’s like polished but sleazy and Laura’s voice is really good. They get really good sounds in the studio. I really like them. Jess and the Ancient Ones too. We played a show with them in Finland. Jess has an amazing voice. Her voice is incredible. They almost reminded me of like The Devil’s Blood in a way with that over driven Fleetwood Mac kind of sound.
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Making it big playing music these days is such a different thing than making it big back in the day. What do you consider making it big?
I think Ghost made it big when they won a Grammy and played on the Colbert Report. It was like they made it.
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Do you look at something like that with hopes that it may open doors just a bit wider for bands like Blood Ceremony?
Absolutely, and I think it will. I think anytime a band like Ghost sees that kind of success, it will have a ripple effect for bands like us. I think we will see the effects of that but I also don’t think anything like that is in the realm of the possible for Blood Ceremony [laughs]. Again, that’s the beauty of being lumped in under a certain genre label. If one band does well, the rest of the bands are going to see the impact of that.
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I want you to finish this sentence: If I wasn’t a musician, I would be __________.
A writer which I guess I kind of am already [laughs]. In academia you end up writing a lot. I love writing.
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Finally, what is in the cards for Blood Ceremony as far as touring behind Lord of Misrule?
We have two weeks lined up at the end of April but aside from that we are keeping our options open. Many of us have our summers relatively free so we’ll see if something pops up.
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Hopefully there will be an Atlanta stop so we can talk David Crosby, Jerusalem, and have a beer or three.
[laughs] That would be amazing. If we get down there, and I hope we do, than yes. I would love that.
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Alia, thank you so much for taking the time to talk today. I really enjoyed getting to know you today and best of luck to you.
Thank you so much, it was my pleasure. This was a great interview. I really enjoyed it.
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