Back in 2013, my good friend and (at the time) PR pal Loana called me saying, “Don, I just heard your new favorite band. You must listen to this album.” That band was Scorpion Child and after one listen to their self titled debut album, I was absolutely blown away and made a fan. Luckily, The Child would tour relentlessly meaning that I got to see them three times with each time being better than the other. After a couple of member changes and one addition, Scorpion Child finally seems to have found their footing and have released their best work yet, Acid Roulette.
I had the pleasure of talking to my boy Aryn Jonathan Black, lead vocalist for Scorpion Child from his home in Texas. We talked about all kinds of shit such as my recent war of words with Sebastian Bach, his happiness with this lineup, and frustration about always being compared to Robert Plant. Aryn is a really special, mystical kind of dude and I really enjoyed talking with him. Here y’all go!
Aryn, Thank you so much for taking the time to talk today.
What’s up Don? Dude. What the fuck man? How have you been?
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I’m doing great man. It’s awesome to finally have lined up a proper interview with you!
[laughs] Man, it’s always great to hear from you. How is the ATL? Is it as humid and muggy as this place is?
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Aryn, the ATL is nasty as fuck and the pollen. Holy shit. I feel like I’ve been doing lines of pollen off the back of my car or something. My drug of choice these days is Benadryl.
[laughs] Dude, I miss you man.
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So you had a busy press day yesterday. How was it?
Man, apparently today a press day too. I woke up at 9am to Germans calling me and waking me up to talk about the new record [laughs]
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Aryn, what is one question you get asked so much that if you get asked it again, you’ll kick someone?
[laughs] Oh, the natural ushering in of, “So, you have lots of very obvious influences such as…” and I just wait, for it and BOOM, there it is: “Robert Plant.” That’s all I am. Robert Plant. Yup. There it is. Led Zeppelin. Robert Plant. It’s not even the similarity anymore. It’s just that, can people not find any other fucking thing to say [laughs]? It’s just being compared to Led Zeppelin and Robert Plant over and over again throughout my life just drives me fucking nuts. Can you just think of one other person? I always like to take on the interviews where people don’t elude to that. If they say that they hear influences like some weird fucking obscure occult stuff with Nick Cave. Then I’m like, “Let’s do this!” [laughs] Now we’re talking. Now we’re in business.
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It’s true. When I first heard you guys, while I definitely heard the Plant influence I also heard Chris Cornell, Perry Farrell, and even shit like Leaf Hound and Lucifer’s Friend.
Yeah. See, most people don’t normally take that home. That’s the thing about the Zeppelin thing. I have to be such an asshole every time I’m interviewed about the Zeppelin guys. I have to tell the world, “Thank you. I’m honored. I appreciate that but they’ve never been a primary influence of mine.” All the interviews I did for the first album I had had to deal with this. It’s really exhausting. The guys at the label say, “Embrace it man.” I just want to know who Maynard James Keenan is being pegged as [laughs]. No one. He gets to sound like himself.
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It’s no secret that you’re a huge Soundgarden fan.
I mean, they are one of my favorite rock bands. They were so punk in the beginning. They were raw and they had this fucking freak show vocalist who was just in his late teens at the time just killing his voice for the sake of music. Kind of like that record that Harry Nilsson did where he started screaming and he lost everything that was beautiful about his voice. It’s so honorable though. One day I hope to just destroy my voice just to do something like that.
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Well, let’s wait a couple of more albums for that.
[laughs] Yeah, exactly. But you know what I mean? Just the fact that somebody can commit themselves to something like that really shows their true passion.
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Aryn, I haven’t had a chance to hear the whole new album yet as I haven’t received it yet but I have to say, what I heard is on a whole new level. I also love that you guys finally decided to record, “She Sings, I Kill.”
Well, we recorded that for the first album but I just wasn’t sold on it. It sounded so lame [laughs]. The vision that Chris (Cowart; guitarist) and I had for that song was way bigger than was the first recording. This song really needed input from everybody in the band and this time around, there are some really serious players in this band. This time, we just got a much more monstrous representation and we even put it as the first track.
I also love that with this line up, you included a keyboard player instead of a 2nd guitarist. Talk about an awesome new dynamic for the band. I think that bands with two guitar players can sometimes lose that dynamic but this line up has totally nailed it.
Oh yeah, because everybody wants to put their cock on top of their guitar and slap it against the strings and pickups. This setup gives Chris a lot more room to explore himself as a guitar player. He can really navigate between the rhythm section and AJ (keyboardist) and really do some cool stuff. Another guitar player can’t really do that or else it becomes competitive.
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Exactly. With some two guitar bands, it becomes more of a contest of who can out riff the other. If you’re the only guitarist in the band but you have a great keyboard player doing some cool shit, it becomes more of an open pallet for you to do some really cool colors musically.
You know, Don? You get it. You fucking get it. You understand that. I think that there’s a lot of people that don’t get it. I don’t know if they just fail to grasp this or are just confused when I talk about it but instruments can really fight each other. You’re all about it when you’re playing in a hardcore band in high school when everyone’s going 900 miles an hour and totally freaking the fuck out [laughs].
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On the debut, you guys did an awesome cover of the Lucifer’s Friend classic “Keep Going.” Did you guys do any covers for this album at all or extra tracks for b-sides?
Yeah, I did some songs in Atlanta with this other guy but I just didn’t feel that they were “us” but the band promised that they would record them because the label wanted to hear what they sounded like. We just decided that they didn’t fit with the rest of the record. We also did “Hole in the Sky” for the Black Sabbath tribute. Cleopatra Records had actually emailed our old manager about doing a Zeppelin compilation and I said, “Absolutely not.” I asked what else they had going on and at the time the other on they were submitting to bands like us was the Black Sabbath one so I said, “Give it to me.” We really wanted to try “Hole in the Sky” and everyone was really resistant except for the band. I really wanted to do that one because Sabotage is like the height of Ozzy’s drug addiction and everyone in the band was super gnarly and raging. It was one of the hardest songs to do but it was so us.
So much about playing music is about wanting to express your true self. How much pressure is put upon you by say, the powers that be at the label, to try and steer you in a certain way and if so, how do you manage to fight back to stay true to your own vision?
If you allow the label to have a significant amount of influence and you give them the room to have a huge opinion, they are going to create your band. They’ll make what they want to make. If you meet them with resistance, you will have self respect and you’ll be able to go to sleep at night. Maybe you’ll stress the fuck out because they don’t see things the way you see it but ultimately they know and respect you and your brand and your product.
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Sebastian Bach recently made headlines after getting a bad concert review from yours truly. How do you handle it when you receive negative press?
I mean, I am kind of a diva [laughs]. I only say this because I am very particular about how I am being branded. I’m not going to go Sebastian Bach on your ass if I get a shitty review or a live show. These days, with social media, you’re just going to look like a fucking tool if you speak up on a public platform against one shitty review. People are going to say shit. It’s borderline comical now when they make band comparisons. They’re going to continue to do it so I bring it up so I can laugh about it. Now when we get a shitty show review, man, you just have to brush your shoulders off. Whenever we get a Blabbermouth review, I’m so stoked. I’m like, “Everybody just go at it. Tear this apart.” I encourage shit talking on the internet because I think it’s fucking hilarious. I mean, I will see the worst review of our band and I’m like, “Trolls: Enter.” It’s not necessarily reverse psychology because I genuinely want people to talk shit [laughs]. I mean, you can write the shittiest review you can of us and we’d post it and then I’d rip you apart in the link and we could just make a game of it. Then we can make t-shirts that say, “Scorpion Child Hates Me.” [laughs]
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I really just couldn’t believe the level that he took the whole thing to.
I think it was really extremely childish of him to even entertain this. I’ll tell you something Don, Sebastian Bach was one of my favorite singers when I was growing up. He could do what none of us could ever do. When I was young, I didn’t have the tools to do what he did and I think about 99.99% of all rock singers have to come to a point in their life where they have to come to terms with the fact that they will never be Sebastian Bach. He’s had enough great shit happen to him in his life. He’s been told that he was God’s gift to the Earth on multiple fucking occasions but he will still stand as one of my idols.
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If Hollywood was to make a movie about your life, who would play you?
Dude, it better be Val Kilmer [laughs]. He did Jim Morrison. I’d be jealous if he didn’t do me [laughs]. I could always have my cousin Joseph Gordon Levitt to play me. Man, I’ve got some insane stories about me and Joseph Gordon-Levitt hanging out.
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No shit? Is he really your cousin?
Yeah, Joseph Gordon-Levitt my cousin.
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Holy shit man, that’s like a whole other interview.
[laughs] Yeah, that’s a whole other level. He hasn’t talked to me in a good many years after the last party we had [laughs]. Let’s just say I took to the level. I was 26 and I had no shame [laughs].
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Aryn, what was the defining moment that made you want to do what it is you do?
I think just being a fan of music in general. I never went through that phase where I was just a punk rocker or just a metal head. I was into all of that stuff. You have to be not afraid to be into all types of music. I feel that people really need to understand that they really do like all kinds of music. Maybe they just don’t want to admit it. Maybe there’s some shame there but there should be no shame in music. It was all put there for us to enjoy and to take from.
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If you could sing for any band for just one night, who would it be and why?
I would want to be Rozz Williams from Christian Death. It would be such a challenge for me to do such an androgynous voice like that. He was just such an amazing character. Nobody ever talkes about Rozz Williams. I’m just fascinated with androgynous characters. I mean, I become one on stage. It’s like I’m half female and half male. It just happens. I’m able to channel that on stage.
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So what are the plans for touring brother? When can we expect to see you guys?
Man, at this point you’d be better off asking my manager [laughs]. Right now we’re staring at Download Festival and an empty calendar and our record comes out on June 10th. We’ve got an agent who is booking us in all territories and we’ll see what this guy turns up. Apparently he’s having trouble getting us tours in the US. I don’t know exactly why this is an issue because it shouldn’t be an issue at all but apparently, he’s having some degree of difficulty. We just switched agents from another guy who having difficulty so maybe we’re just a bunch of fucking assholes [laughs]. People don’t want to deal with our shit. I guess we’ll just have to be a headlining band and play to ten person clubs and work our way up [laughs].
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Man, when you guys did that tour with Crobot and brought that shit here, that was one of my top concerts that year and barely anyone was there to see it.
Yeah, man. Maybe one day you can say, “Man, I remember when those guys were playing the Masquerade before that place went down in flames, just like fuckin’ Murder Kroger.” [laughs]
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Aryn, this was so much fun dude. I’m so glad we finally got to knock an interview out!
Absolutely, Don. It was great talking to you too, my friend. Say hi to Sebastian Bach for me [laughs].
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