Out of Portland comes Lord Dying, an up and coming doom band that possess both promise and musical ability. Vocalist and guitarist Eric Olson gives Ghost Cult the low down on the band, their signing to Relapse and working with Sanford Parker.
Your debut album is about to drop. What are your expectations as far as feedback goes?
We hope people will like what they hear, but ultimately we play these songs because its something we like and something we believe in and if other people like that’s cool but if they don’t that’s cool too, we will continue to do it either way.
Can you share some light on the band’s origins?
Lord Dying began in early 2011 and we played our first show with Red Fang on July 4th at East End in Portland Oregon. Originally Chris and Jon had been jamming with Andrew Forgash of Danava, but he was pretty busy with Danava so they asked me to play and at the first rehearsal it clicked really well and we wrote ‘In A Frightful State Of Gnawed Dismemberment’ a song we still play today.
Tell us a little bit about the recording process for Summon the Faithless.
The recording process was a great experience.We recorded with Sanford Parker at Jackpot Studios in Portland Oregon and he is a killer engineer and all around awesome guy. We recorded 10 songs in 10 days. We wanted to get the songs to sound absolutely the best the songs could sound.
The sludge/doom metal scene is pretty crowded nowadays. What makes Lord Dying stand out in the crowd according to you?
We try to bring something new to the table, sometimes leaning more towards thrash or even the death metal spectrum of metal.
Lord Dying is signed to Relapse. How did you guys manage to land the deal?
Matt Jacobsen (the President of Relapse) lives in Portland and he had been coming to our shows locally and expressed interest in our band, but there were other pieces to the puzzle. The main office is in Philadelphia and we had to play a couple of shows out there before we received an official offer. We are very happy to be on Relapse, they are a great crew to work with and it has opened a lot of doors for us so far and our album isn’t even out yet!
It was never easy to make a living from playing metal, but for for younger bands it seems nearly impossible to make ends meet. How do you cope with that?
It’s tough. Financially we usually take a hit every time we hit the road, but this is what we love to do so it’s worth it in the end.
What does the future hold for the band?
We are going to try to be on the road as much as possible and continue to put out records. This is what we love to do. See you at the show!
Raymond Westland