Earlier this month I had the pleasure of doing an interview with Cryptopsy’s own Lord Worm. He turned out to be a very intelligent and eloquent conversation partner with interesting views on the current political situation in the US, the metal scene in general, the past and present of Cryptopsy and of course on the band’s latest offering, ‘Once Was Not’…
‘Once Was Not’ makes your return after seven year absence from Cryptopsy. How does it feel to be back on the vocalist spot again?
I do not mind, on and off. It is a job. I do not want to take all the romance out of it, but let’s be realistic. When all is said and done it is still a job. It is a very unusual and at times very rewarding job and at times funny too, but it is nevertheless a job. So I am basically working. Things are working very nicely and it is nice to work with Alex and Chris, the new kid, and the non-musical Cryptopsy team, like the management and label. I do not want to say that it is good to be back, but it certainly is satisfying.
Is the old fire burning again or were you confronted with an entirely new vibe within the band?
It is still a whole new situation. The old fire, or however you would like to refine it, is not what it used to be. It has evolved over that seven year absence. I would not say it is gone, it has simply changed. When you reach a certain age fires burn differently. A different kind of heat thing. Back then it was for the love of the metal lifestyle and the whole partying atmosphere. Chicks and beer and loud music. Just doing all the things your parents say you should not do, because they are not safe. Now it is safe. It is a business and there is maintenance of professialism and doing interviews, which I did not do much back then. You cannot be a kid about it anymore.
Do you miss in a sense the innocence of the early Cryptopsy days?
Yeah, but not in a sense of performing or Cryptopsy, but I do miss the music scene like it used to be. It was better defined. Metal was Metal and hardcore/punk was hardcore. It did not matter what kind of Metal it was. This was this and that was that. When you were a Metal head, you were a Metal head. When you were in the mood you could crossover to hardcore, but you had to dress hardcore. Nowadays anyone can go to any show no matter how they look, it does not matter. Now you can go to a NOFX show and no one says ‘boo’. Twenty years ago people would say that you looked like a bouncer or a cop or something like that. There is no longer definition like it used to be. All this crossover crap. For me it is crap. I hate this homogenised scene. That is why I love true Black Metal so much.
You mean like the Darkthrones of this world?
Hard to find any truer, haha. Black Metal is very specifically defined, a last bastion of inhumanity. Conservatism if you will.
Is it really such a bad thing that different musical scenes are merging? As long as it results in good quality music, I personally do not mind…
It is not such a bad thing, but at the same time it is the whole global village idea all over again. We are all one and plain. No, we are not one and the same. Just due to pigmentation, there is the common gardener-snake you will find all over Canada. It has basically a black back with a single, usually yellowish, stripe. As soon as you change the yellow for a more pinkier stripe, it becomes an entirely different species. It is exactly the same snake, but they suddenly call it the San Francisco gardener-snake. Yet, we are all homo sapiens, no matter what. For instance, according to Madonna and Mariah Carey, we are all rock musicans playing popular music.
Personally, I would not say that Cryptopsy fits into the popular music category…
According to their definition we do, because we are ‘not unpopular’. That is what I say. It is the lack of definition and the whole homogenised thing. It is not confusing, but I am sorry, I like structure and order and I like to define things. If you are a carpenter or a welder, you need to measure things precisely. A 3/8 does not fit into a 5/8, because it is too loose. I have a hard time with it, because I like to define musical genres.
The irony of it all is that Cryptopsy is a huge influence on the latest breed of bands that are fusing Death Metal with hardcore…
You were asking me about the old fire. We have just defined how the old fire is not what it was. I do what I do, because I was asked to do it and I decided to do it, but it is not out of love for the thing. This is not ‘None So Vile’ anymore, and I do not say I hate it, but it does not have the gen specificity that I would be comfortable with.
I would like to move on to ‘Once Was Not’, the current Cryptopsy album. What are you own views on the album?
Do you want a full paragraph or just under three words? I have answers for both. I would like to state that every single track has its own personality and every person on the planet can hear that it is Cryptopsy. It is not Slayer, it is Cryptopsy. I am proud for them (the other Cryptopsy members.ed) that they managed to get their own sound. I do not have my own sound, I just do what I do. In my absence they defined their own sound, I cannot take credit for ‘Whisper Supremacy’ and ‘And Then You’ll Beg’ or the live work of Martin Lacroix.
Which albums are of influence to the musical development of the band?
Hard to say, I remember the mood we had during the ‘Blasphemy’ days and that was one mood. We exponentionally amplified that mood on ‘Vile’ and then I left, so I do not know what happened after that. I do not know what the other guys were thinking at the time, but they chose to go in an entirely different direction, which is just as good but different, it is as if they stepped sideways. I went to the left, they went to the right.
With your succesor, Mike DiSalvo, somebody came in the band with an entirely different vocal approach…
We made the conscious decision to hire Mike. We wanted him and we got him. He moved from Boston to Montreal, married a Montrealian girl. Before I left, I trained him. He did what he could and so did I. According to the fans he did a pretty good job. So there you go. We remained buddies over the years and we are still friends to this day.
There is a concept behind ‘Once Was Not’. Can you eleborate on that?
Yes there is a concept. The common thread here is Flo Mournier’s concept. He called me with his ideas, I agreed on the concept and eventually we ended up with ‘Once Was Not’. I only had to find the right theme for it and could choose from a multitude of things. Flo asked me to come up with something that once was and now is. I chose human fear. I mean, let’s face it, not so much here in Europe, but in North America, specifically in the States, whose culture we are indendated with. The prevalent mood seems to be fear. Do not do this, do not do that, by the way we are the best, watch out for this, watch for that. My god, stop! So it is easy to write about fear, because of all its manifestations. Primitive man’s fear was of nature, so we set up camp fires to keep the wild animals at bay. Modern man’s fear is about diseases, like SARS which we had in Canada some time ago. And all the fears in between. Take the Spanish Inquisition, that was based on fear. Fear of the unknown and fear of dying are nice ones too. Only the dead know, but they are not telling. A whole album based on fear, ‘Phobophile’ part deux, haha.
As a final question what are your personal fears?
I do not fear. I do not care enough about things to fear for its loss. I am going to lose it anyway, one way or the other, either before I die or when I am dead. What is the point of worrying about it?
