Worm Ouroboros is a skilled three piece band hailing from San Francisco that excels in crafting a brittle and deliberate breed of aural stimulation that shimmers with an almost otherworldly beauty. The combined vocal harmonies of Guitarist Jessica Way and Bassist Lorraine Rath intertwine with soft, delayed guitars – their delicate warmth suddenly giving way to a thick wave of distortion and Aesop Dekker’s complex, organic drum patterns that together wash over and envelop the listener in their tide. I was fortunate enough to sit down and chat with the group over dinner after their most recent show at Berkeley’s Gilman Project this past August. Read the full interview and checkout shots from the band’s live set after the jump!
So, Worm Ouroboros recently completed an expansive east coast tour with Agalloch. Compared to Agalloch’s harsher style of music, what was the reception like?
L. Rath: I thought it went really well, I was actually surprised it went so well – not that I was I’m being negative but because they have such a strong fanbase who were expecting metal. I think that for the most part, most of the shows were very receptive to us and very patient, even the kids who had been standing outside for an hour and a half to see Agalloch.
J. Way: New York in particular was amazing. It was such a huge venue, and they [the fans] were so respectful and engaged.
Hailing from the Bay Area scene, were there any noticeable or palpable differences between playing local shows in the area and the East Coast scene?
Aesop: We actually didn’t see a lot of local bands, so I don’t know that we really got a sense of what was going on in that town. I think it’s the same for the most part – When I go on tour, I don’t feel like part of a ‘bay area scene’, I feel more a part of the bigger national metal scene as a whole.
What exactly is it about the bay area environment that you think influences the sound of the artists that come out of it? What aspects of city life bleed into the music?
L. Rath: I think The bay area is just kind of a mecca for people looking for their creative outlet. Its kind of an island of lost toys
Aesop: I agree – Jessica’s the only one of us in a band that grew up in the bay area, everyone else moved here from somewhere else. I think a lot of times the bay area has better bands than a lot of other places because of a sort of built in quality control – there’s not a lot of venues and if your band isn’t good, you just not going to get shows and you’re just going to disappear. If your band is good, people are willing to come out and you’ll have a long life.
So there’s sort of a self-cleansing mechanism built into the area, so to speak?
Aesop: Yeah, to an extent. I’ve also noticed that something especially with Oakland – people start bands that are really awesome, and they’ll be around for maybe like a year, maybe make a record or not, but sometimes the mentality is ‘lets start a band to drink beer with our friends’, but those bands go by the wayside pretty quickly while the bands that are more serious and doing interesting things will last a long time or gain some notoriety.
Outside of environmental influences, are there any particular bands, metal or otherwise, that you think have influenced the band’s sound?
L. Rath: You know, honestly, Its not that I’m not influenced by other bands, but I think that Aesop and Jessica have their fingers on the pulse of what’s going on a little bit better than I do. I think I draw influence more from literary or other sources of inspiration that aren’t a specific genre of music or a specific band.
J. Way: I think a lot of the idea behind Worm Ourobors was to do something completely different, and write music the way we played when no one else was around. We weren’t specifically trying to fit into a style or a theme.
Where does the band draw its non-musical/lyrical/thematic inspiration from? How exactly does the writing process work for you?
L. Rath: I guess non-music, we’re all kind of big on nature, which sounds kind of trite, but it’s true.
Aesop: And film.
L.Rath: Yeah, nature and film. I think we take a very cinematic soundtrack-esque approach to the things that we write, and I think that’s why we end up with kind of a broad palette to work with, and why its very dynamic, because we’re telling a story that goes over very rough terrain over a long period of time, and we kind of think about things that way, its more linear, in a way of storytelling. I think it’s more format wise, rather than pointing out specific books or movies, just the style of telling a linear story with a theme.
J.Way: What Lorraine and I are playing when we’re writing it, we’re actually consciously thinking about what the song is about and what the mood is at that point, and really more what the basslines or the guitarlines are really saying at that point in the song.
L.Rath: I don’t think I’ve ever approached a project where it was just songs. When it comes down to recording, if you’re going to record an album, its important to make it a cohesive piece, with kind of an overall theme. It doesn’t have to be something literal – I don’t ever want to tell anyone who’s listening to it what they need to hear out of it, but for us, to give it the shape and the balance of a story – its really important for us to have a theme and a feeling for it and approach it that way. To give it a skeletal structure to hang things on, we just seem to work really well that way.
Not that I’m a fan of labeling bands as I think it sort of cheapens what they do, but Worm Ouroboros tends to play with a fairly eclectic group of other bands. What genre do you think the band fits in?
L. Rath: You know, sometimes its nice to not be involved in all the genres and pigeonholing the bands into them.
Aesop: I’ve seen Worm described as post rock, or doom, or neofolk, or….
L. Rath: It’s not the first time I’ve seen this happen, but I think for this show someone described us as experimental. Now, I think that’s lazy. Basically, you don’t know what to call us so you’re going to say we’re experimenting. No, you’re experimenting in ways to categorize us, because what we’re doing is very melodic, if anything it’s almost classical the way we move between parts – it’s linear, I mean I wouldn’t say it’s based on a riff but it’s definitely based on a theme of things. It’s just sort of a default.
It definitely takes more skill to explain what a band is without using genres or labels and just using descriptive words alone.
Aesop: Or using other band’s names, I mean I find that with the blog because I have to write about a band every fucking day. It’s a challenge to not go, ‘yeah, these guys sound like Voivod’ or ‘this band sound like Mayhem’, and I’ll do it, you know, I’ll default to it. It’s hard, describing sound is difficult. I mean look at Ludicra. I never felt comfortable calling Ludicra a black metal band – after the first album I didn’t feel like it fit. What do you call Agalloch? Agalloch’s certainly not a black metal band.
The first time I went to Europe with Agalloch, I was drinking in the bar at the hotel, and the festival was about to start so there’s kind of like metalheads showing up. So in the restroom I run into this guy who’s in his 60s, like this old Bavarian man, you know with the hat and everything, and he’s standing next to me and he asks, ‘Ah, are you here for the festival?’ and I’m like yeah, and he asks ‘Oh! Are you in a band?’ and I said yeah, and he said ‘What kind of band are you?’ and I said, ‘We’re a metal band’, and he’s like ‘Ach, I know that! Are you viking metal? Are you speed metal? Do you play thrash? Are you… funeral doom?’, and he was this old Bavarian man! I mean, they know this shit in Europe, but I’m like, ‘….I don’t really know? I mean, we’re kind of black metal?’ How do you explain that? We’re like black metal for chicks. We’re girlfriend metal.
J. Way: Girlfriend metal?
Aesop: That’s the new thing, yeah. Agalloch are like the forerunners of girlfriend metal. You know, Alcest is girlfriend metal. Girlfriend metal. Because girls can’t like metal.
L. Rath: Just like girls can’t like real movies with a plot, and character development.
Aesop: Exactly, like a chick flick, and everything else is just like a movie.
J. Way: You guys are the chick flick of metal?
Aesop: We’re like a RomCom. Or a date movie.
L. Rath: Jesus Christ.
Given the more intimate nature of a lot of your material, do you ever find grabbing the attention of the crowd while opening for other bands challenging with a shorter set?
J. Way: Well, I think that (Gilman) wanted to allot enough time for Dispirit to setup, and they wanted to give Yob plenty of time to play, so we had about 30 minutes to play. Which is fine, I feel like it was a comfortable set. I’d much rather leave people saying ‘Oh no, play more’ than have them wanting us to get off the stage.
From the crowd point of view, everyone seemed very open and attentive. It was nice.
Aesop: Normally there’s a couple of people that keep talking.
L. Rath: I was really surprised at how quiet it was tonight.
It’s unfortunate that that seems to happen to quieter bands that open for louder acts. What comes to mind was struggling to block out phone conversations while watching Aerial Ruin open for Agalloch in Portland . Even if you’re not enthusiastic about the opening bands, at least show respect to someone that’s up on stage attempting to play music for you.
Aesop: I’m sure whatever that guy was talking about was way more important than what Erik (of Aerial Ruin) was doing – these songs that Erik spent all his time writing. ‘Yeah, I’m at a show! Some guy. Some guy with a beard, I don’t know.’
J. Way: It’s funny that music is just background noise to some people. There are people that go to a show to actually see the band, and have an experience, and be enveloped by sound, and there are people that go there just to socialize and drink.
L. Rath: The same has happened with Amber Asylum. Music tends to be demanding of the audience – it’s demanding of their attention, and depending on the setting, often times it’s just not conducive to paying attention to the band. I don’t always blame the audience, you know, it could be a large venue perhaps. I remember playing a lot of times at CW and there’d be people at the bar that were even trying to get themselves away from the band to be polite because they weren’t into it, but they could still be heard. When you have bands with such dynamics like that, that go really quiet at times, its kind of nobody’s fault, it just happens.
J. Way: We had this funny thing happen in Baltimore where there were these boys that were right in front of me and were talking really loud throughout the entire set. They were louder than [Aesop’s] drums, it was actually impressive. I kept trying to lean over and shush them, and they came up to me afterwards and said the most incredible thing – they said ‘listening to your band was the most amazing way to spend the vernal equinox’, and I was floored, thinking ‘you were listening?’ It really all just depends. I think a lot of times people who aren’t necessarily used to that type of music don’t know how to engage with a quieter band, especially when they’re used to metal bands. They’re not always trying to be rude.
One of the songs from your set tonight was new, would you guys be comfortable discussing any details of the new album?
L. Rath: I think very loosely, yeah. I think we have a working title, which we won’t say here because we haven’t told Chris Bruni (of Profound Lore) yet. I think that we definitely have the scope, the theme, the umbrella, and the shape, and we’re really working towards telling that story. I guess that that’s all we have to say about it.
Do you have a timeline you’re aiming for with this next release?
L. Rath: A deadline, actually. We’re recording in November and then we have a little time to get ready, finish the artwork, and I think it’s scheduled to be out early spring.
What are the future plans for the band? Can we expect to see any headlining tours or anything like that anytime soon?
L. Rath: I think we both want to go to Europe. I’ve never been to Europe on tour, I think that’s sort of the ultimate goal.
J. Way: I think after the album comes out we’ll try to do the West Coast and the Northwest.
I’ll be looking forward to it. Thanks so much for the sitdown, it’s been a wonderful evening!
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