Baazlvaat Take Us from the Stronghold to the Gutter (Interview)

One of the key traits that keeps black metal as a concept from ever going stale is its sheer malleability, The first time you pressed play on a song by Flint, Michigan’s BAAZLVAAT you hadn't necessarily left the house that day looking for a black metal band that draws as much from its Celtic heritage as it does from its lead writer’s stylistic affinity with classic rock, but three minutes later you were glad you’d found it.

Ahead of the surprise release of their new album Ridiculed by the Common Soldiery, we spoke with the band’s principal composer, lyricist, guitarist, and keys/synths player Declan in the hope of demystifying one of the underground’s current great young acts.

If you’re already familiar with BAAZLVAAT, you’ll find a great deal of context and clarity below. And if you’re new to the band; welcome to the black oyster cvlt.

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In addition to being unmistakably black metal, there's joy and celebration in the sounds of BAAZLVAAT. I was wondering how deliberate that is, and if that's a reflection of yourself as a person?

I suppose it's maybe a little bit of both, I just enjoy that, adding a little bit of whimsical vibe into the music, a little bit of joy and whimsy to complement the evil darkness.

Is that a deliberate push against the more morbid side of black metal?

No, it's not like we're trying to be different, it's just what we do, it's how the music ends up, being just a little whimsical here and there.

Tell us some secrets about your new album Ridiculed by the Common Soldiery.

Ridiculed by the Common Soldiery is an album dedicated to the lowest depths of society. Who have nothing and will have nothing in the future. Who live and work for nothing and have nothing to look forward to. The album is not so much for those who have their lives together but rather in the gutter. For me creating and playing music is about all I can do for this world and it’s one of the few things I am driven to do. I have to do it. It is the purest form of expression. Christ places the songs in my head and I have no choice but to decipher and record them. The album took very long to perfect with the initial recording being done in June 2023. It is the first one done on a computer rather than an iPad. I think this album will be like a sword tearing apart the music community. It is straightforward mystical black metal truism and is accessible to all ears in my opinion having a variety of influences. It is the most engaging BAAZLVAAT yet featuring all five members. For the lowest in this world, the highest places are truly held beyond. Hopefully this new album will bring joy to some people who have nothing to look forward to. It is a real testament of our abilities and was fun to create.

When people talk about the band, they often throw in references to their favourite classic rock bands and celebrate how effortlessly BAAZLVAAT incorporates that sound. There's a song of yours - "Darkest of Tunnels,” in which the clean vocals and music coalesce beautifully, you hear all the different impulses of the band at once. How do the different impulses coexist and interact with one another?

Right, so that album (An Old Forgotten Text) is definitely one of our more rock and roll ones, as opposed to our new one, definitely. I guess I listen to a little bit of that stuff but not too much, I'm mostly black metal influenced, but I do have some rock and roll influences; Black Sabbath of course, but then, Horslips too, they're an Irish rock band, I don't know if you're familiar. I don't listen to too much rock and roll but it's just my natural guitar vibe. That's just my flow when I'm playing the guitar.

The band has had a fairly coherent aesthetic from The Higher Power onwards. Your artwork has this strong mythic vibe, but also resembles something like a zine, how did you settle on that art style and like how do you see it going forward?

Absolutely, man. So when I made that album cover for The Higher Power I was feeling that yeah, this looks good, this is what I want to do from now on, these kinda drawings that I've made. But it's funny because our new album is actually the first one that I've hired someone to do the artwork for. But yeah, in the past, I've just done it all by myself, getting the mythical, mystic vibes and spooky stuff.

In hiring someone for the new record, were you trying to continue in that same direction or try something new entirely?

I guess a little bit of both. I don't want to push anything on the artist and make them make it like what I've done in the past, that's not something I'd like to do. It's definitely different from what I've done. But it's pretty cool.

What’s behind the use of Christian symbology in the imagery of BAAZLVAAT?

The Christian symbolism is because we are Christian. I am not part of any denomination because I think they are evil and unbiblical.

Extending those thoughts on art, BAAZLVAAT have some interesting, fun song titles you as well. They do a good job of hinting at potential stories, how important are narratives to the band?

So for a lot of the songs we just make up a crazy story about a weird creature or a weird monster. Take “The Night Castle”: it’s simply about a knight that lives in a castle. We don't put too much thought into the lyrics, it's mostly about the music, and we have a bunch of songs also about, like, more abstract concepts as well.

Do you think you gravitate towards that subject matter because it sits well with the style of music?

We're just interested in stuff like that, like, creatures of the night, vampires and gremlins and ghouls. We've all played D&D in the past, but I'm not a D&D guy by any means.

Incredible World came out early in 2023, what does that concept refer to? Is it our world?

Incredible World is just like that. You know, we live in an incredible world and you've got to appreciate the incredible things in our world, every little thing is incredible in our world, you can go just so deep into every little thing. It's incredible. It's really the best I can explain it, I guess. We're all excited to experience the incredible world.

One thing I really liked about Incredible World is that you have these instrumental vignettes that give the album this three act structure.

Oh, yeah, I started getting into using keyboards and making these little interludes, I just think they really fit well with the rest of our music. I like to break it up a little bit. Change it up. Yeah.

That album also featured full credits for the touring band, the five musicians, for the first time.

It's the first one that we did that all the band members are playing on actually. So they're all playing on the recording on that one, but on the prior albums it's just been me and the vocalist Nlorgpipe, and he played the drums on it. And our new one is going to be the same way, all five musicians. I basically teach everyone the parts, we all get together and I'm like, alright, here's here's what you do. And here's what you do. And we just go through one by one and lay all the tracks out. And then we go from there.

How have recent shows been?

Last Friday was a sweet show man, got to play with Nachtlich from Canada, Genocidal Rites - I think they're from Ohio. Of course Isenblast, we're good friends with the guys from that band, they're just from Detroit. We play a lot of shows with the guys from that band. They have another band called White Magician, and another called Demon Bitch as well, check those out, good Detroit metal. But yeah, the recent shows have been crazy and rock and roll, mainly that one, that was an insane amount of people, we were talking and asking ourselves: why are there people at this show? Why did people promote the show? This is a black metal concert. Like, why are there people here? Come on, man. There was an insane amount of people, almost too many people in the bar, it was crazy. It was cool. We played three or four new tracks from our new album. I think they went over quite well with the audience, they seemed to enjoy it.

Are there subsequent plans to tour locally.. nationally?

So we did a little bit of touring over the summer. We'll probably do a little bit more this summer, nothing big scale, nothing long term. But we've gotten out of state a couple times. We're actually planning on going back to St. Vitus in June. Be on the lookout for that show.

It must be quite difficult to create recordings that are both lo-fi and black metal sounding but also allow enough space for the keyboards and brighter parts of BAAZLVAAT to shine through, how do you approach that?

Exactly, that's always been kind of an issue with our music: remaining true whilst also being able to decipher all the different parts going on and the melodies and the harmonies and stuff because without that I'd feel like why did I put all the work into it if you can't really hear it? But yeah, you gotta stay true as well, I don't want to make any non black metal stuff I guess.

Do you find the people who are into BAAZLVAAT tend to be black metal lifers, or people who are into more esoteric and strange music?

It's definitely both. Got a lot of true black metal fans, and we get a lot of just fans of weird bizarre music. But yeah, it's weird having fans that are into noise music and stuff, it's not really something I've ever been into. But they'll say like, you're kind of like noise music and I'll say, okay, whatever. That doesn't irritate me and I'm glad people like it, but I'm not trying to do that.

The noise community is always an interesting one to come across.

For sure. Yeah. I got a little bit into it. Some of it. I guess. I don't know if it's classified as noise music but have you heard of Black Mountain Transmitter? It's just like, kind of haunting noise music that I've been rocking in the car and stuff. It's kind of cool, lot's of drones, not like all the industrial sounds and stuff.

Given that BAAZLVAAT is operating at the fringes of like black metal possibility, are there any arrangements or any instruments that are off the table?

I mean, definitely. there's definitely some stuff that we would not do. Arrangement wise and probably instrument wise. For example, this has always been a little thing that I just think doesn't work: horns and black metal, I've never seen that work very well. So that would definitely be something we'd never do. I guess like overly whimsical stuff, of course, we have a little bit of that, but if we just wrote an entire song that's just really playful and whimsical, that wouldn't be very BAAZLVAAT.

You've had stylistic departures in the past, like the Guitar Exotic album, and the two track depressive black metal release you put out back in the day. If you made that music now, would you do it as BAAZLVAAT, or would you do it under a different name?

I would probably do it under a different name or just not do it at all. Those albums were just kind of fun side projects. I'm pretty proud of Guitar Exotic. I like that one a lot. But I'd probably release it under a different name nowadays, now that we have a little bit of a following. It'd be throwing them a curveball there if I didn’t.

How were you negatively impacted by the whole (shuttered record label) Labyrinth Tower fallout, how did it leave the band?

It didn't impact us financially, because we didn't give them any money for what they did, of course. But yeah, they set up the pre order and nobody got their shit so.. that was fucked up. Looking back at it I guess I shouldn't have gone with that label, but we’ve got the vinyls on the way now, they're coming. I've nothing against any other labels, because it's just that label in particular that screwed us over. But yeah, I've had countless people contact me, over a span of years, asking what's going on with the vinyl? Where's it at? Where's it? And I'm just like, it's not me. It's messed up, I've had friends lose hundreds of dollars and that sucks. But, yeah, we got them on the way now.

It feels like in music, in literature, in cinema, folk tales are having a real moment. Your family is of Irish heritage, how close are you to that culture and like why do you think it's so appealing to people?

I think it's just a fun culture overall, the music and the scenery, Ireland's very beautiful and of course it has a lot of rich folk tales and stuff over there, of course our music is inspired by Celtic music and customs. With my family being Irish I grew up listening to Irish music and stuff. It came into our music later - I don't know if you've heard our first self titled album, it's almost depressive black metal but not quite, it's kind of cosmic atmospheric black metal not really anything Celtic, but then after that we kind of changed it up.

How has growing up in Flint influenced the way you guys approach music, what is the scene like there?

So in Flint there's not really too much like rock and metal, there's barely any at all but the music that I like to go and see here is the jazz and r&b bands and the clubs and stuff we go to this place called the Golden Leaf. And they got like, like tight tight as r&b van just shredding it up. That's really enjoyable but besides that you'd never see a black metal show here, maybe a death metal show, they used to have death metal back in the day but promoting has gone downhill financially and stuff, it's still a rock and roll city though I love living here, it's so cool to live in but there's not really a place for us to play here, we've never played a show in Flint and there's just no scene for black metal and stuff, but I do enjoy living here despite that. Nobody here knows what black metal is, there's maybe one or two venues that rock bands play out here downtown so yeah, it's just lack of interest and lack of venues and promoters I guess. There's a lot of rap shows here as well, that's kind of the big industry in Flint I guess.

My last question is very important and it's this: Are the Bandcamp users Baazlvaatenjoyer_1 and Baazlvaatenjoyer_2 both members of the band?

No, I have no clue who those people are! Like they've been our fans since day one through. Yeah, yeah I don't know who those people are, pretty funny though.

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Ridiculed by the Common Soldiery released January 30th and can be purchased here.