{"id":15823,"date":"2016-03-30T01:00:32","date_gmt":"2016-03-30T05:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/southeastofheaven.com\/?p=15823"},"modified":"2016-03-31T15:23:23","modified_gmt":"2016-03-31T19:23:23","slug":"blowin-wind-with-blood-ceremonys-alia-obrien-i-think-that-songwriting-is-another-form-of-magic-because-you-are-creating-something-that-is-going-to-shape-the-mental","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/?p=15823","title":{"rendered":"Blowin\u2019 Wind with Blood Ceremony\u2019s Alia O\u2019Brien: \u201cI think that songwriting is another form of magic because you are creating something that is going to shape the mental state and cognizant state of other people. It\u2019s a pretty powerful thing to be involved in.\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Photo by Shawn Evans<\/b><\/center><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A few years back, a friend of mine headed out to The Earl in Atlanta to cover a show for me.\u00a0 The band that was playing that night was Kylesa but later that night I would get a text that would change my life forever.\u00a0 Ok, I know that it sounds drastic but hey, when someone sends you a text that says, \u201cDon, I just saw your new favorite band\u201d, you know that this is kind of a big deal.\u00a0 I asked him the name of the band and he told me that they were a great occult rock band from Toronto called Blood Ceremony.\u00a0 Right away I went to the computer, pulled up Spotify and cranked their latest (at the time) album, The Eldritch Dark.\u00a0 I immediately proceeded to kick myself for missing this show but I vowed to never let this band out of my site.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Since that very night, I have purchased every one of Blood Ceremony\u2019s fantastic, mesmerizing albums and I patiently, well as patiently as I could, awaited for the band to put out some new material.\u00a0 My wishes were finally granted when the band announced that this year they would be releasing a new album entitled, Lord of Misrule.\u00a0 I had the extreme pleasure to talked to lead vocalist\/organist, flautist Alia O\u2019Brien via telephone and we talked about the band\u2019s new album, just what it was that inspired her to play music, and what one of her all time obscure rock albums is.\u00a0 This was a great conversation with a truly great and talented person and I hope you will enjoy this one.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

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Alia, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me today.<\/strong><\/p>\n

No worries, Don.\u00a0 It\u2019s my pleasure.<\/p>\n

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How has interview day been for you?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s been really good.\u00a0 It\u2019s been fun actually.\u00a0 You are my last one so after this one I get to chill out [laughs].\u00a0 T<\/p>\n

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That\u2019s great.\u00a0 Well hopefully they didn\u2019t all wear you out before this one.<\/strong><\/p>\n

[laughs] Oh no.\u00a0 I\u2019ve had so much coffee so it\u2019s all good [laughs].<\/p>\n

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I first heard of Blood Ceremony from a friend who saw you guys opening for Kylesa here in Atlanta a few years back.\u00a0 I immediately picked up The Eldritch Dark and from there I was a diehard fan.\u00a0 Was this particular album a bigger gateway for new fans than say the previous ones?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yes, definitely.\u00a0 Without a doubt.\u00a0 I think that was the album that wasn\u2019t so much a breakthrough album because we\u2019re not like Ghost going to the Grammy\u2019s [laughs].\u00a0 I think we did see a big increase in our listenership following The Eldritch Dark.\u00a0 At this point, I think we grew more interest in the art of song crafting.\u00a0 I think that songwriting is a muscle that you have to work on and I think maybe by the time we got to the Eldritch Dark we were a bit more interested in composing slightly shorter, more cohesive songs.\u00a0 We had a lot of long songs on the prior albums.\u00a0 I love a long song just like anybody else.\u00a0 I listen to doom and prog and those are two genres of music where songs are long.\u00a0 I think we had a lot of sort of more concise, paired down material on The Eldritch Dark so maybe, in a way, it was more palatable.\u00a0 I saw \u201cGoodbye Gemini\u201d as a sort of a three minute pop song almost so that\u2019s a sort of good way to enter into the bands repertoire and get a feel for the sound really quick.<\/p>\n

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The new album, Lord of Misrule, absolutely blew me away. I\u2019ll be honest, I was a bit nervous about this one because you know when you love a band so much, you always hope that this isn\u2019t the album that will let you down.\u00a0 On this one, the songwriting and performances are your strongest to date and I felt the production once again captured the essence of Blood Ceremony.\u00a0 Production must be a very important facet of Blood Ceremony.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Oh yes, absolutely.\u00a0 We worked with this producer named Liam Watson<\/span> and he got a really good sound for us.\u00a0 We worked with Ian Blurton<\/span> for The Eldritch Dark and the single we did afterwards.\u00a0 Part of the success of that album, I believe, needs to be attributed to Ian who really crushed it.\u00a0 He got what we were about and got a nice, richer way of sound.\u00a0 He also got really good live performances out of us.\u00a0 He would make us run the songs over and over until they were beyond super tight.\u00a0 We really owe a lot to him.<\/p>\n

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So what made you guys decided to record in England vs. Toronto?<\/strong><\/p>\n

We demoed a song here in Toronto and we just weren\u2019t getting the sounds that we wanted.\u00a0 We knew that we couldn\u2019t record this album unless we were getting a good sound.\u00a0 The entire band was on the same page because we all wanted the album to have that analog sound.\u00a0 We wanted it to sound stark and haunting and even for a pop song like \u201cFlower Phantoms\u201d or a heavy old school rock song like \u201cOld Fires\u201d, we wanted everything to be drenched a bit of downer darkness.\u00a0 Because none of us are producers ourselves, it was hard for us to put into words what we were after.\u00a0 I think we knew we would get it at Toerag Studios.\u00a0 It was a little bit of an impulse decision to make the jump from recording in Toronto to get in as quickly as we could to Toerag in London but luckily scheduling worked out.\u00a0 We called Lee, the head of our label, and he worked things out for us.\u00a0 It was a weird whirlwind thing that just felt right.\u00a0 I\u2019m so beyond glad we did it because it was an incredible experience.\u00a0 I know for a fact that it wouldn\u2019t be close to the album that it is if Ian hadn\u2019t been at the healm.<\/p>\n

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When you guys went into the studio, did you all have the songs written already or did you write in the studio?<\/strong><\/p>\n

We had everything written going in, maybe with the exception of a few solos because sometimes it\u2019s nice to have just a little bit spontaneity thrown in there.\u00a0 For our kind of music, you can hear it when things are too intricately rehearsed.\u00a0 That being said, when we got to the studio, Ian actually helped us to re-arrange a couple of the tracks\u2019 instrumental parts.\u00a0 Like for \u201cFlower Phantoms\u201d for example, it had a bit of a busy, almost garage rock feel at first and he really paired things back so that it became this really kind of stark, haunting number.\u00a0 We were re-jigging our parts when we were in the studio but generally speaking, the songs were done.\u00a0 We\u2019ve been in that situation before where we were in the studio and writing.\u00a0 When you have limited time and you have so much to do, it doesn\u2019t feel good to be in that position.<\/p>\n

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I would imagine that lyrically the songs can also suffer if you are in an environment where you are feeling pressure and feeling rushed to complete things.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Exactly.\u00a0 You do get a little bit of adrenaline when doing this but you don\u2019t want to be pressed for time and we always are no matter what.\u00a0 I love being in the studio and I try to make it as pleasant an experience as possible.<\/p>\n

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I read in a previous interview where you stated that you love being in the studio just as much as playing live but that playing live is still such an essential thing for you.\u00a0 Do you go into the writing and recording process with an idea of how these songs will be projected live?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I think some of them as we\u2019re preparing them for recording we will say, \u201cThis is going to be a great live song\u201d but others, such as \u201cLoreley\u201d is a studio song and will probably never be played live.\u00a0 Something like \u201cFlower Phantoms\u201d, our 2nd<\/sup> single, that song as it stands would be hard to replicate live.\u00a0 It would be too difficult but we will re-work that one and maybe revert it back into its more garage rock form and play a different version of that one live.\u00a0 Generally speaking, we have ideas for the studio and we just know that maybe certain songs won\u2019t be played live.<\/p>\n