Welcome back, everyone! I’ve hinted on many occasions that this section will mostly focus on interviewing people in unconventional parts of the Metal scene. However, at MER, we’re also strong advocates for mental health, and if you haven’t listened to A Kindness Dealt in Venom, you should. It’s a harrowing journey through the demons inside most of us. I met Tony in the most ironic way: he texted me to correct an enormous mistake in our Construct of Lethe review. He was understanding, and I could tell he was someone with a great eye for detail. Given the personal nature of this album, I couldn’t help but invite him for an interview.
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Tony: After we finished working on Exiler, I went through a period of depression. I’ve dealt with it throughout my life, but it was worse than normal and lasted much longer. I started an email chain to myself to record the thoughts I had when I was at my worst and kept adding to it over the course of a year and a half. Everything sprang forth from that.
Initially, I didn’t have designs on using it for lyrics, but the more I wrote, the more it felt like the right thing to do. It did provide some measure of catharsis for what I was dealing with at the time, but it’s not a permanent remedy. The fact that it found its way into something productive was incidental.
As you can read, Tony‘s process was a way to direct his battle with depression, but it could not make it disappear properly. I thought it was fascinating how writing down all those negative emotions must have felt. Of course, there’s some degree of catharsis, but to return and re-read those words, work them into lyrics and music again proves that the mind behind this album is crafty and meticulous. Also, if you’re an artist in the making, don’t underestimate the power of accidents and your own inner world.
Tony: I can’t really point to any outside inspirations for the album’s theme; it’s basically entirely introspective. On a personal level, I’d like to think that the process has helped me parse through difficult emotions and periods of volatility.
It’s curious because when I was analyzing the album, I couldn’t put my finger on what it sounded like. Yes, there were influences from dissonant Death Metal, Black Metal, and Industrial Metal, but no strong band influences. It was quite unique compared to the scene, but also compared to anything Construct of Lethe had previously put out.
Tony: Lyrically, this is a very different approach from what we’ve done in the past. Throughout all our past releases, all the lyrics were written by our previous vocalist, Dave Schmidt, who has an incredibly unique lyrical sensibilities. “Fugue State” from Exiler is the closest in terms of the new approach; it’s driven by a mostly spoken word recounting of a nightmare…Musically, it’s by far the most important project to me because of how it began. There were a handful of bands I was in over the course of several years that I’d written a lot of music for that was never released due to the bands breaking up. After so much time and frustration, I decided to record it myself and self-release it. I started Trepan Studios in earnest around that time, as well as Edgewood Arsenal Records to put it out. I released our first two records through Edgewood Arsenal, and things took off from there. I’ve put more time and effort into Construct of Lethe than I’ve put into most anything else, so to see it continually moving forward (thanks to support from a lot of people along the way) is really gratifying.
We’ve reached the point of our interview where we can see how your support matters. In this era of infinite streaming, musicians need us more than ever. Yet hearing how Tony put together Trepan and Edgewood Arsenal to get things finally going is quite inspiring. It’s true entrepreneurial spirit! However, I wanted to return to the whole point of this interview: the struggle of showing something so personal to this cruel and merciless world.
Tony: It was difficult knowing that when the album was released, it would no longer be just a project I was working on, but a product the world at large would be consuming. The commoditization of emotion is a strange thing to reckon. With it comes critique, and the entirety of the lyrical content was me laying bare all the things I don’t like about myself. Allowing others to see that vulnerability was more difficult than the creation of the album.
As someone who hides behind the anonymous avatar of a cat, I totally sympathize with Tony here. The massive amounts of content that we all digest every day make it difficult to slow down for a moment and internalize that those are real people with real emotions. They’re not just entertainment, and yet this is hard because we need to move on to the next thing. Don’t we have time for others’ stories? Are we suffering from compassion fatigue? I don’t know; I just throw thoughts into the air!
Tony: Metal bands love using the concept of insanity and psychosis in their lyrics, which tend to be cartoonish. It’s cliché to the point where I don’t even think about it anymore; it’s just a vaguely embarrassing aspect of the genre that I put up with because I like the music. It’s unfortunate because it’s lazy and shows a real lack of creativity… Half of the album is instrumental because we used everything I wrote; I could have written more to fill in the gaps, but it would have been forced. I wanted every word to be my genuine experience… I’m not foolish enough to think we’re the first ones to tackle this kind of subject in a more serious way, or even autobiographically, but it’s not a really popular topic to broach. It’s better now than it’s ever been in terms of it being dealt with constructively, but that isn’t saying much.
Tony sounds realistic about all the work we have left as a community in the way we approach mental struggles, not only because it’s nice to support others, but also because aren’t we tired of lame Metal about the “insane” or “the darkness inside of me”? I am! He’s someone interested in originality. You have no idea how much I appreciate that as someone with a never-ending promo list awaiting in the mailbox. Even if the material in question is so emotionally heavy, it’s still refreshing to hear a new approach. I know many bands don’t like to be compared to others and usually that’s marketing, but in this case, I genuinely agree with Tony that his work doesn’t sound like anyone else’s.
Tony: For A Kindness Dealt in Venom, I wasn’t aiming for anything specific other than I didn’t want it to sound like anything we’d already written, though that’s a lot easier said than done. It’s hard to write in styles you’re unfamiliar with, and it’s also hard to escape your own voice. There are a lot of different sounds and tones throughout the album, but I can still very much recognize it all as something I wrote, for better or worse… I’d like to get to a point where instead of us being compared to Morbid Angel or Immolation or whoever else, other bands are compared to us–that we become the reference point.
Despite so much realism and directness, I could understand that for Tony, there were still reasons to be optimistic. Contrary to what many others could feel, I agree with him that our community is bigger and more international/diverse than ever.
Tony: From its inception, Metal has had a tough guy, anti-authority, anti-establishment image which inherently draws like-minded people to it. That’s not going to go away, but it feels like an ever-shrinking minority thanks to the internet and social media. The Metal community is bigger now than it’s ever been, which includes more casual new fans who aren’t steeped in all the scene’s b#llsh#t (at times) ethos.
We’re reaching the end now, and I wanted to know if someone who could dive so deep into his own struggles had some words of advice for us, the mortals who don’t dare to risk it all through music. And yet, Tony was humble as he had been in all our previous exchanges.
Tony: I wouldn’t presume to have anything profound for the world at large since I have a hard enough time trying to follow my own advice. There’s an old quote: “no plan survives first contact” — however you think you should ideally live your life is smashed when put into practice in the real world. You’ve got to make little compromises and concessions in order to navigate daily life, and those can build up over time until you don’t recognize yourself anymore. Just stay as true to yourself as possible, and respect others’ attempts to do so as well.
You heard that, my gatekeeper readers? Live and let live, bring people up, not down. Finally, I just wanted to know, after basically laying “naked” in front of thousands of people and showing us the power of creativity in the face of one of the most relentless adversaries (depression), what would be the take-home message of this album?
Tony: Everyone will have a different reaction to it, and whatever that reaction is will be appropriate to the individual. If anyone connects with it because they identify with the lyrics, or they bang their head along with the music, that’s a beautiful thing. We’ve always written exactly what we would want to listen to without regard for any potential audience, so the fact that there are like-minded people who jibe with it is great.
And with that, my friends, we sing out! Take care of yourselves and those around you.
Oh! And click here to get the latest Construct of Lethe album!
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