The Overtly Melancholic Lord Strange - Bass and Vocals, Randolf Tiberius Reaper - Guitar, Lady Pentagram on Drums make up the wonderfully eccentric Traditional Doom Metal band known as The Lamp Of Thoth. Known as everyone's favorite Doomed Victorian occultists, the band have produced some of the most classic Doom rock tunes in recent years. The 2008 album, "Portents, Omens & Dooms" was a masterpiece of old school Heavy Metal, Doom Metal and Epic Metal with a quirky twist. The sense of humor combined with the meshing of sounds and influences from Black Sabbath, Cirith Ungol, Witchfinder General to early 80's New Wave Of British Metal isn't exactly revolutionary but they are one of the kings of the classic riff and they are not short of classic lyrics either. Aleks Evdokimov put together this interview, you can also read it at
metallibrary.ru for the Russian readers of Doommantia. The interview is with the main man Simon and i think you will find this a very detail and entertaining read.
-Salute, sir Simon! Truly to say I always try to escape such standard questions as this one, but our agents need to know - how and where was the Lamp of Thoth created?
Hello mate!
The Lamp of Thoth was created when, in around 2006, I had learned of the local legend of The Society of Dew and Light. The story kind of sparked my imagination, and I started writing songs that in my head I imagined could have been created by a coven of Victorian gentlemen, who by a series of weird events, had, under the inspiration from extra dimensional entities invented the steam driven amp and begun to write these ditties upon their new electrified guitars in order to summon the nefarious and demoniac beings they served. Little did they know as they recorded their efforts on to wax cylinders, that this kind of music would be rediscovered in twentieth century by four men from Birmingham, and that, although the steam driven amp did not catch on, the electrified guitar would come to dominate twentieth century music.
These aristocratic gentlemen had plenty of time to spare after making their monies from the mills of the local area, and under the influence of the beings whose cover would be blown forty or so years later by the Providence author Howard Phillips Lovecraft when he told the world of the things that exist not in the spaces we know, but between them.
These men had been greatly interested in the recent mathematical discovery of the fourth dimension, and they knew intimately the shape a struck e-chord makes in perpendicular space, the notes caught in right angles to frame the cities of elder things that walk serene, primal and unseen through third dimensional space.
The Overtly Melancholic Lord Strange (these are the imaginary historical figures I speak of here, not the modern members of the group), whose knowledge of the futility of all human endeavor crushes his soul like the heel of God's boot; Randolph Tiberius Reaper, mustachioed and mad, the evil glint in his eye - his only thrill the kill and sacrifice of young women at upon fey altars, his suave and educated demeanor a thinly veiled mask for the primitive brutality that lurks beneath. Emily Pentangle or Lady Pentagram as she was also known, an imperious beauty from out of the depths of time, a countenance of stone and ice, a glorious Medusa.
Can you imagine the impact that this music would have, when played at the sabbat of the new age upon us, where electricity was king? The sparks that flew from the guitar, the dials and meters a whir with the power that coursed through them, the blunt and strange whining of the crushed soul of Lord Strange, his days with the East India company of the British Empire far behind him, and, upon a set of drums carved with the finest ivory, in the esoteric robes of the convert, the sublime Lady Pentagram lets the primal beat pour through her. The people in the room move in frenzy as the music echoes across and between the spheres, and the strange many angled ones come forth to feed and dance. Old Grim Jack, sits smoking his lotus filled pipe and smiling at the carnage to come before slipping back through the silent door to his lusty and eternal abode, the true king of old London town, and bearer of the souls of England to the pagan afterlives. Fey Ray Moribund, that mysterious man of the east, basks in the screams of the dead and dying.
The amplifiers bellow steam as they change gear and the music becomes louder, and even the monoliths on the strange hillside resonate with ancient vibrations once more released and gory tentacles coil around the moss and lichen to herald a pseudopod that greedily grabs at the helpless spectators.
But, anyways - I digress! The first song I wrote I think was You Will Obey, which was an old song of mine from a previous band which I revamped. Then came Pagan Daze, Yota, They Dance, Wings of Doom, Blood on Satan's Claw and once that happened the project seemed to gain a life of its own!
-It's said that The Lamp of Thoth "were an infamous esoteric coven who operated out of Keighley back in the Victorian age", but is it truth? And if so it is then with which deeds and creeds were they famous?
Yes it is truth!
The Lamp of Thoth was an occult periodical put out group of Yorkshiremen who were caught up in the magical and spiritual revival in the late Victorian period. They went by the name The Order of Dew and Light, as well as the Rox Crux Frates, translated as Fathers of the Rosy Cross. They are famous because they managed to upset not only Madame Blavatsky of the Theosophists, but also (and more significantly) Samuel Macgregor Mathers of The Order of the Golden Dawn (probably the most famous occultist group of them all). In fact, the first ever recorded public acknowledgment that the Golden Dawn existed, was because of an argument in the pages of the Theosophical publication Lucifer, in which 'one who had been duped' accused The Order of Dew and Light of sacrificing animals in order to gain some kind of dark knowledge.
Whether this alarmed The Golden Dawn, or they were just jealously guarding their own knowledge and magical system is probably lost to history, but there is evidence to suggest that the members involved in The Lamp of Thoth were influential and important people in and around Keighley in 1888, and that they had managed to get hold of a medieval spell book once belonging to Henry Clifford of Skipton. They also were in possession of a map which showed the region around Keighley to be a mystical landscape called The Dragon Lands, which tied up all the local pagan places of worship, such as The Swastika Stones and Twelve Apostles, of Ilkley moor, into a star. The focal point of this star was the source of all the energy of this landscape and where the sect is reputed to have practiced their strange rites.
I have looked into this story, but unfortunately a lot of the evidence has gone missing. Some authors on the occult from the sixties and seventies do mention seeing a surviving copy of The Lamp of Thoth occult periodical, and I have learned of a lot of letters which mentioned the prominent people in Keighley who were involved, but these have also mysteriously gone missing. The only fellow in the group we really know about is the secretary, who defended the group in the pages of Blavatsky's Lucifer. His name was David Lund. Someone has actually made a little film about him here http://goldendawnbradford.blogspot.com/ and if you follow the links you can learn about The Golden Dawn temple and society in Bradford.
I've read Blavatskaja and most of her works look too chaotic, it's an interesting question of whom we can trust in such situations. For example you could trust some esoteric masters for their deeds are interesting, you could trust in Christian saints' biographies for you just believe or you can trust in joga practice for you experienced some of them and know it certainly. How do you choose in such cases - who is the one worthy to trust?
Well, I'm buggered if I know! I tend to trust what I know from experience and personally speaking I think the best way to gain experience is to do things the hard way! I haven't read Blavatsky in any great detail, but usually the names and attributes of esoteric masters, Christian saints, and pagan deities are just details - when you look at the essences of these things you can see that they are just masks. Odin has comparable traits to Christ; the saints of the Catholic Church perform the same function as mediators between man and god as much as the old pagan gods did - and so on. In most things in life, you should try to look at what's beneath, rather than the surface detail, and trust in your own judgment - there is an eternal story being constantly retold, and you just have to figure out your part in it. You won't get it right every time, but you may attain some consistency in your decisions which will lead you down the right path.
-Esoteric sects have its' own aims - searching of power and delights or enlightenment in some or another way. I think not that modern Lamp is a regular sect but each of us has its own way - do you practice any occult ways of spiritual development for example?
I incorporate and am influenced by the following luminaries in regards to my own personal belief system: Joseph Campbell, Alan Moore, Nietchze, Norse mythology, Dave Sim, Eric Rucker Eddision (whose Zimarvia trilogy is about as close to my own conception of the world as I have ever read), narratology, Fritz Leiber, and the sublime and extremely profound philosophies of Robert E Howard and Howard Phillips Lovecraft.
There is no occultism in the traditional sense, anymore. It can all be found in your local Waterstones or on Amazon - how esoteric is that?! The heavy metal concert is the perfect modern religious ceremony for me - it has its own rules and rites, it transforms your consciousness from the mundane to the metal, it gives you a sense of otherness as well as a sense of belonging - what more do you want? Having said that, I have been a member of The Blue Star Lodge in Keighley for some time now… the Age of Aquarius is over, a new age of repression must now begin!
-The Age of Aquarius is just begun as Kali Yuga ended somewhere in 17th century… is it another question of trust, Simon?
Sorry, I was referring to the false Age of Aqaurius promised by the sixties and espoused by the lazy hippies who got us into this mess! I think the end of Kali Yuga was 1899ish!
-With which kind of witchcraft did you seduce Randolf Tiberius Reaper to play with you in Lamp of Thoth?
I just sent him the demo cd, he liked it! He learned the songs and then we met up for a pint and the rest is history!
-How do you realize this wicked collaboration with him? He is from Hamburg, Germany and he has his own - and bloody good - band Spirit Descend, he doesn't look like inveterate heretic!
I just waved a bottle of whiskey in front of him!
-You're very careful as author of songs' lyrics, I'm meaning that these texts are enough poetic, they are very detailed, there are even rhymes and it's rare thing in modern metal-scene. England is well-known as motherland of famous poets and writers, don't you feel a weight of responsibility in that sense?
Well thanks there! I didn't realize that rhyming was a rare thing in heavy metal! I'm not that much of a poet that I feel an anxiety of influence from a long line of English poets, but I do enjoy reading the works of Coleridge, Tennyson, and Shakespeare amongst others. In a lot of the aforementioned men's works you can detect the heavy metal spirit I think! One of the most heavy metal lines occurs in Shaky's Macbeth: 'His sword smoked with bloody execution', and the witches speeches are just pure metal in themselves (that's why Hell used them!), Iron maiden know the power of Coleridge. Also that Tennyson's 'The Kraken' is an influence on the conception of Cthulhu is a popular observation.
It's not that I'm careful, I think it's just my own pretensions and stuff gleaned from the things I have read, I'll steal from Sabbath and Vitus, as much as the above!
My favorite lyrics to sing, and the best I feel I have written are to the song 'They Dance', which should be out soon on our new ep 'No Laughing Matter' by Buried in Time and Dust records. I have used a lot of alliteration in the style of the Old English poets, and this makes it so fun to sing. I wish I knew all the rules and could do it properly, but the problem is that sometimes the music dictates what can and cannot be sung! That's why we have poetry I guess!
-You speak as true educated English gentleman! I'm sorry but where did you study, comrade? And - in continue of lyrics' theme - don't you think that you use such words as "doom" too often? :-)
I studied English for a while part-time, but the money ran out!
As for the word doom - I make no secret that it is my favorite word! It is interesting in that most people use the word as a suffix without even realizing it in everyday life! Freedom, boredom, Christendom, kingdom, martyrdom, popedom, wisdom, etc! I don't know why my use of it upsets people - it's a good Anglo-Saxon word!
-You've said about forthcoming "No Laughing Matter" - which songs will be included into this CD?
'No Laughing Matter'
1. Skull Fuel - it's an oldie, but a goldie. We put this song on our first demo, and some people seem to like it. It's a bit more cosmic than we usually are, but it's fun to play live.
2. The Boggart - some people will know this from our myspace and from the POD II tape. It's a straight forward take on the Saint Vitus alienated monster type song, but from a Yorkshire angle.
3. Dark World - this is our cover of the Saint Vitus classic. It's not a straight forward cover, so I hope people will forgive us.
4. They Dance - this is a song from the early days of the band, and one which we never got around to playing. But the guys from Buried by Time and Dust really liked it, so we recorded it. We have yet to play it live, but we are working on it!
-I remember a lot of bands who composed songs about witchcraft, process of witch-burning, demon-worship and Lovecraft's or Howard's stuff (Solomon Kane, Conan, Kull). And if we gather together all of these bands then we get a great pack of professional witch-hunters… What kind of books did you like in your childhood and what kind of books do you read now?
The first book that I ever remember reading closely was a book about Robin Hood. It was an old sixties thing and chronicled his life from his birth to his death. It made quite an impression on me! The Robin Hood depicted was of the old style of the Errol Flynn movies. He wasn't a war weary man returned from the Crusades, or some pseudo pagan living an alternative lifestyle in the woods like more modern adaptations of the character, he was like the spirit of merry olde England embodied - a force of nature, blessed with a confidence and a stoicism that just made the other men in the story pale in comparison! In the scene at the end of the book he hears an elderly Marion has died in her convent, and he fires his arrow from the window and Little John buries him where it lands. It still gets me! There is a local legend in Yorkshire that this happened at Kirkstall abbey in Leeds, when Robin was tricked by some evil woman, but I prefer the other version of the tale!
The next book that had such an effect on me was when I discovered H.P. Lovecraft. I think I first read him when I was 14 or roundabouts. I didn't always understand what he was on about, but the impressions that I gleaned from those readings still live on in my head - even when I reread the stories and discover that the tales are totally different events to the ones I thought happened! I vividly remember the eeriness of The Tomb, where the fella would just sit outside the tomb for hours on end - creepy stuff. I think that's what happens with Lovecraft - if he gets you early enough you are hooked, and then people of your own age to whom you try to recommend him as an author, see the bad prose and the adjectives and look at you as if you are retarded!
Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns was another profound moment for me! My favourite version of Batman ever - that DC canceled his All Star Batman and Robin because the modern critics couldn't hack Miller's dark psychotic Batman is a tragedy! At the moment I am also hooked on Grant Morrison's run on Batman, which has invigorated my love for the character and reinstated the more science fiction orientated Batman without making him lose his edge - as classic as the Miller stuff in my opinion and I never thought I would say that.
-Well, did you see last cinematographic versions of "Robin Hood" or "Batman"? The last one is very impressive film.
I have seen 'The Dark Knight', and it is probably the best film version of Batman around, but I still feel that comics and films, rather than one being a silent and still version of the other, are very different in the way that they work. I much prefer the comics to the movies, because when stuff like Batman becomes a film, I have to sit through an origin story I already know for half of it. In the comics Batman is part of the DC universe, but in the movies he has to be part of our universe and the character suffers for it. The concept of Batman becomes a bit isolated on the screen, when you extract him from a 70 year old continuity.
-You have the song "Victorian Wizard" - so where is a difference between Victorian and simple wizard, man?
Well, the song is a riff on Alan Moore's From Hell. It's about Jack the Ripper and how he helped herald in the twentieth century through his Masonic rituals and magic! It's born of my love of that book (which is based on Steven Knight's book Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution which reveals that one William Gull surgeon to Queen Victoria is Saucy Jack. I think that book was an influence also on the Count Raven song 'In Honour' which I love! The title 'Victorian Wizard' is just a description of one way of looking at the fella - in his own head he is conducting an elaborate sacrifice for England and her future; on the other side people see him as a deranged killer! Alan Moore plays with the idea of architecture as a medium for inducing psychological responses in people, and compares it to history, asking the question of whether history also has an architecture and a shape, but one of which we are unaware; that sequences of related events can be seen as shapes in the fourth dimension. He deals with the ripper murders as a splash in a pond and traces the ripples through history - the Yorkshire Ripper, the Moors Murders, and even the conception of Adolf Hitler! All these people saw themselves as magi, prophets or even wizards in some sense!
-Your song "Blood On Satan's Claw" is one of most catchy one and you've said that it was one of your first songs - how did you compose it? Is a theme of dealings with evil so tempting for you or is it just some kind of tribute to genre?
I don't really know how that one came about, or why it came about. I just found myself singing the chorus one day - I couldn't get it out of my head, so I wrote the song around it. It is a tribute to the witch burning songs so prevalent in doom and metal. In response to this question I have sat down and tried my hardest to figure out what the lyrics are about, but for the life of me I can't pin it down! I think this was just one of those songs that kind of wrote itself and one that I didn't have to think about too much. Like all good 'evil woman' or witch burning metal songs it's probably just an expression of men's unspoken pathological hatred of womankind as the source of all their woe and pain, because secretly we believe they are all witches!
(Cue Den Dennis): 'Yeah, those are the bits that I like!'
-Do you admit that your vision of doom is quiet aesthetic? We have a lot of rough and clumsy works in this genre but you have well thought-out conception and excellent realization of your ideas in the end.
Thanks!
I don't think my aesthetic is any different to other doom or traditional metal bands, but I tend to look at what I write as a 'song' rather than a 'doom metal song'. I think that's a healthier way to do it. If the song takes me somewhere that maybe some other bands would shy away from because it may not be 'doom', I would look to the song structure for guidance rather than some preconceived doom metal aesthetic, creed or motto. It's probably a strength and a weakness like most things - a lot of people don't think we qualify under the term.
-Simon, what is your progress with Arkham Witch project? Why did you start this band? And don't you think that participant in this project can weaken The Lamp?
The Arkham Witch project is going along slowly but surely, we have a bunch of songs written now, so we just need to rehearse a bit more and then record. I started the band because I just have so many songs that I need to record, and TLOT already has so many songs written and ready to go, plus Randy Reaper is keen to be more involved in the song writing process. I am not getting any younger - need to do this stuff now whilst people seem to like it!
It won't weaken the lamp I can assure you - there is room for both bands. There are still doom elements in Arkham Witch but mostly it's more a traditional metal sound. We have a lot of heroic songs coming up! It's just organization that's required!
-Well, what's about Arkham? Is it really famous with witches, man?
Yes - 'witch haunted Arkham' as Lovecraft called it! But, having said that, I would rather be stuck in Arkham than Innsmouth - even the folks of Arkham shun that place!
-You already have 9 songs with Arkham Witch, what do you need to go in a studio and just record them all? The German heavy metal label Barbarian Wrath is signed you so what is a problem?
We need to rehearse and find a time when everyone is free. It sounds easy, but it is not as easy as that! We all work, some of us have families and it's hard to fit stuff in around that. We are really happy to be on such a great label and to have such support!
-You demonstrate high creative intensity with The Lamp of Thoth and Arkham Witch. You have a good pack of singles and Eps, what drive you to work with such haste keeping prime grade standards for your music?
Well, thanks once again for the kind words! I think it is mainly after years of being in bands that no one cares about, now finally being in a band that people take an interest in is something I don't want to end, so I want to get as much stuff out there as possible. Plus, some of these songs were written a long time ago - its stuff I have had for a while, so it's something I can draw on if needs be.
-It will be pity if agents of holy inquisition finally catch you and purge you for such blasphemy… What would you say them as you see them behind your front-door, man? What you play it just for fun? What you are just an artist?!
Well, I am not an artist, but at the same time I don't play for fun. That's not to say it isn't fun sometimes, but it's more like an addiction - something I have to do! Over the years it has cost me money, time and friends but I wouldn't want to do anything else! The holy inquisition can go and fuck themselves! They will have to take me to heavy metal rehab!
-That's all for a first time - thank you for this interview, Simon! Send my best wishes to your comrades at arms - to Emily and Randolph. Though you're heretic and as a heretic you should be purged… no, you play great music, man, just thank you for that!
Thanks for the great questions and thanks for the chance to enjoy the sound of my own voice!
The Lamp of Thoth at MySpace
The Miskatonic Foundation
