Crimson Moon – Interview

Crimson Moon‘s latest album “Oneironaut” is a U.S. black metal masterpiece. In fact, was one of our albums of the month and a great melodic black metal. With a career with more than twenty years, we were amazed to see how this band could stay below the radar for so long. All good reasons for a little talk with Scorpios Androctonus, the soul of the band.

WOM – Thanks for the interview. Your latest album “Oneironaut” is one of our top albums for this month, January. Proud of what you were able to achieved with it?

Scorpios Androctonus – Thanks, and that is always good to hear. We are quite pleased with the feedback Oneironaut has achieved so far. We have had several mentions in best of lists for both 2016 and the month of the release date, (December). So naturally we are proud to see the results of the work put into everything.

WOM – It was released eleven years after your previous one. What was the cause of such a long period between the two?

S.A. – This was due to several reasons, but a large factor was my time involved playing in other bands and projects. I didn’t really do any label hunting as well which left the work in progress in no rush to complete, it was more of something I could turn to when I had the time and inspiration. I must say Dark Adversary Productions did motivate things as they were pushing to release the material from the beginning phases and when World Terror Committe Records offered to co-release the album it really made it possible to do things with confidence knowing it will all be handled properly.

WOM – You have really long songs, but they are not boring. In fact they’re very well crafted. Was it your intent to make songs so long as, for instante, the title track of your latest album, or is it just like it turned up to be?

S.A. – The majority of Crimson Moon songs are generally longer in length. The title track, Oneironaut is an exception however pushing close to 20 minutes. I originally thought of doing the track in 3 parts to a sort of concept but in the end it manifested as it did. I don’t write the music with the goal of having long songs, but with the more atmospheric riffs, I like to have the repeat enough to match a specific atmosphere.

WOM – You have a kind of classic approach to black metal but yet with really good melodies. What doyou think of those opinions who say that melody doesn’t belong to black metal?

S.A. – The definition of the word melody is: a sequence of single notes that is musically satisfying; a tune. So I guess anyone with this opinion doesn’t understand the musical term for melody or perhaps they just want to hear songs only using only one note. I am not going to let what people percieve to be a genre of music dictate how I write or determine what is not allowed in music.

WOM – You started to be an american band but nowadays you’re based in Germany and almost all the members are german. How this changed the identity of Crimson Moon, the music and the concept?

S.A. – As of next year I will have lived for half my live in Europe, most of that time in Germany and yes the rest of the members are all from Germany. I don’t see this making really any difference at all in the music or identity, it just makes it easier to rehearse and work on music, as well as being in a very centralized location to make things a bit easier to travel for shows. When I lived in the U.S. up until 1998, there was really nothing much to offer for Black Metal bands to play live.

WOM – Returning to “Oneironaut”, it’s really a great album. Do you think it will be hard to make the fourth one even better?

S.A. – I hear some bands say how it is so much pressure when they record a well received album to do a next album that will trump their previous. I never felt any concern about this and look forward to doing the next album as I have no doubt it will continue in progress where Oneironaut left off. No matter what a band does, you can’t make everyone happy and there are always going to be people who prefer the first album, demo etc etc. I see every song written and recorded as a learning process which makes it possible to evolve and grow. We have already started working on new material, and now it is starting to be a joined process with both guitarists in the band, this is adding some new dimensions and careful work into how to structure things, but 2017 will show some of this later in the year with a split release in the planning.

WOM – How about live activity? Is Crimson Moon nowadays more active in this field?

S.A. – Yes, our first show since 10 years will take place in March at Speyer War Mass in Germany. We also just recently confirmed Under the Black Sun Festival in 2017. It is only in the last month we have actvely started to book shows. We have quite a bit more in the works that will be announced in the near future. With a December release date of the album, this does complicate things as a lot of festivals that would have normally booked us, have already completed their line up, however this has already made a lot of appearances lined up for 2018. We arent working through any booking agent or touring agent at the time, so all these are achieved through personal contacts and a lot of networking, which is a tedious process, but things are starting to pick up.

WOM – Thank you for your time. Any last words for the black metal fans in Portugal?

S.A. – Thanks for the interview and support, any fans we have in Portugal that would like to see us play there, we would be honored. Show your local promoters an interest in having us there and we willmake it happen.