Subrosa is basically my favorite band, Rebecca Vernon, the bands charming frontwoman is one of my favorite people and Psycho Las Vegas is one of my favorite festivals. So it should come as no surprise that this interview is one of my favorites. Picking the brain of the mastermind behind one of metal's most exciting bands is a fascinating experience, Vernon comes from a very different background from many of us and was very open about it. Getting to talk to her on the day Subrosa's stunning new album For This We Fought The Battle Of The Ages dropped was an honor and suggested that there is so much more to come.
How are you today?
I'm doing great.
How the Las Vegas experience?
It's been alright! I'm really swamped at work, I was supposed to take today off but instead I worked in six hours in the car on the way to Vegas, got in at three then woke up at eight to work some more and turned in a project late because the hotel internet sucked. I've had a stressful weekend. When we got here I started to feel better when I got to see our wonderful friends. There's a lot of luminaries here, a lot of doom metal luminaries.
Who is a doom metal luminary?
Mike Scheidt.
Duh
I love him so much, he reminds me of all that is good with humanity. It's my favorite feeling.
At the same time he's essentially an atheist and you're a Mormon…
I don't care what my friends believe, as long as they don't like kill children.
So um, you have an album out today…
We started writing it a year and a half ago, maybe more. We finished writing and recording in January and mixed it in February, we have been sitting on it since then and it's really nice to finally give birth to it. It almost feels like it took too long and had to be induced! I felt like we had to be like, “get out!”
How do you feel about the record now that the songs have been a part of your life for so long?
Sometimes I have mixed feelings about the album. I'm proud of it and I feel like everyone did a stellar job but also the album is a little hard to adjust to. It's really sprawling and more complex. I'm proud of it but I have a weird feeling about it.
Why is it so much more sprawling?
I really wanted to structure the songs after the idea of an opera. I wanted it to be like a symphony with the songs representing feelings or other things we were exploring. We were purposely trying to make songs that were kind of like that. It's more like a flowing story instead of a structured box. That's why they are sprawling.
With every Subrosa album you have lyrical germs that sort of stick out, one of the ones that got me on this record was 'the earth is shifting like a plate' what does that mean?
That line is not that deep. It just refers to tectonic plates. I'm sorry. I just liked the way the words sounded and the shape on my lips. Something about the words sounds right. There's a line from a song I used to listen to when I was in college, I can't remember who sung it but it was like, “The moon is in the sky like a plate.” For some reason it felt like the perfect poetic direct word. That's what I liked about it.
You obviously have an international background having gone to high school in Germany. To what extent does that impact your writing?
I grew up in a lot of different places and had to learn to accept new ideas. I traveled a lot and my mom made us try other types of food to appreciate other cultures. It teaches you what respect is and makes you more tolerant. I think it's weird how in a lot of songs I will sing from a character’s perspective and not even think about it. I often sing from a male character’s perspective. Sugar Creek is a male singing about killing his girlfriend for example. I'll be singing from the point of view of females too, not me, but all these stories.
What do you love so much about music?
It's the most powerful art form in the world. It's like pure magic. I'm just so glad I live in a world with music.
Do you have any final words of wisdom?
It's not bad to think about death all the time. It's okay to keep death ever present, it will push you forward to do all the things you've ever wanted to do.
