Interview Kilravock

Kilravock’s latest release, Incompatibility ][ Working Class Hero, merges powerful original music with a heartfelt tribute to John Lennon. In this interview, we explore the inspirations, collaborations, and bold themes shaping this dynamic artist’s music and message.

1. Your latest release, Incompatibility ][ Working Class Hero, blends original music with a classic cover. What inspired you to pair these two songs together for this release?
Thanks for taking the time to speak with me!
I plan to release a few more single releases between now and the album release and thought it would be neat to pair each song with a cover song. For this particular release I thought Working Class Hero would pair really well with this song because the lyrics John wrote for it just absolutely hits for me. I relate with that song so hard. I have cover versions for BYOB by System of a Down, and Revolution Calling by Queensryche in the works, and those will probably feature my friends like Working Class Hero did.

2. You’ve mentioned that Incompatibility expresses frustrations about growing up neurodivergent in a capitalist society. Could you elaborate on how your experiences shaped this song's lyrics and tone?
The lyrics to Working Class Hero just explain it all really; “They hurt you at home and they hit you at school
They hate you if you're clever and they despise a fool
'Til you're so fucking crazy you can't follow their rules” and “When they've tortured and scared you for twenty odd years
Then they expect you to pick a career
When you can't really function you're so full of fear”

Growing up in the 90s they spent so much time telling my parents and myself that something was “wrong” with me and they needed to correct me so I could conform into our hyper productive, for profit society. Then when they failed at that, because you can’t just change a neurodiverse person, I enter the workforce and face an uphill battle trying to find my place in the world. It’s already hard enough to find work as a neurotypical person, but as an ADHD person it’s difficult to get through even the interview process since you get rejected before you can even prove you can do the job. So it feels like to get your foot in the door you have to become someone else just to get the damn job, then once you have the damn job you have to put up with micromanagement, office politics, hurry up and wait mentality. So many jobs are mental torture and they really don’t need to be.

3. The decision to release the single on Eugene V. Debs’ birthday adds a political dimension. What significance does Debs hold for you, and how do his ideals connect to your music?
My opening track is going to have a quote from him when he was defending himself in court. Debs was the Socialist presidential candidate here in the US in the early 1900s. Was even put into prison for standing up for workers and ran from jail for one of the years. I’m also including a song based on the essay “Tyranny of the Clock” by another North American Socialist, George Woodcock, who did an excellent job portraying how we’ve become slaves to the clock in a lot of ways.

I felt it was a good idea to highlight some Socialist heroes that are closer to home, and in Deb’s case did some great things for the American worker even without being in office. Debs didn’t like hero worship, probably because of the cult of personality type stuff that ended up developing in the future Socialist nations, but I respect the hell out of him for standing up for what is right and think his story deserves to be told.

4. In your cover of John Lennon’s Working Class Hero, you collaborated with Sean Soucy, David Dick, and Anna Schmidt. What was the creative process like for this version, and how did their contributions shape the final track?
Sean and David are my bandmates in The Alliterates. I chose Sean because he owns a great sounding acoustic guitar and is a huge Beatles fan and frankly is much better at playing chords than I am. He nailed it. I had Anna and David provide vocals on the tracks because they are both big workers rights advocates and thought they’d appreciate having their voices added. Anna is an amazing artist and local drummer. She was originally playing with Dave and I when we were looking to start The Alliterates but couldn’t commit to the project, so I feel like I owe quite a bit to her when it comes to learning to drum.

5. Your upcoming album, Just Another Wonderful Day, spans multiple genres, including stoner rock, post-metal, and industrial. What motivated you to explore such a wide range of styles in one album?
I feel like a lot of albums lack dynamics when it comes to the tracklists. I grew up listening to thrash and extreme metal but it gets to the point where the bands all start to sound the same, all the songs on the album sound the same. I think back to a lot of my favorite albums and many of those come from the 60s and 70s and those releases seem to be more dynamic in the sense that they would explore a few different genres on their album. Take a band like Black Sabbath for instance, on most of their better releases you of course get the brooding heavy metal songs, the speed metal songs, but you also get blues shuffles, psychedelic experiments, and prog rock epics. I’ve picked up a lot of albums made in the last 20 years that are the same sounding songs 8-10 times in a row in varying tempos.

6. As a multi-instrumentalist, you often perform, produce, and engineer your music. How do you balance these roles during the creative process?
In some ways it is easier, since I can record parts at any time I want and get to work on it right away and if I don’t feel like a part is up to snuff I can take care of it right then and right there. I feel like the creative process goes faster since I’m tailoring it for myself at the end of the day. It all kinds of blends together when you wear multiple hats like that.

In some ways it is harder, since you can’t be like “hey you, finish this song for me.”

7. Your discography includes projects ranging from heavy sludge metal with Megaton to experimental EDM with Lucid Fugue. How do you approach genre shifts in your various projects?
When I left Megaton and later Valley of Shadows I was experiencing musical burn-out and for a few years I was kind of coasting and not really listening to a lot of music, mostly podcasts and YouTube videos about history and whatnot. Lucid Fugue came out during that little break and breathed back to life my interest in making music, and being part of that group is probably the primary reason I’ve branched out to look at different genres. Fun fact, I consider Beg for Scraps from our Artificial Flesh album to be the prequel to this album in general, since I made up lyrics on the spot for that song and they take on an anti-work theme. During that time I was listening to a lot of more electronic oriented music, Daft Punk & video game soundtracks. The Shovel Knight soundtrack slaps yo.

8. You also play in several bands, including The Alliterates and Valley of Shadows. How does your solo work with Kilravock differ from your collaborative efforts in these groups?
I’ve joked that my solo project kind of sounds like all of my previous projects happening at the same time. I suppose the main difference is that I’m the main songwriter for all of it. In Megaton I was very collaborative with our bassist Serena and most of the songs in that project were written by both of us. Most of the time I’d bring in a song 2/3rds of the way finished and have her finish the rest. With The Alliterates I do bring songs in, but I’m kind of the George Harrison in that band, whereas Sean and David are that group’s Lennon/McCartney. I’m the drummer in that band so my role is more about hitting shit.

It’s a very different experience and I enjoy both. I’ll tell the guys in the band that it doesn’t need to be exactly what I wrote, because if I wanted complete control over it I would have just recorded it for my solo project.

9. Your podcast, Side One/Side B, focuses on discovering off-the-beaten-path albums. Has hosting the podcast influenced your approach to creating music?
David is my co-host on that podcast and he has introduced me to all sorts of music that I haven’t listened to before and it gives me all sorts of ideas I would have never come across had I just been looking on my own. It is also interesting to hear what others think about some of my favorite albums when we’re all sitting there listening to them critically. It has really helped my ear for production and songwriting in general I feel like. It’s been a long time since I’ve approached music as just a listener, but sometimes you get nostalgia blinded for something you use to listen to and it’s interesting to hear the releases again and actually sitting down and listening close. I’ve discovered many things about my own taste doing the podcast.

For Season 1 for a lot of the releases I chose strange, oddball albums from my collection but Season Two will be starting up probably at around the start of the year and I’ll be selecting albums that had more of an influence on my own music taste. Mastodon, Rush, Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, Pink Floyd, Deep Purple, The Sword to name a few. This season we did weird shit like Paul Di’Anno (R.I.P.) from Iron Maiden did an AOR album that sounded like Styx after he left Maiden, or one of the solo albums the members of KISS did when they all did their own solo albums. I love weird oddball shit like that. I’ll definitely be coming back to those after season 2.

10. You’ve described Just Another Wonderful Day as containing 10 songs across a diverse range of genres. Could you share any insights into the album’s overarching themes or stories?
The album itself has an overarching theme of anti-work, anti-toil, labor rights, and just good ole bitchin’ about your job you fucking hate. When I sat down to figure out what kind of lyrics I wanted to write that was the mindset I was really in. I was coasting and burn out at a corporate gig, and I also reached back to my younger days when I was working in factories or gas stations to find some frustration there. I’ve got songs about anxiety, depression, burn out. A song about the work place sycophant that sucks up to the boss and makes everyone’s lives worse, and a song about how the worship of the clock and productivity has sucked any joy that could be had from our grim, grey workplaces.

11. Your production work on projects like Artificial Flesh and Nothing New demonstrates your technical expertise. What has been your biggest learning curve in the world of music production?
Can’t take credit for the production on Artificial Flesh, that was by “The Sculptor” or Dan, who has his own new age project called Shrouded Day.

Nothing New was the first release that I took a crack at myself. It’s pretty lo-fi because I hadn’t purchased any production tools at that point, but it sounds very punk imo. I had a blast making out live bootleg Live, Laugh, Love, The Alliterates though. I pieced that together from cell phone and laptop recordings and thought it turned out really well for what it is!

The production has been the most difficult part for me. Most of the songs themselves have been written for awhile now, but I’ve been meticulously listening to it and making adjustments and eventually that lead to me purchasing a more professional mixing and mastering suite.

I think my next release won’t take quite as long.

12. Finally, looking forward to the release of Just Another Wonderful Day, what do you hope listeners take away from your music, both as Kilravock and across your other projects?
I mostly hope that my songs reach someone that is feeling similarly to how I was when I wrote those songs and know that they aren’t alone and many people feel the same way you do, and not to give up or give in to the bastards. Stand up for yourself and your co-workers when you’re being mistreated by the boss, and remember that nothing is more important than your life and your story. Your job is a paycheck and you are not their slave. Your boss needs to more than you need your boss.

Kilravock Music (Stoner Metal, Garage Rock, Experimental Music)