This has never been published before. It probably has been written entirely by members of the band.
I know most of you have no interest in heavy metal, but that’s not what this is about. It’s about two people in Oregon who are truly unlike anyone you’ll ever meet. So you may be wondering why we’re covering a black metal band, but come on. We all have a salty past here. Even I’ll admit that even I was listening to it back in high school. Who wouldnt be? You had Varg Vikernes stabbing his label boss, guys from Emperor and Mayhem were torching churches. There were some suicides and murders too. If you were dissatisfied with life as a teenager, black metal was your siren call. Black metal is usually hilariously dumb, a bunch of old men in black tights and their mothers' makeup, prancing around in a circles with their best angry face while shouting about Nordic gods, Satan and trolls and things like that. It’s what you listen to when your high school RPG buddies get laid and move on and you have nowhere to turn except to the dark side of internet porn and heavy metal.
Of course, we all moved on to other things like taking up that 9-5 corporate job that we used to swear we’d never sell out to. So why would we waste our time to interview a black metal band? Because this band you are about to become acquainted with is no ordinary black metal band. In fact, for all the reasons listed above, they despise black metal. Confused? It gets much better. Velvet Cacoon was started by a couple of eclectic Portlanders who initially formed the band for their own amusement. It was a private affair of drunken improvisational song writing that yeilded the bands first demo called “Dextronaut”. They called themselves SGL and LVG, Sir Grim-a-Lot and Lord Very Grim repectively. They threw up a website that talked about recording with a dieselharp, a solid steel guitar fueled with gasoline and channeled through a 50 gallon acquarium. They posted information about their live shows, which consisted of band members lighting themselves on fire, vomiting blood into the audience and throwing TV reporters down staircases. They alluded to mysterious ties to the Earth Liberation Front, an ecoterrorist organization that has its roots in the Pacific Northwest. The list goes on and on. Velvet Cacoon were exactly what black metallers loved: mysterious, rebellious and extreme as hell. What nobody knew, however, is that it was all a lie.
In just a few months, the band became one of the most talked about groups in the underground. People were suddenly showing an interest in ecoconscious ideologies and Velvet Cacoon morphed into the dark horse band that nobody really knew yet loved. Presented with this unique opportunity, the band signed a contract with Full Moon Productions, the longest running US black metal label. Unlike the rushed and often humorous “Dextronaut”, the band now found themselves taking their music very seriously. The joke, while still a secret, had lost its appeal to the band. By now, they were only interested in being the best. They spent months trying to create the most perfect black metal album they could. That album, “Genevieve”, was released by Full Moon Productions in 2004 and, as they say, the rest was history. Velvet Cacoon blew up. Either intensely hated or incredibly adored, the band became one of the most talked about groups black metal has ever known. Just about all of the well known publications had given glowing, We’re-not-worthy praises to the band, they were topping peoples “best of” lists for the year and the hype surrounding them was almost blinding.
But that honeymoon was short lived. This is the VH1 “Behind the Music” segment where everything begins to fall apart for the band. People began to question the bands integrity. Website message boards began to fill up with people debating whether the possibility of a guitar fueled by diesel fuel was really possible. If all these live shows occured, how come nobody has ever been to one? The suspicions began mounting and people were beginning to realize that maybe, just maybe, they’d been taken for the proverbial ride.
The band let it play out. Staying relatively quiet, it wasn’t until this summer that SGL (aka Josh) told an Italian magazine called Elskrin the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Aside from divulging facts about many things, Josh fueled the fires by calling Satanists as ridiculous (if not moreso) than Christians, calling out black metal for its lack of creativity. He took jabs everywhere. The record label that signed them, Full Moon Productions, must’ve been in a cold sweat when band leader Josh began to slowly divulge the bands mission: to fuck everything up, and create the best music in the process. Mission accomplished.
But the backlash. Oh, the backlash. In black metal, backlashes are ruthless crusades to discredit ones integrity. One-time fans of the band are now changing their minds, and the negativity being aimed at the band is vicious. One quick websearch on the bands name will net a heap of message board comments and blog site postings by disgruntled black metallers who insult everything from the bands name to their website, their interviews, their attitudes. Any move they make is criticized these days.
Of course, this entire story was unknown to me a few months ago. It was through a friend and devoted fan of the band who was emailing me about them that got me thinking it would be pretty interesting to sit down with these guys and shoot the shit. Knowing I was heading up to Portland on unrelated matters in a few aweeks, I figured I’d try to kill two birds with one stone and arrange an interview with the band. Easier said than done. Aside from the four or five interviews the band has done, all through email, the band still remains mysterious. Nobody has met them or even seen them for that matter. They are a classic enigma. Velvet Cacoon, for reasons you’ll soon learn about, are very cautious about who they let into their world. After a much delayed response to my email, the webmaster requested my cell phone number and she set up a date to meet with the band. A few days after my arrival in Portland, I received … “the call”.
The quiet girl on the other end is Angela, the other member of the band and Josh’s self proclaimed muse. She makes a weird joke about blue goblins before giving me an address. “When do I show up?” “Right now.”
Half an hour later I arrive at Josh’s apartment, neatly tucked away at the northern tip of downtown Portland in the ubertrendy Pearl District. The door is already open and I let myself in. It’s really just 1 really big room with creaky wooden floors, and my attention is immediately grabbed by two girls asleep in the corner. One of them is wearing a tiara and boa. Josh and Angela show up right afterwards, apologizing for making me wait. They were out getting gummy worms and white wine, Angelas favorite combination.
We situate ourselves in plush olive furniture that is spread out over the room and I forewarn them that I’m not interested in talking about black metal but rather the purpose of the band itself. Angela imitates the sound of a baby crying and Josh informs me he wouldn’t have it any other way.
I start by reading them a comment I’d gotten from an internet message board that said
Why would anyone support a hoax band? I don’t need to listen to their music because I know it sucks. If you don’t take black metal seriously then go fuck off.
Both Angela and Josh look highly amused, almost proud.
I can’t speak for Angela, but that comment personally offends me. Don’t these people care about our feelings?
says Josh. The sarcasm weighs his voice down. Angela jumps in.
It’s music. Sometimes I want to say to those people ‘Hello? It’s music. Music. Music. Music!’ but they would never hear it, their ears are so dead.
One thing I learned quickly is that Angela is very, very distant in the way she speaks and reacts. Her demeanor is very childlike and innocent, and you see quickly that Josh is very protective of her. It’s obvious both she and Josh have been affected by their drug use, but it’s not so much sad as it is cute and amusing. Joking and laughing with one another, I must have heard at least two dozen inside jokes during my time with them.
That brings us to Josh. He is the personality behind the band. Reading his interviews, I was expecting him to be some stuck up intellectual who would wear a berret and black tie but the first thing that popped into my head after meeting him was “The Dude”, the main character from the classic Cohen Brothers film “The Big Lebowski”. Simply put, Josh is one chilled the fuck out dude.
I ask Josh what the funniest letter they’ve ever received was.
There’s been a lot. We take our music seriously so when we receive serious letters from educated people I respect that. Then there are the typical letters from black metal fans that are fucking hilarious. The best thing about black metal is that it’s an untapped source for outrageous comedy. There’s been tons of hilarious letters sent to us and our website, but the black metal poems we get are the best. Someone once rhymed Velvet Cacoon with melting lagoon. I died.
I ask whats up with the two girls sleeping in the corner.
They were administered a narcotic that is sort of designed to sustain sleep for long periods of time, usually around 18 to 24 hours.
Now my curiosity is blowing up. I ask them what the purpose of it is.
They just like to sleep.
It’s this type of strange behavior that has them drawing so much attention. Nothing they do really makes sense, and if it does make sense it’s only because you misunderstood them.
As it turns out, the two girls in the corner are Tessa and Alexis, two of four new additions to the band. That brings up another unique thing. Black metal is a male dominated genre. Females are a rare breed in black metal, and Velvet Cacoon boasts five pretty faced lolitas who wear white tights, furry boots, extravagant long coats and colorful dresses. I mention that their look is almost Willy Wonka meets 80’s runway model, which amuses Angela.
You’re right, we are colorful. I used to wear black when I was younger but that was boring. We’re very fashion minded people.
She pauses and adds
but don’t print that. Let me give you a new quote. ‘We want to kill Christians, we live for the devil!’
She says this while slowly eating a gummy worm that is wrapped around her pinky. It’s the cutest damn thing I’ve ever seen.
I ask Josh what their record label think about them? Are they pissed they invested money in Velvet Cacoon? The Full Moon Productions logo has an upside down cross and the numbers “6 6 6” on it, but the band has said numerous times that Satanism is for idiots. I ask Josh what the label really thinks?
I’m sure deep down they hate us. I don’t know the answer to that really, you’d have to ask them. They have been really supportive. When we first told everyone the truth, we expected Jon [Thorns, founder of Full Moon] to say ‘fuck off’ but instead they were really cool about it. Basically they were like ‘its good music, fuck the rest. We’ll release what we like and we want to continue working with you’, which even surprised us. It made us love them. Most people into black metal are fucking fragile and when you start cracking jokes and laughing they get really uptight. Full Moon never once told us that we were acting in a way they didn’t like or any nonsense like that. They’ve given us complete artistic freedom, from the music we make to what goes into the packaging of the CD to the promotional cards they sent out. That’s been good for us because it saves us a lot of headaches. Lots of other bands don’t have that luxury. There is a really great band from California called Xasthur that I’ve been speaking to lately and he’s experiencing the complete opposite. I guess he and every other band on that label [Moribund] are getting royally fucked and are trying to break out of their contracts. If I was in that position I’d just leave. It’s not like these are high profile contracts sent out by Virgin Records. This is fucking black metal. You know, Full Moon Productions didn’t even know our real names until recently. The original contract for “Genevieve” was signed with fake names.
Angela then chimes in:
Scott [member of Xasthur] should just leave. Can you imagine if he was taken to court over it? [Mimicing a judges voice] Ok Mr. Malefic, Mr. Odin says you owe him another album. [Mimicing a voice that sounds like Radu the vampire] But Judge, Mr. Odin is being a greedy Jew! [Mimicing the judge again] Greedy jew hm? Mr. Odin, is this true?…
Josh and Angela are beside themselves with laughter.
It could be a weekly series on Court TV, ‘Moribund vs. it’s entire roster.'"
Josh isn’t taking sides though.
To be completely honest and fair, I did speak with Odin [owner of Moribund] a while back, and though it was very brief he was courteous and seemed to be rather intelligent. Print that too, I don’t like coming off as a shit talker, even if I am one.
Taken aback by their carefree attitude, I ask Angela about the bands image. Does she care how they are viewed?
No, we are insane. We make music, you know? We record sounds and that is all there is to it. A lot of people think because we made up some jokes about ourselves that we suddenly aren’t cool and that we should die. We’re just being real about things. I guess it’s how we maintain some sense of balance. We are a bit goofy, yeah, but when we enter the studio we become very serious. It’s almost embarassing how seriously we are when we are writing and recording songs. With “Genevieve”, even after the album was recorded, we spent weeks messing with the sound. We were obsessed with making it perfect. I think that’s like an added insult too. I mean, if we sucked, nobody would care about us. If we sounded like everything else then nobody would even know who we are, but since we are actually fucking awesome….,
she bursts into laughter and has to catch her breath before she can continue.
Since we…. don’t suck, people pay attention. We’re on a campaign to prove music is greater than image. It’s like, can you give up the beloved image of misanthropic hate in exchange for music that you’ll actually like. It’s quite the predicament.
Josh then adds a bit of philosophical pondering:
Fuck ‘em.
With the band preparing to record a second album, I wonder if they get the feeling that everyone is perched on the battlefront, ready to unleash their poisonous attacks the moment the album is released, a sort of payback for fooling everyone with “Genevieve”. Josh is certain they are:
The second this album comes out I bet you’ll see everyone crawling out of the woodwork saying they’ve heard it and it sucks, and that we’re finished. Even if they haven’t heard it. It doesn’t matter how good our new album is, people are ready to see us fall. Black metallers are cunty like that. I think the new album will really set the dividing line. It’s going to solidify our current fan base and it’s really going to piss off everyone else.
I move on to the subject of the bands obscurity and why they are so closed off from their counterparts in the black metal scene.
Kanwulf hired assassins to kill us.
Angela, who has dismissed herself to open her wine, turns around - hands over her mouth and eyes abright.
“Oh no! Say it’s not so!” “Don’t shrug this off like it’s no big deal, everyone knows how lethal he is..”
The two carry the joke on for a few minutes. I’m unsure of who the hell Kanwulf is or why he wants them dead, but my attempts to find out are met with more childlike humor.
“Kanwulf is the beast of the east,”
Angela says.
He invented music in 500 BC.
The jokes never end.
He actually created the universe. On the first day, Kanwulf created Burzum. On the second day, Kanwulf stole all of his ideas. On the third day, Kanwulf created a time machine and erased Burzum.
The two bounce Kanwulf jokes off each other like ping pong balls. The jokes never ended throughout my visit. When Josh finally reveals who Kawulf is I ask him if they have any ongoing feuds with other black metal bands.
No, that’s too absurd. How can we feud with other black metal bands? What would we even have a feud about? Who has the scariest intro? We’re really confident in our music and who we are as people so there’s no need for that. I may be wrong, but as far as I know there actually hasn’t been any band that has outright commented on us in a negative manner. Most of the insults come from the fans. I think once a band takes that leap and begins trying to start some sort of feud it becomes a complete parody. It’s really hard to make me angry so I think feuds are not in our immediate future. If I met Kanwulf I’d probably tell him how much I liked some of the things he has done. Not musically, but man the guy is fucking inventive. He’s a scammer like us, but he still plays it off like he’s serious. I’m guessing his band Nargaroth formed around 97 or 98, but he put out some demo that he said came out in 1992…
Angela interrupts, without looking up from her corkscrew, with:
‘92, keeping it true!
Josh resumes:
Yeah, the older your shit is, the more true you are. How fantastic is that? So Kanwulf puts out this tape and says it’s from 1992, and to prove it, he tapes coins to all the cassette cases. Coins that have the year 1992 on them. Come on, you have to give it up for that.
At this point Josh sets down his White Russian and begins clapping.
At this point, another girl walks in. She’s wearing a light purple dress, white shoes and most notable of her appearance, the tattoos on her legs. On the back of both her legs are these inch sized black polka dots that go up in a straight line from her ankles to under her dress. Her name is Victoria, another one of the new additions. If anyone is responsible for the dieselharp, it’s her. The band, slowly attempting to piece together a small tour to promote the new album, have brought her in to create the buzzing guitar fuzz in a live setting. Victoria is having a bad day. She is clearly frustrated with her life. The ego I expected Velvet Cacoon to have had finally shown up. She didn’t say hello or even greet anyone, instead she barked out:
Whose fucking grey piece of shit is down there? It took me 20 fucking minutes to find a spot.
She storms out and slams the door, leaving the sound of her walking down the hall and abruptly knocking on doors. It’s enough to wake up the girls in the corner. Josh says the drug they took is at its full effect right now and that being woken up like that is really bad. He walks over and quietly begins talking to them.
Now the golden question, and I’m hoping to get a real answer. I warn Angela that she’s about to be asked a common question, but that I want an honest answer. Nothing pre-fabricated. I ask her point blank what the purpose behind Velvet Cacoon is. Is it just to have a good time? Is it just to waste the time? Does she just like to bask in controversy? For the first time, the glow in her eyes goes away. She isn’t a little girl now, she is a pure woman and her voice is barely audible.
Nobody could ever really understand it. It’d be a lie to say I always envisioned it like this. We began as a joke, we didn’t know we had music in us. When we began writing “Genevieve” Josh introduced me to the alphabet drugs and my life took a very defining turn. It made me burst and snap and die inside because I saw my life in a completely new way, it was so intense and real. We were working on “Genevieve” and putting so much of ourselves into it that it was sort of demented. We sometimes overdosed to the point that we had nosebleeds. We saw it as a good sign because we knew we were reaching new heights. It totally showed up in the music too. I can’t listen to that album because of it. We laid off the drugs after that album, at least I did. Josh sort of did. We knew when it came time to do this new album we’d have to take it even further. We have a place rented in Astoria which is right on the beach and we went there to record, but it was so sad and amazing. The first night we were all together we took reacquaintance doses, which are lower doses that remind your body of the chemical reaction. We tempered our systems those first few nights and then we lost control. We were overdosing to the point that nothing could be done. I kept having these moments where I was higher than I’d ever been in my life. It’d be like I was rocketing up skyward at incredible speeds, the room around me would shake in my vision field, I just felt tremendous pressure in my being, then all the sudden there would be this soft explosion and everything would be calm. The most calm feeling ever. I’d sit up and look around and I was absolutely certain I had just passed on through to the other side. I didn’t even feel high, but I moved in slow motion and our entire house was black and white. It would be early in the morning hours and everyone would be passed out. I’d tiptoe around, staring at the paintings or rubbing my hands on the marble tiles. I can’t even explain it, talking about it makes me want to die it’s so incredible. It was weird because I truly thought I was dead and this was my last moment to be on Earth. I would rub my skin and it felt like rubber, there was no sensation because of the anasthesia. I felt like a completely freed spirit.
All the joking and playfulness was gone now. My question somehow knocked Angela off her track and into the strange world that she seems to live in but wants nobody to know about. By now Josh was standing behind her, quietly observing her in this deep state of mind. All I could do was thank her for that answer, but I pressed on. It didn’t answer my question why Velvet Cacoon existed. What was the purpose?
It’s out of our control. We don’t even like black metal. Isn’t that obvious? We hate it, everything about it. But we don’t hate it because of how it sounds, we hate it because of what it is. What it stands for. The association with manmade topics. Religion, misanthropy, war, hate, depression. All of it deals with human emotions and definition. It is all about conflict between humans. Black metal to us is completely anti-human. War is human, religion is human, hate is very human. Mythology is human, nationalism is human. But for us, we place no importance on human emotions, the very thing that inspires hate, evilness, goodness, war, love, sex, anything. Our intense experimentation with drugs opened our eyes to this. Our vision is to create music from the core of the universe, music which encompasses the galactic spread, not the insignificance of human condition or interaction. relationships, conflict, resolution.
After a pause, Josh cuts in:
Our bodies and minds are the instruments, the universe is the player. Our music has nothing to do with anything human. They are the unknown sounds of the cosmos. Interpret them any way you like, but nobody will ever know the truth.
And that was that. Three hours in the apartment of Velvet Cacoon, free to ask them anything I could. Free to do my best to make sense of it all, and the only thing I did was become more curious. As people, Josh and Angela aren’t all that mysterious. They are very intelligent and kind people with odd senses of humor and an appreciation for the nice things in life, things there are no room left to explain. But when Josh and Angela shut the doors, take their pills and enter that other world, they become the enigma. Throughout our visit I got the feeling they were using their humor and laughter as a disguise to cover something up. When I finally got Angela alone, whatever she was covering up began to come out and Josh was quick to stop it. Whatever secret these two have, whatever they are doing with their minds in outer space, is something that they are obviously not willing to share. But what they do share is always mystifying and funny, even innocent at times. Given a small audience, their impact has resonated deep. In November alone the bands website clocked over 80,000 hits.
There is a gravity that Velvet Cacoon has. It draws in fans and enemies alike. The weirdness of the band is best summed up by their strange phrases that you think are gibberish but you can’t let go. When I left, Josh said to me:
Have a safe flight back, I’ll still be there when you arrive.
I’m still trying to make sense of it.
If the people involved in black metal stop and give Velvet Cacoon a chance, give their ideas some truly deep thought and appreciation, there is a good chance the entire genre could transform itself from teenage angst and rebellion into one of the greatest artistic movements we’ve seen. No, really. Think about it.