I wanted to ask about the artwork, I really like that style. I looked at the artist’s website. It has a lot of tattoo designs and t-shirts which are really cool, but I didn’t see anything like the cover art.

I came up with the concept and I gave him specific ideas of how I wanted him to paint it. You’re right; most of his other art doesn’t look like that. He’s done designs for us in the past and for a lot of other bands. I knew he was capable of pulling it off.

How do you create the music? Are you the lyricist?

I write all the lyrics, musically everyone contributes. Music is written first and then I write specific lyrics to fit it. Or the music itself will give me a vibe about what the song could be about. On the next album everyone is going to go through my lyrics and write the music from it. They’re going to do it backwards, which will be interesting for us.

Do you expect the sound of the band to change dramatically now that you’ve got the two new guys?

No, because Ethan wrote a good deal of the songs on Lift The Curse.

Let’s talk about the new video. What about the background image at the end, the nuclear bomb background?

It goes with the theme of the album. That song “Suffer Not One.” And a song off Freya/Hoods “Prey to the Gods of War.” When we were talking about the theme of the album and how people haven’t really changed, the one thing that has changed is obviously things like firearms, or nuclear, chemical or biological weapons. People can obviously communicate and disseminate hateful ideas a lot quicker than they ever could in the past. Dividing people, or unifying one group in order to fight another. I think we are going to see more wars breaking out on this planet and we’re probably going to see these weapons used.

Is there a specific political incident, or just the unending shittiness of humanity?

Yeah, it’s just adding everything up. I think if people start thinking about it now, at least they might be able to save themselves.

You mentioned the song “Lilith,” and then the name of the band Freya… they are both goddesses of love, but at the same time the goddess of destruction. Is that something that played into your choice of the band name?

Article Author: gette

Georgette Nicolaides is a writer, musician, and visual artist. She plays noisy violin in the ambient/psychedelic project Atlantic Drone and is currently reading about eight different books. &#@%$ ADD! …

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