Interview with Mr. Sarcophagus of DRAINBOW

Mr. Sarcophagus of DRAINBOW hails from Austin, Texas. 

DRAINBOW is a band one will struggle to define. Definitely progressive, with enough artistic flourish, clean vocals and synthesizer interlude to be avant garde, but without the pretentious fluff. And of course, Drainbow is filled to the brim with guitar sorcery. Imagine if a wizard fused the spaciness of Voivod with King Crimson's weirdness, and a few generous helpings of System Of A Down's pop sensibilities. Drainbow's genre-twisting new album Towers Of Flints impressively meshes everything from prog rock, to electronic music and death metal into one cohesive, and definitely epic musical adventure across its ever-shifting sonic profile. 

Drainbow is led by the overmind known as Mr. Sarcophagus, who I recently interviewed via email below. 

 So your Tower Of Flints album is all over the place. How did this music cum to be?
I looked at this album as an anthology. Each song is has a strong theme and stands alone as a complete piece. I wanted to craft metal songs that balanced the need to SHRED and SHRIEK with conveying a unique perspective, mood, and story. As much a vehicle to guide the creative process as an artistic choice, I don't think I could have done this all by myself if I just had to write the most bad ass guitar riff I could dream up and then top it several times in the same song...I needed that backbone of narrative on which to graft sinew and FLESH and BLOOD to create something that had any vitality at all to me. My interests are diverse and current, new shit I'm listening to infects my writing process, and my aesthetic is pretty diverse and fragmented, so lucky me, I don't have to try real hard to come up with something vaguely original, I have no choice because I'm mostly awful at imitation.

Describe your role in the Drainbow.

Well, I am Drainbow. Mr. Sarcophagus. Publicist, performer, composer, intern, president of the fan club...etc.

Who are your heavy metal heroes?

Kristoffer Rygg for his work with Ulver and Arcturus. Cornelius and Lazarus of Solefald as well, especially around the "Neonism" era. I like quite a bit of the 2nd wave Black Metal, but these two groups really stood apart in their approach to fucking with black metal but creating a sophisticated and intricate product. Anders Nystrom and Jonas Renske are probably my favorite writing duo...they just create great compositions! And then of course King Diamond, Halford for being an all around badass and SEX icon (but also strangely wholesome?), and Mike Patton who Drainbow is often (somewhat unfavorably) compared to. 

The Tower Of Flints is dedicated to a lost friend, according to your bandcamp. What’s their story?

Matt was my best friend through college and until his death in 2006. Matt was a big music appreciator, but not into metal, he was more of a punk rocker and reggae, blues, and hip hop and such. He was just a hurricane of an individual, destructive, powerful, and full of TERRIBLE ENERGY and WILD VISIONS of grandeur...I was always trying to get him to understand and appreciate metal but back then I was exclusively into annoyingly kooky shit so it took until pretty much the last time I ever saw him to get it to click for him- we were headed home after a night on the town in Athens GA and were listening to SOAD's Prison Song at high decibel levels and I distinctly remember the moment it finally broke through for him; and we truly thrashed together for the first time, like brothers. 

Grief is a shared experience for all people as we walk around in our own little flesh coffins- if you know love you will know loss, if not already, then sooner than you expect. I've tried to live my life and make music in a way that he would appreciate- he never had to make all the crapulous compromises that I have made over the years to become a functioning non-alcoholic, relatively un-depressed adult, so in my mind he will always be an idealistic, batshit 26 year old, even as I get older and uglier, more risk averse, more staid. So my memories of him and our time together, being a couple of wild swinging, sensitive dickheads is part of what keeps me motivated and eager to take chances.

What’s one Drainbow song everyone should crank at full volume? 

Callipygian Hunger should not only be  pegged, but ALSO set on repeat!! It's a fucking EPIC and I stand by it as a METAL ANTHEM that should be TAKEN LOUD.

What’s one metal album that holds a special place in your heart?

I'm going to go with the first one that came to mind, Arcturus "La Masquerade Infernale".  I was about 15 when it came out and the scale of it really blew my mind. There were so many sonically innovative textures and enticing compositional details on that album that still sound fresh even today, and having been a BIG fan of "Aspera Hiems Symphonia" and getting "La Masquerade" on basically release day back in '97, it really felt like an artistic evolution for the entirety of the genre, and for me personally it set the bar. 

What’s next for you?
Hoping to put out a single for Halloween collaborating with the, uh, only other person who has ever worked with Drainbow - shoutout to db of Dreamhaunt and RRAAO (and a bunch of other projects)! From there I'm working on writing an EP that I want to be thematically and musically much tighter than previous work, but we'll see how that goes...got a lot of inspiration but few riffs at this point.  I'll also be doing a lot of guitar exercises and tweeting about used guitars, gross sweaty pictures of myself doing yoga, and eventually recruiting live members of Drainbow for the WORLD fuckin' TOUR!!!

Thanks for going one on one with the GRIM1! What are your last words?

Please, if you're reading this, I implore you, support underground metal...every last grubby penny, calloused thumb, bloodshot eyeball, and ringing ear counts!!  The Tower of Flints was made entirely by one dude over the better part of a year in his underwear in his guest bedroom and then mixed and mastered by another dude who I can only assume was also in his underwear in HIS guest bedroom. Right now is the time of people making things out of NOTHING but PURE PASSION in their UNDERWEAR and this is the way that we are dragging THE UNDERGROUND ahead past all the FASHY BLACK METAL AND PROGGY DJENT BULLSHIT and into a  new echelon of creativity and GROWTHS!!

Thanks for having me, oh Necrosexy one. 

Listen to DRAINBOW at their bandcamp here.