I cannot wait to fucking see this band live, let me put it that way. Currently touring with bands like Neuraxis and Veil of Maya, Abigail Williams are almost always on the road, so I’m sure I will get an opportunity. I spoke with Ken Sorceron about the long awaited completion of the record, working and conjuring alongside metal heroes and living within these realms pure evil goodness.

MORGAN Y. EVANS: One thing I really like about your band and especially the band name is, with black metal and especially some of the bands from Finland doing folk-metal, it’s often very much in tune with the heritage of where it is from. Your band name evokes fucked up things that happened in this country and for American black metal, I think that’s very cool.

KEN SORCERON: Yeah, totally. That’s what we were going for. Some people don’t get that, but I’m glad you did.

MYE: I’ve been to the wax museum up in Salem and it doesn’t really leave you. Giles Corey getting pressed with stones. Abigail Williams was a troubled soul. Listening to your music, a lot of bands wear corpse paint and stuff and that’s fine for the theatrical side or enhancing your reality, but I always liked an Alfred Hitchcock approach in horror movies more than gore and it’s left to suspense, or in your case, it’s just like the music carries all the starkness by itself.

KS: It’s not us to wear corpse paint or try to look any certain way. I like a lot of bands that do all that stuff. For us it would feel silly at this point if we tried to do it.

MYE: Metal is rebellion and no one should have to look any part if they don’t want. It’s cool but sometimes silly if it isn’t done right.

KS: True.

MYE: Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible about the Red Scare and Communism in the U.S. and parallels with the witch hunts. Some people think Abigail Williams was spurned or something or just immature and got in too deep, and others think she was reacting to ergot and having hallucinations from bad rye that made her accuse people of witchcraft. I was wondering, with your band name, some of the themes you may have saved for the debut full-length that you wanted to get across which weren’t on the Legend EP or any thoughts on modern, mass hallucination?

KS: Well, with the band name, obviously I chose the name for the parallels in American History and the Red Scare and Witch Trials. I remember after 9/11 anyone could be a terrorist. It is a repeating thing. And for the lyrical content, a lot of the lyrics have to do with basic, pretty much…I mean, it varies from song to song. There’s not one concept, but “The World Beyond”, the first track, is about evolving as a whole. Evolving spiritually as a planet. I mean, stuff like that… (Trails off) Sorry, man. I had to get up early and drive four hours.

MYE: It’s all good, man. I got up at 6:30am myself. You guys tour so much. How do you deal with it? And with six people in the band! How do you put up with each other and divide the spoils fairly?

KS: [laughing] I mean, we argue a lot, but at the end of the day we are doing what we wanna do ‘cuz we like doing it. If someone does quit, ‘cuz they get sick of each other, it’s kind of an understanding that the band will keep going no no matter what.

MYE: Good. It’s gotta be like that. You guys have so much going for you. Your first EP sold real well. How does it feel now? You’ve been on Candlelight a little while now, but how does it feel to really be part of that label family and have them pushing you guys? They’ve got great bands like Daylight Dies and Orange Goblin.

KS: It’s pretty awesome. I never expected our EP to sell so many records, honestly, know what I mean!?

MYE: Fifteen-thousand is pretty sick for a debut EP, especially this kind of music, man. EP’s usually sell less than records.

KS: I just thought we were gonna sell it at shows. Originally I didn’t even know if it was gonna be in stores. It’s been almost two years and when I check the sales I am like “What the fuck?!” Hopefully our record will do well. I was checking Legend against records of bands I really like, and we were selling more. And I was like, “How?” It surprised me.

MYE: That’s awesome. The energy is great with the band. ‘The World Beyond” starts the new LP so strong and “Acolyte” has big sweeping chords. I personally like the higher, more layered production values like Anthems To The Welkin At Dusk by Emperor for black metal. I like old Mayhem and shit, but the lo-fi thing is too hissy for me even if the riffs are good. I think this is better for your band’s approach.

KS: I like lo-fi stuff, but our sound is best with a big, clear production, so that’s what we go for. When I mix demos for us, they sound really lo-fi and sound pretty cool, but I always visualize the record being much better sounding.

MYE: Maybe sometime you can do the other style for the opposite type of black metal fan.

KS: Yeah, yeah. I wanna do an EP of super raw black metal shit and bang it out in a couple days. I know we could do a good job.

MYE: Why not.

KS: That’s the cool thing about a label like Candlelight, too. They’ll let us do whatever we want and will put it out. I know the owners sign a lot of bands because they are doing something strange and intense, not because they are gonna sell a lot of records. I’ve been there in the office with the guy Steve over in the UK and he’s not thinking it’s gonna sell loads. He’s thinking “Whoa, this is fuckin’ weird! I gotta put this out.”

MYE: Thank God (or Satan, I guess) there’s labels like that still, since otherwise who would’ve heard Ulver or other type shit that is really influential now?

KS: Totally, man.

MYE: Dude, In The Shadow Of A Thousand Suns, the album title sounds really metal, but what does it mean to you personally?

KS: Well, um…I don’t even know anymore. When I was coming up with it I felt like I had a meaning for it. [Laughing] This is gonna sound funny. At that point things were different for the band.

MYE: You’d had some line-up turmoil you overcame.

KS: I didn’t know if we were going to be playing live, and technically it was our last record for Candlelight under the contract. I didn’t know what the future was. This was when we were first starting to record. I came up with that name based on how I felt about the hard work put into the record and feeling like, questioning if I was ever gonna get to do anything with it.

MYE: It’s an underdog spirit, man. I can relate.

KS: Yeah. When we were halfway through it became evident we had a line-up. It’s important to know that when we first started making the record we were in another band called Born Of Fire and signed to Roadrunner, and it’s why we didn’t know what the future of this band was, even though I knew this was the one I really wanted to do. We got signed before we even had played a show and they dropped us before we even got to record. They were just looking at numbers on paper. It was a learning experience for me, and hopefully everybody in the band, that we should just be doing what we want. For us, that was a good opportunity to have a career in music as some of us are older, but the way I look at it, if we really stick to this we can do the same thing.

MYE: Hey man, look at bands like Mastodon. Nobody expected that they’d ever be in the fuckin’ Aqua Teen Hunger Force Movie and shit.

KS: Yeah, man. No shit! I can’t even believe what they’ve done. When I first heard them I thought they were a cool band and never thought they’d be signed to a major label.

MYE: We’re big Testament fans here at Crusher and James Murphy, I love his playing on the Testament album Low, like the song “Hail Mary” and other stuff over the years. I know you are friends with him, but how did you meet and end up with him involved in the album? It’s awesome to have him working a lot again after all he went through with memory loss and stuff.

KS: Yeah. He’s awesome and really active on the internet with responding to every message of giving out his AIM to fans. I met him through a forum, the Andy Sneap forum for inspiring engineers and producers.

MYE: Andy produced The Gathering by Testament, obviously.

KS: Yeah, and so I was asking James about recording advice, especially the guitar and we’d just talk every day. We ended up talkin’ on the phone and became friends that way, back when the band first started. He was a go-to guy to me for advice, throughout the history of the band and always wanted to be involved in a recording. I ended up doing the EP myself, for lack of money and James being far away. For this record we were talking about having James mix, but he was like “Dude, just come out here for three months and stay with me and we’ll make a record.” I was like, “Alright!” That’s what we did. Got a lease for my apartment and everything.

MYE: And you went to Norway too, right?

KS: Trym did his drums in Norway. We stayed in Florida. I wish we did! That would’ve been great! It took place in a lot of places though. It was spread out. I wrote a lot of the shit in Florida, and we did a lot of pre-production and I wrote the vocals in New York City. James mixed it all in Florida, and he plays the solo on “The World Beyond”.

MYE: That first solo that pops in near the beginning! That’s funny. I love how the song is just developing, and you don’t expect a solo yet, and it just rips right into it! WAAAHHH! That shit is so sick.

KS: Yeah, man. For me it’s so sick every time I listen to it.

MYE: It’s got that great, clean James Murphy tone, too.

KS: Fuck yeah! Every time I listen to it, it’s like “Fuck Yeah! That’s James Murphy shredding on our album.” We’re big Testament fans, me and the guitar players. That’s one of our biggest influences and obviously Disincarnate, Death, Obituary, the other bands he’s been in. I love all that shit! So, it’s pretty awesome to have him playing on our record. I definitely wanna do it again. [laughing]

MYE: One thing that’s cool, I like black metal, but with you it isn’t so squashed together as some bands. The whole is powerful and impressive but you can hear each part almost like it was another type of metal record.

KS: Everything is clear. I think some of the keyboard playing is some of the best in the genre. Not to be a douche or anything but, Ashley (Ellyllon) is pretty fuckin’ good.

MYE: I love when people really treat the piano right. It can be so powerful. Some people shy away from using it to much ‘cuz they think it might be cheesy and that usually backfires and sounds timid, but it is like any other instrument, where if you use it a cool way it will be a great addition. There’s this Nine Inch Nails song “The Great Below” that is a good example, if more mainstream than black metal. And your tune “Smoke and Mirrors” has a cool marching vibe.

KS: Yeah. That is a weird song because the only people who played on that one are me and Trym.

MYE: Really?

KS: I played guitar and did all the keyboards and bass. I played guitar on the whole record, but that was cool ‘cuz it was just us on that song, which was pretty sweet as a big Emperor fan.

MYE: It’s some of his best drumming I’ve heard, and he’s always a good drummer.

KS: Yeah. I mean, the drums were beats I programmed and asked if he could play to this. So some of the stuff was a little different than what he’d usually do, which made it interesting. Then he added his own fills and accents and made it totally Trym sounding and good, you know?

MYE: Yeah.

KS: We just asked him a couple years ago and he couldn’t do it then. We broke up or took a break, whatever the fuck we were doing. Through the label, my friend at Candlelight in the UK, Darren did it. I was stuck, basically, in the UK for a month and was working in the warehouse. We were trying to figure out who was gonna play drums on the record and he said he’d call Trym. And I thought he was joking, but next thing you know we’re on the phone talking about it. I was like “Awesome!” It’s one of the coolest things about the record, getting to work with dudes I’ve looked up to.

MYE: And it is still really your band’s record and they are helping out and adding to it.

KS: That’s what’s so cool about it.

MYE: Not even in a session role! A lot of people will have more drummer ghosts play on shit, but this is cool ‘cuz they are really a part of it and everyone knows it.

KS: It makes us feel good when we listen to the record.

MYE: You have a heavier crunch in some parts than some black metal bands too, because maybe they don’t wanna sound death metal. You don’t become death metal but some chug notes really hit in the gut.

KS: It’s guitar playing and a clear guitar tone lends to that. Some bands have the buzz saw tone and less definition so you couldn’t really tell if they’re chunking around on a riff ‘cuz it is lost in the high end. I like that sound, too. It’s cool. I’m a fan of good tones. I’ll listen to Testament, The Gathering or Nevermore or something. “I WANT A TONE LIKE THAT!” It’s where we come from. We’ve got three guitar players in the band.

MYE: If you have three guitarists like Iron Maiden nowadays, you’ve gotta have good tones or it’ll be a shitty, muddy pile of asshole…unless you are a sludge band and it helps that way!

KS: [Laughing] It’s true. That was one of the things. We were just trying to make it really sound furious and clear at the same time. Right away when the verse comes in on “The World Beyond” that’s four guitar tracks but you can hear every little pick and it’s still defined.

MYE: What were the biggest challenges?

KS: The distance between everyone. Internet where James lives is not the best so it would take forever to get things back and forth. Flying around. Recording, we had hard drives go out. It was a nightmare. Right away my computer broke that I had all the pre-production on and I had to send it away, so I just sat around for a few weeks playing guitar by myself.

MYE: Hoping the tracks weren’t lost.

KS: They were! I got my shit back and everything was gone so we had to re-demo everything so Trym could play to everything. Those were some challenges! [Laughing]

MYE: Fuck!

KS: It’s all done now!

MYE: People think it is so easy, but there’s a reason that Pantera album is called Far Beyond Driven, ‘cuz people don’t know the challenges for underground bands.

KS: Definitely, man.

MYE: Besides the EP, which broke ground and turned heads, what do want this debut to contribute to metal in general? Not as a test, like “What do you have to offer,” but…

KS: One thing I’ve noticed is we’ve been touring with a lot of bands that sound nothing like us and we’ve been meeting a lot of kids that have never heard symphonic black metal. And we’ll be the first band they hear at a show. They weren’t expecting to hear some shit like that. Soon they’ll be checking out other shit which is pretty cool. We’ll get emails like they never heard anything like that and now like all the black metal shit.

MYE: If you’re gonna be a gateway band, it’s usually a derogatory term for like a shitty punk band that leads kids, maybe, to better ones. If you guys are a gateway for some kids, that’s awesome, because your band is fucking great from the get-go! Starting in a good place.

KS: I think when we do our next record we’re gonna try and do something different again. We’ll probably do something heavier but still epic as fuck!