{"id":9532,"date":"2014-10-08T11:00:36","date_gmt":"2014-10-08T16:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.toiletovhell.com\/?p=9532"},"modified":"2014-10-07T23:21:14","modified_gmt":"2014-10-08T04:21:14","slug":"patrons-of-the-rotting-gate-the-toh-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/patrons-of-the-rotting-gate-the-toh-interview\/","title":{"rendered":"Patrons of the Rotting Gate: The ToH Interview"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Last year, a little known band called\u00a0Patrons of the Rotting Gate<\/strong> dropped one of the best black metal releases of the year to significant critical acclaim<\/a>.\u00a0The Rose Coil<\/em> was a harrowing, enthralling, and frankly ingenious declaration of dark grandeur. After I described the album as pure Lovecraftian<\/a> beauty, the mastermind behind POTRG found his way to our humble bowl. I connected with Andrew Millar, and he was kind enough to grant me an interview and allow us a deeper look into the mystique of Patrons of the Rotting Gate.<\/p>\n

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\"10711705_525673970912216_1167755729_n\"<\/p>\n

Andrew, you’re the primary songwriter, performer, and driving force for Patrons of the Rotting Gate, correct? Do you prefer working alone? If so, why? How much does Adam Irwin contribute to the music?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yep! And it\u2019s probably going to stay that way. I think now that I\u2019ve done one album pretty much myself, despite the additional work I have to put in, I have a taste of power and love being in control of absolutely everything, haha. Starting from scratch, thinking how you\u2019ll turn the sound in your head into a 50 minute album, planning the flow of the album to the lyrical themes\/art and what the mix should sound like, etc. is really inspiring. I do really like being in a band as well though. You have your part to play and can really zone in on your role and try to perfect your \u201cpiece of the puzzle\u201d, I know I\u2019m not finished with full bands or anything, but if anyone came in as guitarist or whatever to POTRG I\u2019d probably be a dick to them and try and control everything.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a small detail but Adam didn\u2019t actually track any guitars on the first album, haha. He\u2019s credited with additional guitars on The Rose Coil<\/em>, and when the album was first released I didn\u2019t think there would be as much interest in it as there has been, so I just left it in there. That\u2019s not to say he didn\u2019t have any influence or input though. He was the only person I let listen to the album before I put it out there.<\/p>\n

I wanted his input on the guitar parts and for him to write a solo on \u201cA Perfect Suicide\u201d (which unfortunately didn\u2019t happen due to our schedules, but he gave his thoughts on how to improve the guitars, which resulted in me going back and writing variations of riffs and 2nd guitar parts.<\/p>\n

One example is at 1:49 in \u201cT\u0159i Z\u00e1v\u011bti.\u201d The panned left guitar part was my original, less interesting part, and panned right is what I wrote after talking to him. Panned right is much cooler and more fun to play, haha. Because what we talked about was primarily about the guitars, the additional guitar credit seemed appropriate. I now love writing two somewhat independent guitar lines hard panned..<\/p>\n

I think it’s pretty evident in the flow of Rose Coil that you have a pretty unique vision. What art would you say has inspired your artistic vision? \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Other people’s music is a big inspiration obviously, but I make a conscious effort to keep what I like to listen to and what I want to create separate when I\u2019m actually writing. Hopefully this means when I look back in 10 years I won\u2019t think \u201cI was listening to a shitload of Deathspell<\/strong> before album #__\u201d. I have a little bit of that now when I listen to “Pride In Descent” from TRC, with Der Weg Einer Freiheit<\/strong>\u2019s latest album Unstille<\/em> haha. I get a lot of ideas for riffs\/atmospheres\/sounds\/concepts and stuff instantly from things like books, movie, art, and\u2026 life and quickly go home and stream of consciousness type in a text file so I remember.<\/p>\n

A while back just looking at Zdzislaw Beksinski online stuff I got the vague concepts for albums 3, 4, and 5 and the good idea of how I want them to sound. As of now I know what I\u2019m going to do for those albums (although for 4\/5, I have to write more music than the few riffs I have, and there are about 30 minutes of stuff recorded for 3). I have that sort of vague outline for 6 and 7. I have a lot of catching up to do!<\/p>\n

Ooh, I love Beksinski. I definitely find his brand of surrealism intriguing, so that’s cool to see the connection with your music.\u00a0<\/strong>We covered you in a Lovecraftian piece, but that was just conjecture on my part. Any books or movies that have influenced your sound\/lyrics?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Thanks again for that feature! Haha It was weird when I saw that because I can\u2019t remember any obvious Lovecraft references in the lyrics but he\u2019s definitely an influence. I\u2019m especially guilty of including flowery and over the top descriptions in TRC. I haven\u2019t been reading as much this past year but around the time of The Rose Coil It was Steppenwolf<\/em>, Journey to the end of the Night<\/em>, and The Stranger<\/em> that influenced the lyrics quite a bit. I was also on A Clash of Kings<\/em>, but I doubt it had much effect on the lyrics after I cut all the passages about food. I was watching the anime Monster<\/em> as well which was great; it does away with a lot of the over the top supernatural elements that I dislike most of the time with anime. The working titles when I didn\u2019t have lyrics were all references to it and the first 2 song titles were kept in the Czech language, primarily because I got used to the way they looked. I\u2019m interested to reflect on the lyrics for albums 1 and 2 (after I finish the 2nd album), as I think the last book I finished was In the Name of the Rose<\/em> by Umberto Eco and I\u2019ve been about a third of the way through Focault\u2019s Pendulum<\/em> for about 2 months now, so maybe my plagiarism of authors will be more subtle this time around.<\/p>\n

From the covers you’ve done, it seems like Gorguts, Deathspell Omega, and Ulver have been big influences too. Are there any other bands that have been critical to how you play?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah man those bands are massive influences, especially the albums Obscura<\/em> and Fas<\/em> (and Nattens Madrigal<\/em> for the more true black metal stuff)! There are too many bands that influence me in terms of songwriting and structure to list; I try and absorb that sort of thing without overthinking it. In terms of how I play guitar I\u2019d say THE Adam Irwin , Stephen Jarrett, Steeve Hurdle, \u00a0Hasjarl, and – because Meshuggah permeate everything I write -Thordendal\/Hagstrom.<\/p>\n

Because I\u2019m really into lists: For drums: Elliott Hoffman, , John Longstreth, Jamie Saint Merat, and Mike Heller. Favourite vocalists are probably Travis Ryan and Steve Marois. I feel the vocals on The Rose Coil where really restrained, and if I\u2019m honest, a little boring at times. I\u2019m planning on experimenting vocally more on the next album, I\u2019ve been doing lows\/growls for a long time and pretty content with using them less frequently, but I want to \u201cblack metal\u201d up some of the highs; I\u2019m a bit happier with how they sound on the Deathspell Omega<\/strong> and Ulver<\/strong> covers than The Rose Coil<\/em>.<\/p>\n