When your self-titled LP was announced, I had no real frame of reference aside from two important data points – first, that it was being released by Burning Witches Records, and second, there was this instantly intriguing backstory created for the album. After reading the description, there was no way I was missing out on the record. Can you tell us about the creation of the backstory, and how it worked with the release and promotion of the album?

(EG) Man. It was kinda crazy how it fell together. We didn’t really have a game plan going in. At the time we started tracking, we never hand a solid theme or narrative in mind. We didn’t even have plans to release the record, honestly. We were just trying to make some music that we liked hearing. Once things moved along and we started shaping the record for an actual release and working on the artwork with Ben, the story sort of started taking shape in the background and filling in gaps. Then Colin came to me with the album pitch and it just felt right. We sorta fleshed it out from there, and then agreed that using the story to pitch the record might be a really neat idea.

Around the time of the album’s release, I had been listening to a podcast called Video Palace and watching a series on Shudder called Deadwax. Like Ring many years ago, Video Palace and Deadwax both deal with the idea of a curse or supernatural force being transmitted via mundane media. This idea also seemed to resonate with the music and the story behind the Harglow LP. Were there certain movies or stories that inspired your approach to either the music or the story surrounding it?

(EG) Oh definitely. Like you said, The Ring was a big influence, but also movies like The Ninth Gate, Eyes Wide Shut, and 8mm were definitely on my mind.

Another really heavy factor was internet folklore, creepypasta, and the SCP website. I can let Colin talk more on that, but that type of storytelling was really interesting to us. Especially the world building that surrounded it all.

(CN) Yeah, like Eric said, there were some film and literary works that had a hand in guiding things. The most prominent and lasting inspiration was SCP-701. That rabbit hole was found after watching the first season of True Detective. I became obsessed with the notion of Carcosa and the Yellow King. The rich elite and the madness and disassociation that can come from living in high society. Power is a sickness. The scene where Rust takes Marty to a storage unit and shows him the video tape of the secret society/rich elites of Louisiana performing a ritual sacrifice was pivotal in connecting the dots for me. It clicked. The music we were making sounded like what should be soundtracking that warped, grainy black and white footage of robed figures sacrificing this blindfolded girl. 

That sparked me to further investigate the mythos of the Yellow King. That search brought me to SCP-701, which is this creepypasta-type story and documentation about a play called “The Hanged King’s Tragedy.” The fictional case file on it describes it as “The Hanged King’s Tragedy, is a Caroline-era revenge tragedy in five acts. Performances of the play are associated with sudden psychotic and suicidal behavior among both observers and participants, as well as the manifestation of a mysterious figure, classified as SCP-701-1.” That long-winded story is what lead us to envisioning the album as a curse.

More generally, what are some of your favorite films from the horror genre? What really scares you or gets under your skin?

(CN) Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974), Suspiria (1977), Halloween (1978), Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982), The Thing (1982), and most recently The VVitch, It Follows, The Blackcoat’s Daughter, and Hereditary. Recently becoming a parent within the last year has brought on a whole new set of anxieties and perspective in my life. The well-being and fear of losing a child is at the top of my fears right now. Hereditary destroyed me in that regard. Also, that darkness at the end of the hall. Gives me pause every time.

(RB) As a straight up horror film, I have to put up Hellraiser for a title drop… but the films that really do it for me? Alien, The Shining, The Devil’s Advocate, and more recently, Us. I’m all about symbolism and social commentary. Films that portray structures like corporatism and authoritative control as horrors speak to me…  Al Pacino as the dark lord, head of a corporate law firm, THAT scares the bejesus out of me.

(EG) Jeez… Such a hard question, and my answers seem pretty run-of-the-mill, but Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Halloween, and The Shining are a few of my heavy hitters. More recently I’ve really loved The VVitch, Hereditary, Us, It, and Mandy. I feel like we’ve had a really good run in the genre lately.

As far as what really scares or bothers me and keeps me up at night, it’s things like uncertainty, the inability to distinguish reality, power and how easily it can be abused, and lately, just how little control I feel like we have over our lives. I get hung up on that a lot lately.

Burning Witches has become one of my favorite labels over the last few years, and the kind of imprint where I feel confident taking chances on artists that I have no prior familiarity with. What can you tell us about working with the label? 

(EG) Darren and Gary are great guys. It’s incredible what they’ve done in just a few years with BWR. They took a chance on us and helped us achieve a lot of things we never thought we would ever be able to do. We can’t thank them enough for that. Working with them was a really collaborative process. From the track listing, to the artwork, everybody involved was able to put out their opinion and it was okay to do that. They respected our vision, but also weren’t afraid to offer an alternative perspective.

I really dug the design and art direction of the LP as well. Was this something that you had in mind from early in the process?

(CN) I feel like we are very visual musicians. There’s always films playing in the studio and visual references when describing tone. While there was a lot of subliminal imagery that was guiding us as we were composing the music, there wasn’t a hard stance on the visual component initially. We were honestly guided by the music as it came out. I serendipitously came across Ben Turner’s Instagram account when I began the search for potential candidates to approach for the artwork. BWR was really open to whatever we wanted to do visually. Ben’s art really clicked with everybody and I think it really was an undeniable match and synergy with the music.

(EG) Ben Turner was a major player in the aesthetic of the album artwork. We offered up the ideas we were going with and some of the themes we’d like to try and capture, and Ben ran with it and just fucking killed it. Like I said earlier, his artwork actually influenced us when we were working on the narrative. He just does outstanding work. I can’t express how incredibly lucky we were to get hooked up with Ben.

It’s excited me recently to see a number of artists whose music is definitely horror-inspired make the jump to scoring horror films. Is this something that you’d like to do in the future?

(All in unison) ABSOLUTELY!

If you had to choose just one, what would be your favorite horror movie score? 

(EG) That’s a mean question to ask, so I’m going to cheat. For a long time I would have slammed Halloween down on the table like a royal flush. However, lately I have to say that the 1990 It miniseries score by Richard Bellis would be my choice. I have a weird nostalgic fixation with that score.

(CN) I’m going to slam it down on the table like a royal flush. John Carpenter’s score to Halloween (1978). Next to Bernard Herrmann’s score for Psycho, it was truly one of the first horror film scores to be another character in the film. It shapes the experience of that film on a deep level. As a kid, it was some of the first music I ever had extensive thoughts about after I finished the movie. It lingers.

(RB) We can count The Terminator, right?

Do you envision Harglow as strictly a studio project, or are there plans for live shows? (Just as an aside – the thought of seeing a live show with visuals, or even a live rescore of a movie, would be of great interest to me!)

(RB) I know all parties would love to take it live. We’ve definitely discussed it. Unfortunately, it boils down to logistical issues that we’d have to contend with… We’re in our thirties, so we have these cute little jobs to work for these cute little bills to pay. That coupled with our proximities being split between lines on a map… but if we manage to lasso up a few stars…

(EG) We have been staying pretty busy. I don’t want to say too much but keep your ears to the ground. The dead are always whispering…

Is there anything on the horizon that you’d like to share with our readers? 

For more info on the band, check them out on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter. Check out their music at Burning Witches Records.

All pictures courtesy of Harglow.