Black metal band, Cloak, will be hitting the stage at The Sanctuary Detroit in Hamtramck on Sunday, October 31st. The Halloween March of the Adversary show will find the band headlining with Demiser and Slasher Dave opening.
The show is all ages and tickets are $14 and can be purchased here. The show is at 7 pm.
The Atlanta quartet is known for blending a unique aggressive mix of black metal, rock n' roll and a homegrown southern sludge.
Cloak is currently working on the follow-up to 2019's The Burning Dawn and hope to get the album out sometime next year.
Cloak vocalist/guitarist Scott Taysom gave some insight to the new music and the tour which begins tonight in Lexington, Kentucky.
Q: Have you played any other shows or will this be your first one back after all the shut downs?
Scott Taysom: No, this will be our first time that we've played since we played this one show in Savannah, Georgia for this little festival in February of 2020. That was our last show so yeah, it's gonna feel pretty weird.
Q: What's it mean to get back out on stage for you?
ST: I mean really for us it's kind of everything. We're such a live-oriented band and everything happened right when our second record, The Burning Dawn, came out so we didn't get to do much of anything for that except for one tour with 1349. Then we did a release show in Atlanta and that was kind of the last big show that we had.
So really, this tour is kind of a continuation of where we left off. In some ways, it feels like there was no time in between, but on the other hand, it also feels like a lifetime ago. It's definitely been a strange year.
Q: And how did you guys fill that time in between? I know you've been working on some new music.
ST: Yeah, we wrote a album. We're actually in the middle of recording that right now. We're pretty far along, but it's taken a lot longer than we thought it would. There are just so many details on the new album so we've been in the studio for about two months. I'd say we're a little over the halfway hump. We still have to do quite a bit when we get back from tour.
Q: What do you want people to know about the direction of the new album?
ST: To me, it's by far the best material. I know everyone always says that about a new album, but it really has such a different vibe from the first two albums. It's kind of a new beginning for the band and it's a direction that we've been chasing for a long time. It's something that we wanted to achieve with the sound. It's a lot more aggressive. It's bigger sounding, it's more epic and the production is a lot bigger.
I'm extremely proud of it and extremely excited to finish it. I just got back the cover art for it today before it got scanned. I'm seeing it all come into fruition, which is pretty cool.
Q: Do you have an idea on when you want to try to get it out?
ST: Well, we did, but the album has been pushed back since it's taking us quite a bit of time. The pressing plants I've heard are 8 months backed up right now, which is insane! So that f*cks sh*t up so the goal is to get it out there as soon as possible. I just hope we get it out by 2022. It would be devastating if we had to wait a whole year.
Q: You're going to be my way for Halloween. For those coming out to the Detroit show or one of the shows on the rest of the tour, what can they expect?
ST: There's a bit of a different setlist from what we've normally done the past couple of times we've been out. There's a bit more of a stage show as far as how we're going to decorate the stage because we have more freedom being the headliner.
I think it's going to be a really good pairing with Demiser and Slasher Dave, who is a really good friend of ours. I'm extremely excited that he's opening that. It's a perfect Halloween night show.
Q: What's your favorite part about touring this time of year?
ST: Actually, this is the exact same time that we started touring on our last tour two years ago. It's kind of funny. This is my favorite time of the year, you know October to November, the kind of Samhein time and the changing of the seasons.
It represents a lot of what the band represents: rebirth and shedding of the old and being reborn into something new and growth and change and darkness. It's a really good time to tour and reflect on that and for people to kind of celebrate by seeing maybe their first live show back as well.
Q: And when you are working on new music, what is the process?
ST: I'm the main songwriter and Max [Brigham, guitarist] as well. We make demos and then we just jam it out with Sean [Bruneau,] our drummer, and Billy [Robinson,] the bassist, in our practice room.
A lot of this new album was a lot of demoing as I wrote. Any time I had an idea, I would record it immediately because I have a little home studio set up. There's a lot of editing and changing that we do along the way and I basically send them everything that I do immediately so we can jam on it that week or the following week.
Yeah, a lot of it is just coming up with riffs and ideas as I go. And then I do the lyrics mostly after the songs are written.
Q: And I know you are all hands on with your music videos as well. For "A Voice in the Night" the band wrote, filmed, directed and edited it. Do you already have those images in your head as you are writing the songs?
ST: No, that usually comes after the songs are done. I have a good bit of ideas for how I want to do the next ones.
Honestly, I would love to have other people do the videos, but we just don't have the budget for that. It's cool that we can do them, but I would like to extend out to other people, true professionals, to see what they come up with.
We only have the amount of skill set that we have and the amount of props and money so we'll probably end up doing our own on this next one again. We're such a DIY band and we print our own merchandise.
Q: In some ways that is a good thing because you have all the say in what makes it out there.
ST: Yeah, and we're such control freaks! It's good to be able to do a lot of that stuff on our own. We have the skill set and Max works at a print shop now so we're able to do a lot of it there.
Q: What was it about the black metal genre that drew you guys to it?
ST: I think it's just that this type of music attracts a certain kind of person. It's almost like it's in your blood. We all grew up towards the late end of the nineties and early 2000's and alternative rock and hard rock was so popular then.
I think it was just going down that road and then I got heavily into punk and most of my bands were punk bands up until my twenties and then I met Sean and we both had a love for black metal and the spirituality behind it. We wanted to do a band like that, but different. We started jamming together in 2013.
Yeah, to answer your question, it's a certain type of person that gets attracted to black metal; specifically someone who always looks a bit deeper into the music and someone who can answer that spiritual call that this music beckons basically.
Q: What's the biggest goal looking ahead?
ST: To me, it's just always a upper trajectory. Just bigger shows, bigger albums, bigger songs, bigger music videos and more merchandise. Just growth basically.
Q: Finally, anything you'd like to say to the fans out there waiting on the new music?
ST: Yeah, I mean I think they can expect something extremely powerful. I don't think we're going to lose any fans; if anything I think we're going to gain fans. I think they'll be very surprised, but also extremely into the new album. I'm extremely excited to get it out there. To me, it's going to be much more live-oriented because it just goes a lot harder than in the past.