Blackened Horde: How did the band get started?
Jim: I was having some beers with some friends before a show in Vancouver. I told these friends that I was trying to start a band, and they mentioned that their other friends who also traveled from Calgary for this show were down to jam, and we had our first jam about a week later, after we were all back home.
Blackened Horde: What kind of music do you play?
Jim: We are Cultist, and we play death metal.
Blackened Horde: How has the fan response been?
Jim: Great! I’ve been very pleased with our fan’s reception! To paraphrase Field of Dreams; “Play some ripping runes, and they will come.”
Blackened Horde: Where did the band name come from?
Jim: We just felt that it was a great name. Nice and simple, but also evocative and intimidating. As an added bonus, there weren’t any other bands of the same name (at the time, haha.)
Blackened Horde: Introduce the band members and what they do in the band.
Jim: Joe Pacentrilli on guitar, Jim Petigo on drums and some vocals, Vanessa Grossberndt is our bassist and main vocalist. Although it is worth nothing that Joe just joined and hasn’t been our guitarist on any of the releases.
Blackened Horde: How many albums/CD’s have you released?
Jim: We released a demo in 2016, with the very straightforward title of Demo 2016. Cosmic Tomb, an EP from 2018. A Pact From The Grave, a split with our friends in Euthanized, from 2019, and most recently, our full length debut, Manic Despair released in February of 2022.
Blackened Horde: Tell me about some of the songs on the latest CD?
Jim: Sure! The title track, which was written by our former guitarist, Brodie Wylie and is a straightforward classic death metal opener, very inspired by Death and Master, with lyrics about bipolar disorder.
Vicissitudes is an instrumental that gets pretty weird, with a lot of time changes, unexpected twists, and what I feel is a very natural flow.
Missing a Soul is fast, ferocious and explosive, with lyrics about sociopathy.
Regression is us channeling Candlemass and Pentagram. Doom metal with a very soulful solo (my favorite solo on the album) and the classic doom metal time change, a la Black Stone Wielder by Candlemass. Lyrics are about depression.
Blackened Horde: Who writes the music? Lyrics?
Jim: We don’t have a main songwriter. On Manic Despair, I wrote the skeleton for Synesthesia and Locked in Time. Vanessa wrote Vexatious Seizures of Thought and Vicissitudes. Our former guitarist, Brodie wrote Manic Despair and Triumph. Missing a Soul and Regression were collaboratively written by Vanessa and I. We tend to write the lyrics of the songs that we individually write.
Blackened Horde: And where do the lyric ideas come from?
Jim: A lot of it (especially Vanessa’s lyrics) comes from simple daily life bones to pick. Some of them deal with larger societal issues. While writing Manic Despair, we decided that our full length albums will have a theme, which in the case of Manic Despair was mental illness.
Blackened Horde: What is your view in Satanism and Occultism? (If this applies)
Jim: I love watching videos of old Anton LeVay led meetings. The theatrics and pageantry of it are a lot of fun. I feel that the various organizations are doing great work, but I’ve never felt the need to go to a meeting or join the congregation.
As far as occultism, I think it’s a great thing. I am a complete neophyte, as that shit is dense and can be pretty overwhelming to dive into. Who knows, maybe I’m trying to start in the wrong places. Blavotsky’s ‘The Secret Doctrine’ was my introduction to occultism and that book is notoriously impenetrable. Perhaps I should try again with something a little simpler.
Blackened Horde: Do you have any side projects?
Jim: Vanessa recently joined another death metal band, called Cessation, with whom we share a practice space.
Blackened Horde: Who are some of your musical influences?
Jim: Some albums that never leave my rotation like, Black Sabbath – Sabotage, Razor – Violent Restitution, Pestilence – Consuming Impulse, Nasum – Human 2.0 and Judas Priest – Stained Class.
Blackened Horde: What is the band like when you play live?
Jim: With the amount of time that we spend practicing, I like to believe we bring our A-Game. I’ve been told I play a lot faster live. I don’t really notice. Heat of the moment, ya know?
Blackened Horde: Have you guys ever played in another country?
Jim: Not yet. The furthest out of Calgary we’ve played was in 2018, when we did a small tour out to Victoria, on the west coast.
Blackened Horde: How big of a crowd do you normally get?
Jim: Our crowds have only been getting bigger, which I’m taking as a good omen. The last show we played to was about 175 people.
Blackened Horde: How is the crowd response when you play?
Jim: Enthusiastic.
Blackened Horde: What do you think about the underground scene?
Jim: I love it, and I’ve always loved it. I love spending hours discovering all the secrets that it hides, and since I’m a part of it, I like to think of that as an investment.
Blackened Horde: What are some of your new favorite Extreme metal bands?
Jim: Some of my recent favorite bands are Craven Idol, Hyperdontia and Draghkar.
Blackened Horde: Since the Covid Pandemic has that hurt the band in making music at all?
Jim: Not at all. We just continued practicing as normal. The thing hurt us most was the 4 months we spent without a guitarist.
Blackened Horde: What advice would you as a musician give to a fellow musician just starting out?
Jim: Practice as often as you can.
Blackened Horde: When do you guys plan on writing any new material?
Jim: We currently have 3 songs fully written, with 4 skeletons ready to go.
Blackened Horde: What does the future hold for the band??
Jim: With any luck, only the best and brightest. We’ve been trying to figure out the workings of doing a cross Canada tour. I for one, certainly hope we haven’t hit our peak.
Contact them at:
https://www.facebook.com/cultistcanada
https://cultistcanada.bandcamp.com/
https://www.instagram.com/cultistcanada/
