Volcanic Birth: Interview with Dragged Into Sunlight
Music Interviews
SLUG: Your most recent output is a collaboration with Gnaw Their Tongues. How did this collaboration come to be, and how happy are you with its end result?
DIS: There isn’t anything that we’d change, and we were careful not to rush anything. No one is dying if we don’t release a record for a year. We spent around three to four years sporadically working on the tracks, reviewing the structures and feeling, and eventually got the recording where both parties wanted it to be.
Dragged Into Sunlight found a like-minded individual in Mories and having met in 2010 in Holland, we sought to realize a collaborative effort. There was always a certainty with regard to what we’d achieve working together and a direction as to the overall feel of the music. We hoped it would prove negative, abrasive cold and industrial. Suffice it to say, the recording exceeded our expectations.
SLUG: I understand that, for Widowmaker, you have an underlying track of a recording taken in the Palace of Skulls in the Czech Republic. In that light, and with regard to the samples you use in your music, what did that inspire? Did that spark a desire to enter into the noise realm that you did with Gnaw Their Tongues?
DIS: Not really. Dragged Into Sunlight explored elements of ambience as well as harsh noise from day one. The likes of Vomir, Skullflower and Merzbow are deserving influences.
Dragged Into Sunlight has always had a moog and associated power tools as part of its live appearance, however, we first experimented with recorded noise on recordings such as Terminal Aggressor and Totem of Skulls, so as early as 2008.
SLUG: Speaking of collaborations, I read in one of your interviews that you worked with Nate Hall on NV, and would love to collaborate with him or US Christmas. I am familiar with what he does, and it’s so drastically different than what DIS do. If you did collaborate with him, what do you think the output might sound like?
DIS: Dragged Into Sunlight first worked with Nate Hall in 2013. Although the recordings were never finished, we hope to do so in the future. The combination of two relatively strong creative forces is always going to yield an interesting result. We hope that our work with Nate will form the follow-up to 2008’s collaboration with Kas Mana on Terminal Aggressor.
SLUG: Is the collaboration name NV a play on words? NV = Envy? Just curious.
DIS: Why not, it could be.
SLUG: Thanks for going through my influx of questions here! Last one: Do you feel that Dragged Into Sunlight, with two full-lengths released, are in a place to experiment with further recording? Is there any mindset to say, “Hey, we changed a lot from Album 1 to 2—maybe that gives us the leverage to do whatever we want and not have to stick to any genre rules”—? Can listeners expect to hear more change from future releases from DIS?
DIS: Certainly. There is obviously a scope to what we do, however, it is wide, and we anticipate continuing to disregard boundaries and push the sounds that we create in exploring every aspect with no stone left unturned.
Fans of the ugly and extreme hard and heavy noise expect to see a package of ear crushing bands on July 10 at the Metro Bar in Salt Lake City. Dragged Into Sunlight headline with Salt Lake’s own Cult Leader, along with Primitive Man, Portal to the God Damn Blood Dimension and Moon of Delirium.