This interview originally appeared in Buzz Magazine, September 2008.
Johannes Persson, enigmatic guitarist for sludge/doom band Cult of Luna makes the unlikeliest of friends up in the wintry steppes of Umea, their home town. “We have made lots of friends from people in Australia. One of the bands that recorded up here, you may have heard of. We’re very good friends with the Dukes of Windsor.” I was flabbergasted. The Dukes of Windsor? From Melbourne? Persson too was taken aback. “Yeah,” he laughs. “I thought I recognized the name of [your] town. They played up here in our hometown. I was totally blown away by them. Jack, the vocalist, has a voice that could not be compared to many people on this Earth. They’re a great live band too.” A ringing endorsement from a man who lives and plays in the extreme? Priceless.
Persson is one of eight members that includes some three guitarists and two vocalists in the gargantuan line-up of Cult of Luna had humble beginnings, with most of the core group playing in a hardcore band called Eclipse. “Well we just started to write slower and slower songs…eventually the band broke up and our sound changed so much that we decided to change the name of the band.” Persson says. Persson also quite earnestly enlightenens us on how a band with eight members forms one cohesive whole in the songwriting process.
“Well, we start off with a basic idea that someone in the band has. There’s no pre-defined structure or anything like that, we just jam it out. It would be a lie to say everyone has as much to say in every song, but it’s usually I, Fredrik (guitarist) and Erik (guitarist) that writes most of the stuff, and a majority of the songs come from me, to be honest.” Persson, not shy of telling like it is, even confesses that CoL’s latest album, Eternal Kingdomhas its rough edges. “Well, some of the best songs on there is some of the best material we’ve ever [written], he explains.
“But some of the other songs could have used a few more jams in the rehearsal room before we went into the studio.” He also quashes the rumor that CoL recorded the album in a disused psychiatric ward, evoking images of a haunted menagerie of padded walls and blood-curdling screams. “Well, where we recorded was on the site of a big institution. It’s all been rebuilt now. There’s a cultural centre, music studios, etc.”
However, the use of a madman’s diary as the central theme to Eternal Kingdom is very much true, as Persson tells. “Well, a year before we started writing music, we did a T-shirt design for one of the characters, which was a hare, but with moose-horns. (laughs) - It was a hybrid kind of animal. Besides, when a story like that just falls into your lap you can’t not do anything with it. It was an interesting story and a good story.”
Persson, being the earnest and endearing musician he is also has a strong passion for raising moral and political issues through Cult of Luna. “Well, every album has to have a clear and [defined] issue running through it,” he tells me. “If you’re in a band and people listen to your music, you may as well say something important.” He even rages against the established music “machine”, critiquing the homogenization and routine dumbing down of popular music culture.
“When you pick up any music magazine it almost makes you want to poke your eyes out,” he laments. “[Musicians] sometimes get really stupid questions from journalists about the ‘sex, drugs and rock and roll’ lifestyle; it’s all uninteresting and it’s been done so many times. They ask you things like ‘what’s your quickest tap solo’ – f—k off! That kind of music journalism isn’t journalism at all. Having that said, we’re not a band that wants to point fingers and tell people what to do. But we’re also a band that doesn’t avoid controversial and important issues.”
Such as?
“Well, [for example], every time you pick up a magazine it [reinforces the] male-domination of the rock ‘n’ roll business and traditional male values. I don’t want to generalize, but a lot of the American bands have this jingoist, macho attitude. First off, it’s just plain boring; it’s veryunoriginal and just lame.”
Living in a land of extremes ourselves, Cult of Luna would find themselves at home among the “cult” like following of the sludge and experimental doom movement, with Isis, Sunn O))) and Boris all touring successfully here – I ask, would Persson like to take his outfit down under? “Yes, we would love to tour Australia. We have many friends that loved touring there – in fact, every band I know that toured Australia say that it’s the best thing they’ve ever done. In that sense, we want to go to Australia as soon as possible…hopefully we’ll be there soon.”
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Reprinted with permission. All rights reserved, Crushtor Media Services Pty. Ltd.
