Band – The Sun and The Mirror
Album – Dissolution to Salt and Bone
Country of Origin – USA
Genre – Cello/Drone/Doom/Experimental
Release Date – April 2, 2021
Label – Brucia Records
Author – Hayduke X
Interval I
A beginning. A passageway into the other, the interior, the sideways and strange. Slow cello filters over radiating drones, refracted beams of sunlight, dappling in sonic brightness and shadow, gentle breezes of intent and remembrance play over the spaces within the tympanic cavity. An interval between the now and the soon, which prepares us for what must come next.
Currents
Reverberating thrums of a conscientiously plucked string mark the entryway. Sonorous voice resonates within being, odd harmony to the notes floating just below consciousness. “…and the stories to the flagging moon..” Soon, languorous riffs join the telling of tales, veering deeper into the dark of feeling only, thought left aside. Currents is a room, a river, a room that is both destination and journey. The room is never ending, but transforms, now a cavern in the river, dark glow of fungi all that is present to light the path. A floating trip into memory and psyche. I am enveloped and evolved. I dissolve and devolve.
Interval II
Alien chirps led through the next passageway. The call of the beyond vibrates the empty space. Sharp bursts of static buzz in and out. The pathway is clear, yet unknown.
Katherinella Angustri
A new place, another reality, the wheel has shifted… All is beautiful. All is unknowable. Sounds come and go. Occasionally, the old world tries to burst in, uncomfortable, fighting for remembrance. I move in awe in the shifting pitches and tones, eyes wide open, lids closed. Pain lurks, watching, ready. The moment of fullness has arrived. The steady rhythms of time, place, memory dance me forward. The call from beyond clearly heard. Aching want climbs the ladder of my spine, intent on making me take the bit. The only escape, acceptance. Breathe deep….exhale….
Please pardon my poor attempt at waxing poetic. Dissolution to Salt and Bone is a massive journey. Using drone, ambient noise, doom riffs and drumming, cello, and mesmerizing vocals, the duo of Reggie Townley and Sarah Townley create a masterpiece of rich soundscapes that draw me into another world. The best music does that. I find myself elsewhere. The two tracks plus two intervals are utterly, undeniably visceral. Read on for a rich interview. I spoke with Reggie, but have been assured that Sarah was also a part of the conversation, helping to craft the answers below.
Hayduke X: I want to start by saying how much I’m enjoying Dissolution to Salt and Bone. I’m normally a speed and dissonance kind of guy, but this album really speaks to me. (It probably helps that cello is my favorite instrument) Tell me how the two of you are feeling about the album.
Reggie Townley: Thank you for your kind words! I appreciate it. Yes, cello is my favorite instrument as well! We’re feeling really good about the album. I feel like it came together well. It was a culmination of processing a lot of pain, but also I think was a culmination artistically. A lot of disparate elements came together that we had been trying to work out for years. On my end, I finally figured out what I have been trying to do as a songwriter. It’s taken a while to work that out. I asked Sarah what she thought, and she said it’s the most confident she’s felt in putting a piece of art into the world. We are both floored with how good the production sounds. We owe that to Z.V. House. He’s really been a constant support in the creation of this album, as a friend, collaborator, and producer.
HX: Whatever the factors are, please keep doing it. I just listened through the album again and it was as utterly engaging as the first time. Maybe moreso. You commented that it’s the culmination of processing a lot of pain, and the press material I received gave a bit of an outline. What can you share about the purpose and meaning of this album to you both?
Reggie: Yeah, there is a lot going on personally and aesthetically that came together, that is hard to pin down. I guess I’ll focus on the personal. The three-ish years leading up to the record were intense. We got married and moved to Hawaii. Shortly after the move, we were having our morning coffee, getting ready to go sign a lease on an apartment, and got the call from Sarah’s dad that he had cancer. We moved back to Idaho and were live-in caregivers for Sarah’s grandma, who had dementia. We helped out the best we could, while he went through cancer treatment, but definitely our biggest role in that was caring for grandma, which was a rewarding, though very taxing experience.
She actually ended up joining The Sun and the Mirror, beating on a drum, back when it was a full band. We discovered that drumming was therapeutic to her, especially to doom metal, which, to say that was surprising is an understatement. She, and that version of the band, which grew to a seven piece, played a huge part in our development of this project, which we are incredibly grateful for. That crew really helped us find our way, and was the weekly bit of solace from the immensely difficult experiences of daily life. Everyone was kind enough to come to us, practicing in the tiny house we built in the back yard with Sarah’s father. It was more like a cabin, more on the upper end of what you call a tiny house, but, anyway, I digress.
The people in that band, which included some dear friends, and Sarah’s sister, were our anchor, personally, and as musical supporters, and in many ways, teachers. We learned a lot from them. Anyway, unfortunately Sarah’s dad passed from cancer. It was fucking brutal and really caused an unraveling. There is a lot of personal stuff in between we’d rather not share publicly, but, to process everything, we ended up taking a trip to the Oregon Coast to scatter a portion of his ashes.
Some friends offered to lend us their RV, so we took a bunch of our gear with us. We camped along the coast in a few different spots, then settled in for about a week on a forest road near a secluded beach. We spent the days hiking, and had our gear all set up, using the generator for power, and worked on a ton of sketches of what became the album. That trip, and the whole record is a processing of losing Sarah’s dad, and making peace with impermanence by really diving into, or being pulled into the shadows, the underworld, you know, drowning sometimes but still making it out or through it somehow. All caught up in that, was also my own long term grief of my own father, who committed suicide when I was fifteen. He was who encouraged me to be an artist and writer, and his loss has informed basically everything I’ve done since.
On the way to the coast, we took a big detour and camped in view of the mountain where his ashes were scattered in Eastern Oregon. We jokingly called that trip “The Dead Dad Tour”. It did end in a really strange four-set show we played in Eugene, Oregon. After we got back, we recorded the demos at our place. Parts of “Currents” had been sketched out a little with the band, so we brought that together with ideas from the trip. After the demos, we toured on the material for a couple years and figured out the final shape. Those tours were immensely healing, and helped solidify what the record really was. Katherinella Angustri in particular changed a lot over those tours. The original version is completely unrecognizable. Anyway, I guess when it comes down to it, the album is about loss, grief, and figuring out some way to recover from experiences that take you into unexpected territory of loss and personal darkness. Both of us, and Sarah in particular, went through a complete internal and external transformation due to the experience.
HX: My condolences to both of you. I lost my dad in 2001 and it took a long time to get through the grieving process. Do you feel that the process you both went through that ended up resulting in this album was a cathartic experience?
Reggie: Thank you, and my condolences to you as well. The dead dad club sucks. Yes, I would definitely say there was some catharsis. Also some level of acceptance. Though, there will probably be more layers of both. We actually announced the record on the 25th anniversary of my dad’s death. That wasn’t intentional, it just turned out that way. So, there has been some renewed contemplation of living without him, and also, a deeper level of acceptance and gratitude. Add to that, the day after the announcement, a dear old friend who knew my dad fairly well passed away suddenly. So, the cyclic elements of our existence, and the ever present experience of loss, pain, and suffering is quite present, on good days as much as bad ones. I think by nature the process of grief will be ongoing. There’s also an element of the work as an offering to these loved ones. Sarah’s dad was a huge supporter of both of us, and the album is an offering of gratitude just as much as an expression of grief.
HX: I really like that idea. “An offering of gratitude just as much as an expression of grief.” Do you think these experiences are what make the album such a visceral listen? As a musician, do you feel that the deeply emotional impact of an album requires something real behind it? I’m not sure I’m phrasing that well. Hopefully it makes sense.
Reggie: That is an excellent question. And, we definitely take your saying the album is a visceral listen as a compliment. Yeah, I think we both feel the album and its sound are direct expressions of what we have gone through. All of those experiences definitely drive the album, and guided the writing. So, for us, it was definitely a huge influence, and our work tends to have a real experience backing it.
However, I don’t know if it’s a requirement. There are songwriters and musicians who seem to be able to tap into some pretty visceral and real feelings that are beyond their personal experience. Sometimes they do that by entering a character, but there are a few different approaches where I think an artist can enter into a space of feeling. The same is true of fiction writers, where there is a long tradition of writers who do this kind of thing, creating characters and settings that are outside their own life, but still ring true. You could argue that we all suffer in our own way, and the function of empathy can allow us to tap into different experiences, and we can imbue another situation with some of our own emotions, where we can access whatever that magic thing is that connects the artist and the listener or reader. Also, art from artists of vastly different backgrounds can still really nail the listener or reader in a deep and profound way, even when what is portrayed is completely alien. In our case, we tend to create from our experience, but, it is appealing to think we might be able to make something that taps into a space of real depth and feeling without it having to come from some kind of turmoil. One can hope!
HX: Who writes the lyrics? What is that process like for this project?
Reggie: I wrote most of the lyrics, particularly on “Currents”, but there was definitely a different process for the two long songs. For “Katherinella Angustri”, we discussed what it was about, and the concepts and experiences the lyrics dealt with, then I messed around and experimented over our practices and shows until it felt right. That one was definitely a bit more drawn out and intuitive.
For Currents, I heard the melody in my head but didn’t really have any words coming up intuitively. I was reading from Robert Duncan’s poetry collection Bending the Bow, and was struck by some of the lines in the “The Currents, Passages 16”, and noticed I noticed some of the lines fit the melody. So, I extracted some of the lines as a basis for some word play. There are still remnants in the finished product from the Duncan poem, though I’ve thoroughly mangled it into my own diminished side of a dialogue. The poem is just incredible. The lyrics to “Currents” definitely came together faster, as they were written with a little more direct focus, and I wanted to get something together for the demo.
The demo version of Katherinella was an instrumental. Sarah named it, and came up with the concept of what it should be about. On the trip to scatter her dad’s ashes, she was on a mission to find a fossilized clamshell, as she and her family collected them on the beach when she was a child. For the whole trip, we looked for them on the beach, and in shell shops when we’d pop into any of the towns along the way, and couldn’t find them anywhere. Finally, we got to the place where we scattered his ashes, and they were all over the place, on rocks, embedded in the sand. The place was crawling with them. I had personally never seen one. We took in the weirdness of that coincidence, collected a few, then scattered his ashes into the bay. The ashes fanned out in the water but stayed suspended for a while over a shelf of sand, hovering in stillness in the water, until the tide started to come in. So, that was the impetus for those lyrics, and it’s named after the particular species of fossil.
Of the two, that song is more about a moment or direct concept of the life cycle, and the transformation of matter, of life changing into different forms; the perpetuity of life even in the process of death. We talked that song over a lot, and it took a lot longer for it to really take shape, in fact, that song really didn’t take its final form until we were in the studio. “Currents” is a little more vague I guess, more about motifs and energies of shadow and light, more impressionistic intimations of emotion and tone.
HX: Very cool. The story of the fossilized clam shells makes me think about the album cover. I was going to ask about it later anyway, but it seems like that part of our discussion might fit here. Tell me about the design process as well as connections between the artwork and the music.
Reggie: That turned out to be a really cool collaboration between the label and Sarah. She has done most of the artistic design for the band. She’s an abstract painter, and was beginning work on a black and white series based around the album. At the same time, the label had some great collage ideas. The woman with the shell over her face was their idea, based on conversations with us about the album’s meaning, their careful listening. When Sarah finished her painting, they used it as the backdrop for the overall design. The background of the cover is from the painting, as well as the image on the woman’s shirt. When the digipak is opened, it will reveal the full painting,with the cd over the central image.
Altogether I think it captured the overall content and tone in a beautiful and surprising way. The collaboration between ourselves and the label has been very satisfying. Void and Giorgio have been incredible to work with. It’s been an ideal fit so far, definitely exceeding our hopes for a label relationship. Being able to work carefully together and share ideas on how to best present the album has been very satisfying, and has helped us grow as a band. We’re also happy for our manager, who has worked so hard to help us present ourselves in an authentic way, while bringing us out of our shells, particularly to the social media world, which we struggle with. It’s great to have a team, between Amanda at Hell to Pay Management, and Brucia Records, to help us interact with the outside world.
HX: That sounds like a really awesome collaboration. I’ve been very impressed with the visual aspect of what Brucia does, and from what I’ve seen, this release will be no exception. How did you end up connecting with Brucia and Hell to Pay?
Reggie: Oh yeah, Brucia’s visual elements definitely attracted us to them. I sent the album to them, and Void got in touch shortly after. At the moment, I’m forgetting the time frame. Frankly this year has folded time over itself, so I rarely know what day it is. We met Amanda on tour when we were in San Diego. Her alt country band, Blind Mountain Holler, shared a bizarre bill with us, with way too many bands on it, and we connected and became dear friends. We cleared the room, except for BMH. They stuck with us. Oddly enough, the bar management thanked us, because we cleaned out some bad vibes too. Great people. I want to say it was a year later that Amanda was talking about starting her company and we asked if she wanted to experiment on us, and she said yes. One of the best decisions we’ve made. She’s incredibly supportive, intelligent, and patient. She’s really encouraged us to grow and been a huge help with tour planning and presenting ourselves. It definitely helped us in presenting ourselves to Brucia.
HX: I’d like to circle back to something. It sounds like The Sun and The Mirror has evolved quite a bit in terms of number of members involved, but if I’m understanding correctly, this album was recorded by only you and Sarah. Is this due to the personal nature of the themes? Can you also tell me a little more about the origin and evolution of the project?
Reggie: Yes, it was just Sarah and I on this record. When we first met ten years ago, I was working out what my own songwriting process looked like, and was looking for a cellist to work with. I didn’t know she was a cellist, but it came up in a conversation when we were first getting to know each other. Over the years I’d played guitar and bass in other projects, but my own writing had been limited to free-form noise recordings that never saw the light of day, as I never quite knew how to bring them together in a satisfying way. I learned a lot working with people with vastly different writing approaches, who came from a more disciplined grounding in traditional songwriting. It really helped me create a container for my more chaotic tendencies as a musician.
At the time Sarah and I met, I was teaching myself to sing, and attempting to unpack how to write. Z.V. House was also learning how to be an engineer and producer, slowly building his studio, so we both worked together to develop our processes. We recorded a few tracks with some friends of mine from grad school, and a few with me solo. Ultimately that stuff got shelved, as it wasn’t what we were going for, but was really helpful as a learning process.
Sarah, of course, comes from a classical background, so we had a lot to teach each other. She helped me expand back out to the long form types of music that were my natural inclination, by bringing in a more nuanced approach to melody and structure. This really helped bridge that gap between the drone and noise stuff that was my natural mode, but I had no real idea how to contain, with some of the dark folk and singer songwriter approaches I was experimenting with. Working with me helped Sarah to release some of the strictures and enforced discipline wired in from years in orchestra.
We were a duo for a while, at first playing some of the shorter songs I had written, but fairly quickly expanded out to longer pieces. We were both more interested in having long pieces where we could hang out and explore, and, hopefully, the listener could inhabit for a longer span of time. After a short time as a duo, our dear friend Karen Jarboe Singletary offered to play bass. She had a huge influence on the direction of the project, as she also had classical training, with impeccable instincts for melody and balance. She just has that magic of knowing how to play the right thing at the right time.
We did a collaboration with Jake Hite’s project Discoma, where he provided keys and electronic beats on a long track called Ashes of Our Loved Ones. This to me is where the project really started to hint at where it was going. This also began a period where I jokingly like to call the band Reggie Townley and the Hostage Bandmates. We kept roping people into being “guests” for shows, then continuing to invite them to rehearsals. Sarah’s sister, Emily White, joined on viola, then, for a brief time we had two drummers, Jake Hite and Jessica Johnson. Then my dear friend and long term collaborator Mark Grover got roped in on guitar. Jessica dropped off to focus on other projects, but the rest of the band stayed for about a couple of years, with a short gap when Sarah and I moved to Hawaii.
When we returned, that band really saved us, as we were in the midst of caregiving and living with someone going through cancer treatment. We had that band to focus on once a week, and wrote a forty minute piece, which unfortunately never got recorded properly, but we performed a number of times. While it won’t see the light of day as a record, that piece did set us up to be able to write Dissolution to Salt and Bone.
I am just so incredibly grateful for the love, patience, support, and tutelage of that band. They really fostered a space of open experimentation, while providing a knowledge base to help shape some of the sketched ideas I brought to them. It was kind of funny actually, as I was the only member without classical training. Literally everyone else in the band had been in orchestra, or, in Mark’s case, choral training. Two members had degrees in music. I took guitar lessons when I was young, but otherwise am self taught and play from intuition. I sometimes would present them with these ideas that were a bit of a mess, and they’d really help me piece it into something coherent.
In the midst of this period we discovered that grandma Gwen could manage to get through the day with some joy if we sat a drum in front of her and put a concert on the TV. She would drum for up to three hours a day. Her favorites were Black Sabbath, YOB, and Earth, though she also loved playing with PJ Harvey and Ween. It really helped get her through the darker cycles of her dementia.
After about a month, we started bringing her down to our tiny house for band practice. We actually came up with the riff during the last section of “Currents” with her and Jake. She ended up, at 88 years old, playing Treefort Music Fest with us, sitting in on a noise/dark orchestral piece.
Not long after this, Sarah’s dad died, and it just kind of destroyed us on a personal level. After an intense couple of years, we unravelled. In the midst of that unravelling we made the trip to the coast and started writing what would become this album. Everyone in the band was very kind and understanding in our need to shift to working as a duo. Of course, it was more than just a band. That group was our support system in many ways, and was very much involved with what was going on, but it was necessary for us to draw inward completely. Everyone has remained extremely supportive and we are beyond grateful for their kindness and understanding with this shift. We really couldn’t manage otherwise.
Continuing to work as a duo, and work on this record, as I have mentioned, was a necessary dive into the grieving process. For the foreseeable future we plan to remain a duo. We work well together, and we tour extremely well together. We’re best friends and make a good team, which makes travelling, performing, and recording a very rich, seamless, and rewarding process. And, thanks to the evolution of the project, we know how to set about bringing our ideas into a container.
HX: Wow! Thank you for that deep look into the project. The Grandma Gwen story is especially heartwarming. Will you and Sarah play live as a duo when the opportunity is available again? What would that look like in terms of roles on stage and the way in which all of the different parts would be performed?
Reggie: Yes, once it’s appropriate to do so, we really look forward to touring again, and will do so as a duo. We’ve done three west coast tours with that setup. That was definitely one of the benefits of stripping the lineup down, in that it is very difficult to book and organize a six piece. For live sets, Sarah handles cello and live loops, while I handle guitar, vocals, and triggering our backing tracks on a laptop and a loop station. In the future, Sarah may also bring in some keys/synth, as well as some vocals.
HX: I hope you don’t limit yourselves to only the West Coast. We’d love to eventually have you play here in Michigan too.
Reggie: Thank you for saying so, and we would absolutely love that. We do hope to do a national tour once touring is a reality again.
HX: Do you (both you and Sarah) have any particular musical influences that have inspired you in this project?
Reggie: We have a pretty wide range of influences, some more clearly connected to this project’s sound than others. My biggest influence growing up was a band called Caustic Resin, who I very highly recommend. I first heard them when I was thirteen, and kind of figured out how to play all my instruments by listening to their albums. So, that’s just there at the baseline of how I operate and channel sound. Sarah, of course, comes from a classical background, as well as growing up on American folk music, but, we have a lot of overlap in what we’re into. Other early influences for myself were John and Alice Coltrane, PJ Harvey, and Mike Watt. I’d say the Coltranes had a similar impact on Sarah. Some of these aren’t that apparent in the sound of what we do, but it’s an underlying approach to music, and a spiritual seriousness about it.
For both of us, I’d say there has been a constant of noisy, darker music hitting all the right buttons, but a really wide ranging interest in all sorts of music. An early bonding moment for us in our relationship was getting to see Earth. I’d say most of the usual suspects of drone and doom had an impact on this project itself. Earth and Yob in particular. We are also both really into German psychedelia like Can, Neu! and Faust. I also got really into Japanese psych, as well as some African psych, particularly Guelawar. Wolvserpent was a huge influence. I had the wonderful opportunity to be their roadie on their last tour in Europe, and getting to see their set night after night really taught me a lot. They were also a profound influence on Sarah. Also, their tour manager for that trip, Nikos Giagoudakis, who became a very dear friend, turned me on to some of the other bands he managed and produced, like Dark Buddha Rising and Oranssi Pazuzu. That was a really fortunate discovery, as those projects really hit on a lot of cross sections of music we’re really into. It definitely encouraged us to take some risks. During the mourning process our use of doom, death, and black metal became pretty much a constant, so that has had some impact. I suppose some other projects worth mentioning that gave a lot of ideas and inspiration are Tangerine Dream (particularly Zeit), Amber Asylum, SPK, Brian Eno, Nanae Yoshimura, and Z’Ev.
HX: That’s a varied and extensive list. Those are all either projects I haven’t heard (yet) or projects I’m really into. Can you expand on this idea of the “spiritual seriousness” of music? That’s a really interesting thought to me.
Reggie: The “influences” question is definitely kind of difficult to pin down. Yeah, the spiritual seriousness thing… by that I guess I mean a quality of taking music seriously as a way of dealing with, or fully experiencing reality. That can take many forms, and isn’t necessarily meant in a religious way, though that is always an option. I’d also say it’s present across genres in artists who put themselves into their work entirely, using it as a way to grapple with existence.
HX: I would suggest it can be found in listeners too, sometimes. Beyond some elementary school organ lessons and a little time spent in high school band, I’ve never really played anything. Yet, what you’re describing feels very much a part of who I am.
Reggie: Yeah, I think it’s clear from your questions and your writing that you are very serious, and thoroughly immersed in music, not to mention the fact that you spend so much time and care writing about it outside a rather intense career. That is to be commended and applauded. We definitely don’t see this seriousness as exclusive to artists, or even one particular art form, and, yes, music is often very serious business for a listener, and can make for a very profound relationship. We sincerely appreciate and value fellow listeners who experience music as their lifeblood, something that makes sense out of the universe, or gets them through the day. It has for sure helped us get through some very real darkness, and offered moments of transcendence. Music can definitely be more than a mere entertainment, or a product for consumption. We definitely hope that our sincerity can resonate with listeners in a vital way, that this can be a symbiotic and mutual experience of depth. Of course, we don’t want to expect that of a listener, take it for granted, or be pretentious about it. Not everyone needs their music to be so serious, and sometimes something light hearted is just as necessary. Plus, music I don’t necessarily view as serious has saved people’s lives. It takes what it takes sometimes to make it through this beautiful but sometimes incredibly cruel life.
HX: I’ve always felt more connected to someone who intensely feels any kind of music, even if it’s something I don’t like at all, than someone who likes the same styles as me, but can take it or leave it if you will. Also, thanks for your kind words on my work.
Reggie: And, on this, yes, absolutely. I couldn’t have said that better.
HX: What’s next for The Sun and The Mirror? Are you working on new music yet?
Reggie: Yes, we have a bunch of stuff sketched out between the two of us. We have most of the basic ideas for the next full length, though it’s all very much in the larval stage. In between full lengths, we’re going to do a black metal EP, which also is in sketch form, but, we essentially know the structure of it.
HX: That’s all pretty exciting news. I’ll be following eagerly.
Reggie: Thank you for your support and encouragement, and for supporting music.
HX: Where does the name The Sun and The Mirror come from?
Reggie: As for the band name, it has a few meanings for us. The initial inspiration comes from Shinto mythology. I practice Aikido, and my Sensei, Rev. Koichi Barrish, is the first non-Japanese Shinto priest, so we have gained a lot of insight and inspiration from our relationship with him. He is in many ways a father figure and treasured friend of Sarah and I both. We are not enough of authorities to go into great depth about the theology/mythology, but, essentially, the sun is the very source of our life, which I think is a very practical, grounded fact, as well as something to have gratitude for as a spiritual foundation, if that’s your thing.
That’s probably why it shows up in worldwide traditions, which, we are also honoring by that part of our name, perhaps an acknowledgment of our collective heritage, or collective connection to the essential life sustaining powers of nature throughout life cycles and the passage of time. Or, to be a little more direct, without the sun, we’re dead.
The mirror is pretty interesting. In Shinto mythology and practice, it is an antenna for communicating with or receiving inspiration or vitality from these sources of life and spirituality. It’s a very different concept than traditions that separate humankind and God/spirit. There isn’t really a border or duality between the material and spiritual. It’s a very direct, relational type of connection that is both very profound and very practical and normal, at least in my experience, which, as I said, is not an authoritative position. The mirror also shows up in various meditation traditions and world mythologies, from Buddhism to Sufi/Islamic traditions, and even more secular approaches. It is both mystical, and practical. So, in a way, our name acknowledges that wider connection across human traditions, life experience, and time.
HX: I have wanted to study Aikido for about two and a half decades and it just hasn’t been in the cards so far. Someday though. My kids were involved for a while years ago, so I used to get glimpses from the viewing area. My own sense of spirituality also includes a mirror metaphor actually. That’s really interesting, as I hadn’t been aware of a broader spiritual implication, but it makes sense.
Reggie: Rad.
HX: We’ve covered everything I wanted to specifically ask at this point. Is there anything else we should talk about? Anything I’ve missed or you want to share?
Reggie: I can’t really think of anything else. You’ve been very thorough. Thank you for taking the time to do this. It’s been really enjoyable. We’re very grateful for you taking the time to support our work, and for the work you are doing to support artists. Having magazines to feature and support artists and really have their back is incredibly important, and we really value your contribution to the community. We look forward to staying in touch.
HX: Thank you both for your thoughtful answers. This is already one of my favorite interviews that I’ve been a part of. I would also definitely like to stay in touch.
Reggie: Oh wow thank you for saying so. The feeling is mutual. It’s been a really positive part of this last week. I’m really glad we connected.
Biography: Hayduke X has been writing for MoshPitNation since June of 2016. He is also a contributor to The Metal Wanderlust. Prior to joining the MoshPitNation team, Hayduke published reviews on his own blog Rage and Frustration. In addition, he has DJ’ed an online metal radio show of the same name as his blog, written for TOmetal.com, done interviews for Metal Rules, and collaborated with The Art of B Productions to create video interviews with a wide variety of bands.
