December 21, 2024 • 35 mins
I look at the history of Zeal & Ardor a band that mixes heavy metal, the blues, various folk traditions like folk songs and a alternative history narrative involving slave rebellions and the devil to create something new and interesting.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
My name is Eric Gaskell, and you're listening to the
Distorted History podcast and program. I didn't give you many
nails and joy a blunder.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Look, I'm raveling. I'm got the.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Ba a long struggle for freedom. It really is a revolution.
On this month's Sound Stories, I'll be talking about the
relatively new band Zealand Order, a group that, for those unfamiliar,
(00:44):
mixes heavy metal with elements of the blues, African American
folk music, and ideas a slavery million And if you're
hearing that description and thinking that sounds like a group
that would appeal to the guy whose podcast is don't
heavily and heavy metal, the blues and historic topics like
slavery millions, then you'd be right mostly, which I'll get
more into. Regardless, they do quite like this band in
(01:04):
their music, which is why they've been on my list
of topics that do for this series for a while now,
and with the release of their fourth fall length studio album,
Grief in August of this year, I felt that now
was as good of a time as any to talk
about this group and dig into their music and story.
Before I do that, though, first, like always, I want
to acknowledge my sources, which include articles by Kim Kelly,
(01:25):
Maria Sherman, Jonathan Horsley, Nick Roskell, Michael Hann, John Widerhorn, Mattheist, Peters,
Rich Hobson, Sam Law, and George Parr, in addition to
the documentary Play with the Devil Becoming Zealan Arder. Links
of the articles will be listed on this podcast, Covie
and Blue Sky pages. Plus if you don't want to
be bothered skipping through commercials and add free version of
(01:45):
this feat is available to those who sign up at
patreon dot com slash Distorted History. And with all of
that being said, let's begin to tell the story of
Zelean Arder. You have to talk about Manuel Gagandoo. In
doing so, though, I realize, you risk kind of elevating
him to some kind of greater than you type of figure,
which is something he consistently has said throughout his interviews
that he doesn't want to do. Indeed, he seems to
(02:08):
have some anarchist tendencies, and then he seems to view
people being treated as leaders as inherently sketchy. As such,
he doesn't like people being idolized and doesn't really want
to put the spotlight on himself, which seems to make
the interviews he has to do a kind of weird
and ironic experience. Much like the FETI also seems to
have anti capitalistic tendencies and wants to criticize the music
(02:29):
industry despite now being a part of it. Which is
all to say that while I understand where he's coming from,
I still have to talk about him when discussing this project.
As I'm doing so, though, keep in mind he's just
a guy and wants to be seen that way now.
Despite playing around with the idea of slavery binds and
ante bellum America with his music, Manuel was not actually
(02:49):
born in America. Instead, he was born in Switzerland to
an African American mother who was a soul and jazz
singer and a Swiss father, who, while a biologist, was
also a percussionist who was into he saw some other
polyrhythmic stuff. Music then was always a big part of
their household, and they even went so far as to
make young Manuell learn how to play the saxophone. He
didn't take to the instrument, though, and by the time
(03:11):
he was eighteen, Manuel was far more interested in percussion
and guitars. It was then around this time that he
discovered punk rock and got his first real taste of
heavy metal when a friend played an iron madeen record
for him. This music really spoke to him. He was
so inspired, in fact, that it wasn't long before Manuel
got himself a BC rich guitar think oddly shaped, really putty, prototypical,
(03:32):
over the top heavy metal style guitar. He started learning
how to play, while at the same time discovering that Basel,
the city in Switzerland where he lived, had a sizable
and active punk scene. Yet, even as he was getting
involved in Basil's punk scene, Manuel was also getting more
and more into metal, especially the more extreme stuff line grindcore.
He even eventually formed his own black metal band, although
(03:53):
it wasn't super serious, as Manuel would describe it as
just him and his friends getting drunken a bunker while
yelling at the cheap quality mikes. Meanwhile, despite dropping out
of school at sixteen, Manuel would still harbor dreams of
studying physics in college, which is why he signed up
to join the military, specifically the Nuclear Defense Laboratories, as
he thought that by doing so, he would have the
(04:14):
opportunity to go to university. Things, however, didn't quite work
out the way he hoped. Plus, as it turns out,
he was quite miserable as he had to do quote
unquote dubious things while also getting screamed at, which is
why he was so eager to get out of there.
So eager in fact, that he didn't even wait for
his term of service to be up and just quote
unquote kind of deserted, at which point Manuel moved to
(04:37):
New York, leaving Switzerland behind. That being said, he would
eventually make restitution to the Swiss government for his desertion
by paying a fun and by doing community service by
working with children and in an old folks home. Now,
the reason why Manuel was able to just run off
to New York was because an older blues musician who
had known his mother and who had even played in
a band with her, was willing to allow Manuel to
(04:59):
live and free in his house in return for the
young man doing some mixing work for him and helping
him at gigs with his equipment and the like. During
this time, Manuel wasn't really looking to start a band.
He was just looking to write and create his own music.
As he submitted to being a bit of a control
freak when it comes to that kind of stuff, So
in an effort to stay creative, he would fairly frequently
(05:19):
invisit four chan, something which doesn't seem like a good idea,
knowing what kind of weird cessible that place is supposed
to be. For Manuel, though, it was useful as it
was someplace he could go to anonymously share the music
from bird Mask, the name he'd given his musical project,
and get honest reactions. He'd also use these site as
a place to get ideas to help spark his creativity. Specifically,
(05:40):
he liked to play a game where he'd ask people
for musical genres. He'd then take two of those listed
that you would not think would work together and try
to in thirty minutes write a song combining the two together.
This was seemingly just a creative exercise of sorts. He
didn't really think anything would come of it, after all.
Manuel has said that he had a hard drive full
of these experiments as he attended some forty seven different
(06:03):
mashups like quote tribal melodic hardcore, Gregorian post rock, Nashville
power electronic, and baroque bro step. Then one day someone
suggested black metal, while some other pleasant individual suggested N
word music while also using the actual word. This was
four chan after all. Clearly this person wasn't trying to
(06:23):
be helpful. He was just trying to be a racist
little edgeler to get a reaction. But Manuel figured the
biggest fu he could give this guy was to quote
make a song and make it sound good. Indeed, the
idea of mixing Field Hollers in black metal really got
his mind working. He kind of saw how the two
desperate musical genres actually had some similarities in that they
(06:43):
were both kind of rebellious music. Granted, there is a
fair mental white supremacy within black metal. It's not an
all black metal, but the history is there and it's
still an issue. But for Manuel, it was black metal's
rebellion against Christianity and the way they saved spirituals and
thecrary refuse to be broken by the system that created
this connecting thread that he could pull upon and weave
(07:04):
something new. Now, while the initial song he came up
with and nearly wasn't anything all that special, Manuell still
recognized there was something there. Indeed, from the sad little
racist suggestion, not only came the idea of combining work
songs and spirituals with black metal, but also the idea
of what would have happened had the enslaved in the
Deep South rejected the Christianity of their masters and instead
(07:26):
turned to Satan. In doing so, Manuel was in some
ways taking inspiration from the somewhat similar way Christianity was
imposed upon the African slaves and upon the Norwegian people,
with the latter being at the core of the church
burning activities committed by early black metal bands in the
nineteen nineties, a topic which I may cover at some point. Regardless,
(07:47):
the thought was one of the enslaved African Americans in
the Deep South rebelled the way the nineties black metal
musicians did. That being said, the demonic references in the
music don't come paarly from the black metal side of
this equation either, As keep in mind, the history of
the blues is deeped in the supernatural tales of the
devil and hellhounds. I mean, just look at Robert Johnson
and the Delta Blues, with the legend of how he
(08:08):
had sold his soul to the devil at the Crossroads
to learn how to play guitar like he did as
for Manuel, when he started pursuing this idea, he quickly
realized he needed to do some research, because, while as
already stated, he was well steeped in the world of
black metal, when it came to the other side of
this mashup, he had decidedly far less knowledge. So to
get some inspiration and some ideas of what the old
(08:29):
field songs and say spirituals might have sounded, like, Manuel
dove into the old Lomax recordings For those unfamiliar. In
the nineteen thirties, during the Great Depression, when there was
a growing interest in the folk ways of the American poor,
father and son, John and Alan Lomax would partner with
the Library of Congress to discover and record the neglected
folk music of the American South. Now, John was no scholar,
(08:52):
as prior to this he had primarily worked as a
traveling salesman, but he had long had a fascination with music,
and so he came up with the idea of creating
an anthology of American ballads and folk songs, an idea
that served as the beginning of a ten year long
relationship with the Library of Congress, who provided him with
the portable recording equipment he needed for such a project
in return for the recordings he made being added to
(09:14):
their archives. Over the years, father and son would cover
some sixteen thousand miles on the road as they traveled
throughout the American South, recording their traditional folk songs that
would have otherwise been lost to history, making field recordings
of these people performing where they lived rather than taking
them to a studio of some kind. As they made
their travels, father and son would find that some of
(09:34):
the most productive places to do visit repenant tentries, finding
as they did music there was less about entertainment and
more about just surviving brutal conditions. These songs and had
much in common with the music used by the enslaved.
It was then likely those songs in particular, that Manuel
would use his inspiration when he put together a collection
of songs on band camp, calling it The Devil Is Fine,
(09:56):
musing as a sort of cover image for this collection
a picture of Rober Smalls now Robert Smalls for those unaware,
was an enslaved African American man who during the Civil
War was hired out to service the pilot of the
Confederate transport ship the Planter operating out of Charleston, a
position that Smalls would use to his advantage. Wincome eighteen
sixty two, a time when things were still looking pretty
(10:18):
good for the Confederacy, Smalls decided he didn't want to
pin his and the people he cared about's freedom on
the Union. Figuring things out, Smalls and put his planet
to motion on the twelfth of May, when the ship's
white crew went ashore, leaving Robert and the rest of
the planters and slave crew members unattended. This group then
waited until three am, a time when most of the
city was likely asleep or at the very least not
(10:40):
paying any attention to the docks, at which point they
fired up the ship's boilers and set off, with their
first destination being a nearby wharf where their family members
were waiting. Once they and their escaping family members were
on board, the Planter set sail, but they weren't free
just yet, as guarding the mouth of the harbor were
Fort Sumter and Mount The thing was thanks to Small
(11:02):
serving S, the ship's actual pilot. He was prevy to
all these signals needed to get past the Confederates manning
these outposts. Then, once it we passed the fort, smallscided
the Planter out of the Union naval blockade, turning the
Confederate vessel over to them, and freeing himself and his
companions in the process, which is quite the tail in
its own right. But Smalls wasn't done there, as not
(11:23):
only would he pass along valuable intelligence about Confederate operations
in the harbor, but he also took a job serving
as a pilot for Union vessels in the area, a
job in which he clearly served with distinction, as he
was eventually made a captain and given command of his
old ship, the Planter, speaking of the planters, Since he
was the one who ostensibly captured and turned over the
ship to the Union, Smalls was owed a bounty of sorts,
(11:46):
money that he then used to purchase the very same
mention that had once belonged to the man who had
owned him when the property was put up for auction
after the Union had conquered the area and the safeholders
had all fled. Small soon then became a leader among
the laws African Americans and would go on to serve
five terms in the House of Representatives during the reconstruction era.
So you can see why Manuell chose his image as
(12:08):
a representative of African American rebellion. That all being said,
when Manuel uploaded The Devil's Fine onto band camp, he
didn't expect anything to come of it, viewing the collection
of songs as more of a demo than anything else.
As it turned out, though, journalist Kim Kelly was introduced
to the music by a friend. She then reposted it
on Twitter, and with that, suddenly The Devil Is Fine
(12:30):
went viral. This attention the article Kelly wrote about it
for Advice, and Rollingstone also taking notice, put a spotlight
on Zealand Arter and suddenly Manuel was watched with opportunities,
including an invitation to play the road Burn Festival in
the Netherlands. However, if he wanted to take the festival
up on this invitation, Manuell was going to need an
actual band, as there was NOI He was going to
(12:52):
go up there just by himself and his computer and
expect the audience to respect that. The problem was he
feared the prospect of trying to find musicians who would
understand what he was trying to do with his music.
He solved this problem behind turning to his friends people
he not only felt confident would get what he was doing,
but also just as important, people he could actually see
himself spending time with off stage while they were all
(13:13):
on tour. This hastily assembled group then played a grand
total of three local gigs before heading off to play
the fairly prestigious road Burn Festival. Quite the accomplishment for
a project one guy had put together by himself on
his laptop without any expectations. Manuel was blown away by
all this, but credites the band's popularity somewhat to what
he sees as making metal more palatable to the average
(13:35):
listener who is not already into that genre. Metal, after all,
is kind of a harsh and in your faced type
of music. Buddy believes the incorporation of gang shouts and
the con response aspect of the work songs in the
line have an effect of making the listener feel like
they're more a part of the music. Plus, there's the
recognizable aspects of blues melodies also mixed in there. These
(13:56):
also have an effect of making the music more welcoming
to the average listener, because since the booze is such
a foundational part of modern music, there are recognizable and
familiar in ways that the average metal song, especially the
more extreme variety, are not. The Devil is Fine, for example,
as heavily reminiscent of traditional work songs, with the group vocals,
all of which were done by Manuell, and the sounds
(14:17):
of change clanging in rhythm with the music, making it
sound like these singers are conducting some kind of heavy
labor with the song keeping them all in unison. Mixed
in with those more traditional elements, however, is the one
major subversive aspect, which is the decoration that the Devil
is kind any savior type of figure. Come On Down
simply starts with a traditional work song feeling until the
(14:38):
guitars and drums start kicking in, introducing a more extreme
heavy metal edge to the music. Then there's Blood in
the River, which sounds like a group of enslaved individuals
openly planning for the day they rise up and slay
the people imprisoning them, a song which is possibly the
clearest example of mixing metal with field chance in this
initial offering that otherwise features more experimental pieces that were
(14:58):
based around electronic and synthesizer type sounds and the bluesy,
almost rockabilly like What is a Killer like you Gonna
do here. This genre mixing seems to have caught some
people by surprise. For example, I saw one video on
YouTube that I didn't actually watch, but the tagline was
something along the lines of can blues and heavy metal
mash up work, which to me is a very strange
(15:20):
question if you know anything about the history of heavy metal, well,
with the accepted originators of the style essentially starting off
as a heavy blues band, so I wouldn't really consider
incorporating the blues into heavy music is something all that new.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
Now.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
What may be new, or at least fairly unique, is
the incorporation of musical ideas from further back staff like
work songs and spirituals traditions that spun off of the stars,
like gospel and the blues, then taking that older tradition,
which oftentimes had religious aspects to it, and subverting it
by replacing the Christian symbolism with Satanic imagery, which, even
(15:54):
for someone like me who typically finds a lot of
the whole Satanic thing to be kind of edge lordy,
is actually kind of fascinating because what it's doing is
taking this old tradition, which was somewhat subversive in its
own way, as it was the music of an oppressed
people struggle to find a way to carry on, and
reimagining it as this openly define and downright Meliton, at
times called to arms. In doing so, the Satanic imagery
(16:16):
feels more earned as Christianity was in some ways used
to pacify the enslaved. Now this was not always the
case that some saveholders saw a danger in teaching the
enslaved anything, including religion, But for those who wielded Christianity
to their advantage, they ignore the whole exodus bit with
Moses demanding as people be set free, and instead focus
on these scattered lines about servants obeying their masters and
(16:37):
the like. Plus, they also look to encourage the enslaved
to accept their faith, based upon the idea that while
this life was hard, there was always the promise of
the afterlife, provided you don't do something like say, violently,
rise up and kill the people enslaving you zealon arda.
Then imagine a situation where the enslaved reject Christianity, as
the idea is God is on the side of these slavers,
(16:57):
therefore they will embrace the devil, which for me at
least is far more interesting than they typical hail saane
type of metal tradition. As for Manuel, as is largely
the case with many, but not all metal musicians who
use Satanic imagery in their music, it's mainly just sat dressing.
That being said, while he is secular mighty, he does
find certain philosophical Satan's ideas interesting Slasha appealing. Might the
(17:19):
idea of quote fulfilling your ego as far as you can,
as long as you're not stepping on any toes or
not inhibiting others of doing the same. That being said,
there are also quote some stunny stuff like no Mercy
for the Week, which I can't subscribe to. It gets
into libertarian bullshit waters.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
Now, not everyone was so interested or happy about this project,
specifically it's use of black metal, as according to Manuell
quote some people are obviously pissed because we took their
baby and bastardized it.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
But I'm happy with the sacrilege of the sacrilege. Black
metal started out as is very French export of music,
where you would skewe tradition and current habits in music.
Now there's so many rules that is scatterintuitive to the
original intention in that regard zeal And ardor is pretty
black metal in attitude. Speaking for myself, I've never really
understood this kind of gate keeping attitude. For me, music
(18:25):
is less about rules than just about what sounds good.
Sometimes the rules come in handy, but sometimes it's better
to simply break the rules. I also can't understand the
whole you can mix X, Y or Z with metal,
as I've always been fascinated with taking something cool that
another genre does and incorporating it, either by mixing an
idea or phrase into already heavy music or just taking
(18:46):
a different style and making it heavy for manual then,
he doesn't believe that anything should be sacred, which is
a big reason why he doesn't mind playing around with
black metal conventions that have been enshrined in such a way.
This subversive mindset is also why he likes mixing left
his ideas and messages and with black mental music that
has historically had regressive tendencies. When it comes to the
(19:07):
process of creating this music, it very much remains a
one man show, even after recruiting the band that would
join him on tour. This is because, as Manuel has admitted,
he's too much of a control freak. To do it
any other way at this point. At least, that may
change in the future, because, as we will see, he
does seem to want Zealand ardor to become more of
an actual band. Yet regardless of if on some future
(19:28):
albums the others are allowed to contributor not, for the
time being, when he's writing, Manuel is mainly just looking
for ideas. These ideas can be anything from a vocal
line to a simple guitar riff to even just a
weird sound. The important thing is it has to strike
his interest in some way. When an idea catches his attention,
Manuel then plays around with it and tries building around it.
(19:50):
In doing so, as primary focus, especially early on in
the process, seems to be simply about experimenting and trying
different things and arrangements with these ideas. As such, he's
not super worried about the quality of the initial demos,
which can apparently be very rough and hard to listen to. Instead,
the important thing as far as he is concerned, is
just following the path to see if there is a
germ of an idea in there that can be expanded
(20:12):
upon death to the wholly author third self titled album
is a prime example of this, as according to Manuel,
he just stumbled across what he himself describes as this weird, annoying,
and obnoxious sound that he just had to build a
song around. He then compares his songwrinning process to playing
around with legos and just saying what fits together and
trying different pieces here and there. In doing so, he
(20:34):
admits that the vast majority of what he comes up
with isn't good, but it's a process that he feels
is necessary to go through aast the most important thing
is simply having the freedom to play around an experiment
with these ideas to see what, if anything, is there.
The process and the experimentation is then more important than
if any of those ideas actually turn into songs. As
for Manuel, the whole purpose is to not self censor
(20:56):
yourself before giving an idea a fair try, basically boiling
down as philosophy to the phrase right drunk edit sober,
by which he means don't actually write drunk, but instead
write as if you had no inhibitions. Just let the
ideas flow and worry about editing them or if they're
any good later, curiously not if This is very similar
to the approach that Chris Cornell adopted around about the
(21:18):
time he was working on Bad Motor Figure, as he
also produced music during that time, not only for that album,
but for Temple and the Dog and his own eventual
solo album. As you see, by not self censoring himself,
Cornell became a much more prolific songwriter as he freed
himself to write whatever he was feeling at the time
instead of just kind of dismissing ideas because he didn't
think it would fit with a particular project. This process
(21:40):
has allowed Manny Wall to explore and incorporate some different
flavors and styles into zeal And Order. In doing so,
he manages to make it not feel jarring or out
of place because he focuses on keeping the atmosphere of
the band's music insistent. He feels that as long as
he keeps that atmosphere at core, he's free to play
around with odd or annoying songs and unusual shifts in
his prolific songwriting, and his try anything attitude then works
(22:03):
in his favor, as he's able to pick and choose
songs that fit the atmosphere while sitting aside any that
do not. I've found this talk of atmosphere particularly interesting
because while I do really like the music, the closest
thing to a knock I have on it is that
I'm just not super into the guitar parts, which is
not to say there is anything wrong with them as
they fit the music, which is honestly what matters, as
(22:25):
much as anything else, I think is just a different
style of playing than what I prefer. My personal taste
seem to lean into more rift based bands, grips like Metallica,
masted On Down, High on Fire, and even the progenitors
of heavy metal Black Sabbath, who are all very rift
based bands in my opinion, at least now. Some of
my disconnect maybe down to the black metal influence, a
(22:46):
style that I'm imittedly not all that familiar with, but
I think that's where their occasional just straight up tremello
picking comes from, a style that reminds me of serf guitar,
just with distortion, a comparison that I think someone else's made,
but I can't tell you who off the top of
my head. Regardless, I found it a bit surprising when
doing my research to find that Manuel and fellow guitarist
is Jano Valente were voted the best metal guitarist of
(23:09):
twenty twenty two by Music Radar readers, and a word
that both of them actually found amusing as they don't
consider Zealand Order to be a traditional guitar centric metal band,
a sentiment that, as I've already stated, I agree with,
as he focused on the band isn't really the guitar.
It's more about the vocals and the songwriting with the
guitar and there more as a support instrument, helping to
(23:30):
provide atmosphere and impact, something which Manuwell suggests was somewhat
of an accidental move as he causes fingers too dumb
to play more complicated stuff. As a result, he instead
chooses to focus on quote emotion rather than a rev.
Valente meanwhile, hopes that this recognition leads to a shift
quote away from the whole guitar wankery aspect back to
(23:50):
songwriting and actually conceptual music or something that really isn't
on that technical level apart from guitar nerds. It's maybe
not that interesting to have very technical music, which I
think is a fairly interesting take. While I tend to
like more riff focused guitar parts in my metal I
do feel like there can be an overly technical brand
of mele guitar that I personally don't find all that interesting.
(24:11):
It's just for me. There is this point where the
balance tips and you start to lose the emotion or
the heaviness when you get too focused on being flashy
and technical, as for Zealand Arder. In addition to trying
to keep the journal atmosphere and the music insistent, the
other thing tying at least the first couple albums together
was a narrative of liberation from slavery. That being said,
there is not some grand narrative playing out throughout the
(24:33):
course of the music. These aren't concept albums, but there
do tend to be like individual scenes and stories that
play out in the songs that connect to the overall
narrative theme. The first two albums, for example, have loose
concepts tying them all together. The Devil Is Fine You
See was about life while being enslaved, while the follow
up Stranger Fruit was about escaping and being on the run,
(24:55):
with the album title itself being a reference to lynchings
of African Americans as in the Trees in the Jim
Crow South had this tendency to grow Strange Fruit, with
the fruit being the dead bodies of black men hanging
in the trees after being lynched. The second album then,
wasn't a lot of ways about taking the concept of
the first album, which was really more of a demo,
(25:15):
and then expanding upon it. Indeed, were The Devil's Fine
at just nine tracks, three of which being kind of
more experimental slash instrumental pieces, Stranger Fruit is sixteen tracks.
In doing so, while he wanted to expand beyond the
original concept, Manuel also wanted to be careful to not
quote straight too far from what I've done before, so
you still got the dunto blues and heavy rifts in there.
(25:37):
But I feel like if I limited myself to black
music and black metal, I'd end up painting myself in
a corner, and then it wouldn't be fun anymore, with
having fun seemingly being the most important thing for manuwell
when it comes to making music. So while Stranger Fruit
would feature tracks that I wouldn't the finest prototypical Zealand
arter style songs, meaning they're clearly a mixture of traditional
(25:58):
folk style music made heavy and mixed with metal, there
are other tracks in which he seems to be playing
around with an expanded palette, so you still have tracks
like Ship on Fire and Servants, which starts off feeling
like a traditional song about stealing horses before turning into
a heavy mental battle cry calling upon the servants to
rise up. And also we Can't Be Found, which incorporates
(26:18):
more of a straight up blue style ref in the
intro before turning into a straight up mental song. But
also mixed in with these tracks are quiet, introspective instrumental
pieces like The Hermit and the more bloozy or even
R and b' stylings of You Ain't Coming Back and
built on ashes. Stranger Fruit would be another commercial success
for the band, but from the various interviews and the documentary,
(26:39):
it does not seem like it was a sure thing
that Zealand Ardor would continue past this album. That being said,
the following year they would release a live album titled
Simply Live in London, continuing that gradual shift to becoming
less of a one man project, as this is the
first recording to feature the other musicians comprising the band
other than drummer Marko Van Allen. A FOP studio album
(27:01):
was planned for twenty twenty one, but that ended up
taking a backseat afder. The murder of George Floyd in
the protest at spawned. You see, while Manuel was born
and raised in Switzerland, he still had family in the
States who he worried about, and Daty would state that
following the George Floyd murder he did not see for
multiple days as he was so deeply affected by it. So,
(27:21):
while Manuel had traditionally leaned towards being more obtuse and
mysterious with his music, he felt like he had to
talk about this through his music, if for no other
reason than to get it off his chest. The Wake
of a Nation EP then was blamed in its messaging
down to its cover, which featured an inverted cross consisting
of two police batons. The EP then is almost like
(27:41):
a companion to the other albums that focused on more
distant historic oppression by now talking about recent events as
of saying things haven't really changed all that much. The
EP also notably includes a song about Tuskigee, which Manuel
mentions in the doc Play with the Devil. In doing so, though,
he references the inexact myth about the Tuskegee Experiment, which
(28:02):
states that African American men were given cephalis by the
government to see what happens, which isn't true. Instead, it's
a bit more insidious for a short summary of a
longer story than I covered any series of episodes on
the tust Gig experiment. The patients were not actually given
cephalis by government doctors then in fact already had the disease.
What actually happened was the government doctors decided it was
(28:25):
fine to use a black population as test subjects to
see how untreated sephalis progressed, doing so when that knowledge
already existed, and continuing the so called experiment even after
a cure had been discovered. So still vile and disturbing,
but just a slightly different flavor now. Since the ep
was very clearly written in response to the George Floyd
(28:46):
murder and other blatant murders of African Americans at the
hands of the police, Manuel did not want to be
seen as capitalizing off the tragedy, so he donated part
of the revenue and purposely turned down any interviews concerning
the project. Actions seem to fit with what appears to
be his overall approach. For Manuel, it's more than anything
else about making music that he himself believes in and
(29:07):
approach that the Swiss manager accepts and encourages. So while
it's still importantly makes some money, that's not the be
all and all of the project. The main goal is
to make great music. Indeed, Manuel's manager encourages him to
make things that he's happy with, as more likely than
not people will be happy with it as well, because
in general, people tend to be able to tell when
(29:27):
something is genuine or fake, at least when it comes
to art. It feels then that it was around this
time that Manuel decided that he was going to keep
doing this, possibly because he realized that zeal And Ardor
did not have to be this confining box where he
could only make this one style of music or make
it fit into a singular narrative. As such, he started
expanding beyond the initial designs of the project, both in
(29:49):
terms of the variety of music he produced and in
that none all the songs had to be about this
alternative history narrative he had created. That being said, it's
not like their subsequent albums are devoid of what you
would call the clas Aassic Zealand Arter type songs. Indeed.
The self titled album, which is self titled in part
because they didn't have a lot of great ideas for names,
but also because they felt like they'd really found the
(30:09):
definitive sound, features multiple examples of those kind of classic
Zealand art tracks, with some of the most prominent examples
being tracks like Death That the Holy and Guoter demmur Rung,
which is a reference to Vagner's ring cycle, with Guter
dammer Rung being the Germanic version of Ragna Rock a
war that brings about the death of the gods, which
not only fits into the band's overall mythos, but according
(30:31):
to Manuel as also a quote conscious effort to claim
is ouv to more leftist people. It's kind of taking
the piss out of the Nazis, adding that he felt
it was important to try and claim Voder's music as
even though the composer was a quote unquote huge dick too,
the facts to remained that the quote dude wrote some
brilliant music. As for Zealand, Arner's version of the Twilight
(30:51):
of the Gods, it's one of their heaviest tracks, in
part because it features parts in German that sound quote
unquote evil due to the language's naturally harsh tones and
historic connotations, a feeling that is only enhanced due to
the fat that Manuel performs those sections in a screeching
vocal style that I assume was probably leading on their
black metal roots sections that stand out even more due
(31:11):
to the strong contrast with the cleaner and at times
more soulful English parts. Yet amidst these more prototypical Zealand
artist style metal songs, were an increasing number of less
blatantly metal tracks, stuff like Goldenmeier and Holds Your Head Low,
which are more laid back, haunted sounding blues tracks, a
trend that continues with their latest album, Grief, which is
actually a reference to a festival that takes place in
(31:33):
their hometown of Basil. Specifically, it's a non to one
of the three prominent figures in the festival, the Griffin, who,
in addition to representing one of the city's medieval guilds
and thus the working class, the Griffin also symbolizes boldness
and freedom of spirit. Basically, during this festival, the Griffin,
along with the other two creatures representing the cities guild
slash working class, would make a show of turning their
(31:54):
backs on the part of the town that was the
home of the oppressive aristocrats. According to Manuel, quote, it's
basically about sticking your ass out to the man. I
really don't know how much success it ever yielded, but
it's such a cool thing to do. He's the underdog
or the under griffin, so to speak. This freedom of
spirit fits the latest album because it sees the group
pushing their own boundaries and expanding the sound on the
(32:17):
band more than ever before. Indeed, as Manuel would explain, quote,
we're a band who've never really tried to adhere to genre.
This album is about going further, turning your back on
showing your ass to the conformity of genre. So while
you still have a track like haid in Shade that
maintains the established seal and ortered tone and sound, it's
in a sea of more diverse songs. Kilo Nova, for example,
(32:38):
is an interesting song and one that some have tried
comparing the Tool, but I don't really hear it. It's
maybe a little closer to say Proggy Opeth, but even
that I don't think is a great comparison. In contrast,
the inspiration for tracks like Disease and Sugarcoat is much
more obvious, as not only does Manuel state that Queens
of the Stone Age were an inspiration for those tracks,
but long before I ever read that statement, when I
(33:00):
I was just listening to these albums and johnning down
notes about songs that call my attention in case I
decided to do this episode, I literally wrote down quote
seems to be expanding somewhat sonically. Sugarcoat off their latest album, Grief,
has definite Queens and the Stone Age vibes. So when
I read that interview where he says it would be
dishonest to not admit that influence, I became the DiCaprio
(33:20):
beam where he points to the TV. Grief is also
notable because it's a more personal album and because for
the first time the other members of the band actually
appear on the studio record. You see in the past,
manuald pretty much done everything when it came to the albums, because,
as he admits, he's a bit of a control freak
and zeal And ardor was quote my baby, and I
don't want to give it up, so I do everything
(33:41):
on the albums except the drums, which my body is
simply too stupid to do. On Grief, though, while Manuwel
continued to write all the music, not being able to
give up that part of being a control freak kid.
Instead of him playing all the instruments, the members of
the bands are the ones actually playing their own parts now,
with Manuell stating quote, we are in the process of
democratizing everything in the band and this move was a
(34:04):
big part of that as this way the others get
to feel that they're much more a part of the process.
Plus it also gives them the ability to make money
off the albums and not just have to wait around
to be called upon the tour. This move then definitely
feels like it'll be good for the long term health
of the band. It seems fairly safe to say then
that we can look forward to more zeal And Arter
releases in the future. As for what this podcast will
(34:27):
be doing, I think once I finish up with Custer's
Last Stand, in honor of the themes of the early
Zealand Arter albums, we'll dive into the most famous slave
rebellion in US history, which was led by one Nat Turner.
As for our next sound stories, I think we'll be
examining the progenitors of new metal, Corn and their nineteen
ninety four debut album, although that however, will have to
for now remain a story for another time. Thank you
(34:54):
for listening to Distorted History. If you would like to
help out, please rate and review the podcast and tell
you your friends if you think they'll be interested. If
you would like ad free in early episodes, I set
up such a feed over at patreon dot com slash
to started History. By paying ten bucks a month, you
will gain access to the special ad free feed available
on Spotify or likely through your podcast app as long
(35:15):
as it uses an RSS feed. I will continue to
post sources on koffee and Twitter, though, as it's just
a convenient place to go to access that information regardless,
once again, thank you for listening and until next time,
My name is Eric Gaskell, and you're listening to the
Distorted History podcast and program. I didn't give you many
nails and joy a blunder.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Look, I'm raveling. I'm got the.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Ba a long struggle for freedom. It really is a revolution.
On this month's Sound Stories, I'll be talking about the
relatively new band Zealand Order, a group that, for those unfamiliar,
(00:44):
mixes heavy metal with elements of the blues, African American
folk music, and ideas a slavery million And if you're
hearing that description and thinking that sounds like a group
that would appeal to the guy whose podcast is don't
heavily and heavy metal, the blues and historic topics like
slavery millions, then you'd be right mostly, which I'll get
more into. Regardless, they do quite like this band in
(01:04):
their music, which is why they've been on my list
of topics that do for this series for a while now,
and with the release of their fourth fall length studio album,
Grief in August of this year, I felt that now
was as good of a time as any to talk
about this group and dig into their music and story.
Before I do that, though, first, like always, I want
to acknowledge my sources, which include articles by Kim Kelly,
(01:25):
Maria Sherman, Jonathan Horsley, Nick Roskell, Michael Hann, John Widerhorn, Mattheist, Peters,
Rich Hobson, Sam Law, and George Parr, in addition to
the documentary Play with the Devil Becoming Zealan Arder. Links
of the articles will be listed on this podcast, Covie
and Blue Sky pages. Plus if you don't want to
be bothered skipping through commercials and add free version of
(01:45):
this feat is available to those who sign up at
patreon dot com slash Distorted History. And with all of
that being said, let's begin to tell the story of
Zelean Arder. You have to talk about Manuel Gagandoo. In
doing so, though, I realize, you risk kind of elevating
him to some kind of greater than you type of figure,
which is something he consistently has said throughout his interviews
that he doesn't want to do. Indeed, he seems to
(02:08):
have some anarchist tendencies, and then he seems to view
people being treated as leaders as inherently sketchy. As such,
he doesn't like people being idolized and doesn't really want
to put the spotlight on himself, which seems to make
the interviews he has to do a kind of weird
and ironic experience. Much like the FETI also seems to
have anti capitalistic tendencies and wants to criticize the music
(02:29):
industry despite now being a part of it. Which is
all to say that while I understand where he's coming from,
I still have to talk about him when discussing this project.
As I'm doing so, though, keep in mind he's just
a guy and wants to be seen that way now.
Despite playing around with the idea of slavery binds and
ante bellum America with his music, Manuel was not actually
(02:49):
born in America. Instead, he was born in Switzerland to
an African American mother who was a soul and jazz
singer and a Swiss father, who, while a biologist, was
also a percussionist who was into he saw some other
polyrhythmic stuff. Music then was always a big part of
their household, and they even went so far as to
make young Manuell learn how to play the saxophone. He
didn't take to the instrument, though, and by the time
(03:11):
he was eighteen, Manuel was far more interested in percussion
and guitars. It was then around this time that he
discovered punk rock and got his first real taste of
heavy metal when a friend played an iron madeen record
for him. This music really spoke to him. He was
so inspired, in fact, that it wasn't long before Manuel
got himself a BC rich guitar think oddly shaped, really putty, prototypical,
(03:32):
over the top heavy metal style guitar. He started learning
how to play, while at the same time discovering that Basel,
the city in Switzerland where he lived, had a sizable
and active punk scene. Yet, even as he was getting
involved in Basil's punk scene, Manuel was also getting more
and more into metal, especially the more extreme stuff line grindcore.
He even eventually formed his own black metal band, although
(03:53):
it wasn't super serious, as Manuel would describe it as
just him and his friends getting drunken a bunker while
yelling at the cheap quality mikes. Meanwhile, despite dropping out
of school at sixteen, Manuel would still harbor dreams of
studying physics in college, which is why he signed up
to join the military, specifically the Nuclear Defense Laboratories, as
he thought that by doing so, he would have the
(04:14):
opportunity to go to university. Things, however, didn't quite work
out the way he hoped. Plus, as it turns out,
he was quite miserable as he had to do quote
unquote dubious things while also getting screamed at, which is
why he was so eager to get out of there.
So eager in fact, that he didn't even wait for
his term of service to be up and just quote
unquote kind of deserted, at which point Manuel moved to
(04:37):
New York, leaving Switzerland behind. That being said, he would
eventually make restitution to the Swiss government for his desertion
by paying a fun and by doing community service by
working with children and in an old folks home. Now,
the reason why Manuel was able to just run off
to New York was because an older blues musician who
had known his mother and who had even played in
a band with her, was willing to allow Manuel to
(04:59):
live and free in his house in return for the
young man doing some mixing work for him and helping
him at gigs with his equipment and the like. During
this time, Manuel wasn't really looking to start a band.
He was just looking to write and create his own music.
As he submitted to being a bit of a control
freak when it comes to that kind of stuff, So
in an effort to stay creative, he would fairly frequently
(05:19):
invisit four chan, something which doesn't seem like a good idea,
knowing what kind of weird cessible that place is supposed
to be. For Manuel, though, it was useful as it
was someplace he could go to anonymously share the music
from bird Mask, the name he'd given his musical project,
and get honest reactions. He'd also use these site as
a place to get ideas to help spark his creativity. Specifically,
(05:40):
he liked to play a game where he'd ask people
for musical genres. He'd then take two of those listed
that you would not think would work together and try
to in thirty minutes write a song combining the two together.
This was seemingly just a creative exercise of sorts. He
didn't really think anything would come of it, after all.
Manuel has said that he had a hard drive full
of these experiments as he attended some forty seven different
(06:03):
mashups like quote tribal melodic hardcore, Gregorian post rock, Nashville
power electronic, and baroque bro step. Then one day someone
suggested black metal, while some other pleasant individual suggested N
word music while also using the actual word. This was
four chan after all. Clearly this person wasn't trying to
(06:23):
be helpful. He was just trying to be a racist
little edgeler to get a reaction. But Manuel figured the
biggest fu he could give this guy was to quote
make a song and make it sound good. Indeed, the
idea of mixing Field Hollers in black metal really got
his mind working. He kind of saw how the two
desperate musical genres actually had some similarities in that they
(06:43):
were both kind of rebellious music. Granted, there is a
fair mental white supremacy within black metal. It's not an
all black metal, but the history is there and it's
still an issue. But for Manuel, it was black metal's
rebellion against Christianity and the way they saved spirituals and
thecrary refuse to be broken by the system that created
this connecting thread that he could pull upon and weave
(07:04):
something new. Now, while the initial song he came up
with and nearly wasn't anything all that special, Manuell still
recognized there was something there. Indeed, from the sad little
racist suggestion, not only came the idea of combining work
songs and spirituals with black metal, but also the idea
of what would have happened had the enslaved in the
Deep South rejected the Christianity of their masters and instead
(07:26):
turned to Satan. In doing so, Manuel was in some
ways taking inspiration from the somewhat similar way Christianity was
imposed upon the African slaves and upon the Norwegian people,
with the latter being at the core of the church
burning activities committed by early black metal bands in the
nineteen nineties, a topic which I may cover at some point. Regardless,
(07:47):
the thought was one of the enslaved African Americans in
the Deep South rebelled the way the nineties black metal
musicians did. That being said, the demonic references in the
music don't come paarly from the black metal side of
this equation either, As keep in mind, the history of
the blues is deeped in the supernatural tales of the
devil and hellhounds. I mean, just look at Robert Johnson
and the Delta Blues, with the legend of how he
(08:08):
had sold his soul to the devil at the Crossroads
to learn how to play guitar like he did as
for Manuel, when he started pursuing this idea, he quickly
realized he needed to do some research, because, while as
already stated, he was well steeped in the world of
black metal, when it came to the other side of
this mashup, he had decidedly far less knowledge. So to
get some inspiration and some ideas of what the old
(08:29):
field songs and say spirituals might have sounded, like, Manuel
dove into the old Lomax recordings For those unfamiliar. In
the nineteen thirties, during the Great Depression, when there was
a growing interest in the folk ways of the American poor,
father and son, John and Alan Lomax would partner with
the Library of Congress to discover and record the neglected
folk music of the American South. Now, John was no scholar,
(08:52):
as prior to this he had primarily worked as a
traveling salesman, but he had long had a fascination with music,
and so he came up with the idea of creating
an anthology of American ballads and folk songs, an idea
that served as the beginning of a ten year long
relationship with the Library of Congress, who provided him with
the portable recording equipment he needed for such a project
in return for the recordings he made being added to
(09:14):
their archives. Over the years, father and son would cover
some sixteen thousand miles on the road as they traveled
throughout the American South, recording their traditional folk songs that
would have otherwise been lost to history, making field recordings
of these people performing where they lived rather than taking
them to a studio of some kind. As they made
their travels, father and son would find that some of
(09:34):
the most productive places to do visit repenant tentries, finding
as they did music there was less about entertainment and
more about just surviving brutal conditions. These songs and had
much in common with the music used by the enslaved.
It was then likely those songs in particular, that Manuel
would use his inspiration when he put together a collection
of songs on band camp, calling it The Devil Is Fine,
(09:56):
musing as a sort of cover image for this collection
a picture of Rober Smalls now Robert Smalls for those unaware,
was an enslaved African American man who during the Civil
War was hired out to service the pilot of the
Confederate transport ship the Planter operating out of Charleston, a
position that Smalls would use to his advantage. Wincome eighteen
sixty two, a time when things were still looking pretty
(10:18):
good for the Confederacy, Smalls decided he didn't want to
pin his and the people he cared about's freedom on
the Union. Figuring things out, Smalls and put his planet
to motion on the twelfth of May, when the ship's
white crew went ashore, leaving Robert and the rest of
the planters and slave crew members unattended. This group then
waited until three am, a time when most of the
city was likely asleep or at the very least not
(10:40):
paying any attention to the docks, at which point they
fired up the ship's boilers and set off, with their
first destination being a nearby wharf where their family members
were waiting. Once they and their escaping family members were
on board, the Planter set sail, but they weren't free
just yet, as guarding the mouth of the harbor were
Fort Sumter and Mount The thing was thanks to Small
(11:02):
serving S, the ship's actual pilot. He was prevy to
all these signals needed to get past the Confederates manning
these outposts. Then, once it we passed the fort, smallscided
the Planter out of the Union naval blockade, turning the
Confederate vessel over to them, and freeing himself and his
companions in the process, which is quite the tail in
its own right. But Smalls wasn't done there, as not
(11:23):
only would he pass along valuable intelligence about Confederate operations
in the harbor, but he also took a job serving
as a pilot for Union vessels in the area, a
job in which he clearly served with distinction, as he
was eventually made a captain and given command of his
old ship, the Planter, speaking of the planters, Since he
was the one who ostensibly captured and turned over the
ship to the Union, Smalls was owed a bounty of sorts,
(11:46):
money that he then used to purchase the very same
mention that had once belonged to the man who had
owned him when the property was put up for auction
after the Union had conquered the area and the safeholders
had all fled. Small soon then became a leader among
the laws African Americans and would go on to serve
five terms in the House of Representatives during the reconstruction era.
So you can see why Manuell chose his image as
(12:08):
a representative of African American rebellion. That all being said,
when Manuel uploaded The Devil's Fine onto band camp, he
didn't expect anything to come of it, viewing the collection
of songs as more of a demo than anything else.
As it turned out, though, journalist Kim Kelly was introduced
to the music by a friend. She then reposted it
on Twitter, and with that, suddenly The Devil Is Fine
(12:30):
went viral. This attention the article Kelly wrote about it
for Advice, and Rollingstone also taking notice, put a spotlight
on Zealand Arter and suddenly Manuel was watched with opportunities,
including an invitation to play the road Burn Festival in
the Netherlands. However, if he wanted to take the festival
up on this invitation, Manuell was going to need an
actual band, as there was NOI He was going to
(12:52):
go up there just by himself and his computer and
expect the audience to respect that. The problem was he
feared the prospect of trying to find musicians who would
understand what he was trying to do with his music.
He solved this problem behind turning to his friends people
he not only felt confident would get what he was doing,
but also just as important, people he could actually see
himself spending time with off stage while they were all
(13:13):
on tour. This hastily assembled group then played a grand
total of three local gigs before heading off to play
the fairly prestigious road Burn Festival. Quite the accomplishment for
a project one guy had put together by himself on
his laptop without any expectations. Manuel was blown away by
all this, but credites the band's popularity somewhat to what
he sees as making metal more palatable to the average
(13:35):
listener who is not already into that genre. Metal, after all,
is kind of a harsh and in your faced type
of music. Buddy believes the incorporation of gang shouts and
the con response aspect of the work songs in the
line have an effect of making the listener feel like
they're more a part of the music. Plus, there's the
recognizable aspects of blues melodies also mixed in there. These
(13:56):
also have an effect of making the music more welcoming
to the average listener, because since the booze is such
a foundational part of modern music, there are recognizable and
familiar in ways that the average metal song, especially the
more extreme variety, are not. The Devil is Fine, for example,
as heavily reminiscent of traditional work songs, with the group vocals,
all of which were done by Manuell, and the sounds
(14:17):
of change clanging in rhythm with the music, making it
sound like these singers are conducting some kind of heavy
labor with the song keeping them all in unison. Mixed
in with those more traditional elements, however, is the one
major subversive aspect, which is the decoration that the Devil
is kind any savior type of figure. Come On Down
simply starts with a traditional work song feeling until the
(14:38):
guitars and drums start kicking in, introducing a more extreme
heavy metal edge to the music. Then there's Blood in
the River, which sounds like a group of enslaved individuals
openly planning for the day they rise up and slay
the people imprisoning them, a song which is possibly the
clearest example of mixing metal with field chance in this
initial offering that otherwise features more experimental pieces that were
(14:58):
based around electronic and synthesizer type sounds and the bluesy,
almost rockabilly like What is a Killer like you Gonna
do here. This genre mixing seems to have caught some
people by surprise. For example, I saw one video on
YouTube that I didn't actually watch, but the tagline was
something along the lines of can blues and heavy metal
mash up work, which to me is a very strange
(15:20):
question if you know anything about the history of heavy metal, well,
with the accepted originators of the style essentially starting off
as a heavy blues band, so I wouldn't really consider
incorporating the blues into heavy music is something all that new.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
Now.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
What may be new, or at least fairly unique, is
the incorporation of musical ideas from further back staff like
work songs and spirituals traditions that spun off of the stars,
like gospel and the blues, then taking that older tradition,
which oftentimes had religious aspects to it, and subverting it
by replacing the Christian symbolism with Satanic imagery, which, even
(15:54):
for someone like me who typically finds a lot of
the whole Satanic thing to be kind of edge lordy,
is actually kind of fascinating because what it's doing is
taking this old tradition, which was somewhat subversive in its
own way, as it was the music of an oppressed
people struggle to find a way to carry on, and
reimagining it as this openly define and downright Meliton, at
times called to arms. In doing so, the Satanic imagery
(16:16):
feels more earned as Christianity was in some ways used
to pacify the enslaved. Now this was not always the
case that some saveholders saw a danger in teaching the
enslaved anything, including religion, But for those who wielded Christianity
to their advantage, they ignore the whole exodus bit with
Moses demanding as people be set free, and instead focus
on these scattered lines about servants obeying their masters and
(16:37):
the like. Plus, they also look to encourage the enslaved
to accept their faith, based upon the idea that while
this life was hard, there was always the promise of
the afterlife, provided you don't do something like say, violently,
rise up and kill the people enslaving you zealon arda.
Then imagine a situation where the enslaved reject Christianity, as
the idea is God is on the side of these slavers,
(16:57):
therefore they will embrace the devil, which for me at
least is far more interesting than they typical hail saane
type of metal tradition. As for Manuel, as is largely
the case with many, but not all metal musicians who
use Satanic imagery in their music, it's mainly just sat dressing.
That being said, while he is secular mighty, he does
find certain philosophical Satan's ideas interesting Slasha appealing. Might the
(17:19):
idea of quote fulfilling your ego as far as you can,
as long as you're not stepping on any toes or
not inhibiting others of doing the same. That being said,
there are also quote some stunny stuff like no Mercy
for the Week, which I can't subscribe to. It gets
into libertarian bullshit waters.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
Now, not everyone was so interested or happy about this project,
specifically it's use of black metal, as according to Manuell
quote some people are obviously pissed because we took their
baby and bastardized it.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
But I'm happy with the sacrilege of the sacrilege. Black
metal started out as is very French export of music,
where you would skewe tradition and current habits in music.
Now there's so many rules that is scatterintuitive to the
original intention in that regard zeal And ardor is pretty
black metal in attitude. Speaking for myself, I've never really
understood this kind of gate keeping attitude. For me, music
(18:25):
is less about rules than just about what sounds good.
Sometimes the rules come in handy, but sometimes it's better
to simply break the rules. I also can't understand the
whole you can mix X, Y or Z with metal,
as I've always been fascinated with taking something cool that
another genre does and incorporating it, either by mixing an
idea or phrase into already heavy music or just taking
(18:46):
a different style and making it heavy for manual then,
he doesn't believe that anything should be sacred, which is
a big reason why he doesn't mind playing around with
black metal conventions that have been enshrined in such a way.
This subversive mindset is also why he likes mixing left
his ideas and messages and with black mental music that
has historically had regressive tendencies. When it comes to the
(19:07):
process of creating this music, it very much remains a
one man show, even after recruiting the band that would
join him on tour. This is because, as Manuel has admitted,
he's too much of a control freak. To do it
any other way at this point. At least, that may
change in the future, because, as we will see, he
does seem to want Zealand ardor to become more of
an actual band. Yet regardless of if on some future
(19:28):
albums the others are allowed to contributor not, for the
time being, when he's writing, Manuel is mainly just looking
for ideas. These ideas can be anything from a vocal
line to a simple guitar riff to even just a
weird sound. The important thing is it has to strike
his interest in some way. When an idea catches his attention,
Manuel then plays around with it and tries building around it.
(19:50):
In doing so, as primary focus, especially early on in
the process, seems to be simply about experimenting and trying
different things and arrangements with these ideas. As such, he's
not super worried about the quality of the initial demos,
which can apparently be very rough and hard to listen to. Instead,
the important thing as far as he is concerned, is
just following the path to see if there is a
germ of an idea in there that can be expanded
(20:12):
upon death to the wholly author third self titled album
is a prime example of this, as according to Manuel,
he just stumbled across what he himself describes as this weird, annoying,
and obnoxious sound that he just had to build a
song around. He then compares his songwrinning process to playing
around with legos and just saying what fits together and
trying different pieces here and there. In doing so, he
(20:34):
admits that the vast majority of what he comes up
with isn't good, but it's a process that he feels
is necessary to go through aast the most important thing
is simply having the freedom to play around an experiment
with these ideas to see what, if anything, is there.
The process and the experimentation is then more important than
if any of those ideas actually turn into songs. As
for Manuel, the whole purpose is to not self censor
(20:56):
yourself before giving an idea a fair try, basically boiling
down as philosophy to the phrase right drunk edit sober,
by which he means don't actually write drunk, but instead
write as if you had no inhibitions. Just let the
ideas flow and worry about editing them or if they're
any good later, curiously not if This is very similar
to the approach that Chris Cornell adopted around about the
(21:18):
time he was working on Bad Motor Figure, as he
also produced music during that time, not only for that album,
but for Temple and the Dog and his own eventual
solo album. As you see, by not self censoring himself,
Cornell became a much more prolific songwriter as he freed
himself to write whatever he was feeling at the time
instead of just kind of dismissing ideas because he didn't
think it would fit with a particular project. This process
(21:40):
has allowed Manny Wall to explore and incorporate some different
flavors and styles into zeal And Order. In doing so,
he manages to make it not feel jarring or out
of place because he focuses on keeping the atmosphere of
the band's music insistent. He feels that as long as
he keeps that atmosphere at core, he's free to play
around with odd or annoying songs and unusual shifts in
his prolific songwriting, and his try anything attitude then works
(22:03):
in his favor, as he's able to pick and choose
songs that fit the atmosphere while sitting aside any that
do not. I've found this talk of atmosphere particularly interesting
because while I do really like the music, the closest
thing to a knock I have on it is that
I'm just not super into the guitar parts, which is
not to say there is anything wrong with them as
they fit the music, which is honestly what matters, as
(22:25):
much as anything else, I think is just a different
style of playing than what I prefer. My personal taste
seem to lean into more rift based bands, grips like Metallica,
masted On Down, High on Fire, and even the progenitors
of heavy metal Black Sabbath, who are all very rift
based bands in my opinion, at least now. Some of
my disconnect maybe down to the black metal influence, a
(22:46):
style that I'm imittedly not all that familiar with, but
I think that's where their occasional just straight up tremello
picking comes from, a style that reminds me of serf guitar,
just with distortion, a comparison that I think someone else's made,
but I can't tell you who off the top of
my head. Regardless, I found it a bit surprising when
doing my research to find that Manuel and fellow guitarist
is Jano Valente were voted the best metal guitarist of
(23:09):
twenty twenty two by Music Radar readers, and a word
that both of them actually found amusing as they don't
consider Zealand Order to be a traditional guitar centric metal band,
a sentiment that, as I've already stated, I agree with,
as he focused on the band isn't really the guitar.
It's more about the vocals and the songwriting with the
guitar and there more as a support instrument, helping to
(23:30):
provide atmosphere and impact, something which Manuwell suggests was somewhat
of an accidental move as he causes fingers too dumb
to play more complicated stuff. As a result, he instead
chooses to focus on quote emotion rather than a rev.
Valente meanwhile, hopes that this recognition leads to a shift
quote away from the whole guitar wankery aspect back to
(23:50):
songwriting and actually conceptual music or something that really isn't
on that technical level apart from guitar nerds. It's maybe
not that interesting to have very technical music, which I
think is a fairly interesting take. While I tend to
like more riff focused guitar parts in my metal I
do feel like there can be an overly technical brand
of mele guitar that I personally don't find all that interesting.
(24:11):
It's just for me. There is this point where the
balance tips and you start to lose the emotion or
the heaviness when you get too focused on being flashy
and technical, as for Zealand Arder. In addition to trying
to keep the journal atmosphere and the music insistent, the
other thing tying at least the first couple albums together
was a narrative of liberation from slavery. That being said,
there is not some grand narrative playing out throughout the
(24:33):
course of the music. These aren't concept albums, but there
do tend to be like individual scenes and stories that
play out in the songs that connect to the overall
narrative theme. The first two albums, for example, have loose
concepts tying them all together. The Devil Is Fine You
See was about life while being enslaved, while the follow
up Stranger Fruit was about escaping and being on the run,
(24:55):
with the album title itself being a reference to lynchings
of African Americans as in the Trees in the Jim
Crow South had this tendency to grow Strange Fruit, with
the fruit being the dead bodies of black men hanging
in the trees after being lynched. The second album then,
wasn't a lot of ways about taking the concept of
the first album, which was really more of a demo,
(25:15):
and then expanding upon it. Indeed, were The Devil's Fine
at just nine tracks, three of which being kind of
more experimental slash instrumental pieces, Stranger Fruit is sixteen tracks.
In doing so, while he wanted to expand beyond the
original concept, Manuel also wanted to be careful to not
quote straight too far from what I've done before, so
you still got the dunto blues and heavy rifts in there.
(25:37):
But I feel like if I limited myself to black
music and black metal, I'd end up painting myself in
a corner, and then it wouldn't be fun anymore, with
having fun seemingly being the most important thing for manuwell
when it comes to making music. So while Stranger Fruit
would feature tracks that I wouldn't the finest prototypical Zealand
arter style songs, meaning they're clearly a mixture of traditional
(25:58):
folk style music made heavy and mixed with metal, there
are other tracks in which he seems to be playing
around with an expanded palette, so you still have tracks
like Ship on Fire and Servants, which starts off feeling
like a traditional song about stealing horses before turning into
a heavy mental battle cry calling upon the servants to
rise up. And also we Can't Be Found, which incorporates
(26:18):
more of a straight up blue style ref in the
intro before turning into a straight up mental song. But
also mixed in with these tracks are quiet, introspective instrumental
pieces like The Hermit and the more bloozy or even
R and b' stylings of You Ain't Coming Back and
built on ashes. Stranger Fruit would be another commercial success
for the band, but from the various interviews and the documentary,
(26:39):
it does not seem like it was a sure thing
that Zealand Ardor would continue past this album. That being said,
the following year they would release a live album titled
Simply Live in London, continuing that gradual shift to becoming
less of a one man project, as this is the
first recording to feature the other musicians comprising the band
other than drummer Marko Van Allen. A FOP studio album
(27:01):
was planned for twenty twenty one, but that ended up
taking a backseat afder. The murder of George Floyd in
the protest at spawned. You see, while Manuel was born
and raised in Switzerland, he still had family in the
States who he worried about, and Daty would state that
following the George Floyd murder he did not see for
multiple days as he was so deeply affected by it. So,
(27:21):
while Manuel had traditionally leaned towards being more obtuse and
mysterious with his music, he felt like he had to
talk about this through his music, if for no other
reason than to get it off his chest. The Wake
of a Nation EP then was blamed in its messaging
down to its cover, which featured an inverted cross consisting
of two police batons. The EP then is almost like
(27:41):
a companion to the other albums that focused on more
distant historic oppression by now talking about recent events as
of saying things haven't really changed all that much. The
EP also notably includes a song about Tuskigee, which Manuel
mentions in the doc Play with the Devil. In doing so, though,
he references the inexact myth about the Tuskegee Experiment, which
(28:02):
states that African American men were given cephalis by the
government to see what happens, which isn't true. Instead, it's
a bit more insidious for a short summary of a
longer story than I covered any series of episodes on
the tust Gig experiment. The patients were not actually given
cephalis by government doctors then in fact already had the disease.
What actually happened was the government doctors decided it was
(28:25):
fine to use a black population as test subjects to
see how untreated sephalis progressed, doing so when that knowledge
already existed, and continuing the so called experiment even after
a cure had been discovered. So still vile and disturbing,
but just a slightly different flavor now. Since the ep
was very clearly written in response to the George Floyd
(28:46):
murder and other blatant murders of African Americans at the
hands of the police, Manuel did not want to be
seen as capitalizing off the tragedy, so he donated part
of the revenue and purposely turned down any interviews concerning
the project. Actions seem to fit with what appears to
be his overall approach. For Manuel, it's more than anything
else about making music that he himself believes in and
(29:07):
approach that the Swiss manager accepts and encourages. So while
it's still importantly makes some money, that's not the be
all and all of the project. The main goal is
to make great music. Indeed, Manuel's manager encourages him to
make things that he's happy with, as more likely than
not people will be happy with it as well, because
in general, people tend to be able to tell when
(29:27):
something is genuine or fake, at least when it comes
to art. It feels then that it was around this
time that Manuel decided that he was going to keep
doing this, possibly because he realized that zeal And Ardor
did not have to be this confining box where he
could only make this one style of music or make
it fit into a singular narrative. As such, he started
expanding beyond the initial designs of the project, both in
(29:49):
terms of the variety of music he produced and in
that none all the songs had to be about this
alternative history narrative he had created. That being said, it's
not like their subsequent albums are devoid of what you
would call the clas Aassic Zealand Arter type songs. Indeed.
The self titled album, which is self titled in part
because they didn't have a lot of great ideas for names,
but also because they felt like they'd really found the
(30:09):
definitive sound, features multiple examples of those kind of classic
Zealand art tracks, with some of the most prominent examples
being tracks like Death That the Holy and Guoter demmur Rung,
which is a reference to Vagner's ring cycle, with Guter
dammer Rung being the Germanic version of Ragna Rock a
war that brings about the death of the gods, which
not only fits into the band's overall mythos, but according
(30:31):
to Manuel as also a quote conscious effort to claim
is ouv to more leftist people. It's kind of taking
the piss out of the Nazis, adding that he felt
it was important to try and claim Voder's music as
even though the composer was a quote unquote huge dick too,
the facts to remained that the quote dude wrote some
brilliant music. As for Zealand, Arner's version of the Twilight
(30:51):
of the Gods, it's one of their heaviest tracks, in
part because it features parts in German that sound quote
unquote evil due to the language's naturally harsh tones and
historic connotations, a feeling that is only enhanced due to
the fat that Manuel performs those sections in a screeching
vocal style that I assume was probably leading on their
black metal roots sections that stand out even more due
(31:11):
to the strong contrast with the cleaner and at times
more soulful English parts. Yet amidst these more prototypical Zealand
artist style metal songs, were an increasing number of less
blatantly metal tracks, stuff like Goldenmeier and Holds Your Head Low,
which are more laid back, haunted sounding blues tracks, a
trend that continues with their latest album, Grief, which is
actually a reference to a festival that takes place in
(31:33):
their hometown of Basil. Specifically, it's a non to one
of the three prominent figures in the festival, the Griffin, who,
in addition to representing one of the city's medieval guilds
and thus the working class, the Griffin also symbolizes boldness
and freedom of spirit. Basically, during this festival, the Griffin,
along with the other two creatures representing the cities guild
slash working class, would make a show of turning their
(31:54):
backs on the part of the town that was the
home of the oppressive aristocrats. According to Manuel, quote, it's
basically about sticking your ass out to the man. I
really don't know how much success it ever yielded, but
it's such a cool thing to do. He's the underdog
or the under griffin, so to speak. This freedom of
spirit fits the latest album because it sees the group
pushing their own boundaries and expanding the sound on the
(32:17):
band more than ever before. Indeed, as Manuel would explain, quote,
we're a band who've never really tried to adhere to genre.
This album is about going further, turning your back on
showing your ass to the conformity of genre. So while
you still have a track like haid in Shade that
maintains the established seal and ortered tone and sound, it's
in a sea of more diverse songs. Kilo Nova, for example,
(32:38):
is an interesting song and one that some have tried
comparing the Tool, but I don't really hear it. It's
maybe a little closer to say Proggy Opeth, but even
that I don't think is a great comparison. In contrast,
the inspiration for tracks like Disease and Sugarcoat is much
more obvious, as not only does Manuel state that Queens
of the Stone Age were an inspiration for those tracks,
but long before I ever read that statement, when I
(33:00):
I was just listening to these albums and johnning down
notes about songs that call my attention in case I
decided to do this episode, I literally wrote down quote
seems to be expanding somewhat sonically. Sugarcoat off their latest album, Grief,
has definite Queens and the Stone Age vibes. So when
I read that interview where he says it would be
dishonest to not admit that influence, I became the DiCaprio
(33:20):
beam where he points to the TV. Grief is also
notable because it's a more personal album and because for
the first time the other members of the band actually
appear on the studio record. You see in the past,
manuald pretty much done everything when it came to the albums, because,
as he admits, he's a bit of a control freak
and zeal And ardor was quote my baby, and I
don't want to give it up, so I do everything
(33:41):
on the albums except the drums, which my body is
simply too stupid to do. On Grief, though, while Manuwel
continued to write all the music, not being able to
give up that part of being a control freak kid.
Instead of him playing all the instruments, the members of
the bands are the ones actually playing their own parts now,
with Manuell stating quote, we are in the process of
democratizing everything in the band and this move was a
(34:04):
big part of that as this way the others get
to feel that they're much more a part of the process.
Plus it also gives them the ability to make money
off the albums and not just have to wait around
to be called upon the tour. This move then definitely
feels like it'll be good for the long term health
of the band. It seems fairly safe to say then
that we can look forward to more zeal And Arter
releases in the future. As for what this podcast will
(34:27):
be doing, I think once I finish up with Custer's
Last Stand, in honor of the themes of the early
Zealand Arter albums, we'll dive into the most famous slave
rebellion in US history, which was led by one Nat Turner.
As for our next sound stories, I think we'll be
examining the progenitors of new metal, Corn and their nineteen
ninety four debut album, although that however, will have to
for now remain a story for another time. Thank you
(34:54):
for listening to Distorted History. If you would like to
help out, please rate and review the podcast and tell
you your friends if you think they'll be interested. If
you would like ad free in early episodes, I set
up such a feed over at patreon dot com slash
to started History. By paying ten bucks a month, you
will gain access to the special ad free feed available
on Spotify or likely through your podcast app as long
(35:15):
as it uses an RSS feed. I will continue to
post sources on koffee and Twitter, though, as it's just
a convenient place to go to access that information regardless,
once again, thank you for listening and until next time,
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