How long have you been making music for?
Oh man, I think my first actual project goes back to when I was 13 years old. Back in the good old MySpace Cybergrind day’s 😂 so just about 18 years now I think? My main instrument has always been drums though and I started playing at around the age of 9 or 10!
What is your favorite instrument to play on?
It’s still the drums after all these years! I’ve tried to learning guitar, bass, vocals, etc. over the years and while I can make some pretty basic tunes with stringed instruments my go to is still forever drums!
What acts have you played with before if any?
Oh god damn, too many at this point 😂 My first serious project was Dawn Of The Hero in high school, then came Palindrone, after that is probably my most well-known project xSPONGEXCOREx, then I have Diplegia, Vintertodt, Calling Of Phasmic Presence, Apastron, Dude Noodle, and I do the studio session drums for Blackbraid along with recording, mixing, and mastering them too! I’m sure there’s more but I can’t remember right now 😂
If you had to lay out all the bands in order you played in as a timeline what would they be?
Well here goes nothing:
Lake of Anal Mucus
Cap Gun Roulette
Dawn of the Hero
Palindrone
xSPONGEXCOREx
Diplegia
Vintertodt
Apastron
Calling Of Phasmic Presence
Blackbraid (session drums)
Dude Noodle
And those are the only projects that have actually released material, there’s plenty more of unreleased stuff from well back in my youth. 😂
What is the coolest experience you have had as a musician?
I really don’t know at this point. They all just keep getting better as life goes on honestly! I think the first real “holy shit I absolutely love doing this” moment was when my first band Dawn Of The Hero played a sold out show with Attila and Born Of Osiris back in 2014, the adrenaline was insane! Shortly after that though came xSPONGEXCOREx’s overnight success. Literally overnight, it was an insane time. I did lots of radio interviews, got featured on some big publications, and sold so much merch during that time it was crazy! After that was probably in 2019, when I landed a mixing/mastering gig with one of my all-time favorite bands! I still unfortunately can’t release the name yet as of 3 years the album is still unreleased, it’s coming out this year though I believe! And then for the time being, the current success of Blackbraid has been fuckin insane. It was just a random run in at an Opeth show where we met each other and chatted for a few minutes and now he’s doing some absolutely insane things and I’m forever grateful to have helped him in his story with Blackbraid, so pumped to see where he continues to take the project!
What inspires you to keep doing what you do?
Ok honestly, it’s for the love of music and continuously getting better at my craft and helping musicians reach their goal. I mainly focus on the production side of things these days and it’s always such a great feeling when an artist or band reaches out and says “this sounds fucking amazing thank you man” it makes it all worth it!
If you had to name some influences what would they be?
Hmmm, there’s a lot! To start off I probably would’ve never started drumming if it wasn’t for my brother Jeff having a drum kit when we were younger, so he and his drum kit were big inspirations. Band wise, I was huuuuuge into In Flames, Slipknot, and Children Of Bodom from the ages of like 9 til about 13, then I found the classic Black Metal bands, Darkthrone, Mayhem, Burzum, Gorgoroth, etc. at 16 I found Opeth though and pretty much listened to Opeth exclusively for like the next 4-5 years 😂 it wasn’t until I was 21 when I dived deep into Pop Punk and at that point for the past 10 years it’s just been a huge mixture of Pop Punk and Black Metal bands that continue to inspire me. I don’t really have any real inspirations for audio production, just certain production sounds that I try to chase!
What is your favorite venue you been to or played in?
I think the biggest one I ever played with The Chance Theater in Poughkeepsie and that place was pretty cool! I played it twice and it’s always been a good time, either that or Northern Lights!
To sum up this interview where can we find your latest music and any shout outs to anyone for the readers of Asphyxium zine?
My project Vintertodt just released our first full length album back in October which you can find at:
My other project Calling of Phasmic Presence is always releasing splits n shit throughout the year, if you like noisy black metal take a listen at: http://callingofphasmicpresence.bandcamp.com.
If you’d like to hear my studio drum work and mixing/mastering, check out Blackbraid at: http://blackbraid.bandcamp.com.
Thank you to anyone who made it this far and if you check out any of my work! I tend to ramble a lot because I like to get my full thoughts out so sorry this was so long! A huge shout out to Daniel Ryan for offering to interview me, these are always so much fun to do! – Neil
-Daniel Ryan
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