WHITE CRONE interview from SWR#16:

Hi Lisa! I guess my first question is obvious: since you're a serious name in the Blues scene, what made you go for a Metal direction with White Crone?
First I'd like to say thank you for this interview! Well, my musical background is actually rooted in Heavy Metal. I started playing bass at a young age, and first learned how to play Deep Purple, Black Sabbath and Cream, but one day a friend gave me a copy of Iron Maiden's Killers, and that changed everything. I learned how to play and sing along to the first five Iron Maiden albums, as well as Dio, Mercyful Fate, Manowar, Judas Priest, and more. But when I started working as a musician in my late teens, you couldn't make any money in bars playing metal. So I started playing Top-40. Many years later, I started playing in the Blues scene in Portland, which had some good paying gigs. That's when my earliest background with bass players like Roger Glover, Geezer Butler and Jack Bruce came in handy- they were all very influenced by blues music. I had blues chops and didn't even know it!

There's a saying that you do what you have to do to quench your hunger, and once that's achieved, you can finally do what you like to. Although it's an unfair question to Blues in relation to Metal, was this your case, too? I mean have you picked up Metal when success was already there in Blues and you could finally do something for releasing some more energy?
Truly I am in love with both styles of music and find them both very fulfilling. But I had always wanted to do a traditional metal album- it's just that I had never been fully inspired to write those songs. It's important to me to be inspired to write, and not to "try" to write music. I need to hear it in my head first.

Were your Blues peers surprised at all about this choice of yours, or they saw it coming? I'm curious of what were the reactions to your debut album within the Blues scene, apart from the obvious complacent congratulations; how have you actually felt their reactions?
Everyone who knows me well in the blues music scene knows that I am a huge metalhead! In fact I often wear metal shirts on stage during blues gigs, and we listen to metal in the van while on tour. I know many other musicians with metal backgrounds as well who are successful in blues music, such as Alastair Green and JP Soars. As far as fans go, there are many who supported my debut release, in fact enough to outsell Ozzy Osbourne two weeks in a row at Portland's biggest record store! (We released on the same date.) There are plenty of blues fans who don't care for it at all, and some who are in between. I sing in an operatic style, like Bruce Dickinson or Dio, and so there are quite a few of my blues fans who can at least appreciate White Crone music even though metal isn't their cup of tea.

The Poisoner, your debut album, is out for almost a year, and unfortunately because of the Covid-19 pandemic, you probably weren't able to promote it live, correct? So what's your decision with it, to wait for the pandemic to end and promote the album then, or to work on a follow up opus and, why not, release it soon?
Well, The Poisoner really is a recording project, and I hadn't really intended it to be performed live. It's almost a one-woman project. I sing as well as play bass and almost all the guitars, so mainly White Crone is me and a drummer, master instructor Larry London. I did have my friend and former Glacier guitarist Mehdi Farjami play solos on two songs, and drummer Vinny Appice also plays on a song. The Poisoner started out as a home recording project just for me, and after I had written and recorded enough songs at home to make a full album, it occured to me that other people might want to listen to it too, especially metalheads of my generation who love the classic stuff. I'm not saying I'll never perform it live, but I would have to be invited to a very good gig, and then hire a band of ringers.
I released The Poisoner just before the COVID lockdowns began, within weeks! I did some promotion but didn't know where to start, being a "newcomer" to the metal scene. I do intend to release a follow up CD and I may have a few more guests on guitar. I have a few songs almost complete, but I have been working on promoting a blues EP, as well as working on a new album with the band Splintered Throne.

One more question about your Blues activity and I'm done, I promise. You made it to the Billboard charts and Blues Hall of Fame, which is huge, but in Metal you had to start from scratch, to work your way through the Underground. How has the Metal scene treated you so far and how big are the differences between the two scenes?
Well, it was definitely an eye opener being a tiny fish in a new pond again after many years of relative success in blues. I am a self-produced artist, so I just made the album, then figured, okay I'll hire a promoter. But I could not hire any of the larger PR agencies in metal! Something I really took for granted. But there were some smaller PR guys who worked with me, such as Noob Heavy and Zach Moonshine, who got the album into a lot of reviewers hands. I received so many excellent reviews, it blew my mind! The metal scene has been GREAT, especially on "Metal Twitter" which is where I've met so many supporters and new friends. I've also learned how to do self-promotion thanks to some social media marketing education from a team of PR guys I met through Twitter (Dewar, Dropout & BDWE Media). I've oddly developed quite a following in Germany, and I mail most of my merch there. The album was also invited to be on NWOTHM Full Albums on YouTube, and I've been entered in the Encyclopaedia Metallum, which were two goals of mine. Although the debut album didn't get quite as big a start as I had hoped, I did break some barriers, and now I am better equipped to promote a second album in the future. As far as differences between the scenes, I think they are very similar in a way that they are big families. Of course, those families are of vastly different sizes at this point, from my point of view. But my metal family is growing all the time, thanks to people like you.

For how long have you been working on The Poisoner? When working on it, have you had any direction in mind, or it just happened for the tracks to come out like they did?
The Poisoner kind of started writing itself. I had no intention of making a metal CD, but the year that Ghost was entered in the Grammy Awards was when this started. I first heard their song Cirice, and it was so strange and intriguing. I started listening to more of their music and I was inspired by the weirdness of it. A lot of people hate Ghost, but I love Tobias Forge's music- he just doesn't give a fuck. And literally, one day, the thought occurred to me "you mean, can just play whatever you want?!" All of a sudden I started hearing these riffs and lyrics in my head, and I would play them on my bass or sing them into an app on my phone. Soon the bits and pieces started adding up to whole songs. I got a home recording studio together and began finishing these songs in great detail, using electronic drums, until I almost had a full album. I just let the songs tell me how they were supposed to go. I was not a guitar player at all, so I taught myself how to play guitar and bought a 7 string Schecter. I wanted to play the drums, but the ideas I had were too sophisticated for me to pull off. Once all the songs were written, I started going into Opal Studio to record them for real. That process took well over a year, I was working full time in blues as well as suffering from a health problem that affected my hands. It was a very long process, but I am happy at how it turned out.

Overall your music could be labeled as Heavy Metal, but there are a lot of other influences, too, like Doom, Progressive and even old Hard Rock, correct? What were your major inspirations, what Metal do you listen to at home? Any Extreme Metal on your "menu"?
Oh yes my influences in metal are all over the place. I do have a hard rock and progressive background, I played and sang along with a lot of Rush when I was young, for instance. I was a huge Ozzy Osbourne fan as well, and Bob Dailey is a big bass influence. I also came up as a thrash metal fan, having witnessed the birth of thrash when bands like Slayer, Metallica, Megadeth and Exodus would come up to Portland to play small clubs. I spent a LOT of time in mosh pits during that era! Mainly I was into classic metal at home, like Dio, Maiden, Priest and Manowar, but I also loved First Wave of Black Metal, like Venom, Mercyful Fate, and Celtic Frost. Also German bands like Accept, Kreator, and Destruction. Later I listened to a lot of Rammstein, RATM and SOAD. I actually get a lot of arranging ideas from those bands. In past years I've become a fan of extreme metal, avant garde metal, and symphonic black metal. I love Car Bomb, Batushka (the real one!), SepticFlesh, Dimmu Borgir, Avatar... anything that's oddly interesting. I've become a fan of an underground artist who works under the name Nick Sarcophagus, his project is Drainbow. It's insane!

What do you think stands out on The Poisoner? What would you really like listeners to notice when they listen to your album? What was the part of it you invested the most in (lyrics, bass presence, solos, vocals, etc.)?
Back in the early days, bands would put their boldest song on as the last track. Iron Maiden was especially good at that. That's why I closed the album with the song "18 Rabbit." I hope listeners will give that one a solid listen, it is the longest track and takes you from the present to the ancient past with a story about a real Mayan ruler who was a patron of the arts. I hope the main thing listeners will notice about the whole album is the songwriting and arranging, and I hope it will take fans of classic metal "back to the day." As far as what I invested in the most, technically that would be the guitars. I could never play a whole song on guitar in my life! So I watched dozens of YouTube instructional videos to learn how to play the parts I was hearing in my head. But it is definitely a bass player's album, that is my main forte. "18 Rabbit" really shows off my Steve Harris style way of playing. I must say, thinking back, I invested a lot in everything- poring over the lyrics obsessively, going over drum parts 100 times, tweaking vocal melodies and such. It's the most time and energy intensive project I've ever done.

Why have you chosen to release the album by yourself instead of letting a label worry with all aspects of producing and distributing it? Is it more worth it that way for you? How are the sales so far?
I have had a few labels approach me in my blues career, but nothing came up that seemed advantageous. A lot of times labels are involved with production, and frankly I've been self-producing for so long, I'd rather not "be produced" if you know what I mean. I have a half dozen blues albums out, and have learned to mimic a lot of what the labels do. I don't have children and I don't have another job besides music so I'm able to dedicate the time, although there are times when I wish I had an assistant! It is worth more for me in the long run, though I do share with an online distributor for digital distribution. That's kind of a necessary evil. Sales of my latest blues EP were good enough to get on the Billboard chart, so that was great! The Poisoner hasn't sold as well, nor reached similar levels of digital streaming and airplay, but Bandcamp has been a godsend and it looks like I'll make a return on my extensive investment. I just need to make enough to keep up my habit!!

How come your husband Allen Markel, who's also a bass player in a renowned Blues ensemble was not a guest on your Metal album? What does he think of it?
Haha! Yes Allen is a bass player as well, he works with Grammy nominated blues artist Sugaray Rayford, and also has a background in Latin Jazz. Actually he was out on tour all over the world while I was making the majority of The Poisoner so he probably couldn't have done it even if he wanted to. He is not really a metal fan and has zero background in it, but he is very supportive and proud of the White Crone album. He knows how many difficulties I faced in making the album.

Please tell us a few words on your guests on The Poisoner, and about what seems to be your permanent drummer, Larry London. Also, why have you chosen to work with producer Kevin Hahn, he's not specialized in Metal?
Guitarist Mehdi Farjami and I were friends in high school, he was in the band Glacier for a while. I know he could do some pyrotechnics on the opening track, as well as on the Venom cover, "The Seven Gates of Hell." Former Black Sabbath/ Dio drummer Vinny Appice was necessary for the sludgy doom track "Under Hag Stones" and I am blessed that he was willing to record for me again (he worked on a blues rock song on my "Hard Times, Bad Decisions" album.) I wrote a very North African/ Middle Eastern style track, "Broken," and my friend Caton Lyles, who also worked on some of my blues music, played percussion. Larry London and I worked together on a project called Cry For Eden some years ago, he is an absolute monster drummer. He has an instruction program and studio that has produced some of the finest drummers in the Northwest. Engineer Kevin Hahn at Opal Studio has recorded, mixed, and mastered many of my blues CDs, however he does have a background in rock and heavy metal! In fact, his clients have included The Scorpions, Paul Gilbert, The Loyal Order, Poison Idea and more. He also plays guitar and bass, and sings very well. I absolutely love working with Kevin because he understands every instrument, and understands how songs should be arranged and made to come alive. There are a few guitar parts on the album that are there because he prompted me to flesh out the arrangement so he could better work his mixing magic. I look forward to making another metal album with him in the future.

Who did the cover artwork? Does it represent what happens on the album? Was it done based on the album, or have you chosen it after you recorded?
I stumbled across that artwork, called "White Witch" while google searching for images that might serve as the cover. I knew that was the one, but the artist was very hard to track down. His name is Jan Vidra, and I believe he currently lives in the UK. It took months to find him and get permission, but I'm glad I was persistent and didn't use something else. My music isn't black metal, but I love the early black metal aesthetic. I really wanted the cover to be an eerie black and white image, and his White Witch was perfect. I am also an older woman, I wanted an image which expressed the wisdom of the Crone.

Your lyrics seem pretty philosophical at times, personal at other, or am I off course? How satisfied are you of your lyrics, do you think you've managed to lay down all your intentions through these lyrics?
I love storytelling, and do a lot of it on the album. I'm a fan of horror, like Clive Barker and Stephen King, and love those cautionary tales of the perils of messing with the dark arts. The first song, though, "The Dream of Tiamat" is about a real dream I had, an encounter with a Titan like goddess under the earth. She bit off my head, and I then began seeing out of her eyes, waiting for the next victim to come. The other stories are more fantastical or character based- the title track is kind of a Judas Priest type character who exists across time, silently killing evildoers. "Under Hag Stones" is about a Celtic zombie curse. "18 Rabbit' is definitely philosophical as well as historical, about how greatness can be achieved through the arts. There are a few songs based on the real world, though- "Broken" is about how women in many cultures participate in subjugating their own daughters. And "Edge of Gone" is about mental illness and homelessness. I do believe I managed to lay down my intentions, song for song anyway. It isn't a concept album, like King Diamond albums are, which I believe would be far more challenging.

2020 was an awful year for musicians, especially for professional musicians who live from their performances, so depression is more dangerous and imminent as ever I guess, especially since musicians have a more sensible soul than the "regular" people. How have you managed to stay afloat? Where do you get optimism from?
It WAS an awful year- I had three tours get canceled, as well as a trip to Memphis for the Blues Music Awards. My husband's band had several European tours cancel! I think what keeps me together is knowing we are all in this together, and also focusing on what we CAN do rather than what we can't. We all need to adapt and to be innovative, and even look for the advantages. For instance, I have been live streaming blues music on a weekly basis, and in doing so, I've been able to be seen by audiences around the world. I used to tour the UK yearly, and I would never see those fans for the rest of the year- but now they can see me in their own living rooms! I've stayed afloat due to their generosity, as well as supporters of White Crone (especially in Germany). I was also able to get a small amount of unemployment assistance, which definitely helps pay the bills. The main thing, we need to take advantage of technology and social media and make the best of what we've got.

What's next for White Crone? Was The Poisoner a one off project, or are you planning to continue writing Metal, and why not, even touring?
I will eventually produce a second White Crone album, but for now I am working as the new lead singer for the trad metal band Splintered Throne. We have been sharing files and rehearsing occasionally as safety will allow, and have written almost a full albums worth of killer heavy metal! Once restrictions are lifted we are champing at the bit to get into the studio, and eventually to hit the stage, that is for sure. So keep your eyes peeled for Splintered Throne!

November 2020