Hello! I'm fine, thank you.
Who are you? what do you do in Subserviency?
I'm Samoth, I drum and do vocals. I also create a lot of the graphics/art for the band and handle booking and whatnot, I love making stuff.
Can you tell us all the members? How old are you guys?
I'm 19. Lance plays guitar, he's 16 about to turn 17 this month. Phoenix plays bass and guitar, he turned 17 not too long ago.
Can you tell the whole story about how the band started?
I used to have a solo project named Artistic Defilement back in 2024. My friend Sam, who plays in
a band from here called Render, reached out to me about needing another band to play for a show he was putting together. At the time, I didn't really have shit written. What ended up happening was I wrote 3 songs, all very odd BDM pieces inspired by a mix of Mortal Decay and Stargazer. I got Sam to learn them on bass and his friend Logan to learn them on guitar, and we ended up playing a few shows. There's probably some clips lying around on YouTube. Eventually, we split in early 2025 due to the distance between members and time issues. Not long after, we were offered a show with a pretty big band at the time that happened to be coming through, and I had nobody to play it with! So, in a nature similar to how Artistic began, I gathered a few friends to write some music and make this shit happen. I think we had about 2 months. I got my good friends Phoenix and Lance to join, who swapped between bass and guitar between songs. We had another guitarist at the time, who we've now since parted ways with. We wrote 3 songs and learned a cover of Losfer Words by Iron Maiden. It was very low effort slam-centric music made solely to get through the first couple shows, but people seemed to dig it since they could mosh to it. After we became a three-piece, we began writing new material in which we actually wanted to play. I wrote the the first couple songs on the EP, Lance and I wrote the last song, which was actually the first one we began to write (around November). Phoenix wrote all of the bass, which I suspect emerged from the babbling brook of consciousness which his brilliant thoughts flow. We finished writing in time for our first out of state show in late January, which we played in Jackson, Mississippi.
How did you name the band?
Lance came up with it, he got it from the Internal Bleeding song "God of Subservience". At the same time, I think it offers deeper meaning when you think about the "subservience" you often see in music scenes, following trends and gimmicks and regurgitating ideas between one another instead of creating something of your own volition.
What bands inspire you?
This could be a long list but I'll try to condense it, haha. Number one is definitely Lykathea Aflame and their precursor band Appalling Spawn. Other than that, Gorguts, Defeated Sanity, Deeds of Flesh, Despondency, Stargazer, Morbid Angel, Cenotaph (MX), Atheist, Cynic, Immolation, Oppressor, Nile, Theurgy, Submerged, Contrastic, Origin, Internal Suffering, likely some others on the death metal front. We try to incorporate melodies inspired by ancient music of various cultures. We also take inspiration from some black metal and heavy metal acts, we like to mesh stuff from everything we like. Also Rush.
Damn, Lykathea Aflame! Haven't heard that name in a long time!
Being that you are all so young, I just have to ask how you came to find this kind of music. Family? Siblings? Older friends?Lance: I personally found this kind of music just from hanging out with Samoth and Phoenix, because before I became friends with them I had minimal interest in the genre and I was just more of a black metal guy anyway. (You can probably somewhat hear the influence in our music, being that us 3 all love black metal) None of my family is into extremely heavy music though, except for my dad who is a big thrash and heavy metal guy.
Samoth: My parents raised me on a lot of metal. They, along with my aunt, played in a black metal band called “Fallen Empire”. My uncle also plays in a death metal band called “Vore”.
Phoenix: When I was in the sixth grade, I downloaded bandcamp and began exploring all sorts of genres. Before this I hadn't much engaged with music. In my household, it was mainly pop and folk, and none of it interested me besides the occasional Sabbath my mom would put on. My big gateway band was Sleep, which sparked my ever-evolving obsession for discovering music through whatever methods. At first it was doom metal, then black metal, and eventually death metal. I started listening to BDM around the end of ninth grade, and since then I've been doing what I do.
Also, after a youtube deep-dive, I realized that you are all incredibly talented musicians! How long has everyone been at their instrument and how often do you guys practice?
Lance: I would estimate I've been playing music and instruments for probably 2 and a half years. I started out playing bass because my brother had a bass guitar and a bass amp in his room that just sat and collected dust and he didn't care for me playing it. I remember playing bass a lot for most of summer, and finally getting an electric guitar for my birthday in July. And ever since then, I've just been playing guitar everyday.
Samoth: I’ve been playing drums practically my entire life. I received a toy drum set when I was like 2 or so, ended up loving it so much that my parents got me a starter kit. I remember bass pedals being the most difficult thing to grasp, I’d supplement it by using the floor tom instead. I mostly played a lot of Black Sabbath, I love Bill Ward. Eventually I got decent enough by time I was in elementary school and so on. My skill really began to improve when I got into Zach Hill’s playing,
Phoenix: I started playing guitar shortly after I began drumming roughly three years ago. Initially, I was just messing around with my grandpas acoustic and most of my attention was centered on drums. Gradually, though, my focus shifted more and more to guitar and now it's my main instrument. And as much as I'd love to say I practice a steady eight hours a day Joe Pass style, it usually ends up being around 1-3. I'll get to that 8+ schedule soon though hopefully maybe!
Thanks a lot for answering some questions! We can't wait to Observe The Ancestral Twilight!!! Any last words?
Keep an eye on the upcoming EP and the music video, it’s a lot of fun. Listen to Manilla Road and Lykathea Aflame! Thank you for taking the time to interview us!!!
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