Interview
GOETIA Interview | Inside the Ritualistic World of "Mortuary Cult"
DC Darkness Unleashed
Hello everyone, first of all, thank you very much for taking the time to answer our questions during your tour and for accepting our interview invitation. We are happy to have the opportunity to talk about GOETIA’s music, the creative process behind “Mortuary Cult” and the ideas behind the band’s dark and intense sound. We hope this conversation offers our readers a closer look into the world of GOETIA. Let's get started!
Looking back now, does “Mortuary Cult” still feel like a single, unified piece to you, or did it gradually fragment and reassemble itself during the recording process?
It feels extremely unified. We spent a lot of time with these tracks near completion piecing them together into the album. We had a very solid idea of what the final record should sound and feel like, and that carried through the whole process.
The focal track “Corpse Candle” is built around a narrative inversion: the dead calling out to the living. Was that inversion an early compositional device for you, or did it become a turning point that reshaped the album’s direction?
That inversion just came naturally through the writing process after the first half of the record was done. When we decided to lead "Mortuary Cult" into "Corpse Candle", I had the idea that the theme of the previous track should be reflected in the lyrics of the latter. I wouldn't say it changed the album's direction, but it did help shape the connecting lyrical theme throughout.
There’s a strong ritualistic quality running through “Mortuary Cult.” Is that sense of ritual something you consciously construct during the writing process, or something that emerges physically in the rehearsal room?
A lot of that came through the writing process. Running the songs over and over again to prepare for the album helped us tweak things, even though we knew where we wanted it to end up. I would say it's about 50/50 writing vs rehearsing for stuff like that.
Your lyrics move between occult imagery, urban folklore, and grounded physical reality. Do you see these as separate domains at all, or simply different ways of articulating the same underlying darkness?
It's all the same to me. It's drawing inspiration from different things, but the underlying core is the eeriness lying just below the surface of everyday life. The darkness is always there, it's just up to us how we choose to see it, be it magickal or mundane. I don't make a distinction.
A lot of contemporary death metal tends to operate on maximum density and immediacy. You, on the other hand, build structures that accelerate continuously while constantly shifting form. Is that a deliberate counter-position, or more of a natural compositional reflex?
I would say it's a deliberate choice. Our sound is a direct result of the things we wanted to see more of in contemporary death metal, and it was very intentional. Our songs draw on a lot of subgenres of heavy metal which I think also helps to mix things up a bit as far as the composition goes. While the end product is firmly death metal to us, we draw a lot from thrash, black metal, heavy metal, etc. to try to keep things feeling fresh.
The album carries a distinctly cinematic quality, yet that visual dimension seems to emerge directly from the riffs themselves. When you write, does imagery come first, or does the sound generate the imagery?
They go hand in hand for us. From the onset of the band we've had a very distinct idea of what the sound and imagery of the band should be, so they consciously play into one another. Usually riffs come first in the writing process and that can inform the lyrics, but there is always a loose idea from the start of what should happen thematically. We want to enforce a strong connection between our sound and the imagery associated with it.
Your writing process is collective, but Demir Soyer clearly plays a central role as a riff initiator. At what point does a riff stop being a “Demir idea” and fully become part of the GOETIA sound?
When Demir brings riffs to practice, they range from fully fleshed out songs to a loose collection of ideas. Once we all get familiar with the riffs, then they usually transform quite a bit during the rehearsals. Everyone brings different ideas about arrangements and new parts, so Demir's concepts are usually the foundation for the later collaboration.
Producer Matt Michel doesn’t seem like a purely technical presence in the studio. Were there moments where he pushed you outside your comfort zone and made you think, “this is no longer GOETIA” ?
We love working with Matt and trust him completely when he brings an idea to us. I wouldn't say it's no longer Goetia since he's an integral part of the process for us. He's very familiar with the band, our inspirations, and the type of sound we are going for. He often can take a loose idea we have and understand it immediately to bring it to fruition in a way we may not have thought of ourselves. He definitely has pushed us on every recording, and I think his input really helps the tracks reach their full potential.
During the recording process, was there ever a moment where things stopped feeling fully under control and you had to step back and reconsider the material, or was the process locked in from the beginning?
It was locked in. Like I mentioned before, we always plan ahead and have a very concise idea of what we are aiming to do. Sometimes things change in the studio, but we've never had any second guesses on the material we bring in.
Musically, you place classic death metal (in the Morbid Angel lineage) and DC hardcore energy not side by side, but deeply interwoven. Where do those two worlds most clearly clash within your writing?
Demir brings a lot of both worlds in with his songwriting. I don't think they really clash since he has a clear idea of what he is drawing on with both, but the mixture is there for sure.
Despite the extremity, a significant part of the album carries a distinctly “epic” sense of scale. Is that something you actively aim for, or a byproduct of your shared musical language?
That's definitely something we aimed for with the structure of the album. With so much of it being very fast and to the point, we wanted to make sure there was more going on than just blasting.
In the studio your recordings feel controlled and atmospheric, while on stage the energy becomes more chaotic and direct. What does GOETIA lose or gain in translation from studio to live environment?
Well, we only have one guitar live, so the sound is a bit different. But I think there's a sense of urgency and rawness in the live setting that differs a bit from the record. The songs have the same energy in both settings, just delivered a bit differently.
From the outside, the Washington DC scene feels both tightly connected and stylistically fragmented. Within that landscape, are you trying to carve out a widening trajectory, or simply build your own isolated space within it?
We are just playing the style we enjoy, and thankfully DC has responded very favorably to it. There are tons of great metal bands from the DC area, and they all vary stylistically quite a bit. Everyone kinda carves out their own space, which is one of the great things about the DC music scene.
Looking at your discography, does “Mortuary Cult” feel like a closing chapter for you, or more like the first sign of a direction you haven’t fully defined yet?
It's the latter for sure. The LP can be seen as the culmination of the style we were establishing on the prior EPs, but it's still a stepping stone towards what we are currently working on. The album has been recorded for a while, so leading up to its release we continued to write new material and further develop the ideas present on this record. I think there's a very logical progression through our releases which I expect to continue in the future.
Finally, for someone discovering GOETIA for the first time through this interview: what is the one thing you would want to stay with them—sound, idea, or atmosphere?
DEATH METAL SHOULD BE CREEPY AND FAST!
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