Interview: Dawn Ray'd
I feel like this is probably my responsibility to talk about [politics]. So we doubled down on the politics. I was like, "Okay, this is something that obviously needs to be said, or this is a fight that needs to be picked." We've had a lot of backlash, death threats, and even armed security at some shows because of our political message. We even had a show where someone, a friend of the organizer, volunteered to be a sniper in the woods in case the local militia attacked the show.
Celebrated for their unique blend of anti-fascist, anarchist, black folk metal, Dawn Ray’d have made a distinct impression on heavy music this year with their latest release, To Know The Light. Before their set at ArcTangent, Jody Dunstan caught up with frotman Simon Barr to hear about the perils, pitfalls and positives of political music.
E&D: So I guess for those who are kind of unaware, give us a quick history of the band and and how you got here?
Simon: My name’s Simon. I’m in a band called Dawn Ray’d. We are an anarchist black metal band from Liverpool and Leeds, started about eight years ago. We’ve got three records out, and we sort of play a mixture of atmospheric and folk black metal, and we sing exclusively about anarchism, liberation, and radical politics.
E&D: So what kind of reactions do you get from that? And I’m thinking either maybe positive or negative.
Simon: Yeah, mixed! We get a lot of shit, we do get a lot of criticism, especially online. But I will caveat by saying we get a huge amount of support for what we say. We didn’t start out to be really political. I used to be in a screamo band. We played the punk DIY scene in Europe, like squats and radical spaces. That was the scene I grew up in. So when we wanted to do a black metal band, we were black metal, but we wanted to continue being a part of this scene. To get shows, we had to be really clear that we’re a black metal band, but we’re not Nazis. We are anarchist, anti-fascist, feminist, pro-trans, queer, and not unkind. So initially, we had to set the record straight. That got us attention, both good and bad. After our first EP, we did a photo with an Anglo Saxon flag, and we received loads of abuse and even death threats online. Which made me realize that this might be a bigger problem than I’d realized, rather than just being a quietly lefty band that wants to play in a punk venue.
Yeah. I thought, okay, maybe let’s really start shouting about this and really start talking about this. For example, I’m a fucking straight white guy in my late thirties. I feel like this is probably my responsibility to talk about. So we doubled down on the politics. I was like, “Okay, this is something that obviously needs to be said, or this is a fight that needs to be picked.” We’ve had a lot of backlash, death threats, and even armed security at some shows because of our political message. We even had a show where someone, a friend of the organizer, volunteered to be a sniper in the woods in case the local militia attacked the show.
E&D: No way!
Simon: Yeah, but no one ever confronts us face to face. No one ever comes to the shows. No one ever challenges us. No one says anything in person, If I turned the internet off, I would never know about their existence. The only feedback I get face to face is positive and supportive. So that’s an important distinction, I think.
E&D: I was just sort of thinking, traditionally, protest music has always been kind of in the folk scene, you know, thinking back to the sixties and stuff. But actually, there’s a movement in heavy music. You’re looking at bands around who’ve have got a message.
Simon: Yeah, I think you see protest music pop up in different places at different times. For me, a band like Chumbawamba, I love Chumbawamba, started as a folk band for a bit, then a massive pop band, always anarchist and very radical. So it pops up there for a little bit, and it’s happening in heavy music at the moment. It’s interesting to map out where these little radical scenes suddenly grow. Maybe it’s out of necessity, maybe scenes are struggling with right-wing politics and realize they have to do something about it; I don’t know how these things evolve, but I’m excited to be part of it in heavy metal at the moment because it aligns with my beliefs and the music I love.
E&D: I guess if you’ve got that stage, maybe you feel like you ought to say those things because you can?
Simon: Fuck, yeah!
E&D: I’m chatting with Svalbard yesterday, and they deal with some heavy issues as well. People contact them and say, “Glad someone’s talking about this.”
Simon: Yeah, yeah. I think it needs like, like I really admire Svalbard for the things they’ve said. I think it needs lots of different voices and lots of different experiences because like I am who I am and I have my experience in the world, but that’s not everybody’s experience in the world. But, I think we all think most decent people believe that racism is wrong. That like the way refugees are treated is despicable. That like, trans people should just be fucking left alone to live their own lives. The queer people should be left alone to love whoever they want. We shouldn’t destroy the planet that we rely on. I don’t think these are particularly fringe or niche ideas. I think they are pretty sensible ideas that most people hold.
E&D: Maybe it’s the case that those with the opposite opinion have a big stage and a lot of backing, and us woke lefties have to shout twice as loud, twice as hard, to get that message across.
Simon: The conspiracy or the accusation is always that it’s the other way around, isn’t it? The woke lobby or the trans lobby. But actually, it’s just normal working-class people fighting for survival against politics pushed by millionaires in Westminster. We have to… and I think that ties into our music because we incorporate a lot of folk music. For me, folk music’s purpose is to record working-class history, struggle, and life in ways that probably aren’t recorded elsewhere. The history you’re taught in school is the history of kings, victors, and empires, rather than the history of normal, real people.
E&D: Yeah, normal, real people. I think it’s important that we hear working-class voices play a part. Tell us a little bit about your creative processes as a band because you’re blending somewhat disparate things together.
Simon: Yeah, I write all the lyrics myself, actually Fabian wrote one of the songs in this last record for ‘Cruel Optimisms’. But otherwise I write all the lyrics and I write them on my own sort of, kind of as like “poems” sort of without any sort of song structure in mind. And then Fabian will write like the riffs and like the song structures, he’s our guitarist. And then we sort of bring them together and he’ll play me what he’s got or actually what I have and we try and match up like moods in each that seem to fit together. Matthew our drummer’s really good at song structure as well, so he sort of always add like the finishing touches as he needs.
On this last record, we did a lot of stuff separately just like demoing recording at home. Like especially adding like extra clean vocals or extra guitar lines. We also did a lot of stuff separately this time, which is a different way of doing things and really, really fun. But it’s quite an organic process by the side of it. Things kind of come together
And yeah, we’re not one of those projects where one person kind of does everything, whatever.
E&D: Has that changed as you’ve got to know each other? Are you able to kind of like maybe challenge each other a little bit more and kind of get to that next stage?
Simon: I think so, yeah. Also you have like, yeah, you develop a way of working. You don’t realize you’ve developed that as a skill, but like until you sort of have to work with someone else and you realize you maybe don’t have that with them yet. But yeah, I can sort of very loosely describe something to Fabian and I’m Matthew and they know exactly what I mean straight away.
E&D: They know what’s in your head?
Simon: Yeah, so there’s a lot of things that go unspoken, which is awesome.
E&D: Are there any other bands you want to give a shout out to? Anyone we should be listening to at the moment?
Simon: I’m a big fan of Ashenspire, who’s playing this weekend. We’re playing just before them, which means I probably won’t get to see them because we’ll have to be setting up. But I love their band. We’re also seeing Liturgy this weekend. Our friends Ragana from the US just released a new single, which is amazing, and we’re touring with them in the UK from 4 September. So that’s some pretty solid bands.
