Interview: Distant Dominion
For now though we’re trying to get in front of as many loyal subjects as possible. We have an insatiable hunger for metal.
Philadelphia based extreme metallers Distant Dominion have just released their new album Ripping Through Time and it mixes up thrash, black and death metal with reckless abandon and a flurry of technical brilliance and classic metal influences for good measure to create an album packed full of metal anthems. Gavin Brown caught up with Distant Dominion vocalist Shawn Riley and guitarist Ryan Moll to hear all about Ripping Through Time and it’s sound as well as discussing various topics about Distant Dominion and the pairs previous bands Rumpelstiltskin Grinder, Krieg and Total Fucking Destruction.
E&D: Your new album Ripping Through Time has just been released. How has the album been received so far?
Shawn: The album has been getting great reviews and is featured on some pretty notable lists so far. We’re happy with the amount of streams we’re getting.
Ryan: It really has been getting some very good positive feedback from anyone who has reviewed it so far and the streams and listeners have been far more than we anticipated.
E&D: What were the biggest influences on the album and its sound?
Shawn: Catastrophic events. Space. Aliens. King Diamond. Paranormal activity. King Diamond. Mercyful Fate. Also, King Diamond.
Ryan: Maybe a little bit of Black Rose if I might add.
E&D: How did the recording sessions go for the album?
Shawn: I think the amount of work put into each instrument beforehand really paid off when it came to recording, plus factoring in the amount of studio time everyone has had in the past. Brian for instance had played the songs so much already that he knocked out the drums not only quicker than we thought he would, but also didn’t use a click. We all have used a click track in the past, but wanted to see if the rhythm would have a more organic sound without one and it turned out well. We had fun coming up with new ideas in the studio and even added in a theremin which Mike had at Noisy Little Critter Studio, on ‘Solar Flare Tsunami’. We had the idea beforehand to have a synth on that part of the song and when we saw the theremin there, thought it was perfect for our themes and overall vibe of the band.
Ryan: I’m really happy with how we took this approach for this album. There’s both positives and negatives to recording with a click I think and I’ve been on both sides of that with bands I’ve been in the past. For this band and for this material I think not using the click was the way to go. It sounds very organic and Bri keeps a pretty good meter on his own without one anyway. We don’t write with one, we don’t rehearse with one, and we don’t play live with one, so it just made the most sense for us to also not worry about recording with one either.
E&D: Is it fun to mix up thrash, black and death metal in the sound of Distant Dominion?
Shawn: No. We hate fun. Everyone should be worried about aliens coming to invade us and we don’t have time for games. But seriously, yeah of course it is. The question is how much of each style do you pepper in to get it just right, to please the ancient ones?
Ryan: To be perfectly honest we aren’t even consciously thinking about that. We are only concerned with writing what sounds good to us. None of us are ever thinking “oh lets throw this death metal riff in right after this black metal one and then go into a thrash breakdown or blah blah…” It’s more just like “yo I’ve got this riff.” and from there it just snowballs into whatever else we piece it together with. But we’re not concerning ourselves with particular styles. We’re more interested in pulling together the dynamics and keeping it interesting while also doing our best to formulate a solid structure rather than just dumping out a bunch of parts in whatever order like a plate of spaghetti that you just threw against a wall, let dry, and presented it as a finished piece of art.
E&D: Are you looking forward to playing these new songs live?
Ryan: Hell yeah we are! We have played a handful of shows already but always looking to do more. Would love to get on some fests. Maybe play on one of those big boat cruises full of lots of rich drunk metalheads miles out in the middle of the ocean. Maybe lure in a giant squid. Or a mermaid… They do exist you know.
Shawn: Yeah man, for sure. We’re already itching to get newer material into our sets that isn’t even on the album. For now though we’re trying to get in front of as many loyal subjects as possible. We have an insatiable hunger for metal.
E&D: Will Distant Dominion be touring going into the new year?
Ryan: I don’t foresee this ever really becoming a touring band. More or less weekend warrior type runs or maybe a week at most. But who knows. The band is still new and very fresh…. We aren’t…. We’re a bunch of old fucks. But the band itself is still in its infancy.
E&D: What have been some of your favourite live shows that Distant Dominion have played so far?
Ryan: So far I think we’ve only played a total of 3 shows. I‘d have to say our best show would be the last one we did at Tom n Jerry’s. It was a benefit/memorial show for our drummer Bri’s lifelong friend and bandmate Kevin Mclintock of Polterchrist who had recently passed. We all knew Kev from the local metal scene. He was a great dude, and a killer guitar player and vocalist. A lot of people showed up to support and Bri had to pull a double duty Polter/DD set with some past members assembled and their other guitar player Dan Loughry performing the vocal duties in place of Kev. Aside from the horrible circumstances concerning the event, it had already been a few months since he passed, and it just felt more like a celebration and honouring of his life than anything, and there were just so many people that came out to support and pay their respects. It just showed how tight-nit our metal community really is and how connected we all are in this.
E&D: How did Distant Dominion start as a band?
Ryan: Initially it was started by Brian and myself. This was right in the heat of the pandemic. At the time, Bri was coming down to the studio by himself to just play drums and things overall were pretty dismal and solitary. He had also been in between bands at the time and he lived close by to me already. I saw him make a post one day about some songs he was jamming along to (Carcass, Megadeth, Mercyful Fate, King Diamond, Dimmu, Dissection, Exodus, Deep Purple) so I hit him up and said “yo, I know a lot of those songs too. Lets jam!” From there it eventually turned into us writing some originals and reaching out to the rest of the guys to join up. And now here we are.
E&D: What have been some of your favourite metal releases of the year?
Shawn: God Dethroned, Brodequin, Necrophobic, The Crown, Aborted, Blood Incantation, Vomit Forth, Undeath, Crypt Sermon, Judas Priest, Cavalera Conspiracy.
Ryan: Tribulation, Crypt Sermon, Sonja, Horrendous, Judas Priest, Evilon, Suffering Souls, Blood Incantation, Rotting Christ, Knocked Loose.
E&D: What have been some of the best live shows you have seen this year?
Ryan: Immolation, Autopsy, Crypt Sermon, Horrendous, KRIEG, Sonja, Crossspitter, Valdrin, Empress, Ghoul.
Shawn: Autopsy, Baroness, Crypt Sermon, Horrendous, Tomb Mold, Scattered Remnants. I wish I could have seen more.
E&D: What were some of the highlights of your time with Rumplestiltskin Grinder?
Ryan: We played an all ages show in Hamberg PA. Our friend Mike Hrubovcak, who I also play in Azure Emote with and basically has done all of our artwork for most of the bands I’ve been involved in for the past 20 years including Distant Dominion, was asked by the promoter if he could also come and set up a booth for his artwork since he was a huge fan and knew that we were friends. Mike had acquired a box full of massive dildos from work…. Thats a whole nother story I won’t get into now, but lets just say he brought said box of dildos to the show and decided that him and his girlfriend at the time were gonna sabotage our set by pelting them at us rapid fire. The kids there got in on the action and started throwing them at us too, at each other, at Mike and his girl, at the staff…. It was just raining dildos through the rest of our set. This was at a legion hall and the staff shit a brick because I guess they saw it as “corruption of minors”. They tried to kick us out but Mike had to jump in and tell them it was his idea and we didn’t even know about it. They told him he was never allowed back.
Shawn: Definitely the dildo show. The infamous dildo show, which I will never forget. Also all the great times with that group of people. We used to make each other laugh so hard when we traveled together that my face would hurt. We would start a joke and run it into the ground so hard that it was unbearable at times. Once we started riffing on something so dumb but so hilarious… I took a nap in the van and woke up and they were still going. I just smiled to myself and thought “No one is funnier than us.” Another great moment was playing in Beaumont Texas with Cephalic Carnage after the gulf was hit by a terrible hurricane. It had been months since there was a show there and everyone was so grateful that bands were playing there again. It was really cool to travel so far to such a remote place and when we found out that they hadn’t seen live music in a while and were looking forward to the show so much, we had to bring it. And we did.
E&D: Do you feel that Rumpelstiltskin Grinder were an underrated band?
Shawn: I don’t know. I think we get a good amount of recognition for what we did. People enjoyed our music and our live shows. We still get reminded all the time that we were appreciated pretty well.
Ryan: Our name was stupid and I think it really hindered our ability to grow. It was a dumb inside joke bad band name that I diarrhoea delivered out of my mouth years ago and it stuck. As the band grew we just thought it was funnier that we had such a stupid band name and we were still doing so well locally. And then Relapse stepped in and wanted to sign us. They LOVED the name. I think it’s part of the reason we also got signed. But beyond that it just only started to work against us. So yes, I do think if we had less of a stupid band name we probably could’ve had more listeners give it a chance. But then again, we might’ve never gotten on Relapse which really is what put us on the map in the first place.
E&D: Does the spirit of that band live on in Distant Dominion?
Shawn: Maybe a bit. Some of our parts make me think, “that’s a Rumpel part right there. That’s something we would have done.”
Ryan: Yeah for sure.
E&D: Ryan, What were some of the highlights of being in Total Fucking Destruction as well?
Ryan: We played a show in Tokyo. Rich was a veteran of touring from his years in Brutal Truth alone. He once told me that for 8 years of his life he was touring so much that he didn’t officially live anywhere. He would just crash on a friends couch for a month and then go back out on the road again. For 8 fucking years. So needless to say, he knew people from all over the world. The last night that we played in Tokyo he introduced me to someone who looked like Japanese Walter White. He said pointing to him “craziest drummer in Japan. At the end of our set I’m just going to hand him my sticks and he’s just gonna go nuts on the kit.” I was really looking forward to hearing this guy assuming he was some sick fucking grind drummer who could blast at 400+bpm or something. Instead he came onto the stage wasted as shit. Rich handed him his sticks and it was immediately apparent that the dude did not know the first thing about playing drums. Me and Dan the guitar player just started banging on our instruments just making some noise to go along with this wasted weirdo pseudo-drum guy when all of a sudden I start seeing whole pieces of the kit flying into the audience. Entire cymbals with stands smashing into the monitor speakers, into the crowd, directly on the ground in front of him. Me and Dan took cover on the far sides of the stage because drum shit was literally flying everywhere. In the end there was only a pile of broken drum shells a various hardware all bent and fucked up with this dude just standing in the middle of all of it spinning dizzily amidst a dusty haze. And just in pitch-shifted slow replay in my mind were Rich’s words when first introducing me. “CRAZIEST DRUMMER IN JAPAN”.
E&D: Shawn, What were some of the best times from your time with Krieg?
Shawn: Getting to be a part of Krieg has been a great experience. We played at some vampire club in Rhode Island once. That was cool as fuck and I think the place is closed down now. We don’t play live often anymore, but when we do it’s usually for a really awesome show. Getting to play on an album finally was awesome, because I’ve been in the band on and off for more than 10 years now. I was just not in the band when the previous album, Transient was recorded. I rejoined the band as a guitarist for some of the live gigs supporting that album and really enjoyed playing those absolute rippers. I recorded rhythm guitar on the newest album, Ruiner, which came out last year and did really well. Neill wrote some amazing songs for that album and we’ve been playing live every now and then with half of the set consisting of the Ruiner songs. The last few sets have destroyed live.
E&D: Who are your biggest influences as both vocalists and guitarists?
Ryan: Vocals for me would be King Diamond, Dani Filth, Lee Dorrian, Bruce Dickinson, Sebastian Bach, Kevin Dubrow, Geoff Tate, Danzig, Snowy Shaw, Axl Rose, David Lee Roth, John Tardy, Jeff Walker, Mike Patton, Mike Hrubovcak, Rich Hoak, SHAWN RILEY! Guitar would be Andy Larocque, Pete Blakk, Yngwie, Mike Wead, Hank Sherman, Michael Denner, Vai, Satriani, John Petrucci, Eric Johnson, Marty Friedman, Van Halen, Stuart Anstis, Alexi Laiho, Dimebag, James Hetfield, Dave Mustaine, George Lynch, Zach Wylde, Slash, Carlos Cavazo,Tony Macalpine, Vinnie Moore, Dave Murray, Adrian Smith, Richie Faulkner, Michael Angelo Batio, Jeff Loomis, Ritchie Kotzen, Bill Steer, Michael Amott, Gary Jennings, Dave “the snake” Sabo, Mathias Roderer, Herb Simonsen, Steve Stevenes, Dave Davidson, Gary Holt, Muhammed Suicmez, Jake E. Lee, Christian Munzer, Melissa Moore, JJ Hrubovcak, Bobak Davodian, Joe Gordon, Dan O’Hare, Steve Marasco, Steve Janssen, Chris Gordon, Ric Haas, Josh Mahesh Kost, Carlos “Dirty” Arboleda, Ron Vento, Jason Silvester.
Shawn: My main vocal influences for this band have been Henri Sattler (God Dethroned), Mika Luttinen (Impaled Nazarene), Max Cavalera, Rob Halford and DIO. When I first joined as the vocalist, I wanted a black metal style but couldn’t really get a high pitched shriek to sound as strong as I wanted. I tried more of a mid-range approach and thought it sounded a bit like God Dethroned, so when I was still working on finding my style and started to waver I just remembered to try to sound like God Dethroned and alter my voice from there. Whenever I pepper in some low growls I also like to take a little inspiration from our good friend Mike Hrubovcak. If I do a take and don’t think it sounds strong or deep enough I think, what would Mike do here? I don’t think I really sound like him but knowing someone like that definitely inspires one to sound better. There’s also a take I did on the title track of Ripping Through Time where I experimented a little and attempted to have a similar delivery to early Sepultura songs. It’s mixed in with a higher pitched take as well so you can’t isolate it and hear what I’m doing fully, but it was cool to throw that in there as an homage to my favourite vocalist.
E&D: What do you want to achieve with Distant Dominion in the future?
Ryan: To continue down the path we have already started. Just creating the music that we love and proudly stand behind.
Shawn: Same. Also, fucking shred! Thanks for the interview.
