Trying to pin down Blood Cult with one clean description is part of the problem. The project is still most closely tied to “Redneck Black Metal”, the song that got people through the door and helped build its audience, but that only tells part of the story. As Blood Cult explain, each album shifts shape, and the new record, We’re Gonna Take Your Soul, is no exception. This time the music moves away from the farm, the barn and the cornfield atmosphere that marked much of the band’s raw black n’ roll past, and into something more rooted in old hard rock, Satanic heavy metal, trailer-park memory and the hangover of the American Satanic Panic. There is still a thread connecting it all, but Blood Cult were never built to stay in one place for too long.
“I’m still holding the flame of black n’ roll while carrying a torch for falsetto vocals and 1980s lead guitar.”
We’re Gonna Take Your Soul feels like a record that enjoys the dirt, danger and fun of older heavy music. What was the starting point for this album when you first began writing it?
J.R. Preston: The first song recorded for We’re Gonna Take Your Soul was “No Escape From Rock”. Blood Cult had spent 20 years doing raw black n’ roll on a rural farm. We even recorded in a barn for a few years. I wanted to get away from the cornfield for a little while and visit the trailer park.
When I was musically visiting the trailer park, I started thinking about my own past, growing up in a trailer during the Satanic Panic here in the USA. I decided it was time to do a concept album based on everything I felt back then, and everything I saw happening to other kids. I’m still holding the flame of black n’ roll while carrying a torch for falsetto vocals and 1980s lead guitar.
“People did not value their records back then. They treated them like junk, and all my friends’ parents had them lying around. I absorbed all that shit.”
There is a strong late 60s, 70s and early 80s spirit running through this release. What drew you to that older language of rock and metal for this record?
I grew up in the 80s and I loved all rock and roll, from Chuck Berry to Cream to Deep Purple to Accept and a thousand other bands. I was a poor kid, so I was always borrowing things from everywhere. People did not value their records back then. They treated them like junk, and all my friends’ parents had them lying around. I absorbed all that shit.
I remember going to one buddy’s house and him handing me a whole box of records by Steppenwolf, Zeppelin and stuff like that. Then I went to another friend’s house and he gave me all his brother’s KISS records. It was a different time, the pre-internet stoned age. Then imagine when I found Mercyful Fate and Venom. It was all over from that point on.
It also helped coming from things like Iron Butterfly or Led Zeppelin, because in trailer parks they were linked to the occult. Moms did not want their kids listening to “Journey to the Center of the Mind” because it was about drugs, and they did not want them listening to “Welcome to Hell” because, boo-hoo, it was about the Devil. Crybaby shit. I was rebelling against all of that, and now I am rebelling against what metal is supposed to sound like by using all my influences. To me, the old language of rock and metal is all there ever was and all there ever will be.
The title We’re Gonna Take Your Soul says a lot on its own. What made that the right name for the album, and what did it open up for you in terms of lyrics and mood?
To be completely honest, I was thinking about how our first two albums had the word “we” in the title. One of the new songs was called “We’re Gonna Take Your Soul”, so I used it as a little call-back to the old days. There was not much thought behind it beyond the fact that it fit the Satanic Panic theme better than the other song titles.
The album was finished before I named it. I usually complete an album first and then give it a title. Maybe that is backwards. Maybe I should think of titles first. I probably should have made up a cool story for this question. Plenty of people would have come up with some elaborate explanation. I am clearly not one of them.
“It is a concept album about the Satanic Panic bullshit in the USA when I was a kid.”
Songs like “Demon Seed”, “No Escape From Rock” and the title track suggest a record that is playing with devotion, parody, menace and love for heavy music all at once. How do you keep that balance without the album losing its edge?
I am not interested in keeping balance. I do not care about any of that shit. I just make music. It is a Blood Cult record. It is a concept album about the Satanic Panic bullshit in the USA when I was a kid. Not just lyrically either, but musically as well. A full concept album, which people do not really make anymore.
By most accounts, this was Blood Cult’s Music From the Elder, and it was the only time I got emails asking what the fuck had happened to the band. People really did not like what I was doing, and that made me feel pretty good. How many albums of “redneck black metal” do they want? Can I not deviate for one album?
Who the hell am I? This is underground Satanic heavy metal. I come from the black metal side of things. Back in the 90s we did what we wanted, and I am still doing that. If I ever had to start keeping some careful balance and doing all the things a metal band is supposed to do to get ahead on the consumer side of things, I would just fucking quit. I hate all of that.
This album moves with a pretty direct, punchy shape. Most of the tracks get in, do the damage and get out. Was that something you were conscious of while writing, or did the songs naturally want to stay lean?
I did not think about that. I just write songs and record them. I would like to punch most people in the face, do damage to their head, and get out. I am not conscious of much beyond how much I hate everything. This world is stupid.
“Music should be fun. The minute I have to overthink anything, I am out.”
Blood Cult is very much tied to your own voice and vision. When you are making a record largely on your own, how do you know when a song is finished and when it still needs more work?
I make music in the same way I listen to music. Nothing ever needs more work, that is for sure. If I thought I had to keep putting more work into something, I would probably just quit playing music.
You could sit me in a room for a week and I would record an album. I do not really have to write anything. I kind of channel it through my heart and soul. It is in my blood. My family had a lot of musicians in it, going all the way back to the jazz era of the 1920s. There is a lot of improvisation in jazz, blues, swing and country.
Music should be fun. The minute I have to overthink anything, I am out. Look, it is not like I am playing Madison Square Garden. It is not like I am making money from this shit. I am never going to sit there saying, “Oh, this song needs more work.” Nah. Boring.
AFRICA.ROCKS reaches readers across a lot of different underground scenes, including listeners who may be hearing Blood Cult for the first time through this interview. For someone coming in cold from African rock and metal circles, what do you hope they catch first in We’re Gonna Take Your Soul?
We have always been a very underground entity, an extremely hidden rural Satanic cult that will never go away. People who want something different might like Blood Cult. People who want the same old shit should look somewhere else.
Blood Cult is a hillbilly, farmer, cornfield, dustbowl band. We’re Gonna Take Your Soul moved away from that a little. I took it off the farmland and pushed it more towards trailers and garages, back to the 80s when kids were hiding their records from parents, teachers and preachers.
Blood Cult comes from a different time, and we are not going anywhere, so listen or do not. If you like it, cool. I think anyone who digs “We Who Walk Behind the Rows” from 2005 or 2023’s “Tomb of the Unknown Redneck” will probably dig 2010’s We Are the Cult of the Plains, and maybe even what we were doing back in the 90s. It is really cool to be able to speak to the metalheads of Africa. Thanks for giving me the chance.
You can grab We’re Gonna Take Your Soul on Bandcamp.
