Interviews

Spotlight on Oceanlord (Interview)

Walladmin

Heavy Metal Wordsmith

Jun 7, 2023

7 min read

If you’re into doom metal, then Oceanlord are for you. Hailing from Melbourne, the trio came into being in 2019 and began to create thick, sludgy riffs with a glimpse of melody underneath.

The band have released their debut album, Kingdom Cold, and we thought it was time more people got to know the band and their stoner doom sound. Wall of Sound caught up with vocalist and guitarist, Peter Willmott, to find out more about their music, album, and future.

Let’s get to know you. Who is Oceanlord and how did you all find each other?

Oceanlord is myself (vocals/guitar), Jason (bass), and Jon (drums). Jason and I go way back to when I moved 1000km’s south and ended up next to him in Melbourne. We jammed for a few years with a number of musical ideas, and when we settled on what Oceanlord would become, we found Jon online and everything just clicked.

Explain to us the kind of music you create?

It’s a mix of a lot of different influences and ideas, but in the end, we want to make music that has heaviness, depth, and groove, and put that into songs that you can sing and that capture the imagination. I love starting with something simple, like one big fuzzy bass line, and then adding layers on top. Even though each instrument by itself is doing something relatively simple, the finished picture is rich and complex.

Why does this music excite you?

I don’t know why, but some music has the biggest effect on me. I get goosebumps and shivers, it’s like an itch I didn’t know I had is being scratched, and being able to tune into that and make music myself that has the same effect is incredible. Music has always had a huge place in my soul. Sometimes when I hear a song, I just have to stop what I’m doing and just enter the flow! Whenever I’m not listening to music, I can hear something new forming in my head; there’s always a soundtrack playing, composed by my subconscious, usually inspired by whatever I was just listening to. Writing music excites me because I’m taking this subconscious thought and bringing it to the surface - really listening to myself. Then when we work on music together as a band it takes on a life of its own and a song emerges. Somehow, from a thought that came from the black depths of my brain, we end up with a song.

What do you want people to feel when they listen to your music?

Most of all I want people to feel present with themselves. Whether our music stirs positive and happy or dark and difficult thoughts, I hope we can be a soundtrack to spending time with and accepting yourself. Happiness can be so fleeting, I know I’ve had times when putting on headphones, and closing my eyes to tune into an album was the only peaceful place I had.

You’ve just released your debut album Kingdom Cold, what kind of album is this?

In some ways, this is the final work of our apprenticeship learning how to be a band and write music together. There’s a lot of firsts in this album. My first album as a singer, primary songwriter, and recording engineer. Jason’s first album both as a bass player and a musician. We’ve worked hard crafting the songs, sculpting the sounds, and learned so much doing it! It has a wide spread of sounds and musical directions as we explored our different interests and ideas, and also a fairly narrow instrumentation as we focused in on what we could do well and tried to keep things simple enough that we could pull it all together in an album.

Did recording the album in your own home studio built during COVID make the process more intense or easier?

A bit of both! We were able to set everything up, send some test recordings to Esben (Monolord/Studio Berserk) to give us some feedback, and then keep the room exactly as we wanted it for a couple weeks while we recorded everything. It was great knowing nobody was going to move anything or kick us out, and if we needed anything like baffling, I could just build it and off we go. The intense part is that unlike a professional studio, we didn’t have a seasoned veteran who already knew the answers on hand to make it all work. We did have some great friends who I pestered with questions - especially Peter from Planet of the 8s who even loaned me some microphones, and Saint Ergo who helped record vocals and even put down the amazing backing vocal harmonies.

Do you have plans to play live or is this a studio project?

We’re live and loud! From day one Oceanlord was about creating a music explosion live, and then recording has been a challenge of trying to do that justice. When we play live we can feel the whole room shake and roll with the fuzz and harmonics. Recently we have been bringing our own lighting to gigs (and a metric ton of smokey haze). Oceanlord live is an intense experience!

What else can we expect from Oceanlord in the future?

New songs, a more expansive musical expression, and digging deeper into the dark emotional journey of horror doom. If 'Come Home' was our apprenticeship then the next album will take it all to another level. We want to keep the thick raw simplicity of our sound, but as musicians we have grown and I am excited about a greater expressiveness we can bring to new songs. Darker, deeper, heavier and more melodic.

Interview by Ebony Story @ebonyrose.s

Kingdom Cold is out now! Grab your copy here.