Pagan Lust (Exclusive Interview)

Edition Fifty-Five- Week Fifty-Five:

Written by: Mercedes Barreto

Burn Moor -Vocals
HardCore -Lead Guitar
Rick Brough -Bass
Byron Church -Drums

What is the motivation daily for your band and what inspires the members?

HardCore: We’re motivated by making something different. Making hard music that’s fun and catchy but also with complicated progressions and as many listener-deceiving wild turns as we can concoct.

Rick: I think we’re all motivated in different ways. Burn tends to push the marketing piece, HardCore pushes new material, Byron is motivated by food, and I’m motivated by cute cat videos mostly.

Byron: I think we just all like getting together and making music. Being in a band with people you jive with is really the ultimate team to be on.

Are there any highlights for the musical year of 2023 and which ones if so? Why and how so?

HardCore: The highlight of 2023 was making our new album Commie Salami Mommie. This is an incredible collection of musicians, and our studio synergy is massive. Expect this band to keep getting better and better.

Rick: As Mister HardCore mentioned, we just came out with an album a few months ago, Commie Salami Mommie. I think the variety on it is unique and though we are only 4 band members, we have a much larger sound. And to be clear, we are not Commies, we do have Mommies, and 3 of us love salami.

Byron: Definitely recording and releasing our second album Commie Salami Mommie. Being in the studio is tedious, but it is a blast.

Is there a specific song or lyric that the band best believes the crowd resonates with when performing?

HardCore: Tough question since we have many songs that are “anthemic”. Fans love our attacks on basement-living trolls in Woke and bashing on the greed of Mine.

Rick: Even though we don’t care about Public Opinion, crowds love that song and the way the harmonica and guitar feed off each other in the end gets the crowds (and bartenders!) all riled up. And that song was a 1st take on the album. That’s why it’s so long. We just couldn’t cut any of that musical gold at the end. Additionally, the word on the street is our new album is straight up an aphrodisiac to pocket gophers. You can tell because we rehearse at my place and my yard is overrun with them. We’re hoping the next album is more of a repellent in that regard.

Burn: I would have to lean towards our song Warpath. As soon as the opening riff starts, I feel like the collective pulse rate of the room turns up a few notches.

IF you could perform in any venue, what would be the ideal venue and why would you perform there?

HardCore: We’d love to perform on a nice big festival stage alongside other similar bands so that we extend our fan base and further expose ourselves like a creepy guy in the park wearing only a trenchcoat.

Rick: I don’t know how the rest of the band feels, but I’d love to open for Primus. Preferably at Les Claypool’s winery the Purple Pachyderm in California. I would also like someone else to pay for all our travel since that’s really expensive with all our gear and Burn’s makeup and meals.

Byron: Estadio Monumental because I’ve seen how the South Americans can party. Let’s get crazy!

How do you measure success for the band?

HardCore: We are a tight group of guys and are having a blast creating music together. Therefore, regardless of metrics like our streaming numbers and whatever else people think, we are having fun and are therefore massively successful.

Rick: For me I measure that in pounds as I haven’t embraced the metric system entirely just yet. Baby steps.

Byron: I think success is measured by how much we enjoy making music that we enjoy, and others enjoy hearing. If it’s fun for us, it’s fun for you.

Where can we find Pagan Lust, and why should we? What makes your band iconic in its own genre?

HardCore: We are on all the major streaming services, and you should find us because we kick ass. Our music and approach are massively original, we’re catchy, and high-energy to lift anyone’s spirits. We could argue all day about what genre we play in due to how many different influences we mix together. We will never be a band where every song sounds similar. Instead, expect something different on every track.

Rick: You can find Pagan Lust frolicking about the Rocky Mountains and rocking out primarily in the Midwest (for now). What makes us iconic is we have successfully removed all the best elements and merged metal, rock, funk, punk, blues and our own sound like deranged artists who won’t rest until the painting is completed. And by painting, I mean song. And by rest, I don’t mean that we don’t sleep. 3 of us sleep. Burn doesn’t sleep. We’ve tried to get him to sleep. But he won’t, and he’s too big to wrestle into bed.

Byron: You can find us all over the internet! We are on major streaming platforms as well as social media. You should check us out because we play music that we find genuine. It isn’t pretentious or over-produced. It is real, honest, and broad.

Anything to add here?

HardCore: Check out our 2 albums (Societal Plague and Commie, Salami, Mommie) on the streaming service of your choice and experience a mash-up of rock, punk, funk, metal, jazz and whatever we inject into amps next!

Rick: Thank you for the interview. What I’d like to add is how cool, effective and unique our writing style is. Hardcore introduces a skeleton of a song on guitar with him singing pretty badly into a handheld recorder. After that Byron, Burn and I have 100% free reign to sculpt the song. Hardcore rarely puts in any additional input after the initial distribution. So, imagine he handed us a soft clay pot. We then beat it mercilessly until it looks more like a water bong or a crock pot and have our way with it. We’ve even had songs that we worked on, didn’t like it, and then literally dismantled it and created an entirely different song that we did like. I think Go to Hell was a good example of that. We didn’t like the chorus (and it was fortissimo) so I suggested we bring it WAY down to pianissimo and see how that sounded. And voila! The chorus was fixed! So, then we did the same exercise to the verses and bridge to make a great song with a very clear message.

Byron: Spread the word and crank it up. We would love to play in Argentina!

Burn: Thank you so much for the interview and, like Byron said, bring Pagan Lust to Argentina!