Wesley Eisold is a singer of darkness and fragility, hiding behind his alter ego that Cold Cave, through dark and dilated atmospheres. He makes a personal descent into the underworld of his music, pushing instruments over their limits. After years of militancy in post-hardcore and punk he has abandoned guitars for synths and electronic instruments, continuing to write dense and suffering songs . Then, the poetry collections (Deathbeds) and the editorial work with the independent publishing house founded by himself, the Heartworm Press, which broaden the spectrum of action of a complex and original author. We asked him few questions about all that it represents, in the words and the music, the past and the future, in occasion of his tour that will take him to Italy in March and April.
I would like to start from your background, where everything has begun, focusing especially in his role for your stylistic evolution. You’ve been part of several bands, such as Some Girls and Give Up the Ghost, apparently distant from your solo project. Which elements has Cold Cave taken from his past, and which necessities tries to answer?
There’s still a very punk approach to everything I do whether its Cold Cave or releasing books, setting up tours etc etc. I don’t think tours are hard. I don’t think much is hard. This probably from years of touring in rough conditions and rough venues. In my music I’ve tried working with outside people, like managers and labels and even musicians, because at times it can be overwhelming to due this all alone. These relationships typically don’t work for me as I feel there are only a few people who fit into the narrow category of understanding the context of the music along with having a punk or DIY work ethic. I think the bands I’ve done have been chronologically emotionally accurate to the times in which they existed. American Nightmare was fearless. I welcomed death but it could not find me. Some Girls was the strung out aftermath of that, a retaliation to doing everything and feeling boredom with it all. Then I started making electronic based music in several projects, eventually evolving to Cold Cave, which I feel I’m able to grow with instead of abandon. Lyrics have always been a major part of the bands I’ve been in, they’ve just used music to emphasize them in different sounds.
In your albums as Cold Cave there is a constant interest in developing sound, trying to push the instruments over their limits in order to create dilated and dark atmospheres. How important is experimenting in your idea of music?
I’m dissatisfied when I don’t experiment enough. I don’t know why but writing pop songs is easy for me, but its not what I enjoy. When I first started writing songs they were vague distorted glimpses of songs. Now I write more normal songs but deconstruct them.
And in those times of gold
I buy hookers and fast cars
and I never have the sense
to buy clippers
to trim the nails
l’ve been only growing
to claw away at my own skin.From Growls From the Bowels of Hell in Deathbeds, p. 71, 2007, Heartworm Press
This kind of experimentations is the spirit guide also for the selection of words with a resounding nature, enhancing the listener’s musical experience. Poems made of music, and music made of poems. Double tendency that link us to your passion in writing, and the world of publishing house, with your Heartworm Press. Reading your selected poems included in Deathbeds is clear how lyrics are, essentially, based on the same process. Do they born together? Or are they two distinct part of you work? Which demand are they in charge to represent?
Sometimes they are born together and sometimes when listening to instrumental music, whether its future Cold Cave or American Nightmare sings, words just fall out. I can’t explain it and I don’t know why. It must come from a lifetime of listening to music and trying to cope with my feelings of isolation in that way. Sometimes they are already written and end up in a song, sometimes they stay on paper. Its a gift I think, an open channel from somewhere. I don’t know why or where.
Your poems are strong and sincere, their intention seems to be don’t hide pains under warm words, make feel the reader comfortable but throw him in deep contact with your inner part, mixed often with elements of daily preoccupations, things and habits. In order to share or to fight this existential condition? As said by Baudelaire, whom identifies only three order of noble professions: priest, soldier and poet. Know, kill and create.
Yes I think that sharing is a form of resolve. Otherwise I don’t know why bother to put it out there. Its nice that some people relate. Maybe it makes me feel less alone n the world. Maybe theres no point to any of this but to observe. Maybe no point to that either. I don’t know still. I hope we all find some resolution.
Your italian tour starts in one month, the live dimension is an essential part of music as, in same way, is to be read by other people, which is your approach to concert or reading, and which kind of sensation do you want to bring out in your exhibition?
Sex, love and death. That is the concert. Thats why we leave the house. Thats why we make music.
Cold Cave is touring Italy from March, here’s the dates
30/03 Superbudda, Torino
31/03 Mame, Padova
01/04 Bronson, Ravenna
02/04 Terzo Tempo, Salerno
04/04 Quirinetta, Roma
05/04 Circolo Magnolia, Milano
Infos –> Radar Concerti
