Conjurer: "So much is hostile towards art these days, but art is all we care about"

Conjurer have just torn through the main stage of Arctangent Festival, a performance you can read more about here, but I promise you that words fall short of its actual impact. On a cloudy day, I meet with Brady Deeprose and Dani Nightingale (let’s take two minutes to appreciate how poetic their names are), the core and longest-standing members of Conjurer, to talk about this performance and so much more. Dani, exhausted and with their voice strained, does not take part in the conversation, but it is as though they were still part of it; the discussion continues with Brady.

In case you haven’t caught on to what is happening with Conjurer right now, I strongly recommend listening immediately to their album "Unself" from last year, which we loved enough at Rocking, while a revisit of the older "Mire" and "Pathos" (they had spoken about its release extensively back then to Theodosis) will leave you equally satisfied. For those who already know them, from the post-metal cult classic created in collaboration with Pijn, "Curse These Metal Hands", all the way to the recent release of "Unself" and Dani’s redefinition of their identity, which became a central point of their new record, the importance of a band like Conjurer, both now and going forward, is clear. Extreme music now calls for community, inclusion and emotional communication. We discussed all of this and much more with Brady, and, as it turns out, perhaps the conversation led to something more tangible than we realised at the time…

We’re sitting right now at Arctangent Festival with Brady a little bit after an astonishing show from Conjurer. So, First time I actually saw you because as I told you, I'm not really from around this place, was in Damnation, November last year. And after that show I promised myself to never lose a chance to see you. So how do you feel after the performance you just gave?

B: Yeah, I feel fantastic. It's such a privilege to get to play at what is my favorite festival you know in the UK. It's somewhere that we have always felt at home and to get to play the main stage again and take the show to that next level… It's not something we ever thought we could do with our band! I'm just so grateful to the organizers for the building of this space in this community, that has been so welcoming to us and that we're able to turn up and play our songs, it's such a joy.

I see it in your face actually how joyous you are right now! First of all, the question because we've never really talked before, I was always wondering whether the Conjurer name was a choice. Being the nerd I am like, there are many people who are magical practitioners. Why choose Conjurer instead of a Wizard or something else?

B: Honestly, really funny, we never considered the fact that it was like magic or wizard or anything like that. For us it was just a cool word that felt a little bit spooky, a little bit esoteric just a little bit interesting and different. It wasn't the name we chose with passion, we just chose it and we're like well that'll do for now until we find something better. We started playing shows and then as soon as you start playing shows and you start to get a little bit of a reputation, you then can't change your name! We just ended up with this name. I don't know if it's a name that we love, but it's a name that now I think resonates. It is tied intricately to how we sound, what we do. So I think that it's a name that maybe wasn't super intentional when we picked it, but we've grown into it.

Dani, the journey of self-discovery they've been on coming into this record and realizing they were non-binary and getting an autism diagnosis, it really gave them this drive to connect with other people

Interesting take! We are currently a little bit after the release of your latest album called "Unself". It has been very mind-blowing and very loving to me, I mean, you can see (I was wearing the album hoodie). Moving away from the previous record, "Pathos", which is a Greek word actually, which was really introspective, we see in the new album the main theme being getting out of the selfishness and how you experience sadness alone. How did you decide thematically to make that movement?

B: I think that really, Dani, the journey of self-discovery they've been on coming into this record and realizing they were non-binary and getting an autism diagnosis, it really gave them this drive to connect with other people and show everyone that you can do all this stuff and you're not the person other people deem you to be. They came to me and wanted to make a record about that isolation that you feel in your own head when you experience something like this. And connecting with other people about that. I was just like, of course, I obviously don't have the same challenges that they have in my life, but it was something that we could both reconnect over and had a lot of empathy for them and their situation. It's been a big shift and a lot of conversations between us about how we can really open up to each other and get to know each other on a deeper level and then bring that into the music and really have that openness be a bit more apparent. Everything on the previous record has been so shrouded in metaphors and you know, fancy language. We wanted to just literally open everything up front and I think it went well. Personally I'm very happy with the result.

We'll draw influence from wherever we can, there's no real blueprint for what we're doing

I'm very happy with the result also. How do I perfectly describe it? You can resonate with it even without the specific experience. You have also introduced a little bit of new type of influences in the music of "Unself" because it kind of gets more melodic at points, more sentimental. Did you draw a clear influence from a specific musician or music genre or was it just like let's see what fits us best?

B: I think it's definitely a bit of both. There are some artists like Baroness that have been taking those folk influences. For Noah and Dani especially, they really have taken a lot of that folk melody and tradition and brought a lot of that into what we're doing. So there's direct stuff like that but really, our process is very individual song-oriented. We will have an idea and we'll build on that and there's no real set rules for what it can be. We'll draw influence from wherever we can, there's no real blueprint for what we're doing. It’s a little bit of both, but definitely the pool of influences was blown wide open on this record. When we put together a playlist to send to Joe, who produced the record, and it was everything from Fleet Foxes to Paintball band. It was a real breadth of music and we wanted to not have any boundaries in what the sound was gonna be.

Okay. So there is a song called "Let Us Live" which is, I think, your most straightforward lyrics to date. You are an outspoken band when on stage. You haven't been that descriptive in your lyrics so far about what you believe and what you stand for, despite talking on stage for those matters, as you very well described to me where this is all coming from. But I think that "Let Us Live" is the first song that is really punching out what you are really about.

B: Yeah, I think for us that was something that Dani and I came to around the same time, I spent a lot of time just on Twitter, scrolling through, just trying to understand where all of this hate comes from towards, especially the trans community. And I hit Danny up in the night. I am spending far too long thinking about this. It's fucking awful. I feel like I'd really like to write a song about it. And they were like, I've already started. They'd got the bones of "Let us Live" already and we spent a lot of nights. We'd get back from the studio recording. We just sat and talked about it and worked on those lyrics and worked out what we wanted to say and how we wanted to say it. And yeah, it was such a collaborative thing and it felt right. It just felt like fuck what anyone thinks, this is how we're feeling. This is the statement that we want to make. I don't even think it's that radical. I don't think it's like...

It's just how everybody should be, yeah.

B: Yeah, just like let people fucking live their life. Like it's really not a big deal what anyone else is doing. Just let people exist and live how they want to live and I promise you, whoever's listening, it will not affect you. Like it's fine. Us being a bit more direct and a bit more open about where we're at, was definitely an intention on this record. Again, I'm really happy with how it came together. It doesn't feel like it's way too far. Here's just our opinions, it still feels like country lyrics, but yeah, I think we struck a nice middle ground.

So much stuff at the moment is really anti-art and all we're interested in is making good art

Yeah, sure. And I think a very important part of all of this is to not lose your beliefs and who you are on stage while getting bigger because it's something that we see happening. And I see you're getting on bigger and bigger stages and you're like, what you said before, fuck Elon Musk, let's go on a community, fuck AI, all these things.

B: I think that so, so much stuff at the moment is really anti-art and all we're interested in is making good art, supporting good art and whatever that looks like. it's such a basic stance to have so yeah for us it's just like let's continue to do our own thing and try and work with cool people and do cool stuff.

We're gonna try and do another record with Pijn and another "Curse These Metal Hands" but like I've been saying that in interviews for two full years, we have a song written, just trying to find the time for us all to get together

Speaking of which, community and working with cool people, I really love the previous releases, the split with Palm Reader and "Curse These Metal Hands" with Pijn so you seem to work well with other people! Are we going to see anything similar?

B: It's very funny because I think we're always the most awkward people to work with, because outside of the music we never know what we want. We're always like, especially with the artwork, the artists will be like what would you like? I'm like I don't know, you tell us. I can only tell you what I don’t want. It's always really annoying. We have been very successful with the collaborations we've done. We're gonna try and do another record with Pijn and another "Curse These Metal Hands" but like I've been saying that in interviews for two full years, we have a song written, just trying to find the time for us all to get together. Joe from Pijn has just had to rebuild his studio from scratch, so he's nearly done with that. I'd really like to do it in the next year, but looking at my calendar, I don't know when we're gonna have time.

I'm sending you my wishes to actually be able to see that maybe played in full in the festival, who knows.

B: We would love that. I know as soon as we have something ready, James will have us to come do it, so, all good. Well, we are working on it and it is something I'd really like to do. And then from there, we're open to whatever. If we have an idea that feels exciting, then great, we'll follow it. And if not, then we'll just keep doing country stuff. (laughs)

So last but not least since we are running out of time, is Athens happening for you?

B: It is in as a TBC for next year in my calendar, so when we can find the time to make it work, if there is a promoter still interested, we'd love to do it. Especially having a Greek front of house engineer, getting to come to Athens with him, that's his hometown as well, so yeah, it would be a real special thing for us to do! Another country that we've never made so yeah very keen to it, no promises though!

PS: Everything aligned after this interview took place and now, Conjurer are really coming to Athens. Do not make the mistake and miss them…