2020 can best be described as how Bret Hart felt after Vince McMahon screwed him over during the championship title match at Survivor Series 1997 in Montreal. Although this has been an unprecedented and wacky year so far, the amount of exceptional rock and metal releases has definitely been a bright spot. Unlucky Theta's debut EP is one of many stellar recordings to come out this year and it is a release that I highly recommend people check out. I thought readers might be interested in finding out more info about the EP as well as the band's history, so I decided to create some questions for the band that would give listeners more insight into the world of Unlucky Theta. So here it is people, my interview with the three members of Unlucky Theta...
Q: First off guys, I would like to thank you for taking the time to do this interview. Recently you released your debut EP, which I think offers listeners a great glimpse into your creative music making talents. How has it been to finally have a release out there for people to check out?
Daniel: Thanks DJ Rob for the kind words. This EP has been the culmination of months of hard work between many people who helped make it possible. Between gigging, writing, practicing, a global pandemic, as well as the many other personal responsibilities we each have outside of music, it took us some time to properly make a decent sounding release we were proud of. After we released our first single, "No Vacations" in June 2019, which we tracked live with just one overhead SM57 mic in our lockout, we soon realized we wanted to make a higher quality recording to capture some of the songs we had been working on. A year and a half later, it's been an amazing feeling to finally have a physical copy in our hands and to be able to share our music with others. The response to this project has been overwhelmingly positive; which we're very grateful for.
Q: Before we dive more into the EP, I thought that maybe you could give the readers some background info. When did the three of you first meet? Who came up with the name Unlucky Theta? Did Gene Simmons claim to own the name Unlucky Theta? You know he tries to trademark almost everything...
Ariel: Daniel and I started jamming around late 2017, early 2018. Quite quickly we realized that we had a good connection going on and were finishing each other’s sentences, musically speaking. We both liked to get stoned and lay down some tasty grooves, but we also liked heavy, dark, extreme and experimental shit. We had a trio with another friend called Tunisian D which could be best be described as a “heavy jam” band. Lots of fun, but no coherent direction. Tunisian D parted ways and eventually Daniel and I decided to start a new group, but of course we needed a guitarist. This is where Nick came into the picture after Daniel met him at a party and he brought a whole new element into the mix. He was as eclectic as we were, he liked the heavy stuff, he can shred, and he could murder any wacky progressive bullshit I threw at him without hesitation. And that kinda became the game with the riffs I was writing. I would try to come up with all of these progressive plot twists and polyrhythms in the riffs but make them have purpose and meaning to fit the vibe of the music. Then Nick and Daniel would bring their own ideas to the table and we would end up crafting something that really had the essence of the three of us combined. And it had to be interesting. That was the rule; no stringing together random, unrelated riffs together like a deathcore band. It had to be earned. Heavy headbanging moments, soft beautiful moments, proggy leftfield time warp moments, stoned hypnotic sludge moments, solos, double times, long screams, they had to be earned, they had to not only be able to stand on their own, but also stand as a larger part of the song. Because to me these were never just riffs; they were songs.
The name Unlucky Theta actually comes from a symbol archeologists often find on ancient Roman mosaics, especially those depicting the outcomes of gladiator fights. If there was the letter Theta on top of the head of a gladiator, it stood for the word Thanatos (which is Greek for death) and meant that the gladiator had lost the fight and died in combat. So this Unlucky Theta (Or Theta Infelix, but I thought it would be too pretentious to have both a Greek and Latin word in our name, in fact, even explaining it is pretentious…) is basically the opposite of a Halo. It’s a symbol of defeat, failure and cruel fate, the losers of history and so our music and lyrics came to reflect that. We don’t have songs about epic victories or daring final charges. We don’t glorify or demonize anything. We have songs about indiscriminate global slaughter, or being a nameless soldier who dies in agony because your general made a dumb call, or being sacrificed to Aztec Gods, or being betrayed and left behind in outer space, and so on.
Q: When listening to the EP people are going to notice right away that you guys do not just stick to one style of music. There is a lot of diversity in your overall sound. I wanted to know what are some artists that have influenced you over the years?
Nick: Sadly, most of my non-metal influences can’t be heard on the album because we are neither trap DJs nor an ABBA cover band. But I’d like to think you can hear my Buddy Guy influences. And if I could count better you would probably hear just how much I like Meshuggah. To oversimplify things: Rel brings the jazz, Daniel brings the punk, and I bring the DragonForce.
Ariel: Candiria, High on Fire, Mastodon, Acid Bath, The Faceless, Crom, Frank Zappa, Slayer, Megadeth, Agoraphobic Nosebleed, Gorillaz and Pink Floyd.
Daniel: Everything from Grateful Dead to 60’s jazz to 70’s funk, reggae, and prog to 80’s hardcore to 90’s death metal and black metal, New Orleans sludge. Even some trip hop/house stuff. We all dig Turkish psychedelic folk music and classical ragas a lot too. Our music tastes are all over the place so you’re hearing a bit of everything when we play.
Q: Being that this is your first official EP, what was the recording process like? Did you have all the songs written before going into the studio? Did you guys face any challenges recording some of the tracks? Did someone break chairs and throw bottles like Axl Rose?
Daniel: Haha, no bottle throwing or anything like that. It was actually a very pleasant, methodical experience. We worked with our good friends Jonathan Cronin and Yuri Kondra of Protean Sound. They play in many well-respected death, black, and doom metal bands down here in LA including Calcemia, Ancestral Awakening, Cruelty Exalted, etc. I have known them both since high school and they are incredibly talented audio engineers with an ear for quality tone-shaping and skillful mixing prowess. Plus, them being fellow metalheads and friends of ours made us feel more comfortable working with them because they speak the same musical language that we do. They knew the sound we were going for right away. They are not like other producers who too often have a "one size fits all" approach. They take the time to carefully mix each tune to have its own distinct tone, character, and dynamics. So they were an obvious choice for us to work with. We had all the songs written prior to going into the studio, except for guitar solos and other percussion instrumentation ideas. Improvisation is an important element to our band so we wanted to challenge ourselves to bring some of that to the studio environment as well. The basic formula for recording was the three of us would get in the studio together and track each tune live and then we each went in and recorded our individual parts. We challenged ourselves to record the first few tracks without a click track to see if we could keep perfect time. Cronin and Yuri soon persuaded us to record to a click for the remainder of the songs. That was probably the best advice we got from them because it taught us to truly learn to focus on locking in with each other and to feel the pulse of the click. When the pandemic hit, Rel was stuck on the other side of the world so we had to figure out how to finish recording our final overdubs and vocals remotely. He ended up going into a studio in Tel Aviv and knocking out his vocals there with a producer. He's now living safely in Europe. So that was probably our biggest challenge.
Q: Now out of the six tracks I find it extremely hard to pick a favorite, because each song offers something a bit different and really makes this a solid EP from start to finish. However, if you were to try and pick one song, which would you say is your favorite? Also, what song(s) do you enjoy playing live?
Nick: “Psalm” has to be my favorite on the EP, it’s just dripping in atmosphere. It’s also a lot of fun live when we get everyone clapping along – it’s our secret weapon for winning over indifferent bar patrons. I love playing “No Vacations” live too because it’s both really heavy and really easy, so I can focus on the important stuff like headbanging and grimacing. “Tezcatlipoca” is one of our fastest, and hardest for me because of the solo, which is my nod to my love of Necrophagist. That’s a staple for metal shows especially when we play a heavier, faster set, and it always gets a good reaction.
Ariel: “Venus”. I am really proud of that riff, I had it in my head for the longest time. Nick and Daniel hated me at first when I showed it to them because it definitely required some defamiliarization techniques to learn it, but once we got in the groove it just became an addicting riff. In general, I’m really happy with the direction the song goes. Shout out to our good friend Shayan Ardalan who brought his percussion to really help bring the song up to the vision I had for it. Also “The Monolith Falls” is one of my favorite songs to play live. It’s mainly Nick’s riffs and lyrics, although Goodman was the one who came up with that sick bassline in the beginning during a jam session. It’s fun to play in front of an audience because it really is a slow burn and it showcases all our talents and sounds. There’s stoner groove, Middle Eastern-tinged heaviness, earth shattering outro, Nick gets plenty of chances to shred, and it has a real legitimate arc as a song.
Q: Again, Unlucky Theta is not defined to one style of music and the EP definitely shows how you guys are dynamic songwriters. For example, I really wanted to talk about, “Psalm,” because that track stands out and conveys such a raw emotional tone. Can you tell us what was the inspiration for that song?
Ariel: “Psalm” was definitely influenced by an older generation of music. America, Johnny Cash, The Beatles, that was kind of my vibe. I wanted an old folky/Western sound but the lyrics are inspired by very Middle Eastern, Old Testament imagery. I wanted a shamanistic nomadic feeling going on and so those “hiyas” in the chorus are sort of like a little nod to the Tuvan throat singing traditions, but also still have that very stereotypically Native American implication as well. There’s a video on Youtube of this old recording of a Cheyenne War Dance and that’s what in part gave me the idea. It’s all part of this idea of spiritual East meets West. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eS_2jOCtS9E
Q: Now being from Los Angeles, live music is almost everywhere…unfortunately with this pandemic performing live is on hold, but before all the pandemic nonsense I wanted to know what was the music scene like? Did you guys face challenges trying to get shows in the beginning? Do you have any stories of shows that standout?
Daniel: This is the first time in modern human history where no live music is being performed anywhere around the globe. That's definitely a depressing realization. But it makes us appreciate all that we've accomplished as a band in just two years. It's hard to accurately describe the Los Angeles music scene because there isn't really ONE big scene. Because the city is so spread out, there are so many different pockets of different scenes of various genres throughout the Southland. That being said, live music was slowly dying even prior to the pandemic. Live music in L.A. was, in many ways, spoiled by its own excesses and overpopulation of bands. Because you could go and see a great show any night of the week anywhere in the city, people often took it for granted and stayed home or saved their money to go see some of the larger touring acts. Many people today seem to be just as stimulated and entertained from scrolling through their phones on the couch as they would be by a live band. So local bands had a much harder time pulling in crowds on a nightly basis. Even so, we always had fun playing live, whether a club was packed or had 5 people sitting at the bar. Didn't really matter to us. It was fun to just play and we always got better with each show. We definitely had challenges getting shows in the beginning. In the eyes of ignorant promoters, our sound was too different to be put on bills with other bands. We were too metal for the rock clubs and not metal enough for the metal clubs. So I'd often just book the band as a "psychedelic rock" band to sneak our way onto larger bills in the early days. There were nights we played with hip-hop groups, country bands, indie bands, singer-songwriters, you name it. We definitely enjoy playing on all metal/hardcore bills because those are our peers but it's also cool to be welcomed by other scenes. It was always fun to go on after some pop-punk band and scare the living shit out of everyone and force them to submit to our sonic chaos. That's more metal than preaching to the choir of metal fans, I’d say. I think the diversity of bands that we played with was actually the most fun aspect of the LA music scene. After a while we did get sick of the pretentiousness and feigned apathy that often exists here, so we were stoked to go play in New York City for three nights and go tour up the California coast and play for people more enthusiastic and hungry for live music. Some of our best shows were actually not in LA.
Q: This past November you guys did a mini tour and even came through the Bay Area. I attended the SF show and had a blast. How was that tour overall? What was the crowd reactions like in the different cities?
Nick: We had a blast too, thanks for coming to the show! It was great to have our friends in each city come out the shows. Hopefully we converted some new Thetans to the cause, too. The crazed hippies dancing to our set in Santa Barbara was a particular highlight for me. Rel also played one show in Santa Cruz with just a paper clip holding his hi-hat stand together, which was badass. We slay on a budget.
Q: This is a bit of a fun question, if you were to be given an unlimited budget to film a music video, which song would you pick off of the EP? Also, who would you want to direct the video? You are in LA, so there are a fair amount of famous directors to choose from.
Ariel: Unlimited Budget? I kinda wanna do that Lamb of God thing for “Parthian Shot” where we roll up to a child’s birthday party on a tour bus with a bunch of strippers and booze but instead of the birthday party, it’s an ancient battlefield and everyone there attacks and kills us because they don’t understand what a tour bus is.
Q: Looking to the future, which can be extremely tough given the current state of the world, what are your some of your goals for Unlucky Theta? Is a full-length album on the horizon?
Daniel: We’d like to take this opportunity to officially announce that Unlucky Theta is now amicably broken up. We are each in three different parts of the world currently and have other priorities to attend to. Especially with the pandemic, like so many other bands, it really made it impossible for us to keep the band going. So many venues in town have shut down permanently. But there’s still many more songs we’ve yet to record so one day we’d love to get back together and make a full-length and play live again. Just a matter of logistics at this point. But we’ve had an absolute blast and are grateful to everyone who’s supported us over the years. The EP is our parting gift to our audience to be cranked at full volume whenever they miss us.
Ariel: Geographically, we are no longer together. Especially me, I’m in Europe at least until next year. Maybe once everything clears up and we are back in the same city some day, a reunion show (or tour?) could be in order. I would love that. That being said, we do have enough material for another album, so never say never. At the moment I am also working on an experimental electro/jazz/pop project that I can’t go into too much detail on, but it may feature some special guests who you are quite familiar with. In the meantime, be sure to check out Nick’s black metal projects Auld Lymb Thron and Bilesipper. They will keep you going through this pandemic purgatory for sure.
Q: Well, once again I would like to thank you for taking the time to do this interview and I can’t wait for what you guys have in the works. Stay safe and hopefully when this nonsense is all over I can come down to LA and see you guys perform live, or you can come back up to the Bay Area and unleash some killer tunes!
Unlucky Theta: Thank you very much for your interest and for spreading the word DJ Rob! You've always been an advocate for underground metal bands all around the world so we thank you for keeping the music alive in a dying world. We’d love to play together again too. One day Unlucky Theta will return once more to melt faces and ignore music genre conventions. Cheers!
