1.Hello Michael, please introduce yourself to the readers?
Hey everyone my name is Michael Sanchez the sole musician behind the Blackened Death Metal project King Ov Wyrms, I also play in the Blackened Prog Metal band Pain Patterns and I spent some time with the Power Metal act Judicator. I currently run a small home studio called Odyssey Sound Studios which is where I’ve produced the King, Pain, and some of the Judicator materials I’ve recorded.
2.When did you first discover metal music and who were the bands you heard? Who are some of the current bands that have caught your attention?
I believe I first heard Metal when I was in early elementary school, my father had me around a lot of music growing up but when I first heard Iron Maiden I was hooked. I first got into the NWOBHM movement like crazy so I was snagging Maiden, Priest, Tygers Of Pan Tang, and Venom albums like crazy. Around my late middle school years, I got dragged into a heavy Thrash metal binge with bands like Overkill, Testament, Megadeth, and Slayer but it started to grow more into my still current love for Black Metal and Death Metal. Nowadays I try to give myself something new to listen to at least once a week, I’ve been really big on Hail Spirit Noir, Havukruunu, Craft, Panzerfaust, Jinjer, and Wormwitch. A bit of an odd mix.
3.When did you first get the idea to start King Of Wyrms? How did you choose King Of Wyrms as the name of the band?
I believe King was started back in 2015 by myself and the bassist for Pain Patterns at the time Reymundo Romero. I really wanted to do something that was more aggressive than Pain Patterns (which tends to focus more on obscurity), something that paid tribute to the bands that heavily influenced my love for early Death Metal like Morbid Angel and Bloodbath. At the time when I was writing the songs I was channeling a lot of my early youthful hatred towards religion, so we had some song names that were more anti-religious based. Rey brought forward the name King Of Worms in the namesake of it being the slanderous name given to Jesus Christ “The King of Worms, King of nothing" and it just fits perfectly.
4.I believe you are the sole member of King Of Wyrms when you started this band did you plan to work alone or would you like to find some new musicians to make a full-line-up?
Originally it started out with the intent to have a full band, I still would like to make it a full band however I grew very impatient with the many lineup changes we’ve had already been about maybe eight-member swaps? Eventually, I ended up just being the only person that wrote anything, I had all the material done and all I was really lacking was just some solid vocals and some “good" drums because I’m a terrible drummer haha Jesse Lujan the singer from Pain Patterns is essentially my vocal coach, he got me whipped into shape and gave me the confidence to take on the project for main vocals and that’s pretty much where it stands today. With the hopefulness of this debut album being well received, I’m in the process of talking to some musicians about possibly filling out or contributing to the follow-up release for King Ov Wyrms.
5.What do you feel is the easiest and hardest part about the sole member of the band? If you had the opportunity to work with many musicians who would you like to work with?
The hardest part is understanding that you really can’t do everything as best as you would like, essentially being your own worst critic. Point being made there’s a lot of times I feel my vocal performances were lacking at times no matter how much I re-recorded them and same with the drums, I played what I could and then fixed the rest of it with Midi but I’m not mentally a drummer so I feel my creative choices for beats and patterns could have been improved. If I took the time to keep fixing these small mistakes then I’d be sitting on this album for another five years which is where I threw in the towel, I’d rather get it out with the energy I have now. I would love to experience a session with Ihsahn, Mikael Akerfeldt, and Steven Wilson. Those guys are some of my biggest idols and I just love watching their studio videos and how they work their creative process, just to experience that or be around that workflow I feel would be endlessly rewarding.
6.King Ov Thornes is the debut release how long did it take you to write the music for the debut release? How long does it usually take to complete one song?
This may sound really bad to some people but it took me just two nights, two separate writing sessions and I did about four songs each run. It all was purely just a whirlwind of inspiration, not just “how simple a King song could be". My process is pretty common regardless of what I’m working on, I start with just my guitar directly into my recording interface and I just start riffing away (with or without theory is up in the air). Once I grab something that catches my attention I track it, let it playback, and continuously build until I feel its come full circle. Usually, it takes me about anywhere from 2 hours to over 12 but that’s also because I can never leave a song unfinished, for some reason I just don’t have the ability to start something and come back to it later it just doesn’t work out for me.
7.Where do you draw inspiration for the lyrics and what are some subjects written about on the debut? Which usually comes first the music or the lyrics?
I drew a lot of inspiration from my childhood on this one, that was the main subject of what I guess started King. I had a lot of complications understanding religion and being almost forced to by the world around me in my youth and it made me very aggressive towards the ideas, that’s where the songs Maggots and Thorne Bearer really came from with my youthful self rejecting faith. Threnody was another part of my youth, amongst my early teens feeling that extreme hatred it caused me to harm myself physically a lot even to the point of attempted suicide which left me hating myself and everything around me. I grew out of that chaotic mindset a better man but it was a time in my life I felt I had no control and that anger and lack of control was what I wanted to embrace on this album which was very therapeutic in a way by putting myself back mentally somewhere I left a long time ago. The rest of the material was just my appreciation towards literature with Lovecraft references and conceptual theories about demonology and the occult. For myself I start with a song name, then I try to write some music that will embrace whatever perception that song name gives in advance and if I can complete the music with song to lyrics it’ll stay, if not it gets a new name and some appropriate lyrics but I never can start with lyrics in that case.
8.Where can the readers purchase Lord Ov Thornes when it is released? Besides the debut release does the band have any other merchandise currently available for the readers to purchase?
When Lord Ov Thornes is released it’ll be available on most if not all popular streaming sites such as Spotify, iTunes, Google Play, etc. And it’ll be available for digital purchase respectively on those sites. For the few physical copies that will be printed, they will be digipaks that I'll be selling directly off of our King Ov Wyrms Bandcamp while supplies last. As for merchandise we are currently working on a few shirt designs but nothing has been in the printing process yet, all our merch will be directly available off of our Bandcamp page just like the CDs and digital downloads. Go check out our bandcamp page at https://kingovwyrms.bandcamp.com
9.Michael you handle writing all the music for the band when did you first become interested in playing and writing music?
I’ve always known I wanted to be a musician ever since I was a young boy just watching my fathers Eagles live concerts on TV, something about music just captivated me at a young age and bewildered me. I experimented with quite a few different instruments before I picked up my guitar skills, I started with Piano, dabbled with Violin and Flute but I don’t have the lungs for wind instruments, I even did some time learning Choir but that didn’t end well either haha. Once I picked up a guitar it all clicked and from there I was able to start branching that theory over to bass.
10.What was the first instrument you learned to play and are you self-taught or did you take lessons when first starting out?
I started out learning piano in school with a music teacher for one of my classes, it went well and she did help nurture my interest in music even though I was a stubborn metalhead in a beginner's piano class. I was mostly a self-taught musician until I was getting ready to go to college for classical guitar. I picked up a piano teacher at a local music store who really shaped my musical skills into something valuable, although he wasn’t a guitar teacher that could teach me properly he did give me these challenges to where I would create obscure voicing for my chords and I believe that really became a key point of my playing to this day.
11.Are their any instruments that you would like to learn to play one day?
I honestly would love to learn Saxophone, Jorgen Munkeby helped interest me in that instrument with the work he did for Ihsahn. Before I heard his music I had no idea the soundscapes a Saxophone can create which can add some heavy emotion into music.
12. You also, handle the vocal duties for the project when did you first start growling and screaming? Do you do anything to keep your throat and voice healthy? Who are your favorite vocalists?
I first started by attempting backing vocals for Pain Patterns live maybe around 2017, Jesse Lujan was very supportive in teaching me proper technique and getting me that confidence a vocalist needs. I typically don’t do much conditioning but I do use warm-up techniques before I get into any vocal session as to not stress myself out. Steve Tucker of Morbid Angel is a huge influence for me, that just sheer force and depth of his voice is very intimidating but still very natural sounding which is something I tried to achieve. Mikael Akerfeldt is another one of my tops, his work in early Bloodbath and Opeth really inspired me to try and scream.
13.King Of Wyrms comes out of Arizona's death black metal scene what is your opinion of Arizona's metal scene over the years?
It's very interesting for sure, there’s a lot of hidden talent here and tons of musicians that have been cycling through many notable acts in every genre here. The metal community in general is extremely supportive of each other however which makes it very strong.
14.Who are your all-time favorite bands coming out of Arizona and are there any new bands you could recommend to the readers?
Well for starters I’m a huge Abigail Williams fan, I believe I’ve heard that Job For A Cowboy was also from Arizona but I can’t say that I truthfully know that, and of course the mighty Sacred Reich who just rip. As for new artists, I’d highly recommend Swarm Of Serpents, Deadspawn, Anira Angol, and Shadows of Algol for that black and death metal. For some more tech and deathcore type stuff, my dear friends in Oppressor God and Evasion have been putting out some quality material for years.
15.What does Underground Metal mean to you?
To me Underground is a label I don’t typically like to use, it sounds more like a nice way of saying “underrated". There are so many talented and well built self-sufficient acts that I’ve met that I feel don’t deserve that title just because they aren’t signed to a label or on bigger tours. To some it's not offensive but I don’t like to use the term, its too much of an open term to use without accidentally offending someone’s respectable reputation.
16.Besides working in King Of Wyrms do you currently work with any other bands or solo projects? If yes please tell the readers a little about them?
I also work in the Progressive Black Metal band Pain Patterns which is mostly my main project. I started Pain Patterns back in 2012, the band featured a ton of different lineup changes and musical approaches to the point where we just ended up getting coined a Prog metal band in Arizona even though as musicians we regularly stick to Black and Death metal approaches with influences of our personal music studies like Jazz and Classical music. For Fans of Black and Death metal with a bit of Obscurity I’d highly recommend checking out our albums Flood of Worry and The Dawn Collective. My only other semi-active project is a symphonic black metal project I’ve been working on for a few years, I don’t have too much details I can spare at the moment but I will say it will make its debut hopefully in the beginning of 2021 with a full length album and it’ll hopefully feature some unique guest musicians.
17.Thank you Michael for taking the time to fill this interview out do you have any final words for the readers?
Just a huge thank you to the fans and everyone for taking the time to listen to any of my work with King Ov Wyrms or Pain Patterns and of course thank you guys for giving me some time to share some words with you and the readers.
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