Harlots Interview

Harlots are a fusion of many different styles including the very best talent utilized to execute a blend of metal, grind and death metal while also experimenting with ambience through instrumental depth. Drummer and founding member Jeff Lohrber, who also drums for experimental metal act Today Is The Day talked to TheHXC about the band’s upcoming Lovelost debut “This Is The Second Death”, the conception of Harlots and the band’s future plans of recording and touring which will be unstoppable.

TheHXC.com: Your new album "This Is The Second Death" was suppose to be due out in November but has been delayed, is there a speculated release month?

Harlots: Hopefully the album will be out in late November, but right at the moment, I am not positive.


TheHXC.com: Why the delay?

Harlots: The album was mastered and the artwork was finished in May of 2005. Apparently Will Goodyear did the artwork on a different format than Kevin from Lovelost Records had and there were files missing. Ryan Kasparian who is working on our new website is working on fixing the problem.


TheHXC.com: How did you guys come to sign with Lovelost?

Harlots: We sent the record out to several labels. Kevin from Lovelost expressed interest in putting this record out, so we decided to go with it. Lovelost is a label run by one dude, and we are only signed to Lovelost for the release of this record.

TheHXC.com: Harlots has had its share of line up changes recently, what's the line up
currently?

Harlots: Harlots have always had lineup problems since day one. Christian Fillippo is on vocals; Eric Dunn is on guitars/electronics, Josh Dillon on bass guitar, me on drums. Eric and I have been the core of the band. Christian is our 5th vocalist, he joined about 3 weeks before our first record came out. Josh is our 5th bass player and has yet to play a show with us. Kenny Jones has been playing bass for us since March and toured with us as a second guitarist in summer of 2004, but due to him being in high school still, it is hard for him to tour from September-June. So eventually, Kenny will be rejoining with us, and he and Josh will have to deck it out over who plays second guitar and bass in our band. Kenny packs a hard punch from what I've heard.


TheHXC.com: You guys are playing some dates soon, are there plans for a wider scale
tour?

Harlots: Yes. We will be out from January-April 2006. There is nothing better than being on tour. Kenny will be playing the next three shows with us, and then Josh takes over.

TheHXC.com: The last album "The Woman You Saw..." was an epic album in terms of size and sound but the production was a little fuzzy, how does the new disc sound?

Harlots: "The Woman You Saw..." was an experiment that turned into a record. Eric and I were 17 at the time we recorded that. The drums and guitar were recorded with Nick Brough, then Eric recorded bass, vocals, and electronics, and mixed and mastered the record. We had I don't know how many vocalists in and out of our band, so I ended up singing on the first record. Feeling Faint was just starting and expressed interest in putting it out as their first release. I am very proud of what the record stands for, but I think due to us being very young and being on a very young label at the time, things didn't turn up as well as they have on the new record. "This is the Second Death" was recorded almost the same exact way, the only difference is that Steve Austin mastered the record, and Christian sang on the record. I think Eric knew more what he was getting himself into this time around so the things that got fucked up on the first record didn't get fucked up on this one. Considering "The Woman You Saw..." was the first ever record that Eric mixed or mastered, and was the first record that Feeling Faint had released, I'd say things turned out damn good.

TheHXC.com: Can we expect that same epic feel?

Harlots: Oh yeah.

TheHXC.com: The first album seemed to have a theme to it, what exactly was "The Woman You Saw.." about? Who was the woman?

Harlots: "The Woman You Saw..." is based off of Revelations 17 and 18. That is where the name Harlots came from. The idea with Harlots is that we all whore ourselves out to something in order to get by. The woman is whatever you want it to be. It's a representation of whatever you have to whore yourself out to to get by in life.

TheHXC.com: Will "This Is The Second Death" carry a theme as well?

Harlots: "This is the Second Death" is pretty much a sequel to the first record. It is based off the same chapters of Revelations. It is also a representation of how much of yourself you have to give up to be in an underground metal band. Sometimes it almost feels like you have to kill yourself and go through hell to make a perfect record. The new album is sort of a representation of how much we had to give up in order to make this record. It's not just saying that "being in a band is hard work", it's more of the personal struggle you go through in life and that coming out on record. I think the lyrics on this album definitely reflect that.

Harlots: Another thing about this record is that the last two songs on this record, "War of the Great City" and "Fall of the Matriarch" definitely make this record feel like a sequel. Those two songs are about fighting "the whore" and showing her for what she is worth. "Fall of the Matriarch" is actually the song "Mystery" off of the first record. The only difference is that "Mystery" is reversed and was taken from a different recording session.


TheHXC.com: Will the new album be filled with a lot of atmospheric instrumentals as the previous album?

Harlots: Yes!, like I said, this record is a sequel. If you like the first record, you'll like this one more. If you don't like the first one, check the new one out, and it might make you appreciate the first one more. That's just how these kind of things work.


TheHXC.com: The album art for "The Woman You Saw..." was excellent, will the same artist be handling the artwork for "The Second Death"?

Harlots: Yes, Will Goodyear took care of the artwork for both records. We figured we had to have the same guy do both records in order to make them look and feel alike.


TheHXC.com: Are there any Harlot side projects?

Harlots: We are all involved with other bands. I play drums for Today is the Day. Eric plays guitar in Kenoma with 3 guys who used to be in Rune. They have a split CD with Mouth of the Architect coming out on Translation Loss. Josh and Kenny play in a band called Mugger, Josh plays guitar, Kenny plays drums. Christian is always jamming with other people. I'm not sure if he actually has a band together, but he plays drums and plays guitar as well. We all live far apart so we're always constantly jamming with other bands/projects.

TheHXC.com: That's all on my end is there anything you would like to add?

Harlots: On top of planning on touring, we have been hard at work on a third record. I am a nut over epic movies like Lord of the Rings and Star Wars, so it'll probably end up being a trilogy of some sort. We have never really stopped working on material even though I was about 14 hours away doing Today is the Day for months at a time. One new song was written by me on drums, then I recorded it, sent it to Eric, Eric wrote guitars to it, then we are sending it to Christian to write lyrics. We are definitely experimenting more with our style, and hopefully we will be in the studio before we go on tour to demo what we have. Definitely, in addition to us playing songs off "This is the Second Death" live, look forward to us playing a lot of brand new material.

TheHXC.com: Thank you for your time and good luck!

Harlots: Thank you Dave.



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Tags:  Harlots  , Jeff Lohrber, interviews

Dave Huffy    October 31, 2005