Owen is half of Cult(ure), along with Dyane Crutcher. I love the four songs which have appeared so far and Owen has a diverse and interesting musical history prior to that.
Hello Owen. I wanted to start with some info about what you were up to before getting Cult(ure) going. I have been in other bands and done some solo work before I met Dyane a few years back, and we obviously started working together on Cult(ure). So, yeah, it’s relatively new in the grand scheme of things.
I have been listening to your Polar Caps work which I like very much.
That’s a little solo sort of project that I dip my toe into once in a while.
Listening to it I could see you doing Scandi-noir crime series soundtracks. Yeah, absolutely. I’m quite influenced by stuff like Bon Iver, that sort of indie folk stuff.
And then you were with First Signs Of Frost, which is a lot heavier, isn’t it? Yeah, it’s more proggy. Kind of I suppose post-hardcore meets prog I guess. We were influenced by stuff like Sikth and Glassjaw, bands like that.
I was also in the band Defences for a little while. I was with them for a couple of years and worked on their previous album, did some writing for that. We did a number of festivals and I did one tour with them. They are a great bunch of guys, but their schedule was pretty hectic for me. And I was kind of in the throes of working with Dyane and really enjoying what I was doing with Cult(ure), and that felt like the right sort of path to take really at that point in time, and still at this moment in time as well.
I first saw and met Dyane earlier this year at Kidderminster. The previous time I saw Solstice she wasn’t there, so I was interested to see what she would bring to it, and she got to sing lead on a song called Plunk, which is one of the funky songs in the set. She told me about Cult(ure) so I checked you guys out and it’s obviously very different to Solstice. I can see metal in your background but is that kind of where she comes from, musically herself? Yeah, I mean, obviously she’ll speak for herself, but I know she’s influenced by so much. Like a real wide range of music, anything from R&B, to really heavy bands like Meshuggah and stuff like that. But then she listens to Alicia Keys, you know, so there’s a real wide net there as far as her influences go.
And I can see you like Tears for Fears and Black Sabbath judging from the records behind you. That’s definitely me. I grew up on Sabbath from my Dad, and my parents were into Tears For Fears in the 80s, so I grew up on that stuff. I’m kind of weirdly influenced by a lot of different stuff as well, across the board.
What I noticed in Cult(ure), and it’s there in Sabbath too, is the strong melodic aspects. Your songs always have a hook. Yeah, I’d say that’s a big thing for me. If there’s not a hook, then I’m going to park it or definitely voice my opinion. When we write, it’s very fluid between me and Dyane. It’s nice because I think when she first approached me about doing writing together, she had a bit of a brief of what she was influenced by and had in mind for the project. I could really get on board with it because it was a lot of similar stuff to what I like, like Tool, Deftones, bands like that.
I literally sat down with a few reference tracks that she gave me, and I thought okay right, this kind of vibe, wrote a song. Then she came down and listened to it and got up on the mic and just literally improvised in that moment and came up with pretty much all the melodies that you hear for the track Embers. That was the first one we wrote. She’d only listened to the song through, I reckon, maybe twice? And that blew my mind, because I’ve worked with plenty of musicians, singers and writers over the years, but never had I come across someone where they could write on the spot and come up with such good melodies.
It’s very much like a vibe, I think, for her in that setting. For me, when I write melodies, I really scrutinise over parts. I’m like, ‘should it go there?’ I can really take time, but she is all about the vibe in the moment. And it seems to really work. We might workshop a couple of melodies here and there when we’re writing, but yeah, she always blows my mind with that – what she just comes up with on the spot.
So consequently you get a spontaneity don’t you, that organic feel? Yeah absolutely.
There’s only you two, isn’t there? Which means you’re a very busy guy. Yeah (laughs). I take on probably too much sometimes, but no, I enjoy the creative process. I’ve always been that way. Seeing a song come together with all the working parts, you know,? I usually start with a riff or a drum pattern and build around that and then add maybe layers of synths and various other sounds.
I like the way you don’t overlay your tracks too much. Everything just kind of sits together really well and doesn’t detract from the melody. Yeah, I think space is super important and I’ve definitely been guilty of going further the other way like you just said. I’ve definitely been that person in the past, but I think the older I get, and the more I pay attention to that, I agree. I think that space is super important, and dynamics as well. Really bringing it down as well can add to the overall feel. Especially when you’ve got a really quiet, beautiful part and then have it crescendo up to something that’s just going to blow people’s minds.
You’ve released four songs so far as Cult(ure). All are really, really excellent, strong songs. Presumably we’re getting an album? Yes. We’re probably about two songs off finishing the album. We’re almost there. I’m kind of mixing them as I go. So we’ve got a chart, which is facing us on the wall there, with all the songs that we’re working on. I reckon we’ll be done in a few months, definitely, as far as that goes. And we’re looking to do shows, so we’re trying to get things in place for that. We’re kind of ready to go once the album is finished. I don’t know when the album’s going to come out at this point. I can’t speculate on that, but at least we’ll have it in the pipeline.
Is it hard to finish when you’re doing it entirely yourselves? Do you have to create your own pressure? I think a little bit of pressure definitely helps. Even if it’s like a deadline for a gig, you know. You book something in and think right, we’ve got to be ready for that. Or give ourselves deadlines for releases, because obviously you need a few months leading up to a single release just to get everything in place and make sure it’s gone to all the distributors as well. So there’s so much to think about there. We always have to do everything quite in advance, but I think we’ll probably try and get at least one or two singles out before the album drops.
And if you’re going to tour, would you have to bring in some material to make a longer set? Maybe add cover versions? You know, I’ve actually been thinking recently about how it would be fun to do a cover, because it’s always been about doing your own take on songs. I would love to do a Deftones song, but I feel like that might be a bit on the nose. It might be cool to do something really out there that people wouldn’t think would be a metal cover, you know. Even like a Fleetwood Mac song or something that you just kind of go, ‘Oh, wow, this is a really different take on that!’ I’m kind of open to suggestions on that.
As regard to our set we’ll probably be looking to just mainly do the tracks off the forthcoming album. Maybe six or seven from that, possibly a cover? That’s kind of what we’re working on, tailoring the set. What we think will work live. Obviously, we’ll figure that out in rehearsals. But we’ll keep it very simple I think for live. It’ll be us two and a drummer and probably backing tracks. But for now, just to keep it visually the duo, it’s all about us two, because we’re obviously the face of the band.
Steve McDaniel with Solstice has his keyboard and equipment and stuff and it always looks a lot to me to juggle. So I guess that would be the same for you too? So much equipment. Yeah. I take my hat off to anyone who’s got multiple things going on, because even just setting up a guitar rig sometimes can be tough. You’ve got a limited amount of time, especially if you’re the supporting band, you know? There’s a lot of pressure in those moments when you’ve got that time slot. I remember doing a festival in Germany, and I think we were given a time slot of about 10 minutes to set up everything. And it was just all systems go, we were kind of setting up half of it off to the side of the stage beforehand, so we could just kind of drag it on, try and plug it in and get it all together in that moment. Nightmare!
Can we run through the four Cult(ure) singles? Firstly Embers – that’s a really good calling card for your first song together. Very strong. It’s got a kind of a ballady feel to me. Yeah, I know what you mean. It’s very chill at the start, it’s got the soft synths in there. We wanted just a really dynamic one, I think. I don’t know why we didn’t release that one first. It was the first one we wrote, but I think when we wrote Rebound, vocally it was just really interesting. Then there’s that cool opening riff with the lead line on the guitar. It kind of had all the right elements I think, and that one has been received so well.
Rebound is probably the heaviest of the four I’d say. Yeah, I’d say it definitely is. Especially the mid-section of it is quite proggy and heavy, with dissonant guitar parts as well in there.
You’ve got quite a few guitars going on in Rebound haven’t you? Yeah, I like my layering. I do like adding different stuff. There will always be like two distorted guitars. I don’t know if I did it on that track, but I’ve started using a fuzz guitar as a layer. I think there’s a slightly overdriven bass. You have distorted guitars and fuzz, but then you’ve got the ambient lead sounds that I like to add in as well. And they can usually make an appearance in a chorus, as an almost kind of keyboard type synth part, which adds an atmosphere overall that I quite like to do.
So what are you doing with the drums in Rebound? Is that a drum machine or samples?
So it’s all drum samples, but I play drums myself. So I’ll map out the drums initially and then record around them. That’s the easiest way to do it really. I mean, it’s modern technology that’s perfect for my kind of setup, you know. Recording live drums would be incredible, but the samples now are so good, and they’re all live drum samples anyway. So no one can really tell the difference.
What was the idea with Wither then?
That one, I was kind of going for a bit more of an electronic vibe. It’s got a lot of electronical elements in it. I really like what Dyane’s done with the vocals. I think that’s, for me, one of the hookiest choruses. I love the hooks in that. I mean, I think they’re all hooky, but that one is a bit of an earworm.
Absolutely, once heard you can’t forget it at all. And I think it’s quite fun because it’s the most upbeat one that we’ve got. It’s a bit more up-tempo, a slightly faster pace. I really enjoy that one. I think we’re looking to potentially open up the set with it.
Inertia is the most reflective one of the four I would say. Yeah, definitely so. It’s very, very personal to Dyane. And I just absolutely love the journey on it, and the way it builds at the end. Even the electronic elements when the electronic drums come in. I think that’s really, really cool in the second chorus. It’s almost got a bit of a sort of Imogen Heap vibe to it a little bit. That’s completely unintentional, but I’m a huge Imogen Heap fan so I think subconsciously, it’s probably in there somewhere. But it’s even what Dyane wrote which reminds me a bit of Imogen Heap, with soft ethereal vocals which are really nice.
You mentioned it with Inertia but all the lyrics seem personal. Rebound too particularly.
I’d say Inertia and Rebound are definitely the most personal ones for Dyane. She really opens up on them. And they’re great. I think that comes across in the delivery too in the vocals, they’re very emotive. And that’s always what I’ve loved about her, because sometimes you need to coax that out of a vocalist when you’re recording them. Maybe sometimes they’re just going through the motions and singing the lines. But with Dyane I can always feel it as well, you know?
And is it usually you that starts a new composition, or does Dyane sometimes come with a song?
Well, actually, yeah, Rebound is a good example of that. Basically she sent me a voice note of an acapella vocal idea, to a click. I think it was maybe an 89 or 83 BPM click, like pretty chilled sort of a tempo with this vocal line over the top. And I took that vocal line, that recording, and put it in Logic. I thought okay, let me see if I can write around the vocal line. Because it had a tempo to it, that made it easier for me to know exactly where the pulse was, and where she was placing the rhythms. And that’s the first time I’d ever actually constructed a song around the vocal line. I’ve probably got the demo of it somewhere with the original voice note she did.
It really challenged me because it’s got some very interesting vocal lines melody wise. I would be listening and thinking where do I go with the chord on that? Because she’s hit this really interesting exotic note there. But I think it just turned out amazing. It was a really fun way to write, because I would normally map out all the chords, have an arrangement idea, and then she would obviously do the vocals over the top. So we completely flipped it on its head there. And that was really good.
She’s got quite a vocal range hasn’t she and she’s also layering vocals as well, isn’t she?
Yeah, absolutely. So we’ve got quite a few harmony parts on the album. I mean, even the singles we’ve released, there’s quite a lot of harmony parts there anyway. But she really kind of pushes herself on some songs there, real Whitney notes on some of the ones we’ve already written that haven’t been released. I can’t wait to get them out because they’re just fantastic.
That’s the amazing thing, we’re always kind of surprising ourselves with new songs that we write. We’re like, ‘I think this might be my new favourite one!’ (It’s probably just because it’s new) but it’s been a very, very fun and enjoyable process so far, writing this album. I think just the fact that we work so easily together, and fluidly, there’s not a huge amount of deliberation. We might workshop the odd thing, but overall it all just comes together so organically and quite quickly, which is really nice. I know in the past I’ve definitely spent hours and hours and weeks and weeks working on songs with certain people.
Would you ever consider bringing in other musicians for the studio recordings?
Maybe. We’re definitely toying with getting some guest vocalists for certain parts on the new album. We’ve got one quite heavy song on the album, we thought it’d be fun to have someone guest on that. So we’re in talks at the moment about who that could potentially be. So yeah, that’s definitely on our radar.
Going back to the beginning. How did you get into music? I always had an appreciation for music growing up. But I think the turning point for me was when I was about 10, I started guitar lessons. My guitar teacher at the time was really into stuff like Metallica, Pantera, Slayer, all the kind of old Thrash bands. And I’d just not heard that style of music at all. I mean, I’d heard Sabbath, but that was about it. I still love Sabbath to this day, but it was like, ‘wow, this music is intense’, and it just grabbed me. So, I was kind of locked in from then on. I just could not put my guitar down.
Then a couple of years later, I really wanted to play drums because I just found all elements of the creative process so fun. I was even trying to write songs before I could even play. I would just come up with stuff, and it was terrible. But I was like 12 years old at the time. I got my first drum kit when I was probably about 13 or 14. Then I got a bass. I just wanted to learn all the different instruments.
Your parents were very supportive weren’t they?
Yeah, definitely so. They were very, very supportive. I think they saw that it was my vocation because I just didn’t put my guitar down. I knew that there was no turning back after I got that first guitar.
I love that they got you the drum kit as well.
I was very lucky that we even had the space for it. We lived out in the sticks so we weren’t going to bother anyone, which was lucky.
Which was harder to learn to play? The guitar or the drums?
I was self taught on the drums. This was prior to YouTube so I would just listen to what was going on in a song and kind of figure out what I needed to do.
Really? And you were like 13 or 14 years old?! Yeah. I would just come home from school and couldn’t wait to put on some headphones and play to like, I don’t know, Metallica, Machine Head, whoever I was listening to at the time.
So something like say Led Zeppelin’s Rock And Roll that probably was one you would have attracted to with that intro from John Bonham. You’d sit there and work out that intro? Yeah, yeah. My technique was terrible, but I knew what I needed to do. I could hear what the bass drum was doing, what the hi-hats were doing. Then go, ‘Right. okay, I need to put the snare there.’ And it was all about the feel I think. But I had a practice pad for probably about a year before I got my drum kit. My Dad used to play drums when he was a teenager so he showed me a couple of rudiments like the paradiddle. But again, a lot of it was just by ear.
So your parents were both musical were they? My Dad played drums and sax and had some rhythm there. So I figure I probably inherited that somewhat. My Mum used to play acoustic guitar when she was younger. So I think there was maybe an element there that I inherited from her too. And then I kind of fell into singing.
I never ever set out to be a singer. But I completely fell into it out of necessity, because I was kid at band practice that would try it, because I would sing songs at home on my own. I was actually terrible, I had a sort of gnarly American accent, whenever I sung (laughs). I’ve been trying to beat that out of me over the years. But yeah, I never set out to be a singer, but I always sort of ended up doing it in some form whether it’s backing vocals or even lead. I was a lead singer for a number of years as well.
Do you sing on any of the Cult(ure) songs we know so far? I’m doing some screaming parts, but no melodic vocals. That’s all Dyane. Definitely in recent years, I’ve been trying to work on my screaming vocals, my heavier vocals, because I never really did that when I was younger. But the last First Signs Of Frost album I did a lot of screaming on that. So yeah, it was around 2022 I started learning the technique a bit more and working on it. So I’m a bit more comfortable doing those sort of harsher vocals now. They make an appearance here and there, but just when they’re needed. I’m mainly guitar on the Cult(ure) stuff.
Dyane’s got Solstice and I know she also does Functions. What keeps you going musically at the moment aside from Cult(ure)?
So very similar to her. I’ll be doing corporate events, functions. I run a band for those sorts of events, which has been going on for almost 10 years, They’re called The Altitudes and we’ve done a whole bunch of events and stuff abroad too, so it’s been good.
The band name is a Polar Caps title isn’t it?
It is, that’s good research! It’s an EP. I initially called the band The Altitudes because we were actually going to go out to the French Alps and perform there. I thought it would be a suitable name for a band in the mountains, but we never ended up going in the end. But the name just stuck. So we now get booked for like aviation companies, because they’re like, ‘Oh, Altitudes?’ Or like the R.A.F, they have booked us a few times as well.
What do you play in that band? I actually play bass in that band and backing vocals, some lead vocals. Guitar is sort of left for my original stuff weirdly. But it’s just sort of how it’s worked out because I got a gig in the French Alps with another band years ago and I learned a whole bunch of stuff on bass. And it just kind of stuck. I just ended up thinking, ‘Oh, well, I know all these songs on bass now’, as far as covers go. So I’ll stay in that lane I think for now.
Do you have any favourite bass players?
There’s actually this guy, Ryan Martinie, he was in a band called Mudvayne. They came out at the same time as when Slipknot first came out. He’s a phenomenal slap bass player, like really technical tapping / slap bass player. He’s definitely up there. Also, the bass player from Sikth, James Leach, he’s incredible. A very similar kind of style player. I’m always very impressed with really good slap bass or tapping. I think because I’m not great at that (laughs) I’m more of a guitarist that plays bass, you know, with a pick and I’ll do a bit of finger style, but I find slap tricky.
You love to be on stage don’t you? Oh yeah definitely so. It’s kind of crazy looking back, I’ve been on stage since I was like 16, so I can’t imagine a life without it. My first gig with my first band, I rocked up to the mic, as the frontman thinking, ‘I never signed up to be the frontman. What is this?!’ in front of 300 kids in a youth club. But yeah, I just absolutely loved it though. I hark back to those times, you know, and I think it’s in my blood, I just love being on stage and performing. So I can’t wait to take Cult(ure) live. It’s going to be really fun I think.
How do you think that will work as a live entity, where you will play and so on? We’ve already been speaking with some bands that we want to collaborate with. We want to try and do that with bands we think will fit on the bill with us, and are up for doing shows. Not be stuck on a bill that’s not quite right, you know – because that can happen. That definitely happened to me in the past where I would be in a post-hardcore or proggy band and then playing alongside a pop punk band (laughs) it was just ridiculous. So we’re trying to find artists that we feel will work well, where their fans will get us, and hopefully our fans will get them as well.
Dyane describes your sound as Ambient Metal. That is pretty accurate to be fair. We’re deliberating on what genre we are. We’ve gone through so many different variations, but I think our tag at the moment is like, ‘Shoegaze tinged Alt-Metal’. But Ambient Metal is actually a really good way of describing it too, because it is quite ambient. We do have those ambient elements, but we do even have elements of Post-Rock at times, especially in Inertia, that outro section is very Post-Rock. So we really kind of mix it up. I always find it hard to pigeon-hole a band with one particular genre, because, especially these days, so many bands are cross pollinating genres as an anything goes kind of thing. I should put that to you. If you were to describe us as a listener, what would you describe us as?
I can see exactly where Dyane’s going with Ambient Metal. But online what I found interesting as a diversion showing how varied you guys are is that Chill Version of Inertia on your Patreon page. It’s just as good as the ‘normal’ version.
I really love that version. It was something that I kind of just did on a whim. I remember sending it to Dyane. She was like, I love this, and obviously it’s a way more reverb-soaked vocals and a lot more chill than the original. I think we’ll probably put that out as a B-side or something like that on the album. I would like that to be released because I think it deserves it down the line. But for now, obviously I wanted to put it out there for anyone who wanted to hear it on our Patreon.
I would like to do more variations on some of the other songs as well. Maybe like remixes or something, or give them to someone to remix. That would be really fun I think.
You did that nice mix breakdown of Inertia too. I don’t know how many hours you must spend on doing that.
Yeah, a lot (laughs). I’m getting better, because sometimes you can really just lose time in just being completely immersed in these mixes. But we’ve got quite a good album template now, which is quite nice as it saves me a bit of time because I’ve kind of honed a lot of sounds. So whenever we’ve got a new track I’ll put it in session and I just have to tweak parts of it. It’s not like hours and hours and hours of mixing which is good.
I can mix a song in a day now, rather than a few days or something if everything’s in place. But even just the prep for a mix is a lot, because I have to make sure all the parts are right, and then the tracking of everything because obviously you’re recording multiple guitars and bass. And making sure all the drum parts are correct – all the velocities of the drums sound right, so not everything is too hard hitting, like a snare or something. It’s all got to be balanced. So yeah, it is quite a lot, but I actually do really enjoy the mixing process once all the recording side’s done and everything’s in place.
The mix is really strong on all the Cult(ure) songs. It really is, and it sounds high end. Okay, that’s really interesting. I appreciate that.
I mean, back in the day, home recorded stuff used to sound home recorded. It had its own charm or whatever. But now, you just can’t tell when it’s this level of quality.
That’s always good to hear because I think we’re our own biggest critics, and I definitely can be like, that’s no good. But to be fair, I think with the Cult(ure) stuff, I have been generally overall very happy with the mixes and I’m not normally like that. So that’s good to hear.
I joined your Patreon page which has some very interesting extra material on it. You’re going to put some more stuff up soon, aren’t you? Yeah, definitely so. I’m going to just tease out stuff, because Dyane and I have quite a few writing sessions as well. So we’ve got behind the scenes of the recordings and us going on photo-shoots or workshopping stuff. So we like to put stuff out. But if and when we do a cover version, I think we’ll probably put that on the Patreon before we start doing it live. Because it’d be nice to actually have a recording of it as well to see how it sits. And then that could be something that we might put out down the line. Maybe we might even put a poll out for suggestions of what song to cover?
Thanks for the chat Owen. It’s been really good looking into your musical past and it’s given me more things to explore and enjoy. Thank you so much Chris. Happy to chat more anytime.
For more on Cult(ure):-
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Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thebandculture
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thebandculture
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61565716655384
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@THEBANDCULTURE
Patreon: CULT(URE) — creating music | Patreon
Music:-
Rebound (Official Video) – https://youtu.be/xwZBBzhdD68
Wither (Official Video) – https://youtu.be/wJkqVhAdMuk
Inertia (Official Video) – https://youtu.be/mNDmVduu-bs
Embers (Official Video) – https://youtu.be/53QZAf2A2wc
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/7qr83fhdO4EmxLNA1hczFa