Black Crown Initiate Guitarist Talks Challenges of Releasing a New Album During a Pandemic
Black Crown Initiate guitarist and co-vocalist Andy Thomas recently joined The MetalSucks Podcast to talk about the band’s new album, Violent Portraits of Doomed Escape (order here).
Naturally the topic turned to what it’s been like to release a new album in the midst of a pandemic that makes it impossible to tour, and what facing that reality means for Black Crown Initiate both economically and emotionally.
When asked whether the pandemic means the band will need to be a part-time affair, Andy responded:
“Musically, I think it depends. I think our band is kind of in a fortunate place in that we’re really not big enough to generate a ton of income off of the band yet so it just kind of feels like we’re in stasis. We’re releasing an album but we can’t really go anywhere, at least physically.
“It actually kind of happened at an opportune time, except for the release of the album, because we don’t really have any assets, we don’t have a van anymore, you know, stuff like that. If you were a band that had a bunch of assets, a van with payments on it, insurance, all that stuff that needed to continue to be paid for during all this, I don’t know what you would do. You would have to get really creative with generating income and thankfully we’re not there.
“It’s a very interesting time. I think if you’re a band that is really any bigger than us, you probably have some financial worries at this point.”
When asked what he thinks it will take for live concerts to come back in earnest, he replied:
“To be honest with you, if I’m really going to answer that question, the honest answer would be ‘I don’t know.’ I think everything is so complicated right now and there are so many different facets to look at things from that I think it would be really impossible to answer that question.
“I don’t know, obviously safety is a concern, I think it’s going to be a very long time until we can figure this stuff out. As sad as that is to say, I’ve sort of reached a point with everything that I know that I have zero control over this and I think the majority of people are hopefully realizing that too, because it’s a liberating point. I think at that point you can stop arguing and maybe talk about how to make things better, but I don’t know, man. I don’t really know how to answer that question. I mean, everybody has opinions but that’s all they are.”
Listen to the full episode below or right here.
Black Crown Initiate’s new album, Violent Portraits of Doomed Escape, is out now; order here.
