Portland, Oregon’s purveyors of demented doom inspired heavy metal, Lord Dying are playing only three exclusive Southern California shows, for several months, as the band keeps chugging away at its third yet to be released album. One of these intimate gigs is at the Tiki Bar in Costa Mesa, on Friday, followed by a show at The Merow in San Diego on July 8 and The Bootleg Theater on July 9.
Lord Dying’s unconventional, sped up, psychotic brand of doom metal takes root in among the Portland underground music community. The band has managed to carve a name for themselves by countless live performances, and playing with bands like Red Fang, Witch Mountain, Ghost, and Down. The band features guitarist/vocalist Eric Olson, guitarist Chris Evans, drummer Chase Manhattan, and bassist Matt Price.
“Portland is a cool very tight underground metal scene, so we are all close,” Olson said. “There are lots of doom, thrash metal bands, and it’s fun. We all know each other, and it’s a very special thing to be a part of in Portland and the Northwest metal community. There are tons of bands, like Red Fang, Atriarch, Toxic Holocaust, we’re all friends, but we are always finding new bands to be part of this family too, I like being from here and part of this because there is always lots of support in this scene,” he said.
Although you might hear and read about Lord Dying being a stoner type doom metal band, Olson admits that it isn’t really the band’s thing for the most part. “Yeah, no one in the band really smokes weed, to be honest,” he said. “But we appreciate it, and like a lot of music that would fall under that umbrella of stoner metal for sure. We have no problem with weed, but we don’t really use weed. Personally, it just gets me paranoid, but again no problems with stoners or stoner metal, it’s just funny how our sound has been labeled.”
Olson said the band’s take on metal music comes from internally, and as artists, Lord Dying’s music is to express raw human emotion in an auditory form. “Lord Dying has always been an outlet to deal with shit in our lives through the music,” Olson said. “ It is there for people who deal with in cathartic or traumatic shit in like, and of course we’ll all go through shit like anger depression, and so this is just what we do to vent that Chris and I have been playing music together since we were 12 years, so it just comes out naturally for us.”
Olson says he’s pumped about the band’s Southern California shows this weekend. “We love the LA, San Diego and OC areas, we played LA a lot, places in Hollywood and Glendale, also San Diego Brick By Brick places like that,” he said. “But this will be our very first time to play a show in Costa Mesa, and we are honored, we heard good things about Orange County. Overall California fans have always been good to us, this should be no different.”
With two full-length albums under their belts, Olson said the three off shows are just a mini break from recording a third album. “At the moment we are working hard on our third record, the first two albums were good experiences, but we busted them out fast to tour our asses off,” he said. “So, with this album, it’s different; this is the first time we have taken a small break to make a perfect record, and everyone is taking our time, but hammering away at it. It’s almost there to where we need it to be, and I will be surprised if we don’t finish this summer. “
Olson said by year’s end, latest, the band will be again touring in support of a third album. “In the meantime, we haven’t played California in a while we love it it is always fun fans always show us respect and it will be a good time, so we’re looking forward to these three shows, hope everyone comes out and has a beer with us!”
Lord Dying will perform at the Tiki Bar, located at 1700 Placentia Ave, Costa Mesa, on Friday, July 7.
Alex Distefano is an established freelance writer and music blogger from the Los Angeles area. With over a dozen years under his belt as a published Journalist, he covers the worlds of heavy metal music, punk rock, current events, cannabis culture, comedy, radio, food, tattoos, the paranormal, and ‘conspiracy theories.’ He graduated from California State University Long Beach in 2012 with a Bachelor’s Degree in both Journalism and Ancient History. Aside from his professional writing endeavors, Distefano works as an Educator, and delivery/rideshare driver.