In 2019, Aussie thrashers SITHLORD returned with their first album in seventeen years, “From Out of Darkness”. This year the band embarked on its first overseas trip, performing at the MetalHart Festival in Germany.
The festival, held in the hilly German region of Bavaria, was a tribute to late Barbarian Wrath Records founder Hartmuth “Hart” Schlindler. Alongside SITHLORD, the bill was comprised with numerous bands from around Europe who’d been associated with Hart’s label, headlined by death metal legends MASTER and UK’s ARKHAM WITCH. As for the Aussie contingent, SITHLORD was welcomed to the Northern Hemisphere with open arms.
After the festival was done and dusted, I sat down and had a chat with SITHLORD vocalist/guitarist Jason Saunders with a couple of cold Bavarian beers.
Metal-Roos: First of all, tell me about MetalHart Festival. How did you come to know Hart Schindler?
Jason: “I think it was around 2001 when Hart messaged the label we were on at the time when we released our first EP Labyrinth to the Gods. Hart offered to release our next recording. After a lot of email back-and-forth and some late-night/early morning phone calls, eventually our first full-length Return to Godless Times was released in 2002 through Hart’s label Barbarian Wrath.
I joined Hobbs’ Angel of Death later in 2003, and we went and played Europe which included Wacken, Holland and Oslo and another show in Germany. During that time, I had always been in contact with Hart, and I caught up with him and his wife Cheryl for a few days while I was in Germany. The hospitality they showed us, it was like we’d known each other forever!
Hart was always waiting for Sithlord’s next release. However, after I managed to get Sithlord back together in 2017 Cheryl posted online that Hart had gone in for a surgery and had fallen into a sudden coma. I was so shocked about it. For almost two years he’d been in this coma and we were all hoping he’d wake up sometime, but unfortunately he did not. They decided to let him slip away in 2019, and Cheryl wanted to do a festival in tribute of Hart and initially she’d planned it for 2020…
Metal-Roos: But we all know what happened in 2020…
Jason So when Cheryl said last year she was doing the festival, I just simply put my hand up asked Cheryl if Sithlord could get on the bill. At that stage, we were also hoping to get a few more shows around Europe. Unfortunately, extra shows were unable to be booked, and I once again had some line-up issues. It almost got to the point where we almost had to pull out of the festival, and that made me feel so empty – I mean, I had been wanting to show my appreciation for Hart and everything he did.
But then I thought maybe I could contact some musicians in Germany to help me do it… and that’s what we did! We got Cheryl’s new partner Marco on bass, and… yourself on drums, haha! That’s when I started feeling good about it again. It’s been fantastic!
“Jason Saunders with Hart & Cheryl Schindler”
Metal-Roos: Well, it is indeed fantastic that Cheryl was eventually able to pull this festival off in honour of Hart, and great that you come up and be part of it despite your own obstacles.
How was the reception to Sithlord’s first time in Germany? With your previous relationship with Barbarian Wrath, there would have been a few Europeans who’d been eagerly waiting to see Sithlord live after all these years.
Jason: The response was extremely positive! I didn’t expect that much of a response, honestly! There were a lot of people who hadn’t heard us, but saw our name on the bill and came to check us out. I had people coming up after and saying “Man, that was so old-school… we haven’t had anything like that for such a long time… thank you!” Y’know, that was really heartfelt! And of course, there were people familiar with us; there was a guy from New York and a couple of his friends who came all the way to see us, and a fellow from France!
We played the set as a three-piece, which is not how we traditionally play. I was a tad nervous about how I was going to hold up the guitar myself, but with Marco having that extra “oomph” in his bass, it really filled the sound. We pushed through 150%, the crowd loved it and I could not keep the smile off my face!
Metal-Roos: Smiles? That’s not very metal…
Hahaha… I know. I was just having so much fun and I was just loving it. Hopefully we’ll be back in Germany very soon!
Metal-Roos: Let’s talk a bit about Sithlord generally… Sithlord formed at a time when thrash metal wasn’t “flavour of the month”. We’re talking around… 1998? What compelled you to bring the old-school back?
Jason: You had your blackened thrash bands that were playing old-school style thrash stuff, stuff like Aura Noir. I was just… that’s what I love! I had thought the thrash train had gone, never to return. So yeah, that’s when I started doing it, I started resurrecting old riffs I had in my first band and wrote a bunch of new ones. Previously throughout the 90s I had always been writing thrash riffs, because that’s what I love, but I never really had a vehicle to use them in.
I really wanted to make a band that I wanted to see, I know that’s the most cliched thing to say. The thrash that was I listening to was always from the late 80s and it always stuck with me. When I started writing for Sithlord, I was also a little bit influenced by some of the black metal that was going on, and some parts on our first EP have that Mayhem-style riffing. I guess the stuff I write now is kind of thrash verging on death metal, like those very early days of Sepultura and Death.
Metal-Roos: Now we’ve gotta talk about the name… Sithlord. An obvious Star Wars reference! Obviously there’s a love of Star Wars, why did you choose to mix it in with your project?
Jason: We were originally called Enmity, but then we heard there was another band from UK of the same name. I didn’t want any drama, so I thought let’s just change the name. I was worried that it may be counter-productive changing it to Sithlord! We’d probably get into more strife! I think we’ve gotten away with it.
I thought about it… because there’s a lot of evil shit with the sith. There are so many bands who sing about satan, and I’m not religious. I love Star Wars, obviously and I loved the characters of Darth Vader and Palpatine. Palpatine’s this sick man, a manipulative individual who just pulls the strings in the background. I thought okay, I don’t want to sing about satan, but the sithlords are just these evil guys, and like satan they’re fictional too. And there’s such a vast universe you can get inspired by for lyrics. The music isn’t really inspired by Star Wars, but I love to write about the evilness and wickedness of the sith. And even now, people see the name and think “Oh, the band from Australia!” They even joke about it and say “Oh, I misread that as Shitlord…!”
Metal-Roos: Hahaha! I mean metal has drawn so much from mythology and stories for so long. I mean, one could now argue that we have this new “mythology” of sorts brought on by modern pop culture universes. We have video game mythologies, movie series mythologies, even Star Wars…
Jason: It’s originally George Lucas’ mythology, yes. Lucas’ vision and storytelling was even borrowed from older mythologies and tales, and he’s made his own thing. We’re all taking ideas from the past and making modern stories from those. The mythology is so vast and there are so many stories you can be inspired by for lyrics, and it’s getting even bigger. It’s still extremely relevant which is great.
I always said that a pre-requisite for joining the band is you have to be a Star Wars fan! Hahaha…
Metal-Roos: I’m more of a Trekkie these days, sorry man…
Jason: Hahaha, I love Star Trek. But yeah, Star Wars appeals more to me.
Metal-Roos: Sithlord had been absent for about sixteen years and you came back in 2019 with “From Out of Darkness”. After playing and touring in a bunch of different bands such as Atomizer and Hobbs’ Angel of Death, what compelled you to get Sithlord back together?
Jason: Previously I’d had a hard time finding the right line-up to help me write this music. I got asked to play in a band in late-2013 called Sarfaust who were very death-thrash, very South American-influenced. All the members in that band were amazing. So I was in a band with those guys, and I thought “maybe I can ask these guys if they can help me record the new Sithlord stuff”. So we got the album recorded for Sarfaust, and while we were arranging a launch show the main songwriter said he wasn’t interested in continuing his project anymore.
So, the remaining three of us were like “What do we do?” I responded, “I have a bunch of Sithlord material sitting here, maybe we can record these?” The guys were cool with it. So we got Jamael on bass, Adrian on guitar and Lee on drums. We started jamming the songs, making some tweaks here and there, adding lyrics and we started recording in May the 4th of 2018. We initially had a label lined up for releasing the album but the guy running it was going through some personal issues, so we ended up just releasing it independently. We did the album launch in October of 2019, and had a bunch of interstate shows booked for 2020…
Metal-Roos: But we all know what happened there…
Jason: During lockdowns I started getting in touch with people learning how to promote the album myself. We also went through another line-up change. We had to let go of Adrian, our guitarist. I felt pretty bad about that but we still keep in touch and there were no hard feelings.
But I have learned a great deal about promoting our stuff independently, and I feel it’s benefitted us. With the new material we’re recording now, when they’re ready to be released I’ll see how we go with what I’ve learned.
Metal-Roos: Now that your first European trip is done, what’s next? You just mentioned new recordings…
Jason: So when I return home, the guitarist will have been working on these new songs. Hopefully we’ll get his guitar tracks down soon and do a final mix and master. I’m in two minds about how we’ll release these new tracks – either each track as singles, or all of them at once. Once these songs are released, we’ll look at doing some more interstate shows around Australia. Hopefully we’ll try and get out to Germany again soon, maybe a proper tour. That’d be fantastic. Just gotta save up more time off from work…
Metal-Roos: Oh yeah… the day job thing…
Hahaha, yeah. We do this for the love of it.
Metal-Roos: You’ve played Europe before in Hobbs’ Angel of Death, but you’ve been trying to get your own project out here for so long. For Australian metal musicians, getting to Europe is such a hard undertaking. But now, for you it’s finally happened…
Jason: I’m fucking stoked! It’s taken me thirty years to get my own band over to Europe. I am over the moon! I feel so honoured that I’m able to be here, because not every band can get over here and get the reception we’ve been able to get. I feel eternally grateful for everyone who helped me when I thought this couldn’t happen, and to everyone who enjoyed it. It’s got me wanting to do it again, so I’ll do what I can to come back! Once these new songs are released later this year, the writing process will happen again. I’ve got ideas for another album, so that could turn up next year or the year after. Hopefully we’ll use that for something to do another tour.
Metal-Roos: Thank you again for the chat, Jason. Cheers!
Jason: Thank you very much! Very much appreciated.