RAVENSONG: an interview with composer/musician Justin Johnsen.
BATPAL: How and when did Ravensong get started?
JUSTIN: Ravensong really got started in January of 1989. For the winter holidays I had been given a cassette player that could do overdubs. I began writing songs on it. So from the start, Ravensong has been more of a “studio” band than a live band. On those first songs I used a primitive Yamaha keyboard with some neat sounds and a few painfully simple drumbeats along with my main instrument –guitar– and my first attempts at singing. Actually, I still use the keyboard in some of my songs, although now they’re mostly done on the elaborate MIDI keyboard I have access to at school. The incarnations of “Butterfly Wisdom” and “The Jackal” that appear on Exorcism are reworkings of some of those early songs, and I intend to redo a few more of them. Ravensong eventually became dormant as I spent time with a few live bands, having tired of working entirely by myself. “The Calling of Bacchus” was written while I was in a band called The Watchmen (now defunct), and I have performed it live with two bands that I have been involved in.
Gradually these bands fell apart, and my sole musical outlet became my Ravensong music once again. By this time I had started attending Long Beach City College and was doing most of my writing on the sequencers and 8-track machines there. The sequencers allowed the music to become more elaborate, but l think it lost a little of the dark, raw minimalism of my original recordings. I’m working now (after Exorcism) on recapturing some of that feel by using more guitars and live keyboards. It’s important to retain the human element to the music. The name Ravensong, incidentally, didn’t suggest itself until sometime during 1992. I felt that I needed a “band” name to work under, and Ravensong was the only one that seemed appropriate; it was generic, but had a certain mystique to it. Raven is my guiding animal, and songs are what l create.
BATPAL: I was especially struck by the poetic virtue of the lyrics to songs like, “Solitude” and “Butterfly Wisdom”. Where do you find your inspiration?
JUSTIN: I try to make my music an expression of my self, so just about everything in my life influences it to some extent. Of the songs on Exorcism, I feel like “Solitude” is the best expression of me. It is written about a morning spent alone in nature, a morning full of realizations about myself and my life. A “spiritual” experience. My spiritual (metaphysical, supernatural, whatever word you care for) beliefs and experiences are sources of inspiration for much of my poetry, but so far that hasn’t really become a significant part of Ravensong. I’d like to incorporate a little more mysticism into my music. I have also been inspired to write poems/lyrics about negative feelings and experiences, and that is more of what you find on Exorcism. Somehow writing down these things and putting them into songs is a way of cleansing myself of them, turning destructive thoughts into creation. An exorcism. You mentioned “Butterfly Wisdom”; that was written about a friend who did a tremendous amount of LSD and began to hear voices in his head.
Musically I have numerous inspirations, though I honestly think that Daniel Ash’s older work has been the greatest. I listen to many different styles of music, and they all affect what I write to some degree. Some of the ones I feel have shown as influences in my songs are Tones on Tail, Coil, World of Skin, Dead Can Dance, Legendary Pink Dots… l used to play guitar in a jazz band in high school, and even that has affected my songwriting. I learned a couple of chords for “The Calling of Bacchus” in jazz band.
BATPAL: I know you and Anji are both fans of Twin Peaks (hence the song “Into the Black Lodge”) I’d love to hear any comments you might care to make about this particular television program…?
J: “Into the Black Lodge” was written by accident. It was during a time when I was first becoming interested in –might I say obsessed with?– Twin Peaks. As I watched the first seven or so episodes, I was collecting a tape of samples from the series. I had the beginnings of a song that didn’t seem to be going anywhere, so for fun I took some of the scarier samples and put them to the music. I didn’t really intend to do anything with the composition, but as time went on I grew fonder of it and ended up including it on Exorcism. I am still a devout fan and hold to this day that Twin Peaks is the best series ever to have aired on American television. David Lynch is a genius. His work must be taken both literally and symbolically: on one level, Twin Peaks is a somewhat fantastic story of otherworldly entities meddling with the affairs of humans; but it can also be taken as a story of the horrors of physical/sexual child abuse and the neuroses that spring from such matters. Twin Peaks is a statement on humankind in general; Lynch brings to light all of the surreal and unexplainable things that happen in real life but are too often ignored out of apathy, fear, or misunderstanding.
BATPAL: In California (distinct in comparison to Kansas) there is a concentration of “Gothic” subculture and image among young people. Can you reflect on this? Any thoughts on the “scene” in general in comparison to, and in relation to, the artists, writers, musicians, etc.. who provide the substance behind it?
JUSTIN: Ah, the Gothic scene. I’m not much a part of that,though I have become more so lately. I think there are a number of weaknesses to that scene. The problem is that many of the people involved in it are immature or lack depth. It operates, on the large scale, the same way that society as a whole does. People are conforming to something just like the rest of society, it’s just that what they conform to as goths isn’t accepted by the rest of society. Too many gothic club-goers are concerned mostly with looking good when they dance, fitting the image that they feel is what makes them a goth, having emotionally traumatic soap operas, and catching up on the latest gossip. I’ve heards stories where good bands were playing at places like Helter Skelter and most of the club goths just stayed in the other room dancing and ignored them. There are certain bands everyone feeis obligated to like, and there is an element of closed-mindedness to anything that isn’t acceptably gothic. It seems like the ideals of the movement give way to the image. Actually, I don’t even know that the gothic scene has any ideals. I used to think when I was very young that it was comprised of people banding together because they felt out of place in Western society. As I grew. I realized that it was my own misconception.
But here I am, bitching about the scene, and not talking about the good aspects. Although there is some shallowness to be witnessed, there are a lot of really interesting people involved in the gothic subculture. I’ve met some of them, and because of California’s gothic culture, there will always be more to meet. Recently there has been an abundance of good shows by local bands., and that is another benefit of the size of the scene. I have to say that people who create the music, art,etc., are in a different category than the genral club-going/music-listening types. Many of the originators aren’t as concerned with being perceived as gothic, and so they bring more variety into the scene. Of course, there are a few bands (I will mention no names) who are no different than the shallowest conformist goths that I mentioned earlier, but one must expect that in any movement.
BATPAL: What projects are you and Anji planning for the future? Additional works from Ravensong? Any more fanzine work?
JUSTIN: Anji and I plan to continue writing songs together. Whether this will turn out to be Ravensong or another project, I don’t know yet. I want to have either another Exorcism-length release or else a split 7-inch single with another band out by the end of the year. My plans could change tomorrow, though. I am studying recording in school, so this summer I may be doing some recording for a local band called Praise of Folly. I’ll be recording more Ravensongs during the remainder of my studio time. As far as fanzines go, I am assisting Anji with two at the moment. The first is a continuation of her last zine, Substitution, and the second zine is a project that Anji is doing with a friend. It will be called Descent, and will focus more on dark (gothic etc.) music. Both should be high-quality publications.
Bathory Palace thanks Justin Johnsen for his time and effort.
RAVENSONG: EXORCISM
The first demo for this musical project from Long Beach, CA, Exorcism is an inspired collection of ethereal and experimental tracks. Keyboard and guitar, layered over a moving drumline, are given articulation through poetic lyrics touching on dark themes such as isolation and insanity. Ravensong features two members. Justin Johnsen and Anji Bee; together, they’ve created a remarkable beginning with this album. I hope there will be more from Ravensong in the future.