HEAVY-METAL
HERMIT
For 20 years, Xasthur’s Scott Conner didn’t tour. He didn’t do
interviews. He recorded solo. He posed with nooses, called himself
“Malefic,” recorded songs with names like “Slaughtered Useless
Beings In A Nihilistic Dream,” recorded vocals in a coffin and
became one of the most famous figures in American black metal
— a mostly Scandinavian phenomenon when Conner started
Xasthur in 1995.
But, as it turns out, he’s not such a grouch, or at least so he
claims.
“Being misanthropic isn’t something I try to hold on to or aspire
to be,” Conner says. “But then again, people have always gone out
of their way to make me hate them.”
Still, you’d be forgiven for thinking something’s softened in the
43-year-old Californian. He’s given up on black metal and now
slings an acoustic guitar, playing a dark, spiritual sort of folk music
inspired by finger-pickers like John Fahey and Jack Rose. Conner is
friendly, even funny, on Facebook, interacting with fans and
plugging merch.
Most shockingly, Xasthur is now touring — comprising Connor,
singer-guitarist Chris Hernandez and mononymous bassist Rachel
— and played its first live shows in April 2015. The band plays Old
Nick’s Pub on Wednesday, Dec. 14, with Sugar Skulls & Marigolds
and A Court Of Owls.
Live, Hernandez sings at the fore of the stage, acting as
something of a frontman. Conner silently slouches in the back with
Rachel, seated, his face shrouded in a bandana that fills in for the
corpse paint (think KISS makeup, but scarier) of yore.
“The way people look is a distraction and gets in the way of
listening,” Conner says of the bandanna. “It doesn’t matter what
they look like. [Xasthur] is about giving more to hear and less to
look at ... for a change.”
Conner’s no pop star, but, ironically, he’s had to keep up
appearances in the last couple years. In 2010, he briefly quit the
Xasthur project, abandoned the Malefic moniker and continued as
Nocturnal Poisoning — a name borrowed from the first Xasthur
album, released in 2002. It was under this name that he took the
stage for the first time, accompanied by Hernandez.
Since metalheads knew what Xasthur was about, but not
Nocturnal Poisoning, Conner quickly found distribution and
booking opportunities dried up.
“Sure is funny how that changed with the name returning to
Xasthur,” he muses bitterly.
Though his direction hasn’t changed much since Nocturnal
Poisoning — the name of one album, Doomgrass, isn’t a bad
descriptor for his new style — Conner insists the new project is
very much Xasthur. Still, don’t expect to hear such classics as
“Legacy of Human Irrelevance” or “May Your Void Become as Deep
as My Hate!” when they take the stage at Old Nick’s.
Xasthur, Sugar Skulls & Marigolds and A Court of Owls perform 9
pm Wednesday, Dec. 14, at Old Nick’s Pub; $8-$10. 21-plus. — Daniel
Bromfield
32
December 8, 2016 • eugeneweekly.com