HAMMERS OF MISFORTUNE - If Wishes Were Glass Horses Page 4
by Martin Popoff

Back on the subject of... subjects, John offers, "I know what it means to me, but... That's one of the things I have a problem with with respect to music videos. I'm so visual-oriented, if you associate the visual with the music with me, that visual will always colour my musical perception. That's why I think the cover is so important. And that's why I don't really dig videos, man. I don't really appreciate it when someone just lays everything out on a plate for me. Here, this is what it is, this is everything it means. It sort of destroys the mystique of what is in there. Like, what is in there anyway? Well, you know, whatever you find in there is in there..."

What are some literary influences on you?

"F**king, the Bible. For sure, dude (laughs). The Bible rules! It's sort of like all this 'and the beast of the fields shall perish, and the wheat of your mountain shall wither,' and the this and that. It just lists. There are tons of lists in the Bible. And also shit like 'Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water' (laughs). You know, like Famine's Lamp: 'Famine always hangs his lamp about holy land.' Fairy tales. Biblical writing; Edgar Allan Poe is my f**king Jimi Hendrix of writing. And Jimi Hendrix is the Jimi Hendrix of everything (laughs). Bob Dylan of course is extremely f**king clever. Literally influences? Very influenced by a guy named JK Huysmans; he wrote a book called A Rebours - Against The Grain, or Against Nature. Fantastic book! Fantastic. The prose, even translated from the French into English, is just breathtaking."

"But the lyrics on this record are just really distilled. Like, with the exception of The Locust Years and Trot Out The Dead, I tried to distill the lyrics down to the most purely... oh, I don't even know the word. I just wanted to sharpen the words to like a diamond-hard edge, very shiny and beautiful, very poetic and nice, but very hard. Like, the lyrics to Chastity Rides are my favorite I've ever done because it is the cruelest and most sarcastic song I've ever written. But now I'm giving a lot away. I knew we were going to get a lot of shit for that song. It's such a pretty, dreamy and feminine song, and we do a lot of that. And I have no apologies for anyone about that. And I'm pretty tired of hearing all these snot-nosed little kids whining about how we're not metal. Well don't f**king listen to it then, you know? (laughs). But yeah, Chastity Rides is an extremely sarcastic, sardonic song. The whole thing was just, I was cackling with glee as I wrote it."

HAMMERS OF MISFORTUNE - If Wishes Were Glass Horses Page 5