As I covered briefly here last month, I was incredibly impressed by what I heard on Xaphon’s full-length debut, Heights of the Far North. The more I listened to the album and the more I got to know about the man behind Xaphon, the more I understood why I had instantly and deeply connected with his music. The obvious next step was for me to get my fanboy on and ask him to be the subject of an interview here on TPD, and, man, am I ever glad I did!
This interview goes just as hard as Xaphon’s music, not because of the interviewer, but because of the interviewee and the omnipotent God he serves. I hope you, dear reader, enjoy it half as much as I did.
TPD: Tell us a little about yourself, your background, and how you came to love music and to be a musician.
My name is Drew and I’m a vocalist and guitarist living in Clarksville, Tennessee, although I previously lived in Nashville for about 10 years and then lived in a little town called Bell Buckle after that. I’m originally from the Chicago suburbs but moved to the Nashville area in 2012 to play guitar for As Hell Retreats. After AHR broke up in late 2012 I thought it was a good time for me to lay some roots down and start to establish myself here. I played in dozens of bands of varying genres including Deaf Kid, Pocket Science, Kinhin, Muir, Threnodian and Mental Collapse. I did everything I could to keep a guitar in my hands and try to build a life for myself. I enjoyed collaborating with different musicians but when I originally cast my vision for Xaphon, I felt like I needed to write music on my own and put my own thoughts and message into the music and lyrics.
TPD: Tell us about some of your most important musical influences, whether Christian or secular.
My musical influences are pretty much all over the place. I originally got into heavy music when I first heard P.O.D. and Rage Against the Machine. From there I discovered a whole world of metal music that professed Christ and as a young person I felt incredibly encouraged and empowered by a slew of bands including Skillet, Pillar, Justifide, Stavesacre and then from there got into the more extreme stuff like Crimson Thorn, Mortification, ZAO, Extol, Lengsel, Mantric, Insense, Benea Reach, Selfmindead, Crimson Moonlight, Living Sacrifice, and Impending Doom. I would say that I’m equally influenced by secular artists and listen to everything from brutal death metal, all the abominations of black metal, the impressionist composers and shredding guitar players like Allan Holdsworth, Steve Vai, Frank Gambale, and Erik Rutan. Currently my favorite bands are Mizmor, Tribal Gaze, Defeated Sanity, and Knoll.
TPD: How did you arrive at death metal as your genre of choice for Xaphon?
When I originally set out to write music for Xaphon, I found that a lot of the early stuff I was writing was black metal, but then I started writing more brutal groove oriented riffs that were pure death metal. I didn’t want to mislabel my music so I went with death metal. I also love playing guitar solos over chord progressions like Allan Holdsworth did, so that stuff started to show up in my compositions. All that to say, when you listen to Xaphon, you’ll hear a lot of different types of metal. I suppose my artistic quest is to make that as cohesive and listenable as possible.
TPD: Tell us about how you became a Christian.
I committed my life to Christ when I was 11 years old at the church I was raised in. I was baptized and gave a proclamation of faith to everyone at the baptism. It’s a great memory of mine and I’m grateful to my parents and the church I went to growing up for helping to instill biblical values in me. I remained a Christian throughout college and into my early 20s. Sometime around my mid-20s I started to deconstruct my faith and I started investigating other worldviews heavily. I went total bug-man. I was drinking a lot and smoking a lot of weed. My thinking and reasoning became very cloudy and I remember thinking I would live as though God didn’t exist, because at that time I was struggling heavily in life, nothing was working out for me, and I felt God abandoned me. After that, I had two really huge bumps in the road that brought me even lower and life looked incredibly bleak for me. Through the help my guitar-playing, Christian mentor at the time, I recommitted my life to Christ. Things stayed really hard for awhile, but I believe God honored my decision to serve him and now I’m a happily married man that has two dogs, and makes brutal death metal from my house. I am eternally grateful to Jesus for what he has brought me through and the person I have become today. Now, all I want to do is write music that helps others and encourages the Christian metalhead kid I once was, the way all the Christian metal fathers before me have.
TPD: The common conception among non-believers (and many believers) is that there can be art, and there can be Christianity and its message to the world, but the two cannot be intermingled because that ends up diluting both. I have been one of those skeptics from the believing side of the coin and still am to some extent. But, in my opinion, you have successfully overcome this conundrum in a way that few other bands have. Other than God-given talent, what would you say are some of the keys to this success?
Man, what a great question. This is a tough one though. I’m familiar with the conversation. HM Magazine had like a 99 part series on this very question that I remember reading when I was in high school. I think as believers, we are called to create things. God the Father is such a masterful Creator; there’s so much beauty in our world and there’s so much he’s given us to look at and be inspired by, it only makes sense in my mind that the imagers of God should create beautiful things, too. I understand that the early Christians and certainly the Christians of the Middle Ages, separated themselves from art as a way to grow closer to God.
I definitely think there is a time, season, and place for that, removing things from your life to grow closer to God. Things like alcohol, social media, your Deicide records, as sick as they are to listen to, might need to go because the lyrics are so opposing to your love and reverence of Christ. I totally get that, but I think what matters most is what’s happening on a heart level. Your heart should be in check with God and the teachings of Jesus… and the rest of the Bible for that matter. You could be incredibly legalistic and try to remove everything in the world from your life, but still, the heart can grow corrupt, and it does. Take a look at the TV show 19 Kids and Counting. Legalistic Christians, removing everything they could from their lives and their children’s lives, only to find Satan still dwelling among them. Maybe that’s the subject of the next Xaphon song, we shall see.
As far as Christian art goes, there’s a lot of bad stuff out there. I never really jived with Christian slam poetry for example, or the Left Behind book and movie series. As Christians, we should make art that is at a quality level as good as anything that is secular, or better. Practice your guitar more, write better songs, work on your craft until you master your instrument and think and read as much as you can, construct your own thoughts and beliefs, until you have something to say. Reflect God and bring the truth to people in a unique and artistic way.
My favorite Christian artists are writers C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien, painter John Martin, illustrator Gustave Doré, and keyboardist/composer J. S. Bach. Tell me again, one more time, that Christians don’t make good art. There’s an ocean of terrible secular art; you just won't hear about it, because making fun of Christians is too easy and doesn’t require as much work for people who hate Christ.
TPD: In your own words, what is art?
Art is something that transcends the medium it is composed in and speaks to the human soul, experience, and condition. Art reflects God and elevates the time and place a human is currently in, making them feel rich when they are poor, comforted when they are lonely, and alive when they are sick.
TPD: Tell us about your first full length, Heights of the Far North, and the process of bringing that album to life.
HOTFN took about a year to write, record, and produce. I arrived at a place where I was playing a lot of guitar and writing my own riffs, all of which were extreme metal. I felt like I had some things I wanted to say lyrically so I started writing and recording in January 2023. I wrote the first four songs on the record in the first two months of the year, then wrote essentially the rest of the album in the summer of 2023. I sent my song ideas to several friends and got some feedback, which was helpful. Working with Brandon Adams was awesome, he was able to elevate the songs so much with his mixing and then when it was mastered, there was another level of depth and clarity to the music that was added. I’m really happy with how it turned out, and now I just ask myself every day, “how do I get to the next level?”
TPD: Talk about some of the major themes running through the album.
Musically there’s a TON of harmonic minor and diminished scale tonality. Lyrically there’s a lot of different themes, from childhood trauma, school shootings, being an image bearer of Christ, the divine council worldview, a 119-foot-wide sinkhole at a copper mine, human data as oil, and paying homage to your ancestors. There’s a lot there and I like to leave some room for listeners to interpret the songs how they want to.
I definitely consider the album to be more like Pictures at an Exhibition rather than a super-cohesive record where the songs all flow together.
TPD: How have your surroundings in the mountains of East Tennessee influenced your music? I couldn’t help but notice the Billy Strings t-shirt you were wearing in one of your Instagram videos, so I imagine that you’ve been informed by other genres outside of the metal realm.
I don’t really think the mountains of East Tennessee have had really any influence on my music. I live in Northwest Tennessee near the Kentucky border and it is very similar to the Midwest with big box stores, dirty gas stations, and crowded roads with giant potholes. That being said, I love the Appalachian mountain range and I try to hike a portion of the trail at least once a year. When I was in high school I visited East Tennessee and I absolutely loved the Smokies and how beautiful it was there. That’s probably why I live in Tennessee today.
I love bluegrass music and I’m going to see Billy Strings for the first time in late February. I love that Billy likes metal and he plays a super mean acoustic guitar.
[Editor’s note to self: look at a map next time! Clarksville is, in fact, in Western Tennessee. Knowledge of my neighboring state’s geography needs to be expanded.]
TPD: What has the reception been like for your music locally and beyond? Do you have any aspirations to perform your music live at any point in the future?
Several of my friends have reached out and said that they really like the record so that’s always nice to hear. Xaphon has not performed live yet, so there’s no real way for me to gauge local reception vs. the reception in other cities/parts of the world. I can tell you this, I have a nearly complete lineup of musicians that are all insanely talented and we are preparing for battle, to bring the music of Xaphon to a town near you.
TPD: What do you like to do with your free time apart from your music?
I have a YouTube channel where I talk about all things relating to metal guitar playing. I usually upload one to two videos a week. I love talking gear with other players and talking about the craft of playing guitar at all levels. Making videos is a grind and I feel like I suck at it a lot of the time, but to me, it’s the best way to build an audience and get people interested in my music. I have about eight guitar students now and I really enjoy working with them each week. I love spending time with my wife; we love trying out a new restaurant or going to a movie. I love taking my dogs on walks and going for runs with them. I try to show up to Planet Fitness a few days a week so I can be the ultimate Christian death metal warrior I am trying to be [laughs].
TPD: What's next for Xaphon?
We are gearing up for live shows. I’ve already started writing new material but I’m looking forward to writing with the other guys in the band. Hoping to get another new record out sooner than later.
TPD: Is there anything else you'd like to share with the TPD audience?
Thanks for reading this far. I hope listening to Xaphon empowers you and you can get more stuff done in your life because of it.
Be sure to follow Xaphon on Bandcamp and Instagram.
You can also follow Drew on YouTube and Instagram and reach out for guitar lessons with him on his website!