The Seattle group Yellfire are this week’s featured Meet The Band artist. Their full-length debut album Dear Gods was just released. Vocalist/guitarist Jerome Sauer and bassist Casey Nolan introduce us to their band.
Chad Bowar: Give us a brief history of Yellfire.
Jerome Sauer: Yellfire formed in 2018 with Trent (drums), me (guitar/vox), Eric (guitar) and Nouela Johnston (bass). After Trent, Eric and my previous band ended, it was a quick and easy decision to move forward with a new lineup, with me taking over vocal duties. We quickly recorded our first EP Lara Flynn Boyle (named after our obsession with her character in Wayne’s World). In late 2019 Nouela departed amicably and Casey took over on bass. We made it through pandemics, we made it through babies, we made it through weddings. The only thing that can stop us is probably a second pandemic. That would suck.
Describe the songwriting process for Dear Gods.
Jerome: It was largely a collaborative process, usually stemming from a single riff and all of us working to guide the song to an aesthetically pleasing space. Some songs came together effortlessly, others were a bit of a drudge to get to a point of completion. The entire album’s writing process stems back some time, a few songs were interrupted by COVID, having kids, a member change, hot dogs. However, once studio time was booked the final six or so songs really came together relatively quickly. Now looking back in hindsight, we got into a groove and rode it right into the studio.
What will be your strongest memory of the recording of the album?
Jerome: The overall vibe of that studio and town. We recorded (for a week) in a small maritime city called Anacortes in the upper northwest corner of Washington, in a church that was built in the early 1900’s (~1909-1920) and converted to a studio in 2010. The studio (and the town) has eerie abandoned/desolate vibes. Every trip up to the control room to listen to playback we’d look down on the studio through the control room window to the massive room full of musical equipment, semi haunting cathedral artwork and stained glass windows. We’d then pray to Satan that our album would be good; he came through.
What was the biggest challenge in its creation?
Jerome: Putting all things into perspective, I think this came together relatively painlessly. There were some roadblocks that came up here and there, but we were methodical in writing, prepping, recording, etc… I guess what was a little difficult was waiting. Because we were being methodical, it took some time to put certain things in place. Looking back on it, it was totally worth everything we’d done to make sure this was the best output we could generate.
How would you characterize its style/sound?
Jerome: To me this is a post hardcore record that covers a lot of ground. There are moments of ambient drone-like movements juxtaposed with chaotic sledgehammer riffs where we’re trying to cram as many notes into a small space as possible; make the listener question their existence.
What inspired the album title?
Jerome: Trent came up with the title for this one, I think it’d been something he’s been sitting on for a time. We all liked the title, to me it’s multi-faceted; it speaks to crying out for help to anyone who’s listening. Religiously it kind of says, “no one’s right, you don’t know shit.”
What lyrical topics do you cover?
Jerome: We’re not a political band. However, the state of everything around us in the U.S., or the world for that matter, sucks you into it. A lot of the lyrics speak to how divided modern politics have made us. If you’re “this” that automatically means you hate xxx, and if you’re “that” you must be the opposite and you need to be thrown into a trash fire. In reality, life is much more nuanced and complex. In writing the lyrics that made me lock into the concept of two entities becoming so far apart that they actually start to mirror one another. I also wrote a song about how I think table tennis is cool (which it is), I’ll let you (America) decide which song that is.
What was the impact of the guest artists that appeared on the album?
Jerome: I’m not sure of the impact on the record (other than it made it better), but I think it had a personal impact on each of us. The fact these people, that we admire, wanted to participate and contribute meant the world to us. Pretty much any outside entity that helped us with this we look up to in a way, and we are more than grateful that they were a part of “Dear Gods.”
How did you come to sign with The Ghost Is Clear Records?
Jerome: Leading up to recording we had a good friend (Rich Hall) wanting to help us get this future album out there, TGICS was on his radar. Additionally, we’d played a few shows with some touring bands and everyone kept saying, “you should send this to Bobby, he’d love it.” We got it in front of Bobby and he was basically like, “I’m in, let’s do this!” Working with Bobby has been great, he cares about what he does and is passionate about all the bands on his roster and it shows.
What are your goals and expectations for the album?
Casey Nolan: It would be rad if people like the album and it allows us to play some cool shows out of the NW area in the future. We’ve been super fortunate to play with some amazing out of town bands that have later become buds, like Rid Of Me and Facet.
What has been your most memorable Yellfire live show?
Jerome: One of the most memorable shows for myself was one of the final shows at Bar House (the venue portion is now gone, but the bar is still operating). Bar House is owned and operated by Ben Verellen who is one of the nicest, talented people on the entire planet. We were able to get Kowloon Walled City to come up for the show. The crowd, the bands, the hangs were all top notch. It’s a bummer that the venue side had a shut down, but we’re grateful we were able to play there before they turned the lights off.
Casey: There have been a lot of memorable moments and we’ve been very fortunate to have played in some really rad spaces. But there’s one location in particular that I’ll definitely remember for some time. It was an all ages space in Vernon, BC that was operated as a record shop, band practice spaces, mocktail bar and venue. Sadly we were one of the last shows that was happening at the spot (due to familiar issues that all ages spaces run into). Everyone there was super friendly, and during our set, the crowd started to row on the ground, Amon Amarth-style, during the song “Red Sky.” While I was trying to look tough during the last song of the set, I couldn’t help but smile the whole time.
What are your upcoming show/tour plans?
Casey: We have our record release show on Friday, December 13th at an all ages space called The Black Lodge in Seattle. It’s with our buddies Heiress, Tears of Joy, and Chaos Servant. Next year we plan on hitting the east coast and midwest, along with some overseas dates.
What are some of your non-musical interests and hobbies?
Jerome: Three of us share an affinity of being disappointed yearly by our dumb baseball team (sarcasm: Go Mariners!) and Trent makes snare drums (McIntyre Drum Co). Casey loves dogs, Eric loves cats, I love table tennis and Trent loves weed.
What’s the best thing you binge watched lately?
Jerome: “The Penguin” is amazing. Rad mob drama woven into the batman universe. I’m also on my 27th rewatch of Star Trek: DS9.
Casey: “Abbott Elementary” is one of the few shows I keep up on.
What’s currently in your heavy musical rotation?
Jerome: Typically I’m forever stuck in early 2000’s listening to Lack Blues Moderne and Knut Challenger. But the new Great Falls – Objects Without Pain has been in heavy rotation this last year. It is so goddamn good.
Casey: I’ve been playing the new Regional Justice Center record Freedom Sweet Freedom a lot.
Anything else you’d like to mention or promote?
Jerome: A lot of amazing people helped make this great along the way. The album artwork was a custom piece created by an art group out of Greece called Frank Moth. Big thanks to Clyde Petersen for shooting and editing the music video, Eric Urbach for doing amazing layout, Andrew Gomez IV for helping with design/promotion, Jason Sissoyev (who is in a great band called Coastlands) and Derek Moree for recording/engineering, Matt Bayles for mixing, Magnus Lindberg for mastering, and the ridiculous guest vocalists (and their current bands) – Ben Verellen (Helms Alee/Constant Lovers), John Pettibone (Heiress), Demian Johnston (Great Falls) and Nouela Johnston (People Eating People/Nouela) and huge fucking thank you to Bobby from The Ghost is Clear Records!
(interview published November 16, 2024)
Watch Yellfire – “Wabi Sabi” Video
