I’m a bit of a webcomic fan, and there is no doubt in my mind that when it comes to character development and addictiveness, no one does it better than Jeph Jacques’ Questionable Content, which stars Marten Reed (left in above pic) as he and his circle of friends… exist. It is seriously the first thing I do when I wake up in the morning; I roll over, turn off my alarm clock, and I check QC.
In the series, Marten is the guitarist in the instrumental post-metal band Deathmøle, which fans of Isis, Pelican, Cloudkicker, and Cult of Luna should enjoy. Much like Metalocalypse’s Dethklok, this virtual band releases music, and has released all of their work for free (which you can download here.)
In a surreal turn of events, I was actually able to get an interview with Marten. It wasn’t easy, and don’t ask me how, but I managed to make contact with him and ask him a few questions!
Thank you for talking with me today. First thing’s first: introduce yourself!
Okay uh my name is Marten Reed and I play guitar in the band Deathmøle.
How long have you been playing guitar?
I started when I was like 14 and I am 24 now so about 10 years!
I mean no offense, but you seem to be the indie hipster type of guy, so what made you decide to be in a metal band like Deathmøle?
Well it sort of happened by accident, the other guys in the band with me when we were starting out (Amir [Bass] and Nat [Keyboard/Sonic Texturalist], Nat’s not in the band anymore since she broke up with Amir) were more into the metal stuff and I just kind of went along with it. And it turns out that playing metal is pretty fun! Especially now that we have an actual drummer.
On that subject, what music inspires you, metal or otherwise?
Oh most of the stuff I write is pretty Isisy or Pelicany I guess, then sometimes I’ll be playing a riff and Amir will be like “dude that is a total High on Fire riff if you speed it up!” So I speed it up! My girlfriend is actually way more into metal than I am, she’s all about Behemoth and Opeth and Deathspell Omega and all these other bands. I really like Gojira, those dudes write some great stuff and their drummer is CRAZY GOOD. But I listen to all sorts of things, mostly indie rock but some electronic things too. I guess I get most of my guitar inspiration from people like Hum or Failure or Isis, those guys were all really good at doing huge guitar sounds.
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