While Heaven Wept: The H.o.S. Interview
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UD: While most people think of WHW as an epic doom metal band, the first 7" was in the death/doom style. Though I'm not a big fan of that hybrid, these two songs really clicked for me. Is there some specific reason you decided not to go on in that style?
TP: I abandoned the death vocals a long, long time ago because they tended to obscure the emotion of the music, and made the lyrics indiscernible half of the time. When WHW began, we had a clean vocalist, and only after I first took on the vocal duties did I opt for the more aggressive vocal approach, but when the next singer came on board, we went right back to clean vocals. When I returned to the microphone a year or so later, I adopted the clean vocals for good. The origin of the first 7" is interesting because it was recorded at the same time as the Lovesongs Of The Forsaken release, which had all clean vocals, and "Into The Wells Of Sorrow" wasn't really even meant to be an official release. Basically, one day I was pretty frustrated during a day of vocal tracking, and decided to blow off some steam. Our engineer kept the tapes rolling, and that's how these versions of the songs came to be. Having been pressured by our friends for some kind of release after all that time (we'd been in existence for 5 years at that point in time), we decided to produce an extremely limited edition 7" for them, since it was clear that it would be another year before Lovesongs was complete. We took a couple tracks from the day of death vocals and that's how the 7" was born; strictly as a gift to our "inner circle."
UD: With every WHW release, you seem to become more confident and powerful as a vocalist. Take us through that progression and how the growth was facilitated.
Tom Phillips: It's really just a natural progression I suppose. I really did not "find my voice" until around the time of the Sorrow Of The Angels album. I have not consistently been working on my vocals the way I should over the years, and I'm sure this growth cannot be attributed to a diet of alcohol, pot, and cigarettes (laughs)! For the Empires recording, Kevin our engineer really pushed me for the best takes I could produce, so I have to give him some credit. Also, I am a bit more comfortable with the role of lead vocalist now (remember I am a guitarist/songwriter first and foremost), but I still have a hard time living up to my ideals, considering my idols are John Arch, Geoff Tate, and Steve Perry.
UD: You mention in the liner notes of the Chapter One collection that "Thus With A Kiss I Die" off the Sorrow Of The Angels album is your most cherished composition. If you would, take us through the creation of this song. Does it remain your favorite piece?
TP: I still consider "Thus With A Kiss I Die" my first "masterwork," in that it is a massive composition with a lot of orchestration and complex changes/moods, and it does capture perfectly the despair I felt when I lived through the events depicted in the lyrics, but I can't say that any one song is my "favorite" of all. As for how the song developed, it began in 1990 as two separate songs "Bound By Depression" and "Dying" that were performed by the original WHW, but they ended up getting shelved along with several other early compositions as songs like "In Aeternum" and "Into The Wells Of Sorrow" took precedence. After the Lovesongs MCD came out, one of the last things I jammed on with bassist Gabe Funston developed into the intro section of "Thus With A Kiss I Die." From there, I had the vocal melody, and simply harmonized the guitars with it, recognizing some similarities to the aforementioned shelved songs. So I ended up dissecting those for a few more parts and the majority of the song took shape. I finished it up while I was living in England with Solstice; all that really was left undone were the last few transitions in the bridge section. By the time I returned to the States, I felt like everything was flowing properly, and we began rehearsing this mammoth piece for the next year before returning to the studio to capture it on tape. Like I said, I can't really choose a favorite song, but "Thus" is definitely high on my list, and a very important contribution to the development of WHW.
UD: How does the songwriting process generally work for you? I know you've continued to improve on past compositions years after the fact. Are you constantly coming up with new material in the midst of tweaking the older stuff?
TP: Both the music and lyrics come to me when they do; it's 100% revelation, nothing is ever contrived. Once the basic exo-skeleton of a song is complete, I then take it to the table and develop the arrangements. There is no rhyme or reason to the songwriting process really; some songs are written in a matter of minutes, whilst others develop over several years. I am constantly coming up with new ideas, but I let the older songs grow and develop like the children they are just as often. Once the out-of-print Sorrow Of The Angels is re-released as Sorrow Of The Angels: Definitive Edition, there will not be any further re-recordings of older songs, but they may continue to evolve in the live setting.
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