I have absolutely no idea how it is already Thursday. Anyway! Our second Profile of the week features Denver sludge/doom practitioners In The Company Of Serpents. They’re releasing A Crack In Everything on July 11th (tomorrow), an album that is as gritty as it is cathartic. It’s a sound that hovers between the eerie and the abrasive, and the resulting form of sludge metal they’ve created is one I am fully behind. So, with this release on the immediate horizon and a busy month on the road right after its release, I think it’s time to explore this project a little further. Give the responses to our questions a read below – there is plenty of good stuff to explore there – and hit play to get a feel for what’s coming.

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How and when did you first get into playing music, or metal more specifically, and how did your band get its start? Any pushback from family/those close to you?

I started actively listening to and seeking out new music at a young age – six or seven years old – but I didn’t start playing guitar until I was ten. The first teacher my parents sent me to principally was concerned with teaching me to read music and replicate various easy classical pieces that I had no interest in. She did, however, teach me to play the opening riff of “Crazy Train”, so that was the first metal I’d learned to play. I found a teacher couple years later who would teach me literally anything I brought him, transcribing it by ear, so I began to learn how to play a lot 90s punk, some early Metallica, Rage Against the Machine, etc. Metal riffs were the most fun to play, and they were a lot more challenging. Best yet, they were menacing, and I loved that about them.

In the Company of Serpents began in 2011, shortly after I met our founding drummer, JJ Anselmi, when both of us were playing in country-tinged bands the previous year. During soundcheck I was messing around with some Earth riffs – either off of the “Hex” record or “The Bees Made Honey in the Lion’s Skull” – and JJ approached me, immediately recognizing the material. We both wanted to make music like this, but had no other musician friends really into it, and we decided to start a band together.

As far as pushback is concerned, I thankfully haven’t experienced much. My mom, a very prim-and-proper practicing Christian, was not thrilled initially, but eventually saw how much thought, effort, and passion went into it, and warmed to it. Both my parents have attended a bunch of our shows sporting our merch, some of the only printed t-shirts they own. It’s cute – they think it’s some kind of transgression to be there, and will be like, “Grant, what will your fans think when they see two 70 year olds hanging out in the mosh pit?” They have no idea what a mosh pit is, or that our shows rarely have them, but I just tell ‘em “people will actually just think it’s cool that you’re here!”

How would you describe your band and what you play to someone who is completely in the dark?

We take elements of influence from a pretty broad spectrum of material, but it’s largely a blend of doom/sludge and post-metal, with a healthy dose of Ennio Morricone’s eerie spaghetti western scores thrown in for good measure.

Is there anything about your upcoming album or about your band that no one will find in any interview or review that you care to divulge?

I am a pretty open book about our material, so a lot of the subject matter is already out there, but this one is less shrouded in esotericism than our previous work, and more directly about my personal experience. As such, it’s a more vulnerable record, as it explores the despairing reality of alcoholism.

One thing I haven’t talked about much yet was the recording process. This album was recorded entirely to tape with Pete deBoer at his World Famous Studios outside Denver. For ages it has been a bucket list item for us to record an album to tape, and I specifically wanted to go to Chicago and do so with Steve Albini. When he passed away last year, I decided Pete was the way to go – he’s worked on some of my favorite material from other local heavy hitters like Spectral Voice and Blood Incantation, and his studio is loaded with killer Moog synths and rare amps.

Recording to tape was an absolute breeze, which we hadn’t expected. Tape leaves little room for error, and you don’t have the opportunity to go in and tweak every little note or drum hit until it’s perfect, as would be the case for a fully digital production. That actually holds a lot of appeal to me, as it is a far closer representation of what a band sounds like than something that is exquisitely tweaked and polished. More often than not, the latter approach sounds sanitized, and winds up losing a lot of the energy that would have made the material compelling in the first place. We came in very well-rehearsed, and had also done pre-production demos with Ben’s Nightwraith bandmate, Jacob St. Amand, which we’d never done previously leading up to a recording session.

All said and done, it wound up being a very easy session because we were well-prepared, and we had a great experience working with Pete. I’d recommend him and his studio to anyone interested in a heartbeat.

Any funny stories from playing shows / tours / festivals, etc?

Ages ago we were playing LA on tour in support of Merging in Light. J Bennet, who writes for Decibel, amongst many others, was there with Sera Timms, his bandmate in Ides of Gemini, who we’d opened for in Denver maybe a year prior. I’d invited them out, and wanted to put on a killer show, as we’d rarely performed in from of legit press at that point. Of course, I happened to break a string mid-song. We utilize numerous different weird tunings on baritone scale guitars, and re-tuning the only other guitar I had with me would have taken longer than just swapping the string as swiftly as I could. Also, at this stage we were a two-piece and had no samples or other effects to cover dead air in the event of this kind of incident.

Our drummer at the time, Joe Weller-Meyer, took the opportunity to serenade the audience with an acapella rendition of Seal’s “Kissed by a Rose” to take the eyes off me as I scurried to change the string. It turned an embarrassment and minor disaster into a very funny moment for all present.

What do you see as some of the great things happening in and around the metal scene (yours or just in general) and what are some of the worst things happening right now?

The Denver scene continues to produce killer bands across the heavy spectrum, and they are largely all friendly and not overly competitive with each other. So that is very cool, and refreshing when you hear how back-stabby and insular a lot of other cities’ heavy music scenes can be.

From where I am sitting, the worst things happening in music in-general right now is the emphasis on so-called content creation. Social media can be great for some aspects of being in a band – if you reach out to us you’re starting a direct conversation with me, so that allows bands to be more accessible to their audience, which I feel is positive. However, there is an expectation that we should also be constantly pumping out bullshit “content” in order to capture the goldfish attention span that our society collectively has developed, and that sucks. So, in addition to being a songwriter and performer, I am now expected to know video production & editing, and to be an “influencer” of some sort in order to justify our existence. Fuck that noise.

Most folks have passions for a cause or causes that are close to them. What, if any, are some of the most important issues (social/political/humorous/etc.) for you / your band and how do you insert those issues into your music?

I, at my core, am a humanist. I want mutual flourishment for everyone, and believe everyone deserves to be treated with dignity and respect until they give you a reason not to. I don’t believe this is a radical perspective, but basic human decency. In the past, we’ve held benefit shows for local homeless charities here in Denver, as we felt that could have the most immediate impact, and we’ve also encouraged donations to Adopt a Native Elder, an organization which provides care and services to elderly Navajo folks living on the reservation.

Musically, we generally don’t insert these issues often, as we’ve mainly focused on esoteric and personal themes. The closest we’ve come would be our song, “Scales of Maat”, off our “Lux” album. The title is a reference to the Egyptian deity, Maat, who weighs the souls of the dead on a scale against a feather in the afterlife. If one’s soul is pure, and they’d lived a righteous life, it would be lighter than the feather. However, souls tainted by malicious and evil acts in life would outweigh it, and be condemned to torment. The opening lyrics are, “Would you be a force that liberates? Do you wish to fight for that that is life? Or do you wish to hide behind the knife? To ingratiate yourself with profane might?” I wrote that about the choice we all make in trying to live an honorable, just existence, and was very much thinking about the divisive and violent rhetoric being hurled around American society in 2018 when it was written. The sentiment stands today.

Do you have day jobs or hobbies you want to share?

I’m an avid reader, and mainly like to engross myself with occult and esoteric subjects. That said, I also read plenty of what I call “popcorn” books – sheer entertainment that calls into question the nature of being with far less frequency. To end, I read a lot of musician biographies, as well as comics. I also love to shoot pool, and took up silversmithing several years ago as well.

While In the Company of Serpents is my sole musical outlet, both my bandmates are actively involved in other projects, and are gifted songwriters. Ben’s baby is the band Nightwraith¸ and he is also the vocalist for the black metal band Abhoria. Andy has performed in Tin Horn Prayer and Only Thunder, and his day job is running concerts for Levitt Pavilion here in Denver, which chiefly hosts free & charitable concerts from all genres.

What advice do you have for music critics and outlets out there? How can we all better serve the genre in the eyes of a hard-working musician?

Be honest, and actually listen to the music you’re writing about. You’d be surprised how many journalists do neither!

Additionally, a pet peeve of mine is also when writers steer the conversation to broader issues irrelevant to the band or music they are writing about. Your question above about social issues and causes that are important to us was fine, as you ultimately asked how that was incorporated into our music, so I’m not specifically referring to you. However, I often see cases where the writer steers things towards whatever broader calamity is afflicting the world at the moment and is in the headlines, which can be very cringey. In 2020, when we released our last record, “Lux”, every other interview asked us bullshit like, “what are you doing to stay safe during the pandemic,” and “how do you think the government should be handling this?” It’s one thing to ask an overtly political band like Rage Against the Machine this stuff – Tom Morello is a Harvard-credentialled political scientist! But, you should not be turning to musicians as the sole arbiters of what constitutes good and evil in a fucked up world. You have all of social media to avail yourselves of the unfettered opinions of the uninformed.

Any specific long term goal(s) in mind?

I want to continue to push myself as a songwriter, and it is always our goal to improve with each subsequent release. As long as we feel that is what we are doing, we will continue doing it.

When you’re not obsessing over your own material, what are some of your favorite albums to listen to currently?

If forced to pick one, Chat Pile is my favorite band to emerge in the last few years. Their material is unnervingly intense, and I love their sound. People are always commenting on sonic equivalencies to Nu Metal, but my ears hear overt homage to 80s & 90s noise rock bands like The Jesus Lizard, Cows, or even Big Black. Their bass and guitar tones scream Jesus Lizard worship to me, and I love it. Of their two LPs, “God’s Country” is my favorite, but “Cool World” is great as well.

Some non-metal favorites that I return to regularly are “Creep on Creepin’ on” by Timber Timbre, “Phosphene Dream” by the Black Angels, “Warble Womb” by Dead Meadow, and “My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope to the Sky” by Swans. A newer one that’s been in rotation in the last two weeks is Ministry’s “The Squirrely Years Revisited”, which takes a fresh look at their earliest, pre-industrial material. Ben and I got to watch them perform it from the side of the stage a few weeks ago when his friend and former bandmate, Patrick, got promoted from tech to live bassist for a few shows.

What is the near future outlook for you or your band? Any specific events on the horizon that the masses should be aware of?

Our new record, “A Crack in Everything”, comes out on 7/11/25, and we will be doing a Midwest tour in July:

7/15/2025 Reverb Lounge – Omaha, NE w/ Profanatica, Weaving Shadows, Unidad Trauma
7/16/2025 7th Street Entry – Minneapolis, MN w/ Lungs, Blue Ox, Cache
7/17/2025 Sleeping Village – Chicago, IL w/ Djunah, Masonic Wave
7/18/2025 Bremen Cafe – Milwaukee, WI w/ Temporal Autonomy, Dog Skull 
7/19/2025 Racoon Motel – Davenport, IA * Festival Date Bands TBA
7/20/2025 Pizza Works Venue TBD – Peoria, IL w/ Aseethe, Night Mother, Lark’s Tongue 
7/22/2025 The Sinkhole – St. Louis, MO w/ Daybringer
7/23/2025 Kirby’s – Wichita, KS w/ Leech Fetish, Motion Sick
7/26/2025 Unhinged Fest – Denver, CO w/ Knocked Loose, The Dillinger Escape Plan, TheGarden, Health, Converge, Terror, more….
8/09/2025 The Bluebird Theater – Denver, CO * Record Release Show w/ Palehorse/Palerider, Cronos Compulsion

When we get home we are playing the inaugural Unhinged Fest in Denver on 7/26, which we are very excited about, and shortly after that we have our record release show at the Bluebird Theater on 8/9 with our friends in Palehorse/Palerider, who are most easily classified as “Doomgaze,” but that fails to capture the awesome sound they lay down. Opening that show will be Cronos Compulsion, a newer Denver band who play fierce, visceral death metal, and we’re excited to have them. Both of these hometown sets will be very different, so come to both shows!

Summarize your band in one word.

Catharsis.

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Many thanks to In The Company Of Serpents for the time!

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A Crack In Everything is out on July 11th. For more information on In The Company Of Serpents, head over to Instagram or Facebook.