Enter Sceptre – Tormentor

By starrymag | April 14, 2023

By: Lisa Steinberg

 

 

Q) How would you describe your sound?

 

A) I would describe my sound as an electromagick soul trip through the ocean.

Maybe an alternative pop blend with electronic beats and a parading orchestra.

 

Q) Who are some of your musical influences?

 

A) Glass Animals is and forever will be my all-time favorite band. The creativity of their music and the freedom Dave has while performing is so steeped in me from listening to them, seeing their shows and watching those shows on YouTube nonstop for years.

That being said, every year I’m in the .01% of listeners of Daft Punk on Spotify, and every element of their music and artistry has influenced the way I work.

Grimes, Electric Light Orchestra, the Gorillaz and Aurora are all totally free in their creating and I bow down to them for it.

Any artist that blends a danceable drum and bass with weird lyrics, concepts and sounds, that adds an orchestra from the 1800s and a robot singing from 2055 is one that I have been heavily influenced by.

 

Q) Talk about the story behind your new song “Tormentor.”

 

A) “Tormentor” can be about any entity that absolutely devours your peace. But at the time a certain person I was in love with had been raking me through the coals.

It’s very personal and incredibly embarrassing at this point so I don’t want to elaborate too much on this unfortunate lesson of humanity, but it’s all in the song.

 

Q) What do you think it is about the song that fans connect to?

 

A) The pain of love. It’s so powerful! Few things are as universally experienced and acknowledged as love, and in this current age the way relationships are respected is brutal.

The bar of acceptable treatment is on the floor, whether from preexisting beliefs or societal norms, but with that goes our self-respect and self-worth. Humans are infinite creatures and the physical embodiment of love. Yet we forget all that and will desperately pine for the attention of someone who hardly gives us the time of day. I broke my own heart when I realized that.

 

Q) How does the video for the track play into the message behind it?

 

A) The videos are taken in a vast range of dunes, completely devoid of life. The longest walk to nothing and nowhere. A dried-out terrain that’s exhausting to trek. That’s kinda how love is. [laughs] The bad kind. At the time it was this hopeless expanse of nothing. I kept walking forward in pain, towards nothing, with a shred of hope in the back of my delusional skull as I drank from a dry oasis.

 

Q) What is your song writing process? Is it different from songs you create with lyrics?

 

A) This song actually started with the line, “You don’t know, where I go, my tormentor.” I had that descending melody, and I built the whole song around it.  I don’t usually build songs around one line, and I think that’s why this one is severely lacking in structure, but I love a good song journey.

My usual process is creating an instrumental track that inspires me, whether it’s just a bass line, a beat or a guitar part and then I sing over that until I don’t hate it. Then, I just keep chiseling until I get progressively angrier and give up for a few months. I return with a fire and determination to complete something and maybe I get a song out of it.

I’d like to work on my process, the flow is a bit turbulent.

 

Q) How much of hand do you have in the production of your music?

 

A) I produce the entire song until the final mixing and mastering stage. I have found that becoming a mixing engineer, a really good one that takes the song from the demo that is trying so hard to be its full potential to actually realizing the song, is a really complicated skill. My time is better spent creating the music, and then I pass it off to someone who lets me loosen my grip. It’s no longer mine after it’s mixed, it becomes everyone’s. I’m like a greedy child and the mixer is my teacher making me share a little toy I found on the ground with everyone in class. And they barely care about this shit toy, but I’m sitting there wailing.

 

Q) Will there be a full album or EP coming in the near future?

 

A) Yes! I create at a snail’s pace though, so it will be in the regular future not the near one.

 

Q) Where are some of your favorite places to perform and what makes those locations so significant to you?

 

A) I haven’t played enough places to give this a true answer. Just going off of who I am, I tend to like places that made me feel good. One day there will be an incredibly special place, but for now the Mercury Lounge in NYC has my heart because it was the first venue I went to when I moved here with friends, and I looked at the stage and knew I would perform on it one day. And then I did! I’m a whore for moments like that.

 

Q) Who would you most like to collaborate with on a song in the future?

 

A) Glass Animals. Dave Bayley makes every song unique and makes albums beautiful works of cohesive storytelling. Millions of artists do this, but he did it when I needed it and it was a major influence in my life and creative endeavors.

Daft Punk if they would rise from the grave for just a moment.

 

Q) What album/band are you currently listening to and why do you dig them? 

 

A) I am currently listening to Aurora’s album The Gods We Can Touch on repeat. Every song has that pop danceability while she sings these ethereal, powerful stories about freeing human beings from original sin and the like. No one popular really sings about ancient mythology and enticing humans to realize they are a boundless soul. Get people singing that and we’ll have a very different society. And she has!

 

Q) You are a part of social media. Why is that such an important way for you to connect with your fans?

 

A) As tragic and uncomfortably intimate as social media is what keeps me on those apps is the ability to connect. It’s a direct line of communication that wasn’t possible before. Through one IG story and direct messaging I was able to send out twenty pieces of art to really cool people supporting me all over the world. That’s amazing, objectively. Anytime I think of deleting all my accounts I think of those people who have been supporting what I do, and realize I’d be sad if I destroyed the connection to them. Instead. I take regular breaks for my mental health. And physical.

 

Q) What would you like to say to everyone who is a fan and supporter of you and your work?

 

A) Hey you, I appreciate you. Your support means the world to me and more. This music is from you as much as it is from me. Enjoy! And do not forget:

“The man that hath no music in himself, Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, is fit for treasons, stratagems, and soils; The motion of his spirit are as dull as night, And his affections dark as Erebus. Let no such man be trusted. Mark the music.” – Shakespeare.