Dateline: Seattle, May 2016 -Trouble
I drove over to Spokane, Washington, to interview September Mourning before her concert that night. For those of you who don’t know who September Mourning is, let me introduce you.
September Mourning is not a band. It is more than that. It is a project created by Emily Lazar that includes comics, music, cosplay, music videos, and concerts. It all revolves around the character September Mourning who is a human-reaper hybrid as she navigates the world of the living and the world of the dead. September Mourning is about giving human souls a second chance at life, toying with fate.
This project is one of the coolest ideas I’ve seen in a long time. It merges all the things we love so much, comics, music, videos and dark, macabre ideas.
Check out my interview with September Mourning:
Me: Do you think people born a dark soul or are they created that way through life experiences?
September: That’s a very man vs. nature question. I think we are all born on an equal playing field of sorts being human and all but we are born with different brains and different ways our neurons
fire. Environment has a lot to do with it. I was obsessed with death from a very young age because I was around it a lot. It was circumstance that I grew into a project that is all about death and second chances at life. The project this very personal. The character itself is born from me.
Me: How much of the character is you?
September: A lot. The character was born from within me. I’m not a supernatural being but September comes from within me and what I think about life and death and what I want to say
about it. The story is dark and macabre but has light thrown into it. If you are a Dark Soul but have a sliver of light, That light becomes bright and magnified since there is so little of it. My project is dark, but with a little bit of light and that light is an extreme of the darkness and can be very powerful.
Me: Do you have a hard time separating yourself from the character?
September: Because she was born within me, not really. She’s part of me that is magnified. I do three hours of makeup and costume and people think I’m crazy, but that is a part of my process. My transformation if you will, into the character.
Me: Do you find it therapeutic?
September: Very much so. The whole project is therapy for me.” She said with a laugh of realization. “I get to act on stage in a way that I don’t act in real life. I get to portray this outlandish
weird character … I get to magnify those qualities about myself tenfold… Almost like a movie actor portrays a character.
Me: What’s it feel like to perform?
September: Performing is Euphoric. It’s like the best sex you’ve ever had. Or the best drug you’ve ever had. Or the best sex on drugs you’ve ever had. Don’t do drugs haha but well, it’s addicting. There is a high putting out emotional energy into the crowd. It’s very spiritual. It’s very intimate for me.
Me: Chris Motionless was quoted saying, “Motionless In White are not about preaching the message anymore…Yes. Myself and the band as an entity have decided to stop the preaching. If you’ve been to any shows of ours since I think Warped Tour of 2012, you will notice that I put an end to the speeches and on stage rants, I don’t post anything people may find inspirational…” So what do you think about this?
September: First off I respect Chris as an artist…Truly awesome. That being said, I believe there is a difference between being preachy and having a message. We don’t want to force feed ideas or spirituality. But I do believe when you create art you are creating some kind of message….Be it an
emotional, intellectual or even spiritual message. To say art has no message is defeating the point of art in itself… Art is meant to stir the senses, to communicate. So I have to disagree with Chris on this. I want my project and music to stir something inside the listener, reader, and observer. You don’t create art without something in mind or you’d have no words or notes to play. If he doesn’t have anything to say, then what is he screaming about and why is he screaming? When you sing you are conveying an emotion or moreover a message. That’s just my opinion.
Me: What genre do you consider your project?
September: We want to cross many genres. We don’t want to be put into one box. People often judge our music by the way I look. They think I’m Goth or Goth Industrial. But you can’t judge a book by its cover. You have to see everything that we are about to understand that we are a little bit Goth, we are a little bit pop, we are a bit metal and alternative … we are a little of so many things. Our project is about the story. And a story doesn’t have to be just one particular genre.
Me: Is there anything that someone has said that you want to set the record straight?
September: Some people think we are too crazy. Too weird. That we are more theater than a band. When people say that we are crazy and talk shit about us, my response is, the world of art was made by crazy. The greatest art and moreover the greatest bands were based around theatrics and from people that pushed the boundaries of the field. And that is when we as a society
grow. If we never pushed the boundaries, we would never grow or discover something new.
Me: Three words to describe yourself:
September: Emotional. Intense. Cerebral
Me: What’s your biggest fear?
September: The Dentist. It’s literally the only thing I fear. I hate the fucking dentist. I love my dentist as a person, but I hate to go and see him. I don’t fear death. When it’s my time, it’s my time. It’s just one phase in life. But the dentist. Oh no!
Me: What’s your opinion on death?
September: I don’t think this is it. The universe and planets are really, really old and we live 60 or 70 years. This is it? Then what the fuck? We are getting jipped. If this is it then DAMN, we got the McDonald’s Happy Meal of the universe. I think there is something bigger than ourselves out there. I think there has to be something else after this. I’m not gonna ram my ideas down anyone’s throat but damn, there has to be
something else. I believe in something greater than us and we all have a piece of that. I’m not religious, but I am spiritual and I can’t wait to see what is next.
If you have not seen September Mourning in concert, you need to go! If you haven’t watched to comics are the music videos…you need to. We’ve posted some photos and videos below. Check them out. You can also go to www.septembermourning.com for concert info and all the good stuff!
-Trouble
