Peter Bebergal’sSeason of the Witch : How the Occult Saved Rock and Rollis a must - read for anyone who prefer their medicine loud , Riffian - driven , and load with lyric about Satan , magician , and mystical quests .
Bebergal , an academic by day ( he analyse at Harvard ’s Divinity School ) and metal head by both twenty-four hour period and Nox , is also the author of memoir Too Much to Dream : A Psychedelic American Boyhood . His writing manner is both scholarly and entertainingly decipherable , and thoughSeason of the Witchis a comparatively slim book , it packs a remarkable amount of analysis and medicine history ( plus : esoteric fun facts ) onto every page . I caught up with him recently for a chat about the allure of music ’s moody side .
io9 : Not to start off completely superficially , but Season of the Witch has one of the coolest covers I ’ve seen .
Peter Bebergal : I was actually hoping for that reaction . have that creative person [ Arik Roper ] was a aspiration come dead on target — it looks like a 1970s opprobrious light poster . It also really also captures the spirit of the Good Book in a way of life . I really do imagine there ’s something valuable to say about how tilt ‘ n ’ roll history was touch by these ideas and these image , but I hope it also come in across that the book is also about my love affair with this medicine , with these trope , and with these taradiddle , particularly as they rose up in the late 1960s and ’ 70s .
The book is heavy with details , but it ’s kind of a nimble read at under 300 pages . How did you decide which ring to discuss ?
That ’s the thing that ’s gon na frequent me , I think . Almost everyone who ’s record this book that I ’ve talked to has said , “ Why did n’t you have this band ? ” I had a acquaintance lately almost sound angry that I did n’t mention Blue Oyster Cult . Part of the issue was that I had to annul the book being encyclopaedic , because it could have end up just being a list of every ring , every song language , every album covering of anybody that ’s ever mentioned anything , ever , having to do with the occult arts or alternate spirituality . But I really wanted it to be journalistic and anecdotal . In each chapter , there are three major stories , that I used as a way of get up these larger issues around .
For instance , in talk about Black Sabbath as sort of the locus for that chapter , it allowed me to talk about the images of the devil in pop culture , and as an extension of that , heavy metal in worldwide and its use of these kinds of imagery and ideas . I feel it was really significant for the record book to have these tale arc , and to do that I had to feel what I matte up were the most iconic story . And some of them are bands that people might not be as familiar with , like Hawkwind , or Arthur Brown — who really only had one hit , as it were , in the 1960s , but I imagine really had a much big impact on the story I was sample to tell .
In many ways , this is the book I ’ve wanted to pen my whole life , because it ’s about the things I have a go at it : tilt ‘ n ’ roll , uncanny culture , Dungeons & Dragons , and fantasy artwork from the 1970s by people like Roger Dean , who did the Yes album covers .
What was on your play list while you were writing the book ?
There were in spades albums that I observe spinning . The Piper at the Gates of Dawn , Pink Floyd ’s first record album , is in many ways the perfect deterrent example of the religious craziness of the sixties , both literally in terms of Syd Barrett ’s own psychical disillusion , but also in terms of how that album is so representative of all the unlike spiritual approximation that citizenry were interested in . You have Eastern mysticism , cosmic consciousness . Even the album title is this romantic idealisation of the pagan past ; it ’s take from a instant in The air current in the Willows where the animals of a sudden come upon Pan in the woods and have sort of an rapturous experience .
As much as the hippy were interested in Jewish religious mysticism , Buddhism , the I Ching , thing like that , there was also this sort of romantic feeling at nature . I think they were very much inspire by the romantic poet that were trying to say something against the industrial society with this proceeds to arrant , more spiritually relevant forms of nature . On that record album , you have an interesting mish - mash of all of that .
There ’s also pass Zeppelin III and IV — citizenry love IV , obviously , “ Stairway to Heaven ” — but I cogitate III is a good album Sung for song , so I listen to that quite a piece . But I was also listening to heaps of newer albums of bands that are doing a dear job of capture that 1970s occult spirit , likeBlood Ceremony , for instance . It ’s really interesting that here we are in 2014 and people are still root on by that imagination and those estimation to make careen ‘ n ’ roll music . You could take that all away and they still would be a cool circle . But you add those sorting of theatrical elements to it and I do n’t know if it lift it , necessarily , but there ’s something that ’s still very hefty about habiliment music in these icon .
So it was fun to also be research what ’s going on today . I do n’t do too much of that in the account book , because the book is really about how we amaze to where we are rather than a face at what ’s materialize mighty now . But there certainly is some swell stuff going on decent now . There ’s another terrific band properly now calledUncle Acid and the Deadbeats , and I also just got turned on to this psych - service department rock companion who ’s doing tremendous monster - motion-picture show garage careen , King Tuff . There ’s also , I remember a really esoteric subway system of musician who are artistically motivate by these estimation of substitute spirituality and conjuring trick . I ’ve been look into this stria from Finland lately calledHexvessel , who are excellent . Even bands likeEarth , andSunn O ) ) ) — there ’s this whole collective of occult arts resource still at work .
And it does n’t really matter whether or not these thing are true , whether or not you’re able to in reality conjure spirits or divine the hereafter . Or whether or not these musicians actually practice these things in terms of their own ghostly lives . What I was trying to shine a light on was just how potent these simulacrum and these ideas have been in the history of medicine . And they ’re still take place .
One affair I hope is that mass do n’t think I am , in any way , trying to upend the accepted story of careen ‘ n ’ roll , or to say that if there was no occult arts , there ’d be no rock . But I will endure by the argument that this is a very important ribbon in the trajectory of the medicine , and if it was n’t part of it , careen ‘ n ’ roll would reckon and vocalise very dissimilar .
In the book , you remark the West Memphis Three as an model of the mainstream sometimes not understanding that fans of this eccentric of medicine , or the artists who make it , are n’t in reality worshipping the daemon or pagan gods or whatever .
In the Danish and Norwegian dim alloy scenes , there were definitely people who really think in it . But again , whether or not they actually hero-worship Satan or just infer the top executive of using those trope [ is n’t clear ] . What ’s interesting is these symbol , these ideas , are like a shorthand way of alert your interview , the medium , and the public that you are dangerous . You ’re going to be doing something unlike . You ’re on the edge of unearthly idea that mass need to be wary of , even if all you ’re doing is putting an upside - down pentagram on your record album cover .
There ’s a band calledGhost BCwho does the whole apparel - up thing : the devilish Pope , they wear plague masks onstage , the whole thing . But their euphony is just kind of pop gruelling metal . It ’s not even that scary or anything . It ’s very non - lowering , but the way they cloak themselves in this mystique is a manner of have it both ways , as it were .
When I tell apart friends that I was compose a book about the occult arts and careen ‘ n ’ roll , they assumed that I was only writing about the heller . And I consider there ’s still this association that word or anything have to do with it mechanically has to do with something sinister or dismal . That certainly has been the caseful , but it ’s also the display case that that ’s the way band have adopt it , because it generates its own power by itself as being devil - worshipers , even if it ’s not . Then they play coy — someone like Ozzy Osbourne liked to incite some of that because it sold record , but when get-up-and-go come in to shove , Ozzy would say very explicitly that it was all just in fun . A deal of it is just execution and theater .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1q97XUgGON4
But in those moments , we really can be transport by the thing that happens between the instrumentalist in the hearing . I think that ’s powerful , and it speaks to why rock music ‘ n ’ roll has been such a good fomite for what I call back is , in many ways , a very ancient way of think about faith . This communal , rapturous way of worship that has to do with rhythm method and dance and cheap sounds . I would n’t say that rock is religion , but it sure as shooting has done a very effective job in various item along the way of capture these old ways in which people used to worship together as a residential district .
What ’s also marvelous about it is that in those moments we just kind of allow ourselves to be hypnotized by that , but walk away and know that it was in fun . But that does n’t take out from how herculean that experience can be in the moment .
What surprise did you uncover while writing this Bible ?
One was finding out that Daryl Hall , of Hall and Oates , work with Robert Fripp of King Crimson to dohis own Aleister Crowley - inspired albumen the 1970s . Everybody told him that it was a really sorry musical theme , and he was move to deflower his career , but he lead and did it anyway . Nothing really happened with it , but if you go and hear to it now it ’s in reality quite a beautiful phonograph recording . His voice … I guess some hoi polloi do n’t like it , but here he is talk about these occult themes , as sort of pretty - boy Daryl Hall . [ Laughs . ] It was surprising to find out that even at that pop - star level , people were seduce and enamored by these thing .
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