Being in the right place at the right time in front of the right person is a romantic thought or hopeful daydream that helps creatives push forward, if nothing else. But the reality is, getting noticed by a music agent at all in an ever-growing sea of similarly aspiring musicians, who are hustling just as hard to be seen, can feel like shouting into the void.
For the past twelve years, Denver pagan-metal outfit Oak, Ash & Thorn has been an underground act, steadily gaining steam independently and making its own opportunities. Then the members caught a big break — the one that every group imagines.
See, the four-piece had been happy working with California-based independent label Lost Future Records for its past two releases, including this year’s full-length, Our Grief Is Thus, released on April 19. Dropping a new album is always hectic, but no one in Oak, Ash & Thorn could have planned a busier start to 2024. The group landed on the radar of longtime metal label Season of Mist and, after a whirlwind few months, inked a record deal in May.
“Oh, my God, it was so crazy. It was insane for everybody,” recalls drummer Cierra White.
It's even crazier when you hear how Oak, Ash & Thorn — which also includes lead singer and guitarist Adam Armstrong, guitarist Jason Harding and bassist Erik Hoffman — became Season of Mist’s newest recruit.
Bandmates Adam Armstrong, right, and Jason Harding are happy to have a new album and record deal this year.
Courtesy Kyle Finlan Photography
“We knew who they were, obviously, but didn’t press them too hard and want to fangirl at them too much,” White recalls. “We could tell that they were in their little corner, so we left them alone.”
But Heilung’s agent, Luc Favié of Doomstar Bookings, checked out some Oak, Ash & Thorn merch and chatted up Armstrong. “He just came over and stirred up a conversation with me,” the guitarist says, noting that they talked about the new beer and what the band was up to for about thirty minutes or so.
White, still giddy from how it all played out, provides a blow-by-blow of the immediate aftermath: “I went up to Adam after that and was like, ‘Dude, who was that?’ He was like, ‘That’s Heilung’s agent.’ I was like, ‘I’m sorry, what?’ He’s like, ‘Yeah, his name is Luc.’ I was like, ‘Oh, my God, please tell me you got his phone number, you got his email, you got something, right?’ We were going to follow up with this dude. Adam was like, ‘No.’ Like, shit.”
Not to fret. White eventually came across Favié email online and sent him a note about possibly playing with Heilung at some point. “We were like, ‘Let’s not even bullshit him,’” she says. Favié responded in February about potentially putting something together in 2025.
Oak, Ash & Thorn took that as a win. “What he didn’t tell us is that he then forwarded our email to Michael [Berberian] at Season, just of his own free will," White says. "We didn’t ask him to do that."
The plot thickens. Berberian, founder of the France-based label that Heilung is also signed to, liked what he heard and shot over an inquisitive email about potentially working together.
“It was like, ‘Hey, my people at this booking agency forwarded your stuff. Thought it was cool. If the band is not already signed, would like to have a conversation.’ Period. That’s all he said,” White paraphrases. “I was like, ‘Oh, fuck.’ We got these emails in the same 24 hours.”
After sharing the news in the Oak, Ash & Thorn group chat, White proceeded to get ready for work. She said the prospect of talking with Season of Mist, which has worked with more than 300 bands since starting in 1996, didn’t fully register for another couple of hours.
“It took me two hours for that to hit and realize what’s going on,” she continues. “We had a freakout moment, then started sending emails back.”
The first video chat with Berberian shortly after the out-of-the-blue email seemingly went well. He liked what Oak, Ash & Thorn were all about, but couldn’t put together a proposal at that time, so the band had nothing else to do but to wait.
“The initial conversation we had with Michael at Season was the conversation that every musician dreams about. He said all the things about us that we were trying to push. He picked up on everything and was like, ‘I want to offer you guys something, but I need time to figure it out.’ We were all just trying to keep it together,” White explains, adding that the next couple of months were an “emotional roller coaster” and “very nerve-racking.”
In the meantime, Oak, Ash & Thorn proceeded with the April release of Our Grief Is Thus on Lost Future. “Internally, we were like, ‘Did we do it? Is he still interested? Did we fuck it up? Is he going to call us back?’ I lost so many hours of sleep,” White admits.
But a metal band doesn’t pique the interest of a heavy-hitting label such as Season of Mist if it doesn’t have the chops. And Oak, Ash & Thorn has the chops. The strength of the sophomore album proves that in spades.
The band’s first proper full-length in six years, Our Grief Is Thus is epic pagan power metal. Armstrong’s decision to showcase more of his clean vocals makes a difference and turns songs such as “Dying Culture” and “Auras” into Norse battle cries. He still knows how to growl, too.
As the main lyricist for Oak, Ash & Thorn, Armstrong also felt the need “to exorcise some demons” this time around. Although he didn’t intentionally go about writing eight songs about different forms of grief, that’s what ended up coming out.
“That whole album was very cathartic to me,” he says, adding that Harding pointed out the recurring theme. “It’s about the kind of grief that’s inflicted on us by the people we love, or the kind of grief that we inflict on other people. The kind of grief that our family, from generations back, ends up imbuing us with several hundred years in the future.
“I guess I come from the Trent Reznor school of writing lyrics, where you pull out a page of your diary and fit it to a song,” he quips.
Whatever it is, it works. Plus, turning up the power-metal parts pairs perfectly with the blackened melodic death metal at the core of Oak, Ash & Thorn. Recorded at the Blasting Room in Fort Collins, Grief is also the first album to include Harding and Hoffman.
“There have always been blast beats. There have always been soaring vocals. This is a more mature version of all that,” White explains. “With the power-metal influence, that was a missing element that we probably needed the whole time, but it felt natural to us.”
While the group is still figuring out touring plans for the rest of the year, working on its Season of Mist debut is the new goal. Even though the members have some time, White wants to do it proper. After all, it feels like a dream come true.
“It’s been the obsession since I was twelve or thirteen, at least, so to be doing it now is really crazy,” she says of having the label's support. “So relieved and excited, and also just super nervous, because Season is a big deal. It’s like a proper job now. We have very hard deadlines and a lot of pressure and everything else.”
Armstrong, who happens to be wearing the shirt of his new labelmate Drudkh, concurs. He’s still sort of surprised about the way it came together, but believes Oak, Ash & Thorn is only going to get stronger under the Season of Mist banner.
“It was almost like the way you always envision it’s going to be when you’re a kid and have this dream: You just happen to be in the right place at the right time, and someone’s like, ‘You, come do great things,’” he concludes. “That’s kind of what happened.”
