Download 2015, RAMzine were in the press area interviewing zillions of bands, and in between waiting for the next band to come along, we noticed someone dressed head to toe in white. Rare to see at a rock festival, but you could clearly tell it was performance clothing. We went over to introduce ourselves to September, otherwise known as Emily, lead vocalist of September Mourning. Shortly after we saw the bands live set in London on the We Are Harlot tour, our first comments of the band were; September and her fellow band of misfits took the stage early on and absolutely destroyed it, the crowd had been soul harvested and didn’t even realize what had happened due to the venue-wide enjoyment of the music.
Fast forward to March 2016, September Mourning announced their signing to Sumerian Records, and released the music video for ‘Eye of the Storm’. July 2016 September Mourning released their debut album Volume II.
So where did September Mourning begin? Emily tells us; “It’s actually a transmedia project… The story of September Mourning and the characters are what led to the musical presentation. American comic book artist Marc Silvestri and I wanted to create a cross-platform way of telling a story and the musical part was created from that.” When asked if September Mourning promotes a particular message, Emily replied; “The story is the heart of it… there are messages within the story but the actual story itself is what is continuous and what we promote as the driving force of the band.”
September Mourning released their debut EP Volume I along with a comic book A Murder of Reapers in 2015, said to be a tale of “heartbreak, loss, pain, joy, love, redemption, but most of all, courage…”. “I write from personal experience…” says Emily, “but all the songs are directly related to the story told in the books.” With Marc being a comic book mogul himself, “comics were always the forefront of storytelling for this project … it’s a great way to express visual storyboards of the project”.
The band’s most recent video release is ’20 Below’ from the new album. The beautifully shot video has movie standard production value. “The song is about realising your self-worth in a situation and pushing back on something or someone who puts you down” says Emily, she continues to tell us it’s part of the comic book story where September has a battle with Fate and the Dark Man.
Everything is tied to the comic books even the outfits, “I conceptualised September as some sort of Valkyrie and joined creative ideas with my friend Eirik Aswang to achieve my vision”. When asked why she wears white Emily told us;
“September represents death but she also represents life and redemption as she can place ones soul into another’s body giving them a second chance at life. Because of this and the idea of her being this Valkyrie, I imagined her in white… but in white armour. She is waging a war on Fate, fighting for humanity. The outfit I wear on stage is the 12th version we have made. It is constantly evolving because of form and function… and because she evolves in the books as well.”
Everyone that puts themselves out there as a band, or an on-screen interviewer, or actually just on the internet, automatically puts themselves in front of potentially millions of people. We all know that some of those people end up making horrible comments, trolling etc. We asked Emily how she deals with that side of the internet; “I mostly ignore it. Every once and again I’ll say something but it’s not my job to please everyone… great art makes you uncomfortable, makes you think, makes you question. If I’m doing that, I’m doing my job and that’s the end goal”.
We have noticed over the years people categorising bands with female lead vocalists as ‘Female Fronted Band’. Emily tells us she does not agree with that saying; “There’s no male fronted rock category why should there be female fronted rock as a category? Seems kinda silly…”.
Another thing that we have noticed is media outlets automatically comparing bands with female lead singers to other bands with female lead singers, yet they sound nothing alike. When asked if this happens to September Emily says “Of course all the time… but that’s human nature… to compare I suppose. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion when it comes to taste and the way they view art. Art is subjective.”
We hear rumours of something new brewing behind the scenes for September Mourning when we asked Emily about her ballet routes she said “I was 4 when I stepped on stage as a ballet dancer… I still do some things here and there… which you will see soon enough ;)” – Exciting!
“We hope to do some soul collections in the UK very soon…” says September, ” I just want to thank each and every one of our Children of Fate for supporting us on this journey .. we cannot do this without you… exciting things are coming soon!”
