Interview / Pedestal For Leviathan

Colorado Vampyric Death Metal band Pedestal For Leviathan recently released their debut full length horror, Enter: Vampyric Manifestation on Halloween. You can find my review for this awesome album here. I was able to have a nice quick Q&A with the Vampyr Lord himself, mastermind behind Pedestal For Leviathan, Kendrick Lemke.

Photo Credit Instagram @crippledxwings

I know bands like Cradle Of Filth, Dimmu Borgir, and Emperor have always been some of your favorites, and Pedestal For Leviathan gives us what I’m gonna like to call “little love letters to Dani and Ihsahn” laced inbetween some brain damaging death metal. How long have you wanted to do a project that explores this space and what was the catalyst for starting Pedestal For Leviathan?

I’d say I really started to form the idea for this project in 2021 while I was living in Florida playing guitar in Graveview. I was listening to a ton of death metal but have always loved the evil-sounding symphonic stuff too, especially Cradle of Filth. I wrote a few demos including an early version of “Beast Rune” but didn’t have much of a plan for the project. I just really wanted to combine symphonic atmosphere with heavy riffing in a way I hadn’t heard done before.

Was there a conscious idea to combine certain styles or was this just what came to fruition?

It was a conscious decision for sure. Pretty much “Cradle of Filth but death metal” was the idea from the start.

How do you find the writing process for Pedestal as compared some of the other projects you’re been a part of or are currently in? Does it come more natural?

The Pedestal stuff is just me writing, second-guessing myself a lot, and lots of trial and error, scrapping ideas that aren’t working. Chalice Bleeds Intoxicant had 3 or 4 different endings before I liked it. It takes a bit more time to get the symphonic parts right too. I want them to add to the song and atmosphere rather than detract, so between getting the tones right, the parts right, and the balance right, it sometimes ends up being a pretty involved step of the process. Everything written for Pedestal so far has just been me, so without someone to bounce ideas off of, I try to keep my standards pretty high and won’t hesitate to scrap a part or idea if I don’t absolutely love it. —— The other bands I’m currently in are much more collaborative - athousandangelsandseven material mostly starts with Mat (or sometimes me) writing a full demo and then us all learning it at home before hashing it out together at practice. I’ll add my touch on guitar parts he writes when it makes sense or sometimes one of us has input on structure once we’re all playing the song. But Mat knocks it out of the park a lot and I’m just adding small things in addition to his material rather than reconstructing it. Same with Fatalist; our other guitarist Ian started that band and writes a lot of sick material for it. That band tends to write in the room using his riffs as a jumping-off point. —— I like all these processes a lot, and the variety between them keeps things exciting for me, so I really cherish having all these different creative outlets open to me right now. I think working with so many talented musicians across different genres has really influenced and improved my own songwriting and perspectives.

I find that whenever I listen to a project of yours, I can hear through the music that Kendrick is in this band. Whether it’s the way you play, or the way your write. Maybe I’ve just listened to bands you’re in too much. After listening to the album, I couldn’t help myself but go back some years to Florida and listen to the Graveview demos/singles. Would you say your time spent in Graveview left a impact on your style as far as the way you approach writing music?

Thank you! That’s rad to hear. My time in Graveview definitely had a lasting impact on my writing. When I first joined the band, I had to tighten up my right hand technique a lot and spent a few months practicing the hell out of the 2018 Demo songs until I could play them well. Writing with those guys taught me the value in overwriting / not being too precious with ideas. After we released our 2019 Demo, I wrote like 7 or 8 jumping off points for new songs that were about a minute each, and the band also had another handful of song ideas (I want to say like 10?) most of which we never ended up using or releasing because we only wanted to release the best material we could.

You released an EP in 2024, now a year later you’ve released Pedestal For Leviathan’s first full length album. Of course with more songs and a longer runtime, you get to explore this bands sound and identity more. There’s more synth and more atmosphere building here, and it’s awesome. Are those things you’re planning to and excited about diving further into with this band?

Yeah I definitely plan to continue to incorporate more synths and atmosphere. I haven’t put a harpsichord anywhere yet, that’s definitely on my list. I think for the next release I’d also like to get a little more dissonant and evil, and also incorporate some more black metal riffs here and there. I don’t have much written for our next release yet but plan to really dive into it soon especially when it starts getting snowy here.

Do you have a vision or goal in your mind for where you want to see or hear Pedestal For Leviathan go? Is there a reference point where you’re like “I want to get there”?

I’d really like to take this band on tour and play some shows outside of Colorado. Releasing vinyl would also be awesome too. But other than that, I don’t have any specific goals for this project other than to continue creating and releasing more music and to push the limits of my own creativity.

Top 3 symphonic black metal albums?

The top one for me is always going to be Cradle of Filth’s Midian. I don’t care if people wanna say it’s not “real black metal.” I think it’s the best album of theirs and it’s the album that got me into this type of music and made me want to start Pedestal for Leviathan.

Odium - Sad Realm of the Stars. Perfect blueprint for what symphonic black metal should be in my opinion. The production is raw but not too raw, it’s vicious while incorporating lots of atmosphere. Love this album.

Dimmu Borgir - Stormblast. The last couple years I’ve been getting more and more into Dimmu Borgir and this one really stands out to me; it balances on the line between their more raw early black metal stuff like For All Tid and the latter more bombastic big production stuff like Puritanical Euphoric Misanthropia. I really like both of those albums too and Enthrone Darkness Triumphant, really also just that band as a whole.

Honorable mentions:

Carpathian Forest - Defending the Throne of Evil (one of the first black metal albums I remember ever hearing)

Silent Millenia - Celestial Twilight: Beyond the Scarlet Veil (new project that rules)

Emperor - Into the Nightside Eclipse and Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk (classics)”

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Make sure you go listen to Pedestal For Leviathan’s debut full length album, Enter: Vampyric Manifestation and pre-order a physical copy from Gurgling Gore or Personal Records! Don’t forget to give them a follow on their socials, and keep em on your radar. And fuck, I need that harpsichord.