The Bad Penny (beta)

(Go here to read my post-mortem on Anciients’ performance in Boise on Friday and why you should make every effort to see them on their current tour.)

Criticize awards all you want, but there’s something to be said for a band that has more hardware than they can carry with two hands. One of the more unlikely bands faced with this honor, problem or whatever you wanna call it is Anciients. 

The Vancouver prog-metal crew snatched the Juno Award for Metal/Hard Music Album of the Year in 2018 for their second record, Voice of the Void; their debut, Heart of Oak, was deemed a long-listed nominee for Canada’s other major award for artists, the 2013 Polaris Music Prize. 

Adding to their accolades, the complex, challenging band scooped up their second Juno Award for the same category mentioned above on the strength of Beyond the Reach of the Sun, released exactly one year ago. They beat out the likes of Spiritbox, Devin Townsend and other bands you’ve probably never heard of (PSYCH!).

Two days ago, Anciients initiated their first U.S. tour in eight years, dubbed “Quest Beyond Our Minds,” in Seattle. Call it a victory lap celebrating all the awards they’ve accumulated, a refresher course in their three reputed Season of Mist records and/or a jaunt serving to boost their latest Beyond the Reach of the Sun single, “Is It Your God,” their performances are a must-see for anyone who even remotely has an affinity for Anciients or their kindred spirits Opeth.

The Bad Penny touched base with Anciients vocalist/guitarist Kenny Cook mere hours before they took the stage in Seattle to pick his brain about various matters, including their concert tonight in Boise, which will mark the first time they’ve played in the potato pueblo in a dozen years.

How’s the tour launch going?

Between driving down to Seattle and going through border security and all that, it’s been a crazy couple days. The [Canadian] Federation of [Musicians], who petitioned for our passports, screwed up a birthday on our petitions. So we’ve been frantically trying to get it amended this last week. Thank God we got through. It’s been stressful.

Doesn’t seem like there are any positive accounts about crossing US borders right now. Were you concerned you might have to postpone the tour?

Well, we were approved a couple weeks ago. Then, when they sent the approval notice, [we discovered] they had messed up the birthdate for our guitarist Brock [MacInnes]. So we were pretty worried. We were having a tough time communicating with anybody to fix it. That’s a reason to deny us entry if there ever was one. But we managed to get a letter to help us through yesterday, of all days. 

A letter from the Canadian government?

Yeah. You have to petition for a visa through [The Canadian Federation of Musicians], and they basically send your application to the States. But [all in all,] it was [actually] the easiest border crossing for us yet.

Are you concerned at all that, the way things are heading here in the States, that could be the last time you might be able to play here for a while? 

We’re not really too concerned. It takes more time to acquire the visas, and you gotta jump through a lot more hoops to get here. We actually applied for our visas last December. We figured we had enough time because, at that point, we had the ProgPower festival in Atlanta booked [for early September]. So we were like, “Oh, it’ll be like nine months. They gotta come by then.” And then yeah, like six weeks ago, we still hadn’t had them. So we had to upgrade to premium processing. Next time we’ll probably just do that from the get-go and save [ourselves] a bit of stress.

Did you have any designs on going to Europe this summer, to play the festivals and such?

We’re thinking [we’ll go] next year. We were supposed to go to Europe this summer, but things fell through. We had so much going on. We were invited to play the ArcTanGent festival [in mid-August], and we were excited about that, but we didn’t find out about it until super-late. By the time we started to try and book shows, pretty much all [the other European festivals were] booked up already. So we’re trying to get ahead of the game and head there for next year.

It’s been 12 years since you last played Boise. Do you remember anything about the experience? 

I remember we played with Intronaut and had a great time. One thing that stands out is that we had just come off a tour with Lamb of God and Decapitated six months previous to that show, and Decapitated was playing with Gwar at the Knitting Factory just down the road. We ended up seeing and hanging out with Gwar.

Do they give you as much shit when they’re out of their costumes as they do when they’re in their costumes?

By the time we got there, they were all in their costumes.

Last year Grodius told me I was the worst interviewer on Earth.

Haha, right on. You gotta like that. They’re known for their crazy approaches to interviews.

I’d say I took it with a grain of salt, but maybe a drop of blood would be more fitting.

Exactly, yeah.

So hey, I’m really digging “Is It Your God.” Did you decide to release that in conjunction with the tour, to freshen things up?

Totally. Right after the record was recorded, we did a few different play-throughs in the studio that we recorded the album in. We’ve been holding onto that one until we had a reason to release it.

“Epic” has become an overused and misused term, but with the keyboards and a lot of the effects in the song, did you release it as a single because you have a really good visual presentation to perform it onstage, with lights and other accoutrements?

We’re pretty much a straight-up rock band when it comes to [playing live,] so we don’t typically use too many of the gimmicks that go along with it. We just hammer away.

Musicians often say songs are open for interpretation, but there’s not really much room for interpretation with “Is It Your God.” It’s pretty direct.

Yeah. It’s about a good friend of mine I had when I was growing up [who] came from a fairly religious family. His mother had a crazy life, and my friend ended up passing away from cancer. The [song is about,] like, how could someone you have so much faith in make you go through that kind of thing? It was a look from an outsider’s perspective.

I’m sorry to hear about your friend.

It was almost 20 years ago. So it’s been a while. But thank you.

To veer for just a moment into existential philosophical territory, some of the lyrics state, “[God] was the one that’s taken the sun away/ He was the one that told you the heavens await/ There is no light.” Doesn’t that imply that God exists? 

Yeah. I guess so. But it’s more about the question of, “If there was one, why would He do that to you?”

I’m also intrigued by what you address in the song “In the Absence of Wisdom.” As you’ve toured the world over the years and matured as a songwriter and a human being, do you feel like wisdom has become devalued?

Maybe to some degree. The song in itself is about how, if you don’t listen to your elders or the wise people in your life, you might just follow the same mistakes that they may have made. That can definitely be true in some instances these days, right? There’s a lot of know-it-alls out there.

Do you think that’s in part because social media has empowered people to think that they know everything? 

I guess, yeah. There is a lot of information out there, so maybe they do know everything. You don’t know what the actual wisdom is anymore.

Who do you turn to for wisdom? A book? A friend? An elder?

I look up to people in my family, like my parents, who have been through a lot. And [other] relatives, and people in the music industry that have been doing it a lot longer than me. I definitely don’t take their words with a grain of salt because they’ve been there and done that. It’s a wise thing to listen to them and take heed.

Do you remember the best piece of advice you’ve gotten from somebody who’s an older musician? 

I just got a piece of advice that you should always not worry about what other people think about what you’re doing. Just keep doing what you’re doing. Your art will always be real to you. If you’re trying to just follow a trend or something like that … it’s not going to come out as natural or sincere as it should. You could grow to not like what you’re doing a lot quicker if you’re just writing something to please somebody else. First and foremost, it’s always selfishly ours. If other people enjoy it, that’s totally the bonus.

Speaking of bonuses, what has it felt like getting all these awards? If you’re not trying to gratify or please an audience, especially people who aren’t at your shows, how does it affect you emotionally? 

It was totally unexpected. When we’re writing music, it’s not in the back of our minds one bit. We feel really accomplished for it and proud of ourselves that we managed to win those awards. It still comes as a complete surprise just to even be nominated for something. It’s just completely wild to us and surreal.

Do you have a shelf where you put them all? 

I’m one of those people that doesn’t want to gloat. So for the first [Juno Award], for a long time, I had it in a box, keeping it nice and clean. But since I’ve had a son, he likes me to have them out. So we have them in the living room and the front window for all to see. 

Congratulations on your son. May I ask how old he is?

He’s 10.

Awesome.  Has he come on tour with you before? 

He hasn’t been on tour but he’s come out to some shows. We played a festival in Alberta a couple years ago at a [town] called Drumheller, and they have a big kind of dinosaur museum there. So we stuck around and went and checked out the museum. He’s seen [Anciients perform] a couple times. The very first time he saw us, he was maybe 2 years old, and he fell asleep in the front row In his mother’s arms. He’s perfect. And boring.

Is he at the age where he can brag to his friends that his dad’s a rockstar?

Oh yeah. And he’s actually starting to play a lot of guitar himself these days and singing. It’s not something I ever tried to force on him, because I didn’t want him to rebel against me. But yeah, he’s picking it up, and I think he’s pretty stoked on the whole situation.

Has he turned you on to any artists that you hadn’t liked before? 

Not so much yet. The stuff him and his friends listen to is crazy video game soundtracks and stuff like that. I guess some of it’s OK. But I’m slowly trying to warp his mind. I bought him the first five Black Sabbath CDs and Slayer’s Reign in Blood. He’s into everything, but the stuff him and his buddies listen to is a little out there for me. “Old man yells at cloud,” I guess.

Any thoughts on Ozzy’s passing?

I did get to see Black Sabbath and Ozzy solo a couple times. And I sat on my couch and watched the whole [“Back to the Beginning” concert]. The first band I really got into was Black Sabbath. I got a greatest hits CD from Walmart or something when I was 11 years old. And ever since then I’ve been a huge fan. [His death was] maybe something you could see coming a mile away, but it still felt surreal when it happened. You expected Ozzy to live forever. It’s a bummer for sure, but his legacy definitely will live on.

Who’s your favorite sci-fi creator and what’s your favorite sci-fi character of all time?

To be perfectly honest, I like Quentin Tarantino and Martin Scorsese. I like the old “Alien” movies, and John Carpenter is great. “Big Trouble in Little China” was probably my favorite movie growing up.

Me too. My website is kinda themed on that movie.

Apparently they’re coming out with a new one, and The Rock’s in it.

Don’t tell me that’s true, Kenny. This interview is over.

Sorry to ruin your day.

Buy tickets for tonight’s show in Boise featuring Anciients, Dawn Of Ouroboros and Nott right here. At under $18, it’s a steal.

This entry was posted on 08/29/2025 at 12:40 am and is filed under Interviews with tags Anciients, GWAR, John Carpenter, Kenny Cook, Opeth. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.