Prayer Line is my kind of holiday music.
Heavy and foreboding. As dark as a 5pm sunset. Crank the bass. Drown the cheer. I plan on spending the next few weeks covering the shrill sound of forced consumerism and holiday spirit with the #blessed rage of Drink The Blood, the 2019 release from Louisville’s own Prayer Line.
I caught up with the Prayer Line to hear more about Drink the Blood, the inspiration behind the album, and everything the band has planned for 2020 and beyond.
Can you tell us about the origins of Prayer Line? How did the band form?
Phil Olympia: I’ve been friends with Jake Miller and Jake Hellman for more than half of my life, and while we’ve been in bands together in the past, we hadn’t done anything together for more than a decade. Two years ago, we began talking about starting a no-stakes, low-stress punk band, and luckily we were all in a good spot in our lives to get going. Jake H’s brother Austin rounded out the lineup on drums, and we ended up jelling pretty quickly.
A few months ago, Austin decided to part ways with the band, so we killed him on stage at his last show with us. Our friend Trent Combs has taken over all drumming responsibilities since
https://www.instagram.com/p/B2ufyc4FzXd/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheetYou describe your sound as “If the Misfits, White Zombie, Dio, and The Cure were put in butter churners by the Children of the Corn.’ I love that description. Was this intentional or the result of combined influences?
Phil Olympia: It’s intentional, however initially we didn’t intend to write songs about horror flicks and other creepy shit. When it came time to start writing lyrics for our first song, I thought, “who cares what I think? Nobody wants to hear my opinion on anything, and they shouldn’t want to.” I ended up deciding it would be a good idea to write a song about Sarah from George Romero’s classic Day of the Dead. While we ended up nixing the song, we ended up loving the concept as a band, and took it from there.
You just released video for single Drink the Blood. What can you share about the process of creating and recording this video?
Phil Olympia: I love the 80’s classic Night of the Demons, and for this video I really wanted to rip off that particular vibe. So I came up with an idea that was simple enough for an amateur like myself to pull off. After a few friends offered to contribute, we shot the whole video on a Sunday at our practice space.
Tell us a little about your 2019 release “Drink the Blood”
Phil Olympia: The album was recorded by Dave Chale at Deadbird Studios in Louisville back in January – Dave also mixed and mastered it. We released it ourselves on cassette, and we still have a few copies available. We hope to get it pressed on vinyl at some point, but I don’t know if or when that will actually happen.
What’s Prayer Line’s creative process like? Do you share songwriting duties?
Phil Olympia: Everyone in the band has a part in the songwriting process. One of us will bring in an idea, then everyone else adds their own unique flavor to the recipe. There is no central creator — we each have our own fingerprints on every song.
What does the future hold for Prayer Line? When can we see you next?
Phil Olympia: We are writing songs for a new record and plan to go into the studio sometime early in the new year. We hope to release the album before Halloween 2020. It’s also worth mentioning that we have a split 7inch record with Vaderbomb out now that features our new song “Flesh Eaters”. It’s available now online at our Bandcamp page – you can also snag a copy at Guestroom Records and Better Days Records.
Follow PRAYER LINE on Instagram, Facebook, and Spotify