Death metal is a unique subgenre in the world of heavy music. To some it’s a choice, others a calling. Most do it for the passion and release of playing it and not fame and fortune. If you choose to perform the music of instant mosh pits you need a good name leaving no mystery to the sounds you’re creating, whether inspiration comes from an asylum, mortuary or cemetery.
Though, when you choose a name that literary swings the graveyard gates open with shovel and lantern in hand, you have to deliver (or unearth) the goods. Wisconsin’s Casket Robbery have done both so far, with a heavily inspired early history scribing testaments of serial killers to a modern morphing into the deep, dark layers of cinematic and real life horror. They not only have a super badass name conjuring up auto-images of severely macabre activities, they come from the same state as the necromancing Butcher of Plainfield, Ed Gein.
Though they’re several hours from his home town, the infamous gravely habits and post-mortem haunts of Gein, their moniker in part owes inspiration to history’s most notorious demented decorator. “It’s inspired by a lot of things. Originally Cory and the original vocalist came up with it in 2012,” vocalist Megan Orvold-Scheider says. “Serial killers were a very popular subject in the early days. Those early songs are about a lot of serial killers.”
Though she agrees Hollywood owes almost too much inspiration to Mr. Gein’s exploits including Psycho, Leatherface and Buffalo Bill among others. Though, Gein shared the spotlight in Casket’s early work with Richard Ramirez and Jim Jones among others. In the beginning, the darker the mind and more viscous and evil the deed, the better suited it was for lyrical carnage.
They have a handful of videos out with “Bone Mother” being the newest and by far most detailed and creative. The storyline carries a slight Pumpkinhead vibe though Scheider says it wasn’t inspired by it. “The video has lots of really creepy elements, now that you say it. I can definitely see that.”
It was done by Shayne Minott at South Africa’s Budget Blood Productions. “We’ve been sitting on that video for a year. He got it back to us around this time last year. It took him about three months to do. It’s so cool, inspired by the Russian folklore of Baba Yaga. It definitely has the Pumkinhead creepy witch in the woods stuff there.”
There’s a lot to digest in just under three-and-a-half minutes, with multiple viewings needed to notice everything. Graphic limb separation to caldrons bubbling blood are complimented by squealing, crushing guitars and Scheider’s ghastly storytelling roar. Everything’s done by Minott, “Yep, everything.” It’s a detailed, fascinating watch, frame by frame to appreciate the detail taken, a serious passion project. “It is. You can watch it a ton of times and find something new every single time.”
Subtle details include the witch’s blink, shot of her on the chimney and rocking chair. There are many nice touches adding to the cool factor including the witch putting on the kid’s glasses. “That’s my favorite part. We wanted to do something different, something really creepy. We don’t have a super grotesque video out there so we wanted to keep it, kinda, we’re known for our horror influences, but still have tongue in cheek, comedic things too. That was a really good mesh of both worlds.” If you don’t appreciate the humor there’s plenty of gore and hacking of body parts with a very vintage, stop motion feel.
The next most recent single is “The Hidden…the Hideous” with an effect that sounds like whistling but could be a keyboard. “I think it’s a riff, I don’t think I sang on that song. There are so many elements to that. I do whisper in that too.”
They have lyric videos out, some live performances and a performance video with more live videos and storylines coming soon. Their video for “From Hell” was almost an igniting performance for very bad reasons. The candles used for visual effect almost lit Scheider’s hair on fire five or six times during the shoot.
They’d been playing for two years straight before the world stopped. “That’s our life blood. We’re here today, healthy, ready and playing shows.”
She thinks that cancelling whole tours will be less likely going forward in favor of certain shows or a group being cancelled due to contraction. Though, no one wants to repeat 2020. “We just played a show two weeks ago. Our first in two years, our home town, they were pretty strict with (health mandates). We have no say in it. We just show up and play. We got really lucky everyone was amazing at the show.”
To date they have a full length, an EP and several singles available with a new record to be released. Evolution of Evil was their early showcase of serial killer themed serenades of slaughter.
She’s mainly a growler with a hellish roar but has done clean vocals to enhance songs. “It’s funny, on “Curse of the Nightstalker,” before I was in (Casket Robbery); I’m the one doing clean vocals in the chorus of that song. For Casket, it’s not really our thing to put cleans out front. If I’m doing cleans anywhere it’s gonna be atmospheric, adding to the chorus or adding to the melodic elements in the background. The clean vocals have to suit the song. I do a lot of cleans outside of Casket. Cory and I have this acoustic side thing we do. It’s just covers and stuff. It depends. It has to suit the song. So far it’s just been very atmospheric stuff.”
The Black Plague got some historical attention on The Ascension EP on “Pockets Lined With Flowers” about the practice of hiding/masking foul odors with petals. “It’s funny I used to be a daycare teacher, my kids were singing, “Ring Around The Rosie” and I was like, hey that songs about the Black Plague.” Influence from a children’s rhyme about one of history’s darkest, death-filled periods is creepy but very metal. “In the beginning on the music box you’ll hear (it). So people put flowers in their pockets or plague masks to hide the smell from all the bodies. There’s a lyric, throw the bodies on the pyre piled to the sky, because there were so many bodies constantly burning. The smell everywhere, it’s a really gross song.”
One of Evolution of Evil’s creepier cuts was “Annabelle’s Hell,” heavily inspired by the doll, but more about a small child being influenced by the thing. “I did voice acting on that. I’m the little girl in it with the little giggles and talking.”
“Blood Bathory” tells the tale of the evil Countess from Casket’s POV. “That song was before me but one of my favorites to play live. We would end with that song and it was just chaos. It would ensue everywhere. We would be jumping, the crowd gets crazy. It’s a really high energy chaotic song. I adore it.”
She also loves the Jeffrey Dahmer inspired “Malevolent Milwaukee Massacre,” “That one’s really fun to play live and really high energy, we headbang like crazy to that.”
Chemistry brought her to the Casket, “The former singer left than three months later there was a month long tour booked across the U.S. Cory kind of looked at me. We’d been doing a more melodic death metal style side project. I was dipping into doing only harsh vocals on this project. He’d asked do you want to do this tour? I said, yeah I’ll give it a go. I was in my first band which was more metalcore. I sang cleans and harsh vocals, about half and half. I stepped in, did this tour and was immediately the right fit. I knew this is where I was supposed to be. I joined right then.”
She’s done a lot of practice and training as a vocalist. “I’ve gone through a vocal coach. Screaming is very hard; to go from cleans to them. Fry screaming, super easy to go from screaming to singing. The guttural ones, they take more breath power. I practice a lot and focus a lot on vocal health and how to maintain it before and after shows with warm ups and stuff.”
With death metal, your typically gonna get a lot of false chord screaming like Corpse Grinder and Cannibal Corpse. I add in fry screaming elements. They’re pretty layered for my stuff. You’ll find a lot of fry screaming in deathcore. Some people do tunnel-like sounds, some do inhales. There are a lot of different levels. It’s really cool how different vocalists create these sounds. It baffles me, some of the male deathcore vocalists, the things they can do and their register is super powerful. I try to mimic a lot till I get it down in my own way.”
Many people still think they have a male vocalist, “Most people still don’t get it which baffles me or understand I’m the vocalist. It happened all night at our show a few weeks ago, in our hometown. I’m sitting behind the merch booth. My face is on it and a lot of people still didn’t know till I got onstage, it was actually me.” She still gets a shocked reaction or look of surprise, “It’s cool. I think it’s funny.”
She agrees Angela Gossow opened the door for female growlers, “I think she’s the most notable. I think there have been tons of people that followed in her footsteps that don’t get the credit they deserve. She and the type of growling and gutturals she does, yeah absolutely.”
They can’t wait to play new songs live on a regular basis, “We’ve been sitting on a full length for a year, since the pandemic it’s been two. We could have released the album this past year or (earlier) but it’s been really important for us to tour. That’s the whole point.” They did play new material at a recent show, so new songs have tasted live air. “Hopefully we have a few shows coming up and announcements to make after that. Fingers crossed things keep getting better.”
To date they’ve covered most of the country except the Pacific Northwest but Oregon and Washington will eventually dig the live Casket experience. Covid cost them a few tours including Canada though Scheider’s seen the Great White North from Niagara Falls. Mexico’s also in future plans.
They’re brought the roar to stages with The Convalescence, California’s Repaid In Blood and Australia’s In Death. They recently played Wisconsin’s Metalfest in Madison, part of a huge three week festival with different genres nightly. They played metal night with Bongzilla and another band but were originally supposed to play with Bereft.
Their state has a thriving metal scene. “There is. We’re lucky to have incredible music fans and a really great scene in Madison and Wisconsin in general. Bands are fantastic across all different subgenres. We have really great friends in cool bands across the state.”
They have a very strong presence on Facebook, including a very active fan group page, Coven of Souls and strong activity on Discord among other sites. They’ve cultivated their brand beyond T-Shirts, music, posters, etc to include jewelry, “Cory and I make some stuff for the band, mostly me. We have a pretty extensive selection. We like to keep it fresh and different fitting our brand. We use guitar strings. They’re coffin nail necklaces. We wrap them with those and look super cool.”
In the fall of 2020 they launched a successful Patreon. “We put all our effort into that, building relationships with our fans and just going that route.”
Given horror movies are a huge lyrical forte she ranks Pumpkinhead, Scream and A Nightmare on Elm Street as her top favorites with The Evil Dead as a top runner with a serious soft spot for the horror aspects of Beetlejuice. She carries a respectful obsessive love for Bruce Campbell, having met him a few times. “He’s so funny, here’s a cool guy.”
Though she personally finds Ted Bundy a fascinating study, for the new record and going forward they’re steering away from serial killers. “Since “The Ascension” and the EP we’ve veered off serial killers. I brought it up in “From Hell” because that always fascinated me and our bass player wanted me to write about it.”
The new material dips into the darker elements of horror. “It’s more horror inspired, infused death metal. This next full length, we wrote during the initial stages of the Pandemic. It’s a very dark album.” Lyrics focus on the real life horror of isolation and being trapped inside among other real life horrors.” Something everyone on earth felt to some degree in 2020 and beyond, though cinematic terror will still be lurking through riffs and vocals in strength.
Concerning their first show back Scheider describes the event. “It was really emotion. It’s funny, I get to go on stage and be this terrifying little creature and it was really hard that night. It was packed and seeing everyone’s faces after two years, so into our music and a pit the whole set. I couldn’t help myself from just smiling the entire time and I’m supposed to be this terrifying girl thing, but I can’t stop smiling. So yeah, it was very emotional.”
She says when 2020 began and everything was suddenly stripped away and closed she didn’t take it well. “I didn’t realize how much I needed that outlet being on stage, in front of people and that energy exchange that happens. It’s been interesting, up till two weeks ago. Seeing how I just had to push it aside. Being onstage again, it came flooding back. I was so nervous before getting on stage then the second our intro started I was like, oh yeah.”
She equates it to, serving the light and dark part of yourself, like your shadow. Getting on stage and getting those raw emotional angry feelings out in a positive, therapeutic and very loud way. It’s a necessary release. “For two years I had to hold that in, it was great.”
The pit usually just happens then she’ll stand playing pit-master encouraging it the whole show, though she’s done the circle pit motion a few times. “I did, five songs in, it was just nuts. I was like go, keep going.” Though executing a wall of death is something she has yet to orchestrate.
Being horror enthusiasts might make people think they’re inclined to use props but she says it hasn’t been necessary yet. “Most of our stuff doesn’t call for it. We’re pretty high energy on stage which speaks for itself. We’re props ourselves, all of us are quite interesting to look at. If it served what we were doing, I’m open to it. We already ride that fine line, adding a few tongue in cheek moments while still being very brutal. I don’t wanna get cheesy with props, I’d rather have our look and brand speak for itself.”
They have audio clips from horror movies in songs and during the show, though they don’t want to give anything new away yet. It’ll be a unique, interesting audio experience regardless.
They’ve had offers to be in horror movies. “It’s something I wanna start diving into. Cory and I go to horror conventions and are thinking of merging that world into the band, getting a booth, spending a weekend getting connections.” They go to Flashback in Chicago every year.
She’d prefer being a villain, and a nonhuman one at that. “I wouldn’t want to be a human, but a creature.” She interested in the lore of mermaids and their siren songs dooming men to death under the sea.” I’d like to do that. I’d be a mermaid.” This will not be a Disney production.
While the Pandemic slammed the breaks on the world along with virtually all touring and shows it forced bands to create new ways of promotion and lots of unexpected time to write and record music. “Cory’s the hardest working person I’ve met in my life. He makes everything about this band and where it is now is largely thanks to him. We want to keep doing this and do whatever we have to, to keep doing it and whatever happens, happens.”
We love touring, we love playing music, we love the band, we love what it’s become since I joined and we love the family and relationships we’ve created with our fans in the past few years. The traveling experiences, we want all of it. We fight very, very hard to continue doing this and to see where it takes us. I’m excited about some of the things we’ve set in motion the past few months and see where it takes us.”
Touring with Cannibal Corpse would be a dream gig and for more self-professed selfish reasons, Spiritbox and Oceans of Slumber. They opened for Cannibal Corpse a few years back, “He’s the coolest person. I love him. I need to check out that solo album.”
Asked, if possible which Cannibal Corpse lineup she’d have chosen, Chris Barnes or Corpsegrinder, she says, “I think right now, I love Corpsegrinder. I think he would be so much fun on tour. But Chris Barnes is a badass. It’s a hard toss-up.”
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