Culture
Faetooth delves into writing emotionally cathartic songs, finding comfort in community and eating good food on tour with WOUB
By: Nicholas Kobe
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CHICAGO, Illinois (WOUB) – Faetooth is one of the most exciting names in modern doom metal, taking the sludgy dark hallmarks of the genre and peppering it with ethereal melodies to make songs that are equal parts brutal and beautiful.
The band’s sophomore LP, 2025’s Labyrinthine, is a perfect example of this, as the band pairs deeply personal lyrics with fantastic riffs to create one of the most poignant metal listens of last year.
Now, Faetooth is back in the US to kick off their summer tour with a show in Chicago on May 2. Their tour continues throughout the year, with dates in Cleveland, Detroit and Columbus in late August.
WOUB’s Nicholas Kobe had the chance to talk to all three members of Faetooth, Ari May (guitar/vocals), Rah Kanan (drums) and Jenna Garcia (bass/vocals) ahead of the tour’s kickoff. Find a transcript of their conversation, edited for length and clarity, below.
Ari May: Emotional catharsis with some heavy and light aspects in there.
What was it like touring in Europe, and how does it feel being back and playing shows in the US?
May: Touring Europe is very different than touring here in the States. The hospitality’s a lot different, and the crowds are pretty similar. Although I guess Europe is kind of known for crowds being a little more attentive and still. Sometimes we get that here too. I think it just depends on the night, and I feel like we get some introverted people in our audience, so I think it’s pretty similar. I’m kind of the same at shows.
I’m kind of just still and bobbing my head. I would say in the States, people do tend to get a little bit more rowdy, but there are some cities and countries in Europe and the United Kingdom where they’re probably a little more. Typically, bigger cities are a little more prone to dancing.
Rah Kanan: Sometimes the smaller towns, though, are prone to just going crazy, like Ireland. I felt like Ireland, we saw a lot of headbanging.
May: Yeah. Ireland was having a lot of fun. We were having a lot of fun, but you could tell that they were having a lot of fun too. In the smaller cities, I think ’cause it’s more intimate, they probably feel a little more comfortable. We’ve never really had mosh pit music, so we never expect that.
Kanan: It happens once in a while.
May: Once in a while. Probably like two shows out of the last thirty-two show tour. Touring there is very different, just in a hospitality sense. The drives are a lot shorter, so you typically have a lot more energy throughout the day.
How do you maintain your energy and prepare for a show while traveling between cities or countries?
Kanan: I like to go for a walk after soundcheck, if that’s possible, I like to just see what’s outside food-wise, or go to a coffee shop, which is always my go-to as well. That kind of gives me some energy.
May: I think on off days, whether it’s a driving day or you actually get the day off, I’m like, “Oh, there’s no show tonight. What do we do? I’m gonna feel out of practice. We didn’t play for one day.” But after a week or two of tour, you’re already in the zone, and your body expects that later in the day you’re gonna go out there, play, and then calm down and relax. We really don’t party either, so we just go to sleep afterward, and I’m sure that helps the following day. We like looking for a good place to eat because sometimes there’s kind of nothing. It’s just a land of McDonald’s, Burger King, Subway.
Do any of you have a favorite food spot you found recently while touring
Kanan: I don’t remember the names of any of them, but I feel like in the UK we had a lot of like, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese.
Jenna Garcia: We went to Bologna. That’s, that’s like the only good place I think we went to.
May: I mean, the hot pot place we went to in Bristol was good. Well, yeah. I would say number one was eating Italian food.
When you were making this record, what was your main goal in developing the sound of Faetooth?
May: We were in a very transitional space when we started writing Labyrinthine, as a band but also in our personal lives, becoming like “adult” adults. When we wrote Remnants of the Vessel, we were in our early twenties. With Labyrinthine, we were focusing on what we sound like as a three-piece and locking in what we wanted to continue doing and what we wanted to do differently, sonically and in how we like to be recorded.
We wanted to be more transparent and delve deep into what was going on. Remnants had a lot of metaphors. I’d say Labyrinthine is more literal. We wanted to make it clear: “this is what we sound like, this is what we wanna do, we’re ever evolving.” I think every album is probably gonna sound a little different than the previous one as well.
You’ve referenced mythology and folklore being a big part of Faetooth. What about folklore marries well with the emotional experiences that you bring in the lyrics? What’s your relationship like with interpreting mythology
Garcia: In general, I feel like folklore and mythology have always been a vessel for humans to tell different kinds of stories, whether it’s some sort of moral code or something along those lines. Besides it being a fascination of ours, it feels like a very human thing to do it that way. Whether you’re doing it poetically, sometimes it serves as a good metaphor and looks good on paper.
Kanan: But even then, some of those songs aren’t necessarily imbued in folklore or mythology. Some are also references to films or other mediums of art. I know it’s happened with both of us where maybe a song isn’t clicking right away, but then you start writing something inspired by a piece of work, and it brings something out of yourself that you maybe didn’t realize was there.