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Music

Listen to Heaven's Gate's New Grinder, "Screams"

Plus, we talked cults, castration, and—uh—Danzig.

Photo by Marland Backus

"Screams"

Of all the cool, freaky cults out there to name your band after, Heaven's Gate is probably the best—y’know, since the Manson Family is way too obvious. In fact, Heaven’s Gate is such a good name that a number of different bands have used it, but the “Brooklyn badasses” in this Heaven’s Gate were the only ones smart enough to use the correct grammar, and so thanks to that apostrophe, they win.

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Formed from the ashes of the sludgy dream-pop act Sweet Bulbs, Heaven’s Gate make noise that borders on post-punk, shoegaze, and Danzig. Yeah, that’s right, Danzig. Their debut album, Transmuting, drops next month, and called up members Jess Paps, Patrick Stankard, Mike Sheffield, and Jack Wolf to chat with Heaven's Gate (minus bassist Alex Cvetovich, who had better things to do).

Noisey: You've previously been described you as "Brooklyn badasses." What makes you guys so badass?
Jess Paps: That’s an embarrassing question to answer. I don’t know, who said that?

Well, there was an article, but it was also in the press release that went out for your album.
I think they said we were badass because the song they posted was pretty punk. It was like a minute long and it was guttural, punky shit.
Patrick Stankard: We all get kinda crazy sometimes, pretty angry. We’re angry people.
Jack Wolf: We break a lot of stuff.

Have you heard of this other Heavens Gate band from Germany? They used to make power metal.
Jess: Yes! They just had a revival tour that really fucked up our shit.
Patrick: They don’t have an apostrophe like we do.

Yeah! I think you’re safe because they didn’t have an apostrophe, which doesn’t make sense to me.
Jess: Yeah, the apostrophe is really where the cred comes in.
Patrick: The apostrophe is what makes us badass.

Is it a concern that they’ve resurfaced?
Jess: It’s not a concern, but in thinking of the name, it was more about doing an homage to the cult—well, not an homage, but conjuring up the images that came from the cult. And then there’s that massive Hollywood flop film. And then there’s the German band.
Mike Sheffield: There’s also this emo/powerviolence band called Heaven’s Gate that has reached out to us a few times. They’re into having the same name as us.
Jess: In terms of accessibility, unless you’re searching Brooklyn with our name, shit is not gonna be popping up.

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There appears to be another rock/metal Heavens Gate in Minnesota, too. Is that the emo/powerviolence band?
Mike: I think so, maybe.
Patrick: There’s also a band from Bangladesh, I think. They got in touch with us through Facebook and said, “Nice name.” But they’re actually different.
Jess: And they’ve literally liked everything we’ve posted on Facebook.

Just so you know, the Heavens Gate from Minnesota only has 21 followers on Twitter, so I wouldn’t worry about them.
Jack: We don’t even have Twitter so we’re losing that one.

You mentioned the Heaven’s Gate cult. I watched the initiation videos on YouTube today. That leader of theirs was a real weirdo.
Jess: Yeah. We were looking at a myriad of names at the time. In one of my creative free-associating weird cultural stuff, that name popped into my mind. I have weird memories of their videos and their aesthetic.

I really dig their logo.
Yeah, it’s very cool and totally in-style.

Did the guys all go down to Mexico and get castrated?
No.
Patrick: Yes.
Jess: Wait. Why would they do that?

That’s what members of the Heaven’s Gate cult did to diminish their sexual desires. I watched an interview with them and they were giggling…
Patrick: I didn’t know they did that.
Jess: That’s devotion! You guys need to prove your devotion to the band.
Patrick: Leave my penis.

Do you believe in UFOs?
Jess: No.
Mike: I think I believe in UFOs. There are totally things out there. Why wouldn’t you believe in them?
Patrick: Yes.

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Did you know there is such a thing as alien abduction insurance? Of course, it’s invalid if you commit suicide.
Mike: I know that during the most recent Rapture that happened. There were these websites that would look after your pets after you’re gone, and I bet they made a ton of money off that. It was non-refundable.

The Heaven’s Gate cult died after drinking a barbituate mixed with vodka and pineapple juice. There was also cyanide
Jack: We should totally have our own drink.
Jess: There’s that website, Drinkify, where they generate drinks for bands. We’re on there, and our drink is Red Bull, which I can kinda get down with. I don’t think there’s any liquor in it.

That’s a popular drink. There are millions of people drinking a Heaven’s Gate right now without even knowing it.
Maybe!

I really liked Sweet Bulbs, Jack and Mike’s old band. Why did they break up?
Mike: It had its time. I was writing most of the songs and Ray had a lot of good songs, too, and just needed to go do his thing. It was cool.

So how did you all hook up?
Post-Apocalypse, that was the end of Sweet Bulbs. I was trying to put together a band, and I met Jess in a sweat lodge on this retreat we went to. I didn’t know she was a singer when we met. Then, later on, I stalked her on the Internet and found out she was a singer.
Jess: It was kind of a secret.

It was a secret? What made you come out?
I was playing already, but I was waiting for the right person to force me to do it. They talked me into it a little, but I am very happy I’m singing for this band now.

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Has anyone ever told you your voice sounds like Glenn Danzig? I mean that as a compliment.
Everyone: Yeah!
Jess: Wicked!
Patrick: Funny you mentioned that, because when we were recording this, Mike was literally yelling at Jess, “More Danzig!” for inspiration.
Jess: The thing is that Danzig and I both share a vocal inspiration: Roy Orbison. And in terms of comparison, I find it very flattering. I think [Danzig] did a really good job of combining romantic vibrato on ballads with super punk vocals.

I actually hear more Samhain, circa November-Coming-Fire, in Heaven’s Gate than anything. You need some synthesized bells.
Mike: Alex, our bassist who isn’t here, turned me on to Samhain when he was living in a shitty apartment in Chinatown.
Jess: Alex wrote a song on the record called “Iron Black” that I feel is a super Danziggy song.

I thought on the new album, “Drones” was very Samhain.
Mike: That’s awesome! I like to think it’s more like the Stooges.

What is powergaze? Apparently you guys dubbed your sound that…
That was against our wish.
Jess: I thought that was something generated by the Internet and we couldn’t delete it.
Mike: I think it was supposed to be a combination of power pop and shoegaze, but I think we aren’t really playing with genre specifications.
Patrick: It’s powerviolence and shoegaze!

Are you guys shoegaze fans?
Jess: I had never heard of shoegaze before I started playing in this band! I still don’t really understand what it means. But they are.
Mike: Day and night, I love the shoegaze.

What is going on in that album cover for Transmuting?
Jess: I used to play folk music with a girl who played under the name of Bigger Princess. We sort of lost touch, but we’re friends on the Internet. I really like the pictures she was putting out, and she does a lot of bizarre, textured, multi-media stuff, and we were looking for an album cover and I just thought of it.
Mike: It made a lot of sense because I love abstract album covers. It’s this digitized, abstract expressionism that described the undergloss of our record. As soon as Jess showed it to us, I think we all agreed on it.
Jess: It was also kind of nice that we didn’t have to do it ourselves.
Patrick: DDIY! Don’t do it yourself.

It looks like a scrambled message from the Heaven’s Gate cult to outer space.
Jess: Someone online said it looked like an old computer vomiting.
Patrick: It’s a Rorschach test for acid heads.

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