FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

Food

The Darkest Coffee Is Made by a Black Metal Musician

Tombs' frontman Mike Hill is keenly interested in the occult practice of alchemy. In music, that translates to a combination of hardcore, black metal, and doom metal. With his new coffee brand, that means high-altitude beans and bulletproof brews.
Photos by Kirsten Halfkenny.

There's a reason why musician Mike Hill of metal band Tombs named his new coffee company after his latest record, Savage Gold. Whether he's transforming brutal sounds into cathartic songs or the purest raw materials into a potent brew, both pursuits reflect his preoccupation with alchemy and elevation. As Hill explains, coffee has fueled every intense activity of his adult life, including Tombs' crushing combination of hardcore, black metal, and doom metal, and he launched Savage Gold to share his passion for a high-quality cup with the world.

Advertisement

Speaking with Hill, I got the sense that Savage Gold is more of a lifestyle than a brand—not in a slimy PR-speak sort of way—but because it reflects a no-bullshit ethos of discipline and dedication that he actually lives on a day to day basis. As would be expected from someone who maintains a strict Paleo diet and martial arts fitness regimen, Hill's coffee is bold and pristine and made with fair trade, certified organic Ethiopian Yirgacheffe beans grown between 6,000 and 6,500 feet above sea level. Savage Gold's inaugural offering is Savage Gold Prime whole bean coffee, but a limited edition Savage Gold IPA produced by Philadelphia's Tired Hands brewery was also recently released (you'll have to go to Brooklyn metal bar St. Vitus to down it while it lasts).

Savage 1

Hill says to expect more products in the future as Savage Gold seeps into the collective unconscious through our gullets. And though the coffee is positioned to appeal to the massive market of coffee drinkers outside the metal community, fans of Tombs and Hill's podcast, Everything Went Black, will still see a clear connection. You can't take the cult out of the coffee entirely.

MUNCHIES: What's the link between Tombs'recent record, Savage Gold, and your coffee company, besides the shared name? Mike Hill: My life revolves around a lot of intense physical and intellectual pursuits. I'm always striving to improve myself, [to] bring my raw materials to a higher state of consciousness. The coffee company caters to that idea, where coffee—to me—has always been synonymous with productivity. It's a motivator, something that gets you started in the morning, something that helps you get through difficult situations that you have to overcome.

Advertisement

Do you find a parallel between being an entrepreneur and being an artist? Absolutely. When I started, in the days before it launched and I was watching the website, it felt like before I was releasing a record. I put in a lot of work and research and then when you put it out there and you wonder if anyone is going to like this. Like when you put out an album you hope it's going to be something people are into. My ego has been eroded over many years of being in a band. You kind of have to get over any sort of fear of rejection or failure.

In an already robust coffee culture where do you hope to fit in? In all honesty, one of the things that I'm trying to do is become a filter for good things that can be incorporated into your life. I want to not only provide coffee but other items that will help you achieve your goals whatever they are, and help people incorporate more healthy decisions into their lives. In the last 12-14 months or so, I've been doing the Paleo diet and Paleo living, and the Savage Gold website is going to cover a lot of that sort of material. People who are goal-oriented and want to achieve certain things, whether they are physical goals or intellectual goals or creative goals, I'm hoping to speak to those people, and have them rely on me to provide them high-quality things to achieve their goals. That's sort of the mission statement.

A lot of people complain about the cost of quality coffee. How do you approach the issue? I don't want to pull the wool over anybody's eyes, I don't want to rip anybody off. I know how much coffee costs. All these things I'm selling are things I've been consuming my whole life. They're things I'd like to incorporate in my own life.

Advertisement
Sav2_edit

I know you're a proponent of Bulletproof Coffee. How do you incorporate it into your coffee drinking? Dave Asprey came up with the term 'bulletproof coffee' but the actual concept is something a guy named Robb Wolf developed a while ago. He incorporated yak butter into a hot cup of tea and found that it elevated his performance and helped with his energy level. Asprey applied this to coffee and developed his Bulletproof Coffee brand. It's a morning thing. Mostly I like to stay in that ketogenic fat burning zone and Bulletproof Coffee is what helps maintain that so I kick the day off with that protocol. I'll have two cups of that in the morning. I put it in the blender with grass-fed butter, some MCT oil, and you're good to go. Butter actually slows down the absorption—it's not mainlining this hypodermic of caffeine spiking your metabolism. It gives you this plateau, and you feel energized and focused for several hours.

What's your least favorite part about coffee culture? Pretense. Over the last 20 years or so, it's this kind of exclusionary vibe. I was recently in Los Angeles and walked into a very well-known establishment over there and it was a pretty alienating experience in some ways. I think it's something everyone should be able to enjoy. That's one of the things I'm sort of battling. In the pursuit of being an individual, a lot of people become a stereotype. And that's one of my least favorite parts of coffee culture.

What's the significance of high-altitude coffee? High-altitude coffee is coffee that is grown just below the frost line. Because there is less oxygen the plants grow at a slower rate and yield a denser, richer bean. They're more flavorful.

What books pair nicely with hot cup of Savage Gold Prime? War God by Graham Hancock, Food of the Gods by Terence McKenna, Ancestor by Scott Stigler and Live as a Man, Die as a Man, Become a Man by Enson Inoue. Those are the last couple books I read over the past couple months.

I noticed the #staygold hashtag on your site. You're a fan Francis Ford Coppola's The Outsiders I assume? Yes, absolutely. "Stay Gold" speaks to maintaining that youthful vibe, following what you want to do in life and not necessarily taking the easy way out and living a life like everybody else. It's the Peter Pan journey of my entire life.

Got it. Thanks for talking to me, Mike.