DAWNBREAKER (Part 3) - Finding a New Beginning in Black Metal After Chaotic Spiritual Upheaval

This is the third installment in a series of interviews with black metal act Dawnbreaker (United States), active since 2018, with five albums released since that year, and a sixth album that will come out very early in 2026.

Hello! You've been busy! You have two new albums coming up. What's going on with these two new albums? One is with Dawnbreaker, and the other with a new project, correct?

- Yes, I’m fortunate to have not only one but two new full-length releases coming up! The two albums are Dawnbreaker’s 6th epic “Pactum Sanguine Novo” and the debut for a new collaboration called Wailing. Both will be released on January 2nd, 2026, and both will be available on CD through Vision of God records. But Pactum Sanguine Novo will be released on vinyl as well at a slightly later date! Wailing is a death metal band and will be my first time releasing purely death metal music in over 15 years. Wailing features Shawn Eldridge on drums, who played in many popular death and black metal bands in the New Jersey / New York / Pennsylvania area. He’s also one of my best friends!

Previously we learned about your blasphemous black metal music from 2003 (and earlier) until 2016 or 2017, more or less, with Angelcide and other projects. However, the excesses of the hedonist lifestyle led you to a crisis, and you called on God for help, and God responded. You began to change your life, but you did not immediately tell people. In 2018 the first Dawnbreaker album, titled Deus Vult, comes out. From the very first second, the music hits loud, fast, barbarically and relentlessly. Can you take us back to your mindset throughout 2017 before the debut album? This would be a big year for you. Where did you find new ideas for lyrics? What's going on with artwork of this album? Who else knew that you were finished with Angelcide and that Dawnbreaker was your new project? What does the name Dawnbreaker mean? The year 2017 must have felt like one of the most exciting in your life: you were working on a renewal.

- Yes, 2017 was a pivotal year indeed! I had gotten a big raise at my job and could finally afford an apartment in one of the “cool” neighborhoods in New York City. In March I moved to Williamsburg Brooklyn – a place with a reputation for being “a mecca for creative types.” It was home to the famous Duff’s metal bar, the iconic Saint Vitus music venue (which I performed at many times), and a lot of other very culturally exciting places. I met my future wife that same month, and I also started attending church regularly – something I had not done since my teenage years. I wrote occasional pieces for a metal zine and got more politically active. The possibilities seemed endless in those days!

- Around this time I started attending a megachurch called C3 (a.k.a. “Christ City Church”) and was invited to audition for their worship team as a guitar player. I got the part, and for awhile I was playing guitar during their services – which had attendances of 400-500 people and were at some pretty big New York venues like Williamsburg Music Hall and Grammercy Theatre. Ironically these were bigger attendances and venues than I had in my days playing metal, haha! This was a few months after the final Angelcide album was released, and I had completely ended the project. I thought I was done with metal but one of my C3 colleagues said “you know, you can make metal that praises God.” And that got me thinking that I should do a Christian metal project, with Christian lyrics.

- I did have a hard time with the lyrics, because I wasn’t too familiar with Christian doctrine in those days. I even made one of the songs an instrumental because I just didn’t have enough ideas. I would hear sermons and write down the things I thought were cool and metal, like “Armor of Light.” But for the most part, the lyrics were about converting to Christianity and all of the growing pains that come about it. A crusade on the darkness! The cover is done by Gustave Dore, an artist from the 1800’s who was frequently used by Norwegian black metal bands like Emperor (who were probably my favorite overall). It’s from his illustrations for a comprehensive book about the crusades. Nobody really knew that I was working on a new metal project, except for the engineer and the logo designer.

- As for the name, it’s from a video game Skyrim – there was a sword in the game that was powerful against vampires and undead, a “sword of the light” called the Dawnbreaker. I was a huge fan of the game, I’d had played it for over 1,000 hours! And I remembered the quote “Mortals called it Dawnbreaker, for it was forged in a holy light.” I thought that was the perfect name for the project, a sword against the darkness.

In 2017 you were rethinking many things, I would imagine. For example, did you look into Christian metal and rock bands? What conclusions did you arrive at, in terms of lyrics for the first Dawnbreaker album? What else would you like to let us in on, in terms of things that you were discovering about making music with a focus on Jesus at that time as a new Christian? Did you feel joy as you were making the new music? Did you have any feelings of being a “beginner” of sorts? Did you have a sense of mischievous joy knowing that people had no idea what you were about to do?

- Ironically my original plans for Dawnbreaker were completely different. It was going to be a side project to Angelcide and was going to be more specifically about the actual crusades. I was going to call the band “Deus Vult” (which would become the title for the first album). The original lyrical ideas were pretty gruesome – some of the early song titles were “The Slaughter of Infidels” and “The Choke of Hanging Witches.” Sort of a cross-and-dagger “kill the heretic!” approach, haha!

- But somewhere along the line, I decided I didn’t want to do Angelcide anymore. I didn’t want to do a band couldn’t be proud of. And so Dawnbreaker became a replacement of Angelcide, almost like a “reboot” of a TV series or movie series. And I wanted to have lyrics that wouldn’t be ashamed of if my fellow parishioners or church leaders were to read. So, the lyrics were reframed to become more of a testimony than a dark fantasy novel. But by making it a new solo project to replace the old, it was extremely liberating. I could start over and make more primitive music than the more technical stuff I was doing in my other bands. So, the sound of Deus Vult became based on a combination of first wave black metal, the earliest American black metal bands, and early thrash-driven death metal. Some of the songs were remakes of old material, and I mean really old material! Others were new songs I had written over the prior years in these varying styles. They were intended for different short conceptual releases, but I eventually came up with a track list that felt like one complete story.

- Yes, there was that mischievous joy. I had low expectations for the album and the response, but I was also really excited about it. Given the sensitive nature of the themes, I chose not to pitch it to any record labels – I instead formed my own label, New Templar Records, and self-funded the entire release and production. This was a very new and exciting endeavor. I sent a lot of copies to Christian metal labels as a gift, and this opened up many opportunities and relationships that continue to this day.

Back then, as you work on your new music, how do you approach the vocals, on one hand, and the technology that you use for the vocals, like recording techniques and technology, microphones, layering, reverb, and similar effects? What were you thinking in terms of vocals: did you plan to make some changes or pretty much continue the same style as before with Angelcide?

- I used the same engineer that recorded the vocals for my work in Abazagorath and Angelcide. The vocals are the only thing I didn’t record myself, because I just couldn’t do that vocal style in a small apartment without scaring the neighbors, you know? But for the Dawnbreaker vocals I tried something a little different – a lower pitched scream. I remember a lot of my friends mentioning how much lower the vocals were from my previous releases, which were all high pitched. I wanted something different, and it fit the heavy riffs of “Deus Vult.” But I kept that style on all of the other Dawnbreaker albums, even though the music changed drastically the voice on each album was the same, guiding through many different storms and seasons.

What about the guitars and the guitar sound? Musicians are notorious for never being happy or satisfied with the sound of their albums because they focus too much on the “mistakes” that audiences often don't hear or notice. In your case, with Dawnbreaker, did you want to make particular changes to your guitar sound? I am not a musician nor an expert, but I would venture to say that Dawnbreaker seems to have a more robust guitar sound. It also seems to me, here from a distance, that thrash and death metal manifest themselves more than on Angelcide, as if you felt freer to do more with your guitar, but I don't know.

- Yeah, my earliest music ever was more in the death/thrash metal style. So as Dawnbreaker was meant to be a “reboot” of my metal career, I wanted to start at the beginning. I tried a different guitar tone for this – I think it was modeled after the Cannibal Corpse tone if I remember correctly. Definitely a lot more low end that what I had been doing for a while!

May 25th, 2018: The debut album from Dawnbreaker comes out. How is the album received? Did it get coverage in the metal press? Do you remember if you had any particular expectations?

- Yes actually, I had the opportunity to do an op-ed about my conversion in a metal zine called “Death Metal Underbground.” DMU was a really underground zine, the ultimate gatekeeper and most hardcore of fans. A lot of them really hated that I was playing metal with Christian lyrics but even they admitted the music was good. That article got a lot of attention and boosted a lot of sales. I made enough money from the sales of that pressing to cover all of the production costs and give many copies away for free. I was really impressed with the response. I thought it would be forgotten quickly and go largely unnoticed. But it did incredibly well, both among Christian and secular fans alike. I saw a number of non-Christians call it “The only good Christian metal album.” Deus Vult is unique in that it would get two more CD pressings and a limited-run vinyl pressing over the years to follow!

What about the Christian metal press? Dawnbreaker would have been a new name. The Christian metal world had not been your world. So, what happens with the Christian metal press and the music of Dawnbreaker? Did you begin making a bunch of new contacts with press people, radio people, labels, and promoters in Christian metal? How did you feel as you were making new contacts in a different corner of the music world? Were you pleasantly surprised?

- I did a lot of marketing in the Christian metal world – in fact that’s where I focused most of the marketing. I was fortunate to get the opportunity to premiere a song in HM Magazine – a popular Christian music zine. The response was really really good, and yes I made many new contacts in press. Most importantly though, I got a call from the owner of Vision of God records with an offer to sign to the label’s subsidiary Christian Metal Underground. He wanted to do a second pressing of Deus Vult and wanted me to sign on for two new albums. I took the deal and I’ve been with Vision of God ever since!

Did you play any shows in 2018? Did you have enough contacts to recruit other musicians to play Dawnbreaker music live in 2018?

- Nope, I never played live with Dawnbreaker and probably never well. I just don’t like organizing concerts, negotiating with promoters etc. I was never good at it, and my most successful bands involved someone else handling that department. I also don’t think I would be able to put a lineup together. Maybe if I used an already established Christian metal band, haha!

In 2018 your new album is your statement of your new mission. I would think that you expected some support from fans that support Christian metal. However, negative, pessimistic, and judgmental people are everywhere, including in the Christian metal scene. Did you get criticism that your music still sounded like satanic evil music? Have you gotten critique that your music is too dark and ominous to be Christian music?

- Nobody in the Christian world had anyone bad to say to me I don’t think. But that’s more likely because of the timing – we’ve already had many decades of great Christian black metal bands like Antestor, Slecthvalk, and Crimson Moonlight. Had I released the album in the 90’s I believe the response would have been much different! I didn’t show the album to Christian friends unless they were already metalheads.

I don't know if your parents and relatives heard Dawnbreaker, but by 2018 how are you doing in terms of repairing your relationship with your parents? I bet they were relieved in some ways to know that you were not going to end up dead or in jail from the reckless lifestyle of promiscuity, substance abuse, and general antisocial behavior from before.

- No, I never played it for family, they never really took that style of music seriously so I typically don’t mention what’s happening in my music life. This is the case for most of the people I know unless I know they’re into extreme metal. I hate talking about my music with “normies” haha! But yes, by now my relationship with my family has been very good for many years, other than my mother arguing with me about politics! It helped that I had moved out several years prior and was living in New York now. You know what they say, “happiness is a tightly knit family – that lives in another state!”

How are you feeling at the end of 2018, after the album has been out? Are you happy with your new life and new music? Now at the end of 2018, most of your friends in the music scene, who are in their vast majority not Christians, know about Dawnbreaker. Basically, just about everyone knows. You must have felt good to finally release the Dawnbreaker album. It wasn't a secret anymore!

- Yes, 2018 was a great year. I started working for a new company, the one I currently work for! I moved to the Upper East Side of Manhattan, which was exciting to be in the “the real New York.” Dawnbreaker is doing well, I have a long-term record deal and a plan for the next album. I’ve sold my Deus Vult stock, and am fully plugged into the Christian metal scene. My relationship is good, I’m attending mass at a church that I really really like, finishing my first read of the Bible, plugged into the Christian world and culture. Probably one of the best years of my life to date!

Of course, as usual, you are a workaholic, and I'm sure you had your next album in the works because Metal Archives shows that in September 2019, Dawnbreaker returns with a second album Total Depravity. Seeing as I have already asked too many questions for this segment of the interview, let’s stop for now and come back to 2019 next time.

- Thanks for all of the great questions! Looking forward to the next chapter of this series!

-- -- Dawnbreaker - Black Metal after Nihilism, Atheism and Self-Destruction (Part 2) https://metalbulletin.blogspot.com/2025/09/dawnbreaker_29.html