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Why not begin your morning with an enormous cup of pitch-black blasphemy? Steep, sip and revel in a brew from an organization taking up the tea market — Satanic Tea Co. Whereas 2022’s clean-girl aesthetic might want you sipping pumpkin spice lattes behind a delicate fading sundown, Satanic Tea Co. rejects normality and affords “Antichrist Pumpkin Spiced Chai” to feed the darkest, damned souls.
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Usually a marketplace for calmness and serenity, Satanic Tea Co. is shaking up the natural brewery panorama with all kinds of blends like “THROAT OF LUCIFER,” mentioned to be a “soothing peppermint and lavender” combine, or “SATAN’S SLUMBER,” described as an “elixir even the darkish one trusts to get some shut-eye or simply soothe physique and soul.” Consistency is essential — from branding, brew names taste, and advertising and marketing, they do not fall brief. We sat down with Crucifix, aka Dominic Alvernaz, to learn how he constructed his satanic tea empire.
You began in 2017 and have been crushing it since, congrats! Wanting again at the place you began vs. now, did you ever count on this diploma of success and fame? I really feel like I’ve seen you in every single place working with everybody.
You might be actually too form! I am nonetheless floored that we’re even doing this interview, so to reply your query I completely by no means thought after we began Satanic Tea Co. in 2017 that anybody would care about what I used to be doing not to mention wish to work with me. Once I began STC, I did not even inform anybody near me what I used to be as much as till about six-eight months in. I used to be actually afraid of placing myself on the market.
Take me again to the drafting board for Satanic Tea Co. The place did the thought begin, and the way did it develop?
The concept began after I got here dwelling from promoting merch all summer time for a band on Warped Tour in 2016. I actually cherished being on the highway and was additionally touring with my very own band pretty usually. I used to be making virtually no cash whereas touring doing what I cherished, so I attempted to start out this aspect hustle promoting graphic T-shirts as “Pitch Black North.” We additionally offered tea in black luggage as an adjunct to the shirts. The picture early on was darkish and tried to resemble conventional black-metal imagery. Folks began simply calling us “that Satanic Tea Co.,” and that caught. Folks have been shopping for our tea way over the shirts, so we simply leaned into that.
Although a unusual idea, admittedly there’s something inherently ritualistic about tea as there’s with satanism, steel and different tradition in distinction to one thing like water or espresso. May you clarify why the tea advertising and marketing was calling your identify, particularly?
Tea manufacturers are largely fairly boring, correct, child blue, and so forth. Which is all fantastic, however I did not actually see anybody attempting to do one thing completely completely different and decide to that. This was a means I might categorical myself and to attempt to make one thing extra memorable. Perhaps even introduce tea to somebody who in any other case wouldn’t have actually gone for it past the stale teabags in your mum’s cabinet.
[Photo by Cally Nicole Arsenault]
With the “tea” comes the “satanic” — might you speak extra concerning the satanic aspect of issues? Are you working towards satanists? What was your introduction to satanism?
One among my favourite descriptors of satanism is Atheism doing jazz fingers. I grew up in a really strict non secular family. Christian faculty, church each Sunday, the works. My introduction to satanism from the church at a really younger age was basically tales of sacrificing goats, consuming infants, all that enjoyable stuff. Black steel in my teen years introduced my first introduction to fashionable satanism and the church of Devil. We don’t affiliate with any satanic group, however we’re impartial working towards satanists.
I really feel like I do know the reply already, however has there been a lot backlash from anti-satanists in opposition to your organization? In that case, might you inform us about it?
General, I’ve discovered individuals are fairly accepting or at the very least involved in discovering out extra. Satanic Tea Co. does sound a bit odd I suppose. I bought fairly a couple of demise threats. Violent letters to our PO field, folks saying they’d present as much as my home with weapons; it was fairly stunning. We nonetheless get threatening messages with all this comical Satanic Panic resurgence occurring now.
You’ve grown into such an enormous pressure to be reckoned with, collaborating with Cradle Of Filth and Venom Jail. You additionally launched a band underneath the identical identify, together with your monitor “BLOOD DRENCHED TORTURE CHAMBER” popping out earlier this 12 months. Has music all the time been an avenue you’ve been seeking to discover?
For certain, I have been in bands since I used to be 12. Enjoying music is one thing that has all the time meant quite a bit to me. A 12 months earlier than the pandemic hit, my outdated band stopped enjoying. Not having that outlet the previous couple years has actually had a toll on my psychological well being. Having the chance to show Satanic Tea Co. right into a band has been actually key in getting me to a greater place mentally. I am desirous to launch the subsequent single and music video “Human Tea,” together with a full EP to comply with in early 2023.
[Photo via Satanic Tea Co.]
Did you look to some other musicians for inspiration in your personal musical venture? In that case, which of them?
Completely, I feel the wheels began turning to broaden Satanic Tea Co. right into a band after we launched our collaboration with Belzebubs. JP Ahonen, the creator of that superior comedian e-book, took that band and made it an actual tangible factor, even signing a take care of Century Media. If it wasn’t for the pandemic they’d be enjoying main festivals in Europe. And naturally, Metalocalypse Dethklok together with Belzebubs serves as type of an inspiration for the idea. As for the music itself, it is closely influenced by old-school demise steel: Suffocation, Cryptopsy, Corpse. Simply enjoyable heavy tunes.
Talking of collaborations, are there any artists or celebrities you’re but to collaborate with that you just’d like to?
Positively! Some bucket checklist collabs must be Cannibal Corpse, Carcass, Ghost, Dimmu Borgir and Rammstein, to call a couple of. I feel we might have plenty of enjoyable making these tea blends. Simply want to determine find out how to get pyrotechnics right into a tea bag for Rammstein.
Lastly, I’d like to know what tea of your personal model you’d select for these events:
> Hanging with the undead homies
> Graveyard date
> Recovering your voice after an evening of singing at a steel live performance.
CRUCIFIX: Hanging with the undead homies: Devil’s Slumber
Graveyard Date: Antichrist Pumpkin Spiced
Recovering your voice after an evening of singing at a steel live performance: Throat Of Lucifer
