“Where black metal and classical music vie for privilege, hope, and death in a smog-laden basin of sunt,” is how California’s John Steven Morgan of Wreche describes his music. One listen to any of his cyclonic, mind-meltingly beautiful tracks makes it instantly clear he’s right on the fucking money. His upcoming album All My Dreams Came will crush your spirit, haunt your dreams and generally obliterate everything you ever thought you knew about music when it arrives in mid-May. To whet your appetite, Morgan blasts through my inane questions. Grab a giant ice-cream sundae and gird your loins (or whatever else you think needs girding):
Introduce yourself: Name, age (feel free to lie), home base and any other details you’d care to share — height / weight / identifying marks / astrology sign / your choice.
John Steven Morgan. Band is Wreche. From Oakland. Street performer. I haul a real piano around in my van and beat the shit out of it in public for a living. 6’1, strong, nice guy.
What is your musical origin story?
Crawled out of swamp, found piano.
What’s your latest project? Tell us everything we need to know.
All My Dreams Came True, the second album under my project Wreche, comes out May 14. It’s hardly strictly: experimental, black metal, extreme metal. IT’S AN INTERSTELLAR MELTDOWN.
What truly sets you apart from other artists?
Listeners on Spotify.
How will my life improve by listening to your music?
It’s like seeing a new color for the first time.
What is the best / worst / strangest / most memorable performance you have given?
I ate a three-pound ice cream sundae at Fentons Creamery in Oakland in order to not pay for it AND win a T-shirt. They give you 20 minutes, I did it in 10.
What living or dead artists would you collaborate with if you could?
Zack Hill.
What artist or style of music do you love that would surprise people?
Martin Denny.
Tell us a joke.
What has four wheels and flies? A garbage truck.
What useful (or useless) skills do you have outside of music?
I love to garden and cook, also really good at Monopoly and starting arguments.
What do you collect?
Credit card offers and AOL discs for a time.
What would you like to be reincarnated as?
Wolf.
What’s your idea of perfect happiness / total misery?
Life.
What’s your greatest regret?
Not buying Bitcoin when it was $1 so I could be a douchebag.
What are you afraid of?
Spiders.
What would the title of your autobiography be?
A Leper at Sea: The John Steven Morgan Story or Buffet Gorilla: A Portrait of Loneliness.
Who should play you in the movie of your life?
Javier Bardem.
What’s your motto?
“If it ain’t the best, you’re wrong.”
What’s always in your refrigerator?
Hazelnut Coffee Mate.
If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
My age.
What’s the silliest thing you believed as a child?
That the video game itself was intentionally cheating me out of a win.
What world record would you like to break?
I’d smash and burn any album by Ed Sheeran.
What’s the best and / or worst advice you were ever given?
Be yourself.
Watch the epic film for Vessel and listen to Scherzo from All My Dreams Came True above, hear more from Wreche below, and dig deeper into his devastatingly insane universe on his website, Facebook and Instagram.
