by Brad Rose

T,R: In the first, it's my actual church title. I have an official document that proclaims me Timothy Renner, Revelator. Actually, it's got my Latin name, but you get the idea. It's what I do - which is not as romantic as one might think. I've yet to see the sky burst open with angels or anything so dramatic as that. I deal in secrets and in linking historical events and people together, and in more subtle reflections.

Secondly, during the Poor Minstrels tour, I took to singing the old blues song, "John the Revelator" and I would get really intense and into it. I would hurt my voice getting into the spirit with it. A few people thereafter started asking "are you going to play 'John the Revelator' tonight?" and so, it became, as they say, "a thing."

Timothy the Revelator came shortly thereafter and then I made it Timothy, Revelator because I kept seeing some fellow named Dan the Autonomator in magazines and such, and I thought I would lose the "the" for no other reason than I thought people might think I was trying to take the piss or something, which I'm not. Plus, the comma looks nicer than "the."

T,R: I'm self-taught at nearly every aspect of music. I took maybe a month of bluegrass banjo lessons but I wanted to play clawhammer style and that teacher couldn't help me. So, I taught myself 2-finger banjo style and later found Bob Buckingham, who showed me the basic mechanics of clawhammer. Paul Chavez (Mourning Cloak, Tranquil, Bondage Harvest) taught me how to use a multi-track recorder around the same time I was learning to play instruments (it was awhile before I learned how to sing)- so you can hear me develop over the course of my recordings. It's sometimes awkward and a little embarrassing for me to listen to those early recordings. On the other hand, it's kind of nice to hear progress. I kind of wish I would have waited until I was more experienced before releasing my music, but it's out now. It's OK. A few people like my early recordings better than my later stuff, I know, so that's nice.

Music has always been a driving inspiration in my life. My family told of how, as an infant, I would silently rock to myself music for hours. They thought I had autistic tendencies. It was natural for me to want to make music. I never picked up an instrument until my mid-20s though, probably out of fear of my family's judgments - they were less than encouraging when it comes to my music, everyone except my father, really.

T,R: I hold one book in particular as very special, "The Long Lost Friend," a collection of folk prayers and spells written by a Catholic and in print in Pennsylvania to this day. The Wiccans have tried to usurp this book and call it 'paganism in the guise of Christianity' or some other such nonsense, but I'm sorry, they can't have it. Written by a Catholic, practiced by Christians.

Pennsylvania was founded on freedom of religion. This allowed for an amazing immigration of spiritual thinkers from Rosicrucians of The Society of the Woman in the Wilderness to the Ephrata community to the folk-prayers of The Long Lost Friend. My ancestors, and my wife's, almost all trace back to Pennsylvania. I have roots here.

Beyond being influenced by the music of these orders and their writings, I'm not sure how my music fits into all this. I did have a woman come up to me after one show and say it was nice to hear someone play the traditional Pennsylvania "hex songs" again. I didn't have the heart to tell her there are no traditional Pennsylvania hex songs and she was hearing my originals for the first time.

T,R: I think it's probably the biggest influence. I grew up on a farm and roamed the woods daily in my childhood. I learned to be alone. I learned the beauty of nature. I carry this with me always. It's in my blood. I think it's one of the reasons I don't really feel a part of the "new weird America" crowd. For the most part, those are people who live in the cities playing rural or rural-influenced music. I grew up in a rural area and play rural music. I don't mean to say I have any more "right" to it or I'm any more "authentic" than they are - that's not the case at all - it just lends a different root to the music. We come from different places.

T,R: I've known Alicia for years. We were pen pals for a very long time. She sent me some of her music and her voice just knocked me out. She did some vocals on pieces for Mourning Cloak and Breathe Stone, but I wanted to work on an entire album with her.

After I finished "The Silver Skein Unwound" with Stone Breath, on which I play umpteen different instruments, I thought it would be nice to do an entire album with just one instrument. For me, the choice was natural - banjo. I asked Alicia if she would like to work on this project with me - an entire album of love songs and moth songs - she liked the idea and agreed. I have been consistently amazed with what she comes up with. Alicia is one of the most amazing people I've ever met. Inspiring. Real. I hope we can work together always.

T,R: Each volume of Lost Gospel will likely be different. The first volume will be somewhat comparable to "Hex Thistle" I think, though all gospel songs. The second volume is created using only sounds from my twin children, Gideon and Ursula - fetal heartbeats, and general infant-speak. I didn't use any crying sounds, though it may sound like I did at points. This is very different from anything else I've ever done. Future volumes may contain anything from audio collage to raw gospel blues.... The first two are the only ones I'm sure of, after that...wherever my mood takes me.

T,R: It's fairly easy. I've set up a system of rules.…

Stone Breath is a true band with me, Prydwyn, and Sarada, and it is always acoustic. That's one of the principles I began with for this band and as much as possible we keep to it. Stone Breath, since Lanterna Lucis Viriditatis, has also had a more political-religious calling which informs our music.

Breathe Stone is the same band without the acoustic rule. A few years into it we decided we wanted to sometimes play with electric instruments and effects. Rather than start something completely new, we just spun the name around.

The Spectral Light & Moonshine Firefly Snakeoil Jamboree is traditional music. Mostly Appalachian ballads with some UK/European influence. We thought entire albums of trad music weren't really Stone Breath.

My solo recordings, even though they feature guests at times, are more a product of my free time away from the bands. Songs which just don't 'fit' with those projects for whatever reason.

I usually know when I'm writing a song. Ok, this is for Stone Breath... or I'd like to hear electric guitar on this - this is for Breathe Stone. Obviously, if it's traditional it goes to TSL&MFSJ unless it fits within the scope of whatever Stone Breath album we're working on. It seems confusing, but it's not to me. It makes perfect sense because of this weird system of rules I've set for myself.

T,R: After Mourning Cloak version 1 split up and I released the first Stone Breath 7 inch, I was broke and down and was talking to Phil McMullen of Ptolemaic Terrascope telling him I would have to go back to releasing home-dubbed cassettes. A short time later, I got a call from Australia. It was Tony Dale and he said he was starting a record label and he was interested in Stone Breath. Phil had recommended me to Tony. One thing lead to another and "Songs of Moonlight and Rain" ended up being the very first Camera Obscura release. So, Phil McMullen has everything to do with whatever success I have as a musician. I owe so very much to him.

T,R: I suppose I can't go on tour as easily as I could in the past. That's OK, as I'm really much more of a hermit than a wandering minstrel. I like playing music and I like traveling, but somehow the combination can weigh heavily on me. I like the area where I live and I like coming home to it when I've been away.

I want to teach my children music - I want them to learn through the folk process. I want to give them the encouragement that I never got. So, in this sense, music has taken on another important role here.

It's strange because having children changes everything, but not in the doom and gloom way everyone likes to tell you before they are born. I was told things like: "Well, you better figure on giving up music now." "You won't be able to do anything creative for about a year." "Your freedom is gone." And none of these things are true. I don't know who these people are married to, but my wife has said from the start that she married an artist and a musician and that's who she wants as her children's father. She has remained true to her word.

What has changed is that I've added two wonderful human beings to my life and they are not a ball and chain, they are a complete joy.

T,R: The biggest one, by far, is that Stone Breath is a "Wiccan" or neo-pagan band. I may have flirted with different occult groups in my misspent youth, but certainly not Wicca.

T,R: I suppose with me, it's always a struggle between dark and light. There are references to it in so many of my works and I don't know if I came to terms with it fully until Lanterna Lucis Viriditatis, at which time I believe I was given the Lantern to walk in dark places. Sine umbra nulla lux, it is said - "without shadow, no light." On the Silver Skein Unwound CD we've borrowed a prophetic phrase: "Darkness calls itself light, and the true light is called darkness," and this has come to pass.

T,R: Originally, I wanted to start making music as "soundtracks" to my drawings. Now I'd say everything I do creatively is relative to everything else. The most visual artwork I've done recently is the illuminations for "The Silver Skein Unwound" booklet, so that was directly influenced by the music - trying to put an image to the sounds.

T,R: I'm not sure there's been much crazy. A lot of nonsense with a few bands. A lot of really nice moments with people we've met. But crazy? Nothing comes immediately to mind.

Perhaps the night I played a goth club with In Gowan Ring, and B'eirth was dressed like a cowboy, while I had my banjo and we just kept playing for hours and hours for the 15 people that came to see us, while the regulars just stood around pissed off because they wanted to dance.

T,R: solo:
Lost Gospel Music vol. 1 "Where the Holy Ghost Haunts the Forest Gods" CD or LP - not sure which label.

Lost Gospel Music vol. 2 "Matthew 18:4" CD-R – Church & State label
more volumes from other labels.

"Boo-reh," a CD-R of protest songs, nature songs, and traditionals.

Stone Breath:
a second collection of songs from EPs and compilations with some new material, coming this fall from Kevyt Nostalgia.

5th full-length album proper in the works, may be some time before completion.

Possible Stone Breath video DVD-R.

More work with Alicia:
- not sure if it will be called Moth Masque.

The Spectral Light & Moonshine Firefly Snakeoil Jamboree:
"Burning Mills" CD/2LP coming very soon from September Gurls.

I've written and recorded 2 songs with Fit & Limo, my favorite modern band, for their next album "Terra Incognita."

T,R: I ran a tape label a few years before that, releasing other people's music (mostly experimental/"noise" type stuff) and the first Cloud tape. We had a few songs for Mourning Cloak that I just didn't want to put on tape; I just really liked them. I didn't think I could find an interested label, so I released the first Mourning Cloak 7" "Stargazer" with help from a now-defunct fanzine, and as I was going to concentrate on my own releases, I started a new label, called Hand/Eye, and I quit the tape label.

I was originally just going to use Hand/Eye to release my own music but I went to Camera Obscura, Ichor, September Gurls, etc. etc. with my own releases and people kept sending me music - music that I liked a lot - so, once again I started releasing other artists' music.

My inspiration for the label changes. Sometimes it's just the joy of making things. Other times it's getting a really great album out, being even a small part of something great. It was like that with the Barlow/Petersen/Wivinus disc. I am such a fan of that record - I am blown away by it. Likewise, with the Trees Community boxed set I'm doing - I'm just honored to be a pert of this reissue. They are incredible people who made some amazing music together and I just feel blessed they are trusting me with this music. It's some of my favorite music I've ever heard.

T,R: Writer's block is a tough one. The only thing for me to do is get out to the woods and wander, physically and mentally. As I've often said, I think most of my lyrics are on some level just nature poetry, so it's returning to the source for me. Even this is usually not a quick fix though.

T,R: In the first, I love the name. I think it describes what I'm doing on several levels. "Wyrdflok, " "acid-folk," "new weird America," and so-on - they are all terms which belong to certain genres, however loosely defined, and even though I made up the term, "wyrdfolk," it has a life of its own and is populated by bands other than my own. Lost Gospel Music is mine, and it's a way of uniting anything I do under one banner.

T,R: I've accomplished more than I ever hoped. I was never under the impression that I could get rich or popular off of my songs. I knew I was making music that would only appeal to a small segment of the population. When I started I thought well, I'll be happy if I can have a 7" one day. The fact that I've been on tours, played festivals, became part of Tom Rapp's live band more or less, released several albums that even a few people care about - all of this is incredible. I am blessed in this.

From here, well, if I can keep doing music at the same level, I'll be happy. I would, of course, love to make a living off of my creations but I don't honestly know if that is a realistic goal. But if it ends up that one day I'm making CD-Rs and sending them to 5 people who care, so be it.

T,R: Thank you for your interest and support.

Anyone who wants to contact me is encouraged to do so via email:
REVELATOR@LostGospel.org
or earth mail: c/o Dark Holler, PO BOX 131, Glennville PA 17329-0131,
USA