The Canadian heavy metal Cauldron, born from the ashes of the fallen heavy/doom metal band Goat Horn, is widely regarded as one of the most important names in all of "New Wave of Traditional Heavy Metal", especially since they are regarded as one of the founding fathers of this revival movement which started around the early to mid 2000's. It's been a while since the band put out any new material, but at least it's a relief to know that they are still around and kicking ass, despite their previous album New Gods being six years old at this point, but luckily, there is hope that Cauldron will once again enter the studio. I reached out to their vocalist, bassist and founding member Jason Decay, with whom I've discussed various subjects surrounding the re-release of their fourth album In Ruin from 2016, which had been pulled from streaming platforms due to licensing issues but was luckily resolved as of this year, but we also touched on other subjects such as his work on the AOR band Lockhart, Goat Horn's compilation album "Voyage to Nowhere - The Complete Anthology" from 2022, and the possibility of Cauldron going back on the road in the future. If you are a fan of the band Cauldron or NWOTHM bands in general, I truly hope you will enjoy this interview with Jason Decay, if you are not, then I encourage you to check out all of his bands that we've brought up in this interview.

Vladimir

Greetings Jason! It's been a while since people got any news about Cauldron, but as of recently, we were finally blessed with the re-release of your fourth album In Ruin from 2016, which was absent for some time on streaming platforms, but now it's finally being resurrected. What is the story about the album being pulled from streaming? How did you manage to solve this issue in the end?

Hi, thanks for having me! The story is that the license with The End Records expired in 2021 and unlike most record companies they actually adhered to the agreement and returned our record to us. It's been absent for over 3 years because I couldn't be bothered to pay to give away our music but the Brazilians bugged us long and hard enough that we gave in. We must be fucking huge in Brazil, and all of central and South America.

This year you released a 7" vinyl split with Enforcer on Doomentia Records, titled Heavy Metal Thunder Session #2, which is a continuation of the first edition split that includes Ambush and Stallion. This edition in particular contains a single song of each artist, with Enforcer covering "Attack" by Jonah Quizz and Cauldron covering "Paris is Burning" by Dokken. How did you guys settle down to do this split release, and how come you decided to include song covers?

Petr from Doomentia just asked us if we had anything lying around that we'd like to contribute to his 7" series and I thought that was the best unreleased recording, at least on vinyl, that we had so there be it.

Your last album New Gods is now six years old at this point, and as time went on, we haven't received anything else from Cauldron apart from the aforementioned split with Enforcer, and a compilation album Undercover of Moonlight in 2020. Does this mean that Cauldron is done working on new material, or is there any hope for making a new full-length album?

We're not really done working on new material but it just takes a lot longer these days. We all have kids and real jobs now and we don't live in the same city anymore, but we do have around 5 new song ideas so far that we put together last year so I'm hoping that starts to come together in the near future but we're not setting a deadline for ourselves like we used to.

If I am not mistaken, New Gods is the only Cauldron album which didn't have any music video like your previous ones. How come?

New Gods also didn't have a proper tour and that is because Myles had a newborn at the time and wasn't going to tour and I had one on the way and wasn't going to tour beyond that. We thought about a music video and had a concept and location laid out but without touring like we used to it just seemed like too much of an expense for nothing. Had the record company paid for it, it would have been a different story but they probably thought the same thing. We did end up doing a handful of shows in the states with Myles and a short European tour with Chris Steve on drums but it wasn't enough to justify spending a bunch of money we didn't have to support the album and tour.

Speaking of video content, I see that you occasionally upload some cool stuff on the YouTube channel "atticmetal", mostly studio sessions to live videos of Cauldron. Out of curiosity, have there been high demands from fans to upload some rare footage regarding the band?

No not really, but I recently discovered a bunch of forgotten footage from the In Ruin era that I thought would support the cassette tape release, which led to the streaming re-release.

Two years ago, you released the No Chance EP of your AOR band Lockhart, which also includes the talented drummer Fabio Alessandrini and Axxion's Devon Kerr. I must say that I was pleasantly surprised that we got this EP, because it's a really good and fun release for fans of 80's AOR as a whole. What's exactly the story behind you guys starting Lockhart?

Devon had these songs for years and I thought they were great so I was always bugging him to record and release them so he ended up asking me to play bass on them. Fabio was interested in playing with Cauldron but we already had Myles at the time so when Lockhart came about I thought Fabio might be the right guy and he was.

Are you by any chance, or "No Chance" at all, planning to do a full-length album for Lockhart in the near future?

Full length record is almost done and should be out in 2025.

Way before I even heard or discovered Cauldron, I've known you from your previous band Goat Horn, which I came across by chance on YouTube in 2013/2014. Two years ago, you released a compilation album Voyage to Nowhere - The Complete Anthology, containing the entire history of the band, and it's practically perfect for all the diehard fans and collectors. Although Goat Horn is considered inactive, how come you guys decided to put out this great compilation album?

My friend Dan, who signed Cauldron to Earache back in 2008, ended up running Dissonance Productions and was interested in releasing the pre-Cauldron stuff (Goat Horn) as a set so we though it was a good opportunity to bring it back to people who might not know about it.

Ever since this compilation got released on both physical media and streaming platforms, has the interest towards Goat Horn grown any bigger?

No, not really, haha, but probably some I suppose.

I apologize if you've been asked about this many times before, but according to Metal Archives, it says that "Despite being officially split-up, the band (Goat Horn) still occasionally performs live". Is this true or false?

We did for a while but not recently.

I would really love to see Cauldron perform anywhere in Europe someday, so are there any plans to go back on the road anytime soon?

No plans at this point but if the right opportunity came about then maybe; we're more of a heritage act at this point.

Thank you so much for this interview Jason. I am highly looking forward to seeing what the future brings for Cauldron, and I wish all the best to you. Are there any final words for the fans?

Thank you for asking good questions, it makes the answers easier! And if you like what we do then we are grateful. Be patient because we hope to get something new released eventually and thanks for your support!!