From the 1992 bio released by Carpe Diem Records
(basically a draft of the Zoo Entertainment bio)
"Behold Ozymandias, look upon ye works and despair!"
You don't usually start off a record company bio with a quote from poet Samuel
Coleridge, but then again, Dallas-based Course of Empire isn't your ordinary rock & roll
band. This is a group with a philosophical and moral agenda, named after a series of five
paintings by 18th century environmentalist artist Thomas Cole depicting the cyclical rise
and fall of industrial civilization, from ashes to ashes and dust to dust. Theirs is an
apocalyptic vision, using high technology guitar and primitive tribal drums to express
the conflict between nature and science that is at the heart of modern society, equally
influenced by Eastern philosophers and groups like U2, Killing Joke and the Clash.
The roots of the band go back eight years to 1984, when co-founders Mike Graff
and since-departed drummer Anthony Headley hooked up in the film department
of Southern Methodist University in Dallas, where they shared an interest in
ambient video soundtracks. They soon began playing music in the TV studio, and
advertised in local record stores for a vocalist "with an interest in vegetarianism
and ideas concerning the mass consciousness," which caught the eye of North
Carolina native Vaughn Stevenson, recently relocated to Dallas from California.
"Vegetarianism is just a symptom of thought process we all share in the band,"
says Vaughn. "It's all about individual action. You're never going to stop people
from selling meat or killing animals, but you can control where your money goes
and what you put in your mouth."
The idea that the individual can make a difference, that the micro can affect the
macro, is at the heart of Course of Empire's point of view and music. live, the
band believes in making its audience part of the show by handing out drums
during the tribal stomp "Thrust," gathering on and all in a communal, ecstatic
experience that reflects the current interest in getting back to humankind's true
nature as seen in such phenomena as the "men's movement."
"It's our desire to let go and not try to predict, control and analyze," says Graff.
"These ideas are all clicking in people's heads at the same time for a reason.
Stuff like this just means we're all hurting in the same way."
(
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