Interview Wildcard Campfire

Wildcard Campfire’s debut album, Where God Grew Tired, explores humanity, conflict, and survival through cinematic heavy music. We discuss storytelling, AI, personal experiences, and future ambitions.

1. Where God Grew Tired is more than a collection of songs; it’s a ten-track journey through rebellion, war, faith, memory, collapse, and survival. What inspired you to create this fictional world, and when did you realize that the album needed a larger narrative connecting its songs?

The inspiration mainly came from the way I see the world, human behavior, and life in general. In fact, the desire to create this world was there right from the beginning.

A lot of the lyrics had already been sitting with me for years, some as early drafts and others practically finished. The same goes for some of the riffs and melodies. Some were already there on the guitar, while others were simply in my head, waiting for the opportunity to bring them to life.

Music has always been my way of dealing with things I've experienced, witnessed, or gone through. I've been connected to music in one way or another since I was very young, so it naturally became my way of getting those things out.

At some point, I realized I kept waiting for the perfect moment when I'd have all the resources, people, and tools to produce everything exactly the way I imagined it. But between having a family, running a business, and living as a digital nomad who moves around quite a bit, I realized that perfect moment probably wasn't going to arrive on its own.

So, I decided to stop waiting.

I started taking all the ideas I'd accumulated over the years and building an entire world around them, complete with its own history, rules, characters, factions, and relationships. In fact, what people will see in the Lore Book is a fairly accessible and condensed version of all the world-building I've done behind the scenes.

So, the narrative wasn't something I came up with afterward just to connect a bunch of unrelated songs. The music and the world grew out of the same ideas and experiences. Eventually, I just reached a point where I decided it was time to finally bring them to life and share them with other people.

2. The album is released under the name Wildcard Campfire, a faceless project with a strong emphasis on storytelling and world-building. Why did you choose to keep the project's identity faceless, and how does this approach influence the way listeners connect with the music and its characters?

When we see the person behind a piece of art, we often end up focusing on that person. Their appearance, personality, behavior, and everything surrounding them, rather than necessarily focusing on what they're trying to express through their work.

Wildcard Campfire is, first and foremost, a project about telling stories and creating good, heavy, cinematic music. I wanted those things to be at the center of attention, rather than the person behind them.

I also think this approach gives listeners more freedom to interpret things in their own way. They don't need to see me to imagine the characters or connect with what those characters are experiencing.

And so far, it really seems to be working. I get messages from people telling me which songs they've connected with, how they interpret them, and what emotions those songs bring out in them. What's interesting is how different those answers can be. Sometimes people find completely different meanings in the exact same song.

I genuinely enjoy those conversations. To me, when someone finds something personal in something I've created, even if their interpretation is different from what I had in mind when I wrote it, that means I've managed to communicate something real.

3. The Ashen Gospel unfolds across three parts: Before the Banners Burn, When the Banners Burn, and Where God Grew Tired. What does this trilogy represent within the album's larger story, and why was it important to divide this central narrative into three distinct chapters?

The Ashen Gospel is essentially the backbone of the album. While the other songs introduce personal stories, characters, and moments from different periods within the world, the trilogy tells the story of the major events that shaped the civilization as a whole.

Before the Banners Burn tells the story of the rise of the False Prophet, a leader who promises people safety, peace, and a better future. He manages to make people believe in him in a way that closely resembles religious faith, but also the way people sometimes view political leaders in our own world. At the same time, a rebellion begins to form among those who can see through his promises.

When the Banners Burn takes that rebellion and turns it into something much bigger. The rebellions evolve into wars that continue for generations. The original leaders die or disappear, but the wars carry on without them. Hatred has become part of the identity of the different groups, to the point where people continue fighting even when the original reasons for the conflict have almost been forgotten.

The third part, Where God Grew Tired, brings all of this to its devastating conclusion. The title is meant to convey the idea that after thousands of years of humanity repeating the same cycles of war, hatred, and destruction, it's as if even God has finally grown tired of watching it all unfold. Throughout those years, civilization continues fighting and advancing technologically until it eventually develops and uses weapons that bring about the near-total destruction of the world.

It was important to me to divide the trilogy into three parts so that each stage could carry its own weight: the promise, the war, and the destruction. That way, the trilogy tells the bigger story, while the other songs allow us to see what happens to the people living through those events.

But here's where things get particularly interesting to me.

The song ends with the words "The old lie started breathing again", and the story actually continues in the project's very first single, A Hymn for the Unburied.

That song sounds incredibly hopeful, and it really does tell the story of humanity returning to the surface after spending generations in underground shelters. But everything these new generations know about human civilization comes from what was preserved for them, and the figure that appears again and again throughout that legacy is the False Prophet.

They have no idea who he was or what he did. To them, he's simply part of the truth they grew up with.

And that leaves me with some interesting questions. Did the False Prophet actually manage to fulfill his promise of a new future, in some completely twisted way? And if so, was he really a false prophet, or is his story far more complicated than it first appeared?

After all, if humanity eventually adopts the same ideology as a whole, maybe many of the conflicts that led to its destruction really would disappear. But would that be a genuine utopia, or a deeply unhealthy, uniform civilization where there's no longer any room for differences, independent thought, or new ideas?

To me, our differences, our different perspectives, and even our disagreements are a huge part of what makes humanity interesting and allows us to evolve. Maybe a world where everyone agrees on everything would be more peaceful, but that doesn't necessarily mean it would be a better world, or even a more human one.

These are questions I asked myself throughout the process of building this world, and they're questions I still ask when I look at the world around us. I don't necessarily want to provide a definitive answer to them.

In fact, that's one of the reasons I chose to end this era of Wildcard Campfire at this particular point. I want to leave listeners with those questions too, and let each person decide for themselves whether what they've heard is a story about humanity being saved, or about humanity losing something essential about itself in the process of surviving.

4. The album explores how rebellion can evolve into war, how violence becomes embedded in institutions, and how the past continues to shape future generations. What ideas about human nature, power, faith, and the repetition of history did you want to explore through this fictional civilization?

I'm really glad you asked this! For me, it was less about wanting to explore these subjects and more about expressing my personal perspective on human nature and the world we live in.

One of the most fascinating and frightening things about human nature, to me, is our ability to justify almost anything when we're convinced that our cause is righteous. People don't necessarily see themselves as the villains of their own stories. Sometimes they genuinely believe they're fighting for something good, even when their actions cause tremendous suffering to others.

You can see this throughout history. The French Revolution, for example, began with aspirations for liberty and equality, but also led to the Reign of Terror. World War II and the Holocaust offer a different, far more extreme and horrifying example of how an ideology built on hatred and supremacy can become an entire system of persecution and extermination, one in which ordinary people also participate.

Religion and faith also have a place in this discussion. I don't see faith itself as something negative. It can give people hope, meaning, and tremendous strength. But history also shows us how it can be exploited to control others. The Spanish Inquisition, for example, demonstrates how religious institutions and political power, acting together in the name of absolute truth, can turn faith into a tool of persecution and coercion.

And I don't think this is limited to religion at all. Political and national ideologies, and even ideas like justice and freedom, can become dangerous when people start believing that their goals justify any means necessary.

What troubles me most is that when I look at the modern world, at the wars and conflicts happening around us, the polarization within societies, and even the way people engage in public discourse, it's sometimes hard not to recognize those same patterns repeating themselves.

We live in an age of incredibly advanced technology and almost unlimited access to information, yet we still manage to divide the world into "us" and "them," turn entire groups of people into enemies, and justify actions we'd condemn if they were committed by the other side.

Of course, I don't believe every conflict is the same, or that all these historical events are equivalent. But the fear, hatred, desire for power, and our ability to convince ourselves that we're always the ones in the right remain disturbingly familiar.

Sometimes I feel like history doesn't really repeat itself in exactly the same way. It simply puts on a different mask.

And that's exactly what I wanted to express through the civilization of Where God Grew Tired. A world that changes and develops over thousands of years, yet continues carrying the consequences of decisions, beliefs, and hatreds inherited from the past.

At the same time, I don't believe humanity is inherently evil or that we're doomed to repeat the same mistakes forever. We're capable of tremendous compassion, just as we're capable of tremendous cruelty.

And maybe, in the end, the real question isn't why history keeps repeating itself, but why we keep believing that this time we'll be different.

5. Musically, Where God Grew Tired moves between melodic metalcore, djent, deathcore aggression, progressive metal, post-metal atmospheres, and orchestral arrangements. How do you decide which sounds and styles best serve each song's story, and how do you maintain a cohesive identity across such a diverse album?

I love a lot of different musical styles. Mostly heavy music, cinematic music, and classical music, but I also listen to blues, classic rock, hip-hop, electronic music, and plenty of other genres. So for me, it was pretty natural that the album would end up being musically diverse.

When I start working on a song, I don't necessarily think about which genre it should belong to. I think more about the feeling I want to communicate. Some stories need to be aggressive and chaotic, while others need more space, atmosphere, or melody. Sometimes you need to combine all those things within the same song.

I think what keeps the album musically cohesive is that, ultimately, I'm the one writing and directing everything. I've spent over twenty years developing my identity as a musician, and that identity is still there even when I'm playing completely different styles of music on my own.

Beyond that, there are recurring musical motifs, deliberate choices in melodies and harmonic progressions, and certain approaches to vocal delivery that help connect the songs.

I define Wildcard Campfire as a Cinematic Heavy Music project. It's a broad umbrella that allows me to explore different styles without feeling like I have to belong to any single genre. As long as the music remains heavy, cinematic, and serves the story I'm trying to tell, I feel like it's going in the right direction.

6. You write the riffs, lyrics, melodies and song structures, and guide the overall creative direction, while generative AI is used during the performance and production stages under your direction. Could you walk us through your creative process, from the first guitar riff or lyrical idea to the finished track? How do you ensure that the final result reflects your artistic vision?

Great question! I know there's a lot of resistance to AI in music right now, and I do understand where some of it comes from. There's plenty of generic material being produced with it, but I believe that when musicians use it as a tool rather than a replacement for their own creativity, they can create some amazing things.

To me, it's a technology that allows people with ideas and creativity to bring things to life even when they don't have all the resources, time, or people needed to do it the traditional way.

My process usually starts with the lyrics and the story. I build the world, the situation, or the character the song revolves around, and I start imagining how the music should sound to communicate that particular feeling.

From there, I pick up my guitar and start developing the riffs and melodies. I work out the overall song structure, BPM, keys and modes, vocal phrasing, how the vocals are divided between singers, where guitar solos or instrumental sections should appear, and how all the different parts should fit together.

By that point, I usually have a pretty clear picture in my head of what I want the finished song to sound like.

Then I use AI to bring it into the performance and production stages. It handles a large part of the technical work, but that absolutely doesn't mean I just take the first result it gives me and release it. I keep generating new versions until I find one that gets close to what I was hearing in my head. From there, I work on that version section by section, changing and refining each part until I get as close as possible to what I originally imagined.

Once that's done, I also handle the final mastering myself.

I think the project's release schedule reflects that process. The final versions of the album and singles were already ready in May, but I wanted to give them more time, keep listening, and consider whether there was anything I still wanted to change before releasing them.

Most of the songs I've released are definitely not their first or even second versions.

At the end of the day, what matters to me isn't how quickly I can release music. It's making sure that what I put out stays as true as possible to what I originally wanted to create.

7. Several songs bring the album's enormous fictional world down to a more intimate, personal level. The Ghosts of My Past explores guilt and trauma, Shackles of Blood examines violence turning inward, and Paradise Has Walls portrays social and religious pressure as a personal siege. How do your personal experiences and broader perspective on the world shape the way you translate these themes into individual stories within the fictional universe of Where God Grew Tired?

I think almost everything I write starts somewhere personal, even if it eventually becomes a fictional story that doesn't necessarily describe something that literally happened to me.

A lot of the lyrics were written as a way of dealing with experiences I've had, things I've witnessed, or emotions that have stayed with me over the years. By giving those experiences to fictional characters instead of putting myself directly into the story, I can focus on what I'm trying to express without getting in my own way. It also gives me the creative freedom to take those feelings somewhere much more extreme without having to make every song about myself.

The Ghosts of My Past, for example, deals with the way our past continues to live inside us. Decisions we regret, guilt, memories, and experiences that don't necessarily disappear just because time has passed.

Within the album's story, the song is also a continuation of The Lowest Point. It follows the character after the experience of imprisonment, exploring the memories and guilt they carry, and the struggle to learn how to live again without remaining mentally trapped in that terrible experience. The world around someone can change completely, but sometimes they're still living inside something that happened years ago.

Shackles of Blood takes that idea somewhere much darker, exploring what happens when a person doesn't just carry the world's violence within them, but eventually becomes a source of violence themselves. Sometimes the strongest chains are the ones we forge ourselves through the choices we make, and struggle to escape afterward.

With Paradise Has Walls, I wanted to show how things we tend to think of as larger social, religious, or political systems can affect something as simple and personal as the love between two people. Sometimes you don't need a war or a cruel ruler for someone to feel like their freedom has been taken away.

In the case of this particular song, I can actually share a little of the personal story behind it without going into too much detail.

My wife and I were born in different countries. We met when she came to the country I was born in for a few months, and after she returned to her home country, we spent a long time dealing with bureaucracy and laws that made it difficult for us to be together permanently. There were even periods when we couldn't see each other for months at a time.

That's the experience the song grew out of. Of course, within the fictional world, I took those emotions and struggles in a different direction, but the emotional foundation comes from something we actually went through ourselves.

I don't think a song has to be autobiographical to be personal. What matters to me is that the emotion behind it is real.

And the beautiful thing, to me, is that a listener can take that story and find something that connects to their own life without even needing to know what originally inspired me to write it.

8. One of the album's most intriguing qualities is its willingness to embrace tonal contrasts. Khinkali Inferno finds humor and human connection amid conflict, while The Legend of the Shanenigator introduces deliberately absurd lore. What made you want to include these moments of humor in such a dark, cinematic universe, and how do they fit into the world you've created?

Because humor is part of life! Even in our own world, with all the wars, suffering, and terrible things happening around us, people still laugh, eat, love, and enjoy the little things.

If I created a world that consisted of nothing but suffering, war, and death, I think it would actually feel less human.

Khinkali Inferno came from wanting to show those moments between battles. In this case, it's about soldiers taking a break from the war to sit down together and eat khinkali, a Georgian dish that I absolutely love and became very familiar with while living in Georgia. Of course, even the meal itself is described almost like a battlefield, because we're still talking about the world of Where God Grew Tired.

The Legend of the Shanenigator is an even more personal and ridiculous story. It was inspired by my little boy.

I was sitting at home, and the living room was completely tidy. Then my son came home from daycare. About five minutes later, I walked through the living room again, and it looked like a disaster zone. I think pretty much every parent of a toddler can relate to that.

That got me imagining what a child like that might be like growing up in a world full of conflict and chaos, and I took the idea to a completely ridiculous extreme. That's how the legend of the Shanenigator was born.

Make It Pop also comes from a personal place, but this time from my work as a developer and programmer. Anyone who works in a creative field knows that moment when you have a really good idea, and then comes another request for a change, and another one, and another revision, until the original idea barely exists anymore.

I took that concept in an absurd, morbid direction, where the creative work is literally portrayed as a corpse, and the client is still asking if we can make it feel a little more alive.

I really love humor, and it's part of who I am. And at the end of the day, even with a dark, cinematic metal album, there's a limit to how seriously you can take yourself!

9. The tracklist doesn't follow a straightforward chronological order, instead moving between different voices, memories, and historical moments. How should listeners approach the album for the first time? Is there a particular listening order, lyrical detail, or recurring element they should pay attention to in order to uncover the connections between the tracks?

For a first listen, I'd actually recommend starting with the three singles and then moving on to the album in its official tracklist order.

The only thing I'd probably change about the singles' release order is to listen to A Hymn for the Unburied first, followed by The Lowest Point, and then Make It Pop.

There's a musical reason for that. The album's tracklist wasn't arranged according to the world's chronology, but according to how I wanted listeners to experience the music.

For example, the album opens with The Beast With My Name, which is a very aggressive song designed to hit hard right from the start. If I'd arranged the album chronologically, it would have opened with The Ashen Gospel - I. Before the Banners Burn, which is much more progressive and cinematic, and might be a little harder to digest for someone discovering the project for the first time.

For a second listen, though, I'd suggest trying to follow the world's chronology instead.

Start with The Ashen Gospel - I. Before the Banners Burn, move on to Khinkali Inferno, and then The Ashen Gospel - II. When the Banners Burn.

From there, you can move through the other songs according to the different periods and stories they represent. One connection that's particularly important to me in this sequence is listening to The Lowest Point immediately followed by The Ghosts of My Past, since they represent two consecutive stages in the same character's story.

Eventually, you reach The Ashen Gospel - III. Where God Grew Tired, followed by Make It Pop after the destruction, and finally A Hymn for the Unburied, which closes the story.

I'd also recommend paying attention to recurring motifs like fire, banners, promises, and faith, and how their meanings change throughout the songs.

I think these two approaches offer completely different experiences. The first allows you to simply enjoy the album as music, while the second lets you start uncovering the story hidden behind it.

10. The three earlier singles, A Hymn for the Unburied, Make It Pop, and The Lowest Point, belong to the same era but sit outside the album's ten-track sequence. What role do these songs play in expanding the world of Where God Grew Tired, and how did you decide which material belonged on the album itself and which should remain outside its main tracklist?

The singles served two purposes for me. They expanded the story, but they also gave me a way to introduce different sides of the project to listeners before releasing the album.

I didn't want to release an album I'd spent so much time working on to an audience that didn't exist yet. On top of that, the album itself is already around 55 minutes long, and adding the three singles would have made it a pretty lengthy listening experience for someone just discovering Wildcard Campfire.

A Hymn for the Unburied was the first single, and I think it's also one of the most musically accessible songs I've written for the project. There's something very nostalgic about it for me. It reminds me of the music that influenced me during the years when I first started writing and composing.

It also carries another personal meaning for me. In a way, it represents my own decision to stop leaving my creative work buried.

Make It Pop came next to introduce the heavier, more aggressive side of the project and give listeners who prefer their metal on the more extreme side another reason to step into this world.

Finally, The Lowest Point introduced the more progressive and complex side of my writing, with a longer song structure, technical sections, and different musical transitions. Emotionally, it's also one of the most personal songs I've ever written.

Each single was essentially a different doorway into Wildcard Campfire, and together they allowed me to show the project's musical and emotional range before the full album came out.

11. You've developed a lore book and lyric books to accompany the project, giving listeners access to the chronology, characters, and deeper connections behind the music. How important is it for audiences to understand the full story, and do you see these materials as essential companions to the album or as optional layers for listeners who want to explore the universe more deeply?

As a creator, of course I'd love for everyone to know the full story and understand how all the songs connect. But I absolutely don't think that's a requirement for enjoying the album.

Even as a listener myself, I don't always dive into the story behind every song or album I enjoy. Sometimes the music itself is more than enough.

I see the Lore Book and lyric books as an additional layer for people who do want to explore the world more deeply. They offer a closer look at the chronology, characters, and connections that aren't always obvious just from listening to the songs.

But I also love the idea that someone might listen to the album and imagine a slightly different world from the one I created. At the end of the day, once the music is out there, it doesn't belong only to me anymore.

The plan is to make the books available soon through the project's support website, either separately or as part of a Deluxe Edition of the album, which will also include the three singles and a reimagined version of one of the album tracks that's currently in the works.

To me, these are extra layers of the experience, not homework people need to do in order to enjoy the music.

12. With Where God Grew Tired marking Wildcard Campfire's debut album, what would you like this release to establish about the project's identity and future direction? Can listeners expect the story to continue beyond this era, perhaps exploring what happens when humanity returns to a world transformed by the ruins of its own civilization?

For me, Where God Grew Tired is really the foundation of the identity I want to build for Wildcard Campfire. I wanted to establish it as a project that tells stories through music, without limiting myself to a single genre or type of story.

The response from listeners so far has been much better than I expected, especially considering that the first single only came out at the end of June. Beyond the numbers and statistics, what has made me happiest is the connections I've made with people through the music. I've met some amazing people and received support I genuinely wasn't expecting when I started.

As for continuing the story, I see A Hymn for the Unburied as the closing point of this era. I wouldn't want to extend the narrative just because I could. I'd rather move on to a new world where I have something different to say.

I've already started writing and building the next world of Wildcard Campfire, and it's going to take a very different direction. This time, I want to focus more on psychological themes, within a dystopian setting that begins in the near future. From there, I'll see where the writing takes me. It's entirely possible that the story could eventually move tens of thousands of years into the future.

Musically, I'm currently planning to continue with the workflow I developed during this album, but my biggest dream is for the project to grow enough that I can bring in human musicians and vocalists, produce everything organically, and eventually take Wildcard Campfire to the stage.

I know that might take time, but I'm patient and willing to put in the work to get there.

In the meantime, the Where God Grew Tired era isn't completely gone just yet. There are still a few things I'm working on, including a first guitar playthrough and attempts to bring in suitable vocalists for vocal playthroughs of songs from the album. I'm planning to handle the harsh vocals myself.

I'm also trying to figure out the right way to do all of that while maintaining the project's faceless aesthetic, so there are still some interesting challenges to work through.

I think the most important thing for me going forward is to keep creating things I genuinely believe in, without feeling like I need to repeat the same formula just because it worked once.

I want every new Wildcard Campfire world to feel like it has a genuine reason to exist, and for every album to give listeners something different to discover.

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