AN NCS INTERVIEW: PROFESSOR EMERITUS

photo by Liz Gollner

(In June of this year Chicago-based Professor Emeritus released a long-awaited second album, and our Comrade Aleks was so taken with its melding of epic doom metal and traditional heavy metal that he reached out to the band’s founder, guitarist, and keyboardist Lee Smith for an interview that we now present below. As you might have already guessed, the music is an earned exception to the “rule” in our site’s title.)

Born in Chicago, 2010, Professor Emeritus didn’t hurry: their debut album Take Me to the Gallows (2017) gave the world a formula for not the newest, but a refractory alloy of epic doom metal and traditional heavy metal. The resulting blend was further alloyed with a fantasy concept, and in the end this material, enlivened by a passionate presentation, was good despite all the rough edges.

It took eight more years to make the second album, and the reason is simple: only guitarist Lee Smith remained from the first lineup. I don’t know what happened there, but the former bassist and the vocalist of Professor Emeritus started their own doom band, Fer de Lance, so in the end everyone wins, yet it obviously took time to find replacements.

Having retained a significant influence of Candlemass in their doom, Professor Emeritus strikes with the power of bands like Argus and Memento Mori, and even the rudeness of archaic Manowar. The mood of the new vocalist Esteban Julian Peña’s lines in A Land Long Gone changes from ominous battle cries to melancholic philosophizing. Esteban became a real find for Lee, and I suppose here he has more opportunity to open up than in his original band Acerus.

The skill with which the vocalist, and the whole band, makes transitions from one theme to another deserves special admiration; all the bridges in A Land Long Gone are built inventively and with architectural precision. The armor-piercing hit “Conundrum” with its catchy chorus, the victorious “Defeater”, the heavy folk ballad “Hubris”, the energetic “Passages” – wherever you look, Professor Emeritus hit hard and without a miss. And you know what? We had a conversation with the band’s founder about Professor Emeritus’ career ladder recently, and here it is:

 

 

Hi Lee! How are you doing? What’s happening in Professor Emeritus’ department?

Lee: Hello! I’m doing great! We are mainly looking forward to a very cool show in Chicago that will be announced a little later on. Otherwise we’re still thrilled that A Land Long Gone is finally out and at the response it’s been getting.

 

The band was formed in 2010; what inspired you to launch your own doom metal band when you already took part in a few others?

Lee: The main inspiration was the first Argus album in 2009. I had already been a fan of their 2007 demo, but the full length really blew me away. The way they blended the type of doom I love with traditional metal really grabbed me, and continues to do so!

I can’t say enough good things about that band. This past summer I travelled from Chicago to Pittsburgh to see their second show back after a five-year break. Now we just need another album. Come on, guys!

At that point I had already been writing a lot of music, but that album really gave me a focus. Our first album Take Me to the Gallows maybe sounds a little too much like Argus. I think A Land Long Gone found us drifting into more of our own lane.

The first several years of Professor Emeritus were just me and Tyler Herring, who played guitar on the first album. We’re both from a small town in downstate Illinois, so we didn’t really have any expectations of finding other people with similar taste.

Once I had moved around a couple times due to college and work I started actually meeting people. One of these times was in 2010, when I answered a forum post about a local band looking for a bass player. That band turned out to be Olorin, a doom band that is still going today. That was where I met Tyler Antram, who was Olorin’s drummer at the time. Fast forward a few years, and he has played guitar at every Professor Emeritus show we’ve ever done, and played a big part in A Land Long Gone even happening. I can’t exactly remember, but I’m thinking I was already working on some Professor Emeritus material before I hooked up with Olorin.

 

It’s interesting that you mentioned Argus, because the American scene has or had a few gems like them – Pale Divine, Penance, Blizaro and some more. But still it looks like they’re more known in Europe than in the US. Do you a feel similar approach towards your band?

Lee: Yes, that does seem to be the case with those bands, and I expect the same will be true for us. There has been some sense of community centered around doom festivals in the US. I don’t think any of them are still going, but Days of the Doomed, Maryland Doom Fest, Templars of Doom, Doom or Be Doomed, Born Too Late, and others I’m forgetting each brought lots of great doom bands together. The only one of those I ever attended was Days of the Doomed (I attended all 4 editions, with original Professor Emeritus member Tyler Herring). I had the chance to see all of the bands you mentioned, and tons more, because of DOTD. I was aware of those other fests as they were happening and they seemed to have similar devoted attendees. But Europe definitely seems to have more people who are interested this type of music, and heavy music in general.

 

 

Professor Emeritus’ first album Take Me to the Gallows was released in 2017; what slowed you down during the first years of its existence? Were you distracted with other bands?

Lee: I do think some of it was due to playing in other bands. There were a few times when I was probably in too many bands at once. Some people can juggle that better than I can, including a couple members of this band. For most of that time, Professor Emeritus was more of an idea than a real band. There was enough music written, but I didn’t ever really expect it to be a real band.

We eventually decided to try to record an album, to try to force something to happen. We had a singer on board who ended up not working out. We recorded the music in 2014, and then the album wasn’t released until 2017. That’s pretty similar to this album also, since we also recorded the music about 3 years before A Land Long Gone was released. So this band has never had the typical cycle of the album being released 6 to 12 months after recording.

But getting back to the first album, most of the music dated back to 2010-2012. I do know that the music for what became “Chaos Bearer” was written pretty close to our studio dates, since I felt that the album needed a shorter, more direct song.

 

Take Me to the Gallows got its portion of well-deserved recognition, but how did it change the situation in the band? Did it inspire you to play live more often? Were all the band’s members happy with the direction the band followed?

Lee: When we came to an agreement with No Remorse, we still weren’t a full band. It was more of a studio project. There were four people playing on the album, but I played both guitar and bass. Maybe two months after signing the Professor Emeritus contract with No Remorse, my other band Tiger Fight broke up. That left me with zero active bands, after just a couple years earlier being in three or four at the same time. So I wanted to be doing something, and it made sense to try to take Professor Emeritus to the next level. I reached out to some friends to try to get a full Professor Emeritus lineup together. Most of them had been in Tiger Fight, ironically enough.

So since there was then an actual band, we were able to play live for the first time. We were lucky enough for our first show to be opening for Manilla Road! From there we played a handful of shows over the next year or so, all in the Chicago area.

 

 

Do you feel that there’s a place for Professor Emeritus to grow further? Do you feel that if you put more efforts in self-promotion, you can gain more recognition, play more often, and so on?

Lee: For sure. I think growth will come over time and with future releases. We’ll always be somewhat limited in that it can be pretty tough for our schedules to align, so we’ll probably never be the kind of band that plays dozens of shows each year. But we will stay active and avoid another long hibernation, so things should gradually pick up.

 

How bad was it when guys left you and founded Fer de Lance? Did it cause this eight-year gap between the releases of Take Me to the Gallows and A Land Long Gone?

Lee: Singer and drummer are probably the hardest positions to fill in a band. But I wouldn’t change anything, including the eight-year gap, since it led us to having the lineup we have now.

We were lucky to connect with Chris pretty quickly. Jose knew him via Black Sites, which they were both former members of (although they were never in that band at the same time). Jose initially asked Chris to fill in with us for a couple shows in late 2019. Those rehearsals and shows went great, and we were able to get Chris to join permanently. That turned out to be the easy part.

Over the next few years we worked with a few different singers, but none ended up working out for various reasons. It was during this time that we decided to get the music recorded, to potentially speed up the process. We entered the studio in 2022 without ever having heard any vocals on the songs. It’s really a miracle that the album turned out as well as it did, and is a real testament to Esteban’s abilities.

All of the other guys were so important to this album even existing. Tyler, Jose, and Chris stuck with me and this band when things were moving slower than any of us really wanted. It would have been so easy for them to bail at many different points. And Esteban coming on board and being so energetic really gave us all a jolt of excitement and confidence.

Jose: Fortunately this new lineup meshes well and as you stated the new album surpasses anything that was done in the past. I cannot wait to see where this lineup goes from here and to see what comes next.

 

Yes, I see that the hardest task for you was to find a vocalist, as Esteban Julian Pena had joined you only in 2024. How did you find him?

Lee: I was aware of Esteban through his other band Acerus. I remember listening to their album The Tertiary Rite and as soon as I heard the middle part of the song “The Arrival of Him” (“Hands in chains, then I steal your soul!”) I thought that he could maybe be a good fit for this band. Jose and Chris saw Acerus live around February 2024, and said he sounded really good live.

I then reached out to Esteban and gave him some of the new music, and luckily for us he was interested. We all got together a few weeks later and it went well, both musically and personally, and it’s still going great now. We definitely could not have asked for a better fit.

 

 

Take Me to the Gallows was pretty good, but A Land Long Gone surpasses it in terms of musicianship and the good number of impressive ideas; it was pleasure to listen in from “A Corpse’s Dream” and to “Kalopsia Caves”. How much did you re-work your original ideas for this material? How much did you change it in comparison with “demo” versions?

Lee: Thank you for all the compliments! It varied from song to song. The music for the songs that became “Passage” and “Hubris” was initially written in 2016 or 2017. For “Passage”, the structure didn’t change at all from the original demo I made of it.

But “Hubris” went through an enormous change. The original version of “Hubris” was just the intro, verse, and chorus parts going around and around for several minutes. It was semi cool, but definitely not worth its length. In 2021 or 2022, I came up with the idea to transition from the second chorus into a long guitar solo, and then go into a really epic part. I put a lot of time into getting the solo to be just how I wanted it, and the rest of the song kind of flowed from there. Right now I’d say “Hubris” is my favorite song on the album.

(Unnecessary side note: I’ve noticed from a few different places that there is a misconception that I played all of the rhythm guitars and Tyler played all the lead guitars. That’s not correct. We split the rhythm guitars equally. On every song, my guitars are on one side and Tyler’s are on the other. The leads are probably something like 60/40 Tyler. I’m not sure where that misconception came from, everything was pretty evenly split.)

I believe the other 6 songs were written around the 2020-2021 timeframe. Pretty much all of them went through some slight structure changes. “Defeater” went through a bit more of a change. I had the first half of the song, but couldn’t figure out how to move it forward. Tyler eventually came up with the perfect way to take it into something else, with the melodic guitars that keep building on each other. Those parts really take the song to another level.

 

 

Who wrote the songs’ lyrics this time? How long did you work on these stories?

Lee: Esteban wrote all of the lyrics and vocal melodies. He worked incredibly fast. At some points we were getting new vocal demos every day or two. It was really amazing how he was able to create such great parts over music that had already been written and recorded, and have them really fit the music. I believe he wrote everything within maybe 4 months total, but kind of in bursts within that span. We’d get 3 vocal demos in a week, then a couple weeks later we’d get 2 more, and so on.

We never really had any critiques on what he was sending us. It was all so good. I had given him a basic roadmap of where in each song I envisioned vocals, but sometimes he deviated from that and it totally worked better than what I had in mind. We did have him go back and add some vocals in the middle of “A Corpse’s Dream”, since we thought there was too much of a gap without any vocals. Like an hour later he sent us an updated demo, with the whole “Vera…” part with all the voices, and we were all blown away. It was incredible that he could come up with something so great that quickly.

 

Did you ask him to hold on to the style of Take Me to the Gallows in the new lyrics? Do you want to keep some certain image, a reputation, of Professor Emeritus?

Lee: We really just asked him to be himself and write whatever he wanted. I like the overall themes of history and literature that both albums have in common. This album has a little bit of fantasy and horror which is cool, and is still close enough to the themes of the first album.

 

Do you feel that A Land Long Gone opens before you new opportunities? How much did people’s reactions differ from the feedback you got after the Take Me to the Gallows release?

Lee: Yes, I think that will definitely be the case. I’d say the feedback has been more positive this time. It also seems like there’s just more of it in general. It was really cool seeing so many reviews pop up, and how many of the reviewers seemed to have really absorbed the album before writing about it.

 

Did you share a stage with Acerus as well? I see that they release their albums regularly and it seems like they have some fanbase.

Lee: Yeah Acerus definitely has a fanbase. We haven’t played with them so far. It would be great, but Esteban would have the final say since that would be asking a lot of him. He does use different styles in each band, so I’m not sure if that would make it easier or harder to pull double duty.

 

By the way, did you usually get some offers to play live with Professor Emeritus or do you have to organize gigs yourself?

Lee: A little of both. We’ve been able to jump on some really cool shows so far, but we did put together a show in 2024 with local bands Heroine Sentinel (also featuring Jose and Chris from Professor Emeritus… and this was their first show) and Kelly’s Affair. We’ve also had a hand in setting up the cool show I mentioned earlier that will be announced a little later this year.

 

What are your further plans for the rest of 2025?

Lee: We’ve got that show later this year that I’ve mentioned a couple times. It can’t be announced yet, but we’re really excited and it will be a great night. Beyond that, we’re working on new material and are excited to see the songs start to take shape.

Thank you for speaking with us, and thanks for all of the interesting questions!

https://professoremeritus.bandcamp.com/album/a-land-long-gone
https://professoremerit.us/
https://www.facebook.com/ProfessorEmeritusLives/