King Dude had to die so that TJ Cowgill, the man behind King Dude, could continue to live, grow and changeโbecause while King Dude might be TJ Cowgill, TJ Cowgill is not King Dude, at least entirely. What began in 2010 as a bedroom project while Cowgill was still playing in the black metal band Book of Black Earth, soon became his main focus, as time and distance between members effectively put an end to Cowgillโs career playing black metal. What started as a dark folk project grew into an ever-expanding career that encompassed neo-folk, early country and blues, death and gothic rock, and, on occasion, even some lighter shades of surf and rhythm and blues, that focused on heady esoteric themes surrounding love, sex, magick, and, of course, death. Openly Luciferian, Cowgill knew at the beginning that if he was to be the master of King Dude, he would also intentionally have to end it on his own terms, which he has done on his excellent ninth and final King Dude album Death. I sat down with Cowgill to discuss the birth and death of King Dude, and everything in between.

Well first of all, how are things in the โhottest place on earth?โ
TJ: Itโs crazy, I mean the weirdest thing that I never knew is that when you go to the Southern Hemisphere is that the moon is upside down from where we are used to because it’s tidally locked to the Earth. For some reason, it didnโt occur to me, and I was in quarantine in Sidney for two weeks, which is also very surreal, and I started to feel like I was going crazy, and then the second to last day I was in quarantine it was New Yearโs Eve. I looked out the window to see the fireworks display and it happened to be a full moon and thatโs when I noticed it. Iโd been alone for two weeks and the moon is upside down and I just thought for a second that I was starting to lose my mind.
But it is amazing down here, to tell you the truth. It gets kind of a bad reputation because of snakes and spiders and things like that, but those are really minor details in a really wonderful place with really great people. Obviously, my wife is here and thatโs why Iโm here, and maybe I see it through rose-colored lenses because of that, but Iโm deeply fond of Australian people, I think they are wonderful.
This might be a social media-induced misperception, but youโve always seemed a bit nomadic. Is that a fair assessment?
TJ: Well, yes and no. Iโve always had Seattle be my home base forever and Iโm from there more or less, Iโm from Washington state. It really does feel like home, but Iโve lived in other places and toured in bands since I was 19โฆI think I turned 21 in Bakersfield, California. Which is like the worst place if youโre not from Bakersfield. To not know anyone in Bakersfield and to turn 21 in Bakersfield in a gas station is pretty lame. So yeah, Iโm totally comfortable with moving around. Whatโs funny is I have motion sickness, sometimes pretty severely. Like on a plane I will at one point on a long enough flight get pretty ill. When we do bus tours and I sleep on the bus, I wake up with vertigo. Itโs like my karmic duty to tour so much and just get it out of my system and get used to it. I always figure it out by the end, and I sort of did, but then covid came along and that was the end of the touring. I was like this is the best tour, and then it was over, I guess we stop now.
Obviously, I want to talk about the end of King Dude, which from my understanding was planned long ago, but before we get to that, Iโd like to go back to the beginning, which from my understanding was started as a literal bedroom project.
TJ: Yeah.
And there were some correspondences with Kim Larsen (Of the Wand & the Moon, Solanaceae, Saturus) that inspired you and got you going.
TJ: Absolutely.
Iโd like to talk about your relationship with Larsen, because it seems to have run throughout your career and kind of expand out from that to address what you see as your place within the sort of โneo-folkโ context.
TJ: I met Kim Larsen in what is the most naรฏve way possible, which is going all the way back to the MySpace daysโฆI almost feel like it was the 90s, but it wasnโt, it was like 2006 or 7, and I was making this bedroom music and I think we just called it King Dude. My roommate would record it and he had to name the file and he was like โwhat do we name it?โ And I was like โKing Dude, I donโt care.โ His girlfriend Mary heard it and said, โit sounds like Current 93 or Death in June.โ I had never heard those bands and I seriously said, โthose are shitty band names.โ (laughing). Like on their face, if you had never heard the music and you just heard the band names, youโd go โnah, I donโt want to listen to that. Current 93? That sounds stupid. Oh, itโs a magick thing, ok. Death in June? What is that like an emo band?โ But then you hear the music and itโs not that.
Thatโs how I found that whole genre, which was amazing to me at the time because Iโd never really heard of it, and I love folk music. Iโm a huge fan of British folk music, you know traditional stuff and the proggier stuff of the 70s. I worked in a record store that sold a lot of it shortly before that, so it was just weird to not know about this little pocket of folk music, so I did a deep dive. There was a Wikipedia page, and so there was a list of all the neofolk bands in 2006 and I just went through and started listening to them. I hated most of them, except Of the Wand & the Moon.
Looking at it from the perspective of a complete outsider, which I was and still pretty much am, to me the best band was Of the Wand & the Moon, then and now. So, I went to MySpace and I had these shitty recordings and I sent them to Kim on MySpace messenger. It turns out he just happens to be a very very kind person and really interested in music. Heโs an incredible songwriter and just incredibly kind and so just in chatting with me he told me he liked it and was encouraging and asked me to do a split with Solanaceae, so itโs his fault Iโm here. He was very encouraging.
We still share music all the time and chat often, or as often as we can, but he is still so encouraging. He makes me want to make music. Heโs like a magical person in that regard.
As to the other part of your question, I donโt really see myself as part of the neo-folk community at all. I mean I often just see myself as an outsider. Thatโs not to say that I donโt like them, itโs just that I donโt fit in all the time with them, nor share their interests. I mean we do share some interests, and nothing controversial necessarily, but there are certain things that I find about it that are just a little dumb. A lot of it is great, and I hate to bring up the bad part about neofolk and focus on that, but there is this sort of โ and this is the same with heavy metal โ this purist way; this โit has to be this wayโ garbage approach, which on one hand makes it terrible, but also makes it really good, because there are rules to it and then itโs really fun to see those boxes get ticked. Itโs like a really good metal band, you go โok, they got the hair, they got the generic Satanic thing, they are doing something very ignorant, this is great, it sounds good, and the distortion levels are right, and thereโs nothing too creative or weird about it.โ Itโs like that with neo-folk too. The only thing that it allows in mutations is when they permeate organically. You canโt just grab a neo-folk project and say, โletโs make a hip-hop neo-folk thing.โ Everyone will hate it. You could do what Death in Rome has done though, which is hilarious.
I was going to ask you about them.
TJ: Oh, I love them. I think there is a cheeky, or devilish prankster, element to all of it. Itโs the same thing I love about heavy metal, and the same thing I like about Boyd Rice and stuff like that. They are taking a piss, they are trolls, they were the trolls before internet trolls were a thing. I donโt like internet trolls that are just cruel, but I think if they are clever, everyone likes it. Itโs the trickster, itโs fun.
I think Death in Rome has perfected that. Theyโve made taking a piss into true meaningful art for its own sake.
TJ: Yeah.
Youโve mentioned metal, and you started out in metal. Speaking for myself as someone who would call themselves a metalhead, and knowing there are a lot of dudes similarly situated who love your work as well, how do you see yourself in relation to that scene, and do you have any interest in doing anything in the future metal related?
TJ: I love heavy metal. I think playing it, and playing it poorly for so long, will really break your heart about wanting to play it (laughing). But just because I did something specific that I donโt want to do again, doesnโt mean I wonโt ever play heavy metal again, there are lots of different ways to do that. Iโm more interested these days in heavy rock. I think itโs just because of being older. Blast beats are really difficult for me and too much screaming bothers me, but of course, Iโll always love heavy metal and the classics like Bathory will always be in my heart and it always inspires my music too.
As far as getting back on the road as a metal band; no, probably not ever. Youโll probably be really surprised by what you hear from me once King Dude is dead. Iโve already recorded some of it. Itโs very strange. I guess it would be like 70s heavy rock stuff. It might sound like that to some people. Iโve been told it also sounds like surf music. Like demented over-driven 1960s surf music, which is interesting because that is what I grew up with and really loved before black metal, so the transition from surf music to metal was very real for me. The Ventures are from Tacoma, Washington, and knowing thereโs a hometown surf band, even though no one surfs in Washington state, is still just amazing and a huge inspiration to me.
There will be some weird psychedelic shit too. Iโm interested in psychedelic music, Iโm interested in soundscape stuff, Iโm interested in music. Itโs not as if Iโm going to stop doing music, Iโm just going to do music in other directions without theโฆwell, King Dude has to die. Everything dies.

Letโs go ahead and get into that. Why does King Dude have to die?
TJ: Because Everything dies, everything has to die. When I started King Dude, I didnโt know that I would be ending it right away, but within about two years I did. This has been planned since I released Burning Daylight. The album cycle got a little thrown off. I did an album called Fear, I did an album called Love, I did an album called Sex, so I planned to end it with Death, and then Covid threw a wrench in when I wanted to end it. But thatโs ok, I mean anyone who has a ten-year plan is already borderline crazy, especially if they think itโs going to work out perfectly to the day. Itโs a like a construction project thatโs six years behind because they are hard and difficult, big, long things.
I was studying a lot of rock and roll from the 50s and 60s and none of these bands last long, except the worst ones. They are categorically terrible for the majority of their career as the result of not dying. If they were to end, they would be so much better, and we could enjoy them more. I think people who make music sometimes feel like they won the lottery if people like it, and they donโt want to slay the goose that is laying the golden eggs. They donโt realize they are the goose. They donโt have to literally die, but they have to make a change. They have to kill what came before.
Someone like Bowie realized this perfectly. He transformed himself throughout his career and recreated himself over and over again. If you donโt destroy your idols, including ending your own thing, the people that you created to enjoy it by manifesting the work that they enjoy, will destroy you. They invariable have to, one way or the other. So do it yourself. Itโs sort of like a spree killer who is murdering a bunch of people and when the cops are closing in, he just shoots himself.
I told people this forever โ well, people that were close to the project, in the band, and other people โ and they would always go โyeah right, no you are not.โ Even up until recently, record labels and those folks were like โare you sure thatโs a good idea,โ and trying to talk me out of itโฆas if you could talk somebody out of that, a ten-year plan (laughs)โฆโare you sure about the thing youโve been thinking about for ten years?โ If someone tells you theyโve been planning something for ten years, probably donโt try and talk them out of it.
Was there anything specifically about making this album where you knew this was it, this was the one to end on?
TJ: No, because I knew going in it would be the last. Itโs definitely the hardest album Iโve made. Not necessarily because of musical stuff, but more because of the world stuff. It was just a difficult time to make an album with other people. There are other people that worked on the album. Shannon Funchess from Light Asylum sings on a track, and sheโs wonderful, a wonderful singer, and a good friend of mine. I had to go down to Portland to record and she didnโt want to go into a studio over Covid concerns, which is understandable and soโฆwell, people like to make out that Portland and Seattle are just these infernos of lawlessness, like itโs โEscape from New York,โ and it wasnโt that bad, but it still wasnโt fun at that time. It was a difficult time to work. We did it in October, which wasnโt as bad as the summer, but there was just a lot going on obviously.

Well now that King Dude is dead, Iโd like to go back through your work and discuss it, but first I want to turn to a big part of what has informed it, particularly the occult. I read in an early interview that you did that when you were younger you did copious amounts of LSD and ended up practicing magick unwittingly.
TJ: Yeah, isnโt that wild?
Then eventually that turned into an actual discipline?
TJ: I feel like my relationship with the occult or magical practice has been quite natural. I imagine itโs sort of how it is for everyone, doing rituals before they realize they are doing them. Nobody taught them to, but you are doing it anyway before you know what you are really doing. The thing with the acid thing, I mean taking LSD expands your consciousness. Itโs like the Yahweh superhighway. Taking it at a very young age of 15 was kind of strange and Iโm not sure that was a very good idea, but Iโm definitely sure it has affected my consciousness because you are dipping into other realms.
But yeah, taking LSD and then trying to disappear in a mirror and then learning years later that itโs an actual ritual, trust me I did not know about that when I was 15. It was weird, very weird, but maybe itโs natural because maybe thatโs just the shit you would expect to do in that particular conscious realm, which is more of a shared consciousness realm, I think.
Itโs not a realm I think a lot of magickal practitioners focus on, they tend to focus more on inner realms, and thatโs fine too, you should do both, but there is something very cool about going into that shared consciousness state. When you take LSD, and btw, Iโm not necessarily advocating for taking it, itโs not an easy thing like marijuana or alcohol to take, obviously, but when you take it and you seem to trade consciousness or you switch to some other consciousness where you understand everything, but you canโt explain it, because the words are wrong, even though you understandโฆitโs almost as if your subconscious takes control of the wheel and your motor function consciousness is in the back seat and everything becomes very intangible. As I said, itโs the Yahweh superhighway, but you donโt retain it. When you come off a psychedelic experience you are like โI feel like I had everything figured out,โ but thatโs why you can feel like a lot of spiritual weight has been lifted, but not really know why.
I think through meditation, and my practices later, thatโs when I began to have those experiences with more retention of why that spiritual weight was lifted without being high or using a hack. I mean you could call meditation a hack, and it is in a way, but you retain more of what it is to know what that other realm is.
To explain my religion is always way too difficult and would take way too long. I really should try and work this out and get it in a nutshell, but there are so many great mysteries in the world that we should explore spiritually through magickal practices. Whether that be chaos magick or a more traditional thing. If you go to the Catholic Church, or you join the O.T.O., or if you join a coven, I think itโs good for people to do this and I think itโs natural. Itโs a part of us. When we neglect it, we can get confused and sick about our souls. I do believe we all have that, and I do believe we all share that. It comes from one source that we all return to. That would be my Luciferian belief โ the True Soul. The things of this world are not as important as that, but also it doesnโt really care for us, we will return to it anyway. Sort of like Vishnu having his dream on the lotus leaf where everything happens in that one time, in that one dream; like breath from a god that doesnโt even know we are here and then he will inhale us back in. We are part of one breath, and everything thatโs ever happened is in that small of a moment, so itโs not that important.
But be good. To me, it almost gives you a reason to be better, and not to be some tyrannical monster because we are all chained together in this โ so why would you want to hurt other people, which just hurts yourself?
Letโs talk about your evolution. I have a theory about your work, which is that itโs a reflection of the spiritual journey. Itโs obviously yours, but itโs also incredibly personal for a lot of people, including myself. Frankly, your music pulled me back to myself and got me through my own spiritual crises. Fear came out right as I was going through my own dark night of the soul, and I connected with that album because it seems to be about that dark night of the soul, doing the shadow work, and making friends with your demons. To my ears, it was a watershed album that you had been building up to and after that, there was more measured evolution and growth as one would expect after that cataclysm.
You are dealing with spirituality in all of these records, something not many people really are, and you are really dealing with it from the standpoint of a true practitioner and a truly personal way, which is why I think it resonates. You started out with Book of Black Earth, which is just straight-up Satanism, and it feels like you have progressed and evolved beyond that, and btw, Iโve been there too. Actually, we met at a show one time in Chicago where we were talking about these things and you said to me something about the โNew Satanic Era,โ and I said โyeah, thatโs where we are at now, right?โ and of course, that didnโt entirely materialize. Now we are in some sort of Ragnarรถk chaos.
TJ: Yeah, I donโt know what happened. When did we meet?
It was on the โSongs of Flesh & Bloodโ tour.
TJ: I feel like thatโs right before we jumped the rails on that timeline and got on a much stranger timeline. But I also kind of really like the timeline. I certainly didnโt see it coming, but I like chaos a lot. I find joy in chaos and chaotic things.
I do too, Iโve made my peace with Loki.
TJ: (laughs) Totally!
But I do think there was a vibe back then.
TJ: Yeah, it felt like there was an age that was kind of dawning that was different than the Aquarian age. It wasnโt just some new age, PC, peace movement thing. It wasnโt evil either.
No, it felt liberating.
TJ: Yeah, and sort of an age of reason, I thought. Of course, we arenโt now, I mean Kali Yuga, right? How long is that supposed to take? Thatโs like forever. I mean FOREVER. So, of course, we are thinking โyeah we are on the upswing,โ but no, we are still deep deep deep in the crotch of Kali Yuga. (laughs) You know? I think we are just face-pressed in the taint, right next to the butthole of Kali Yuga.
That is definitely going in the article. Ok, back to my original long-lost question, given all that, it seems like you have evolved as well, and your music is a reflection of that. Can you go into your own spiritual evolution over those years? It seems Luciferian is the appropriate descriptor, but it feels definitely turned away from the early Satanism.
TJ: Yeah, a lot of times I was trying to spread a message of love through a lot of my work to people who are maybe not accustomed to hearing that in any way, shape, or form, because of their satanic beliefs or their general misanthropic nature. I found that through my music I got to talk to specific people about really important things that they werenโt normally getting. It made me a bit like a preacher in disguise, like a covert operative for religious beliefs.
My own journey is so strange. I think of my life, well, I think of all our lives, in the terms of the Major Arcana from the Fool to the Magician. On the way, I donโt ever know where Iโm at, and by default, I say, โwell Iโm the Fool,โ because itโs the best place to be, because I want to learn. I donโt think I know everything, or know much of anything, really, so itโs really important that I remain foolish in a way about these subjects. It sounds weird to say when Luciferianism does cherish wisdom, a spiritual wisdom. I donโt think Iโm foolish in a negative way, but in a naรฏve way, in a childlike way, which is how I approach my faith. So, yeah, it does transform and gets strange sometimes.
There was a time around 2016 when I strayed away from magic. I didnโt practice anything at all. I stopped meditating. Stopped dreaming anything profound. Something changed. But in 2018 I got back on my bullshit pretty hard. I turned 40, and when I turned 40 I decided to be like Alan Moore. When he turned 40 he told all his friends โIโm going to be a wizard.โ What a fucking birthday party that must have been for everybody. They were like โcool, thumbs up, guess I should have got you a wand.โ

I thought I should do that too. I was going to do it sober and do this monk thing, not have sex, starve myself, I was going to do all that. I did it for like two days and was like โthis is stupid, this isnโt for me, Iโm not a monk, Iโm a normal human, Iโm down here with everyone else, I donโt live in some fucking abbey, Iโm not going to go into a cave in the Himalayan mountains and sit in the dark for a year, no Iโm not doing that, thatโs not for me.โ But my Will manifested itself and said, โyouโre going to start doing magick again.โ The next day I just started to research John Dee and Edward Kelly and read about the Enochian stuff. After about four or five hours I get this email from my landlord, who I had been having problems with because I was playing music in the apartment, and they were making it difficult for me to do that, saying โhey Iโm not going to be your landlord anymore, Iโd like to introduce you to your new landlord, her name is Dee Kelly.โ I was like โyeah, ok, Iโm doing magick againโ (laughs).
Jung called those synchronicities, Christians might say โtake it as a sign from God,โ I donโt know what it is, but I listened to it, and so I followed it. I feel like itโs something telling you that you are on the right path. That you are aligned with the mystical path, and thatโs all it is, just a sign to keep going. Itโs not telling you what to do, itโs just saying you are walking in the right direction.
And that we may not see the end until the end.
TJ: Right totally. Itโs strange too because John Dee and Edward Kelly are talking about this host of guardian angels that could be demons as well. They were always so confused by that and suddenly the one major problem in my life was just vanquished when I started studying somebody that was looking into guardian angels, so I just was like โfuck it, whatever is with me, demon or angel, youโre my fucking friend now again, and letโs work together again.โ Since then, it’s been good, everything has been great.

