We knew that, once again, it wasn't about tight musicianship or anything like that. It was about being unique... there were so many other bands in Vegas doing the Exodus, doing the Metallica or the 'this band, that band' thing and we wanted to always be different, and it wasn't hard to do because that's who we really were at that time... we'd go to a blues festival or we'd be listening to fucking Cat Stevens but we were still at heart all about death and doom but there's another aspect to music that Doom Snake Cult embraced besides just straight satanic heaviness.
- Ace Still (1966-2017) interview, Third Eye Cinema, 2013
Acid was the key. DOOM SNAKE CULT released their sole album - Love, Sorrow, Doom - on this day in 1992.
Rog and I - Big Rog the drummer - had gone to a place called Calamity Jane's which is a club in Vegas to nurse some wicked hangovers one morning and Freaks, the old movie, was on the big screen, behind the bar it was about 10, I think, in the morning I think... there was no sound, and I wrote those lyrics on a napkin, bar napkin, while we were sitting there drinking bloody mary's.
- Ace Still interview, Third Eye Cinema, 2013
A strong connection has always existed between DSC and GOATLORD, as the DSC biography explains:
In the late 1980s, Doom Snake Cult appeared like a hallucinatory vision in the same Nevada desert that almost simultaneously spawned the likes of their psychotropic substance-consuming brethren, Goatlord. Although it is commonly believed that Doom Snake Cult began as a post-Goatlord project, the truth is that DSC was actually a separate entity that existed alongside Goatlord throughout its existence. In fact, Doom Snake Cult recorded its first and only full-length album, "Love, Sorrow, Doom," in 1990, one year prior to Goatlord's recording of "Reflections of the Solstice." Obvious parallels and direct connections between the two bands exist, not only because of their common location and confessed fondness for psychedelia, but also due to their similar musical output and shared members. Most notably, Ace Still's immediately recognizable and distinctively harrowing vocals adorn both band's albums. Additionally, Doom Snake Cult's guitarist, Nelg, is confirmed to have performed in lieu of Joe Frankulin on Goatlord's first-ever recorded version of "Sacrifice."
An excellent 2013 interview with DOOM SNAKE CULT and GOATLORD vocalist Ace Still (1966-2017) is available from Third Eye Cinema. Listen at BlogTalkRadio.
You can also read some personal memories of the band and LV underground scene by Chad Simmons at Keep Laughing.