The Band Name

There were black metal bands that handed out razor blades at shows, ones that burnt churches and ones that used mental patients for vocals. These bands did all this to convey bottomless pain and despair. Cold Forest wasn't one of those bands.

In terms of heavy metal, Black Metal took loads of dedication. Viking longboats full amounts of dedication. Enough to fill a ship that you’re going to take to someone’s front door so you can turn their life upside down. Enough dedication to not care about anything because it’s all going to end anyhow, like with the Norse belief of end of everything, Ragnarok.

The church-burners were just an example of the extremeness purveyors of black metal tried to adhere to. It was a force that was somewhere in between all-year Halloween and true, self-harm nihilism. This sense of dedication also wasn't necessarily present in Cold Forest.

This bothered Doom, the guitarist of Cold Forest. While the most famous of the scene had murder, blood and excitement, Cold Forest had okay jobs they just sort of stumbled into, sinus problems and body image issues. They also had what was shaping up to be an extremely mediocre name that the singer refused to part with. Everyone else, except bass player Maniacal who came up with it, thought it wasn't actually that scary at all. Doom was beginning to be convinced that the name was failing like everything else.

The name was supposed to be about the Nordic cold, an expression of the loneliness and melancholy which would could only be typified, of course, by a big scary forest, probably at night, which was obviously even more melancholy. At first he was convinced that they should be called Cold Huge Forest. Then, to impart the scale of the forest and hence the despair that would come with it, Cold Immense Forest. This string of names lasted exactly two beers on a Wednesday night and the argument ran aground like a ship piloted by a dog with poor eyesight.

The main issue with the name was having to explain it to other people, even heavy metal fans. They didn’t seem to get that this was a name that would impart scary and horrible feelings.

"Think of what you would feel like if you were in a huge cold forest right now,” Doom said, lunging, eyes bulging for effect.

"Is it sunny?"

"No. I don't think so. No it's definitely not sunny."

"When is it?"

"What do you mean?"

“Time of year. Is it summer?"

"No, winter. It's cold. You know, like the name. Cold Forest. Pretty clear in the name I think.”

"It can get cold at night in summer. What time of day is it?"

And so on and so on. The fact that he had to explain everything always led him to believe that their name was failing. Doom had a sinking feeling when he had this feeling because it was similar to another sinking feeling about the band in general. But he could not admit it, didn’t want to admit it. He needed this thing. But, maybe the name, like the logo, was too little, too late.

"I don't know, doesn't sound that frightening. I often like walking in winter in the forest."

"Exactly! The despair and melancholy. You want the despair and melancholy right?”

"Not really. Why would you want despair and meloncholy? It's just kind of nice in the forest, even if it’s cold. Plus, the fresh air is good for you. If it’s winter though I would prefer to cross country ski. I don’t know, maybe try snow shoeing. Something like that.”

"Okay, but what if the sun was going down, or better yet, what if it was so grey that never come up fully, like in January. Then what?"

"Then it’s usually pretty cold.”

"Yes, exactly!"

"So how is cold scary? Cold is just cold.”

"It's not necessarily about being scary, it’s about the despair. Cold…and the Forest.”

"I don't think I get it.”

And so the exchanges would go in downward spirals, flaming out non-spectacularly before they ever hit the ground. The band name Cold Forest stuck though through a combination of Doom’s stubbornness, his dedication to the branding efforts and the amount of time spent arguing about it.