Though fast-rising Broward the Requiem has made seeking out purportedly haunted locales as much a part of their tour regimen as beguiling audiences with a wall of sound reimagining of Nineties emo-leaning alt-rock and Eighties unabashed goth, the supernatural adventures are often light on the "super" at best, anticlimactic tourist-y kitsch (*cough* Salem, Massachusetts *cough*) at worst.
But here, in the Storyville section of New Orleans just north of the French Quarter, during the wee hours between when the moon retreats and the sun sanctifies, the trio — vocalist Damien Douleur, guitarist Felipe Silva Jiron, bassist Salem Vex — brushed up against a something simultaneously metaphysical and corporeal. A conjuring that is sometimes an auger of death, sometimes of transformation. Perhaps it's both in the case of a band that christened its 2024 debut album, A Cure to Poison the World.
"I grew up in Chile, where we still have a connection to the mystical," Douleur tells New Times. "Sometimes it reactionary and superstitious. And sometimes it's real. I had a few experiences as a child where I got to see that other side. It felt terrifying at the time, but once you've encountered it, it's easier to recognize it again. And I recognized it in Storyville."
So, did the Requiem hightail it back to the van?
"We actually spent the entire night walking around, exploring," Douleur says. "We found a couple of other symbols that formed a large triangle with the crow, like someone was marking their territory or zoning out evil spirits, maybe. I don't want to go too far into it, but the next record's going to be a concept record, and this is going to be one of the main centers of it."
That's the Requiem in a nutshell: Don't run from the darkness. Tap into it, shape it, and make of it something as beautiful as it is harrowing.
The Early Influences
Douleur was barely out of his toddler years when cradled in his father's arms, he first saw Iron Maiden live in his native Santiago, Chile.It wasn't a one-off thing. His father, a band manager and local show promoter, raised Douleur in a raucous milieu of marauding musicians punctuated by ecstatic performances, big and small. Douleur points to the U2 360° Tour as a particularly seminal moment for him — not thanks to Bono or the Edge, but courtesy of opener Muse, who launched into "Knights of Cydonia" just as father and son ran through the crowd to their seats. "You could feel the band not only channeling this music but channeling enough energy to take 75,000 people, all together, all at once, to this very special, transcendent place. It was crazy to me. And I fell in love with it. I have my father to thank for that amazing gift."
Despite this love, Douleur's path from observer to participant was by no means assured. He moved to the United States at 16. "It was like putting an ADHD kid in a playground of endless overstimulation," he recalls, "and also endless opportunities to get into trouble." Academics were never his bag. He got kicked out of high school, dropped out of a GED program. Adrift, seeking solace and distraction, Douleur immersed himself in the kaleidoscopic South Florida music scene. He was no genre partisan — as down for raw, ski-mask-clad rap and lovelorn emo as he was for rock, metal, and hardcore. A turning point came when a friend and sometimes casual musical collaborator left for Los Angeles and returned with a record deal.
"It inspired me so much," Douleur says. "I guess from an outside perspective, it probably looked like I was putting all my eggs in a very unsure basket. But, to me, it was like, 'Oh, I don't have to live with this fear of what my purpose is anymore. I don't have to pretend like I don't care about anything anymore. Now I have a direction.'"
Thoughts become reality: This mindset shift precipitated an immediate, almost eerie drawing together of the future members of the Requiem. And the fledgling band's melting pot mix of buzzsaw guitars and gothic grandiosity — existing somewhere between the dual masterpieces of AFI's Decemberunderground and Armor For Sleep's What to Do When You Are Dead — gelled quickly, too. "I think we were almost waiting to find each other," Douleur says. "It was such perfect timing. We couldn't have planned it if we wanted to."
The Florida Factor
Shades of the dead crow once again — but also of South Florida."There's a specific type of edge and an urgency that Florida bands bring that's unique," Douleur says. "I don't think a lot of Floridians realize how different they are from other Americans. I didn't, really, until we got on the road, and people were like, 'Wow, you guys are very out there, kinda weird, and just don't hold back.' We present Very Florida, you could say. The constant mix of cultures and rebellious spirit definitely seeps into our music—and we're proud of that."
Defining success is, of course, as slippery as dead crow innards. With the Requiem, you could talk about Spotify monthly listeners (21,000), streams of a collaboration with Poorstacy (over a million), a much-lauded debut full-length, or touring with childhood heroes (like the upcoming run with He is Legend beginning in May) — all amazing, Douleur acknowledges.
"I think anyone pursuing any art has to have a strong belief in the work because so often no one cares," he says. "And, so, when someone else finds value in it or says, 'Your song helped me through a really rough time.'" He trails off for a moment. "It just humbles you so much. I have a lot of things I would like to do in this band, places I'd like to go, things I'd like to see. But for me, I already achieved the dream. Forget selling out a stadium. All I ever wanted was to take the energy and feeling and hope my favorite bands gave me and give it to other people in a real way."
