There’s no blueprint for starting a metal band in a local scene that runs on singer-songwriters, country pickers, and bluegrass. Up in Person County, the nearest city with a stage worth playing is at least a half-hour drive in any direction.
And yet, Mourning Lotus — made up of guitarist and screamer Jared Willemy, drummer and clean vocalist Jameson Harris, bassist Mason Cobb, and harsh vocalist Zack Craig — has spent the last few years doing exactly that. Their fanbase has grown one road trip at a time across the Triangle, Charlotte, and wherever else they can find a stage.
Since 2024, the band has shared stages with national and international touring acts like Miss May I, Enterprise Earth, and Until I Wake. Last year, they released their debut EP, Finite, and have since quietly earned a reputation for their heavy, textured, and emotionally direct blend of metal. The music lands somewhere in the territory of Loathe, Thornhill, and Spiritbox, though the band will be the first to tell you they’re still figuring where their sound will take them next.
What have y’all been listening to lately?
Jameson (drums/clean vocals): I’ve been listening to The Missing Peace a lot recently. Jared showed me a song by them, and I just did a deep dive; they’re really good. A lot of soul and old R&B stuff cycles through my playlist, too. There’s actually a newer artist, Viuda, who’s replicating that sound, and it’s fantastic. That’s been on a loop for me lately.
Jared (guitar/screams): I’ve been listening to a lot of old deathcore like Architects and rap. Pooh Shiesty is big for me right now. I mostly listen in the band van, which has subwoofers, so half the time I don’t even know the song names. I just know which ones hit the hardest.
On the flip side, what was the first artist or band you completely obsessed over?
Jared: Linkin Park, for sure.
Jameson: A lot of the music I grew up with came from my dad. I remember my dad had a VHS recording of a DirecTV special with Phil Collins live in Paris, and he’d just watch it on repeat. That was really special to me.
And then my mom had recorded a tape of these three young brothers performing at the Fillmore. She showed it to me when I was a kid and I was completely obsessed. I had no idea what Hanson really was at the time, or the craze around them. I just followed their career with my own blinders on. Those were my biggest early inspirations.
What’s the story of how the band started?
Jared: We were playing in a cover band together. This was right around COVID, so maybe six years ago. We quit that and started this band probably a year later.
Jameson: I had just moved back home to Person County around 2020. I was living in Asheville and moved back for separate reasons, and then COVID shut everything down. I didn’t have my drums in Asheville, so once I was back home, I really wanted to play again.
Jared asked me if I wanted to join the cover band. Jared and I had known each other since high school and had actually been in a band just after graduation. So years later, we got back together, did the cover band, it broke up, and then Jared wanted to start a metal band. I wasn’t really sure about it at first, but I didn’t have much else going on, so we just started throwing stuff at the wall to see what stuck. And at some point, something resonated with me, and I became completely invested. So did Jared. It just evolved and exploded from there.
How did the rest of the lineup come together?
Jared: We had some different members at first and went through a couple of lineup changes over the years. But our current lineup — Mason on bass and Zach on vocals — I’d still consider them OGs. We hadn’t even played a show yet when they came on. We’d been working on this band for almost two years, just trying to figure out what felt right, with people rotating in and out.
Jameson: I reached out to Mason, who was a friend from a high school band of mine who had moved away and gone to App State. I messaged him on a whim, sent him some of the stuff we were demoing. A lot of it never came to be, but “Finite” was in there. And he just said yes immediately. He lived about 40 minutes away at the time, so he came on down, and it was a fit right away.
For Zach, I was scrolling through Facebook groups trying to find leads, and I came across this one post from him. Just a casual “I’m kind of interested in doing this if anyone wants to hit me up.” It had been sitting there for months. I messaged him privately, tried not to sound too desperate, and told him we’d love to audition him if he was still interested. He showed up and just knocked it out of the park.
This was also his first time really doing anything like this. He’d just been doing it for fun by himself. After four auditions and a lot of no-shows, he was just night and day; everything we needed. He’s got a lot of metal, metalcore, and deathcore in his blood, and it just came through immediately.
Did the sound change significantly once that full lineup was locked in?
Jameson: Absolutely. When we finally had the lineup together and saw what was possible, we scrapped probably 90% or more of our existing material. I think we had been unconsciously dumbing things down depending on who was playing what at the time. When these excellent musicians came in, it felt like total free rein. Nobody had to be taught how to play their instrument. We all just meshed.
Jared: We tossed a lot, refined and rewrote a lot, and wrote a ton of stuff on the spot. Like a real band, in the same room together. Our sound changed a lot from that point. And it’s still changing, which feels natural. We’re not trying to sound like anybody. Sometimes by accident, people refer us to bands we haven’t even really listened to, but I think that’s just because it’s coming from the heart. We’re not trying to be something we’re not.
You’ve been playing live since 2024. How has navigating the scene been for a band that’s relatively new to it?
Jared: We were really nervous coming into the scene. We didn’t know how to describe our sound or how anyone would react to it. We’ve just been so fortunate that people seem to get a kick out of what we do.
Jameson: I think we were super insecure at first, honestly. We’ve gained confidence through hard work and earned real respect from good musicians. The best part is that it wasn’t about writing something a certain way to make people like it. It was: make this good enough that we love it, then put it out and see who connects with it. That’s all you can do.
You’re from Person County, which doesn’t have much of a metal scene. How has that shaped your path?
Jameson: There is no scene where we’re from. It’s singer-songwriter, country, bluegrass. That’s our local scene. So, trying to figure out how to even book gigs, who to book with, and how to navigate this world. It was completely foreign to us.
Jared: The band we were in before this was a cover band, and before that, when we were teenagers, kind of alt rock – playing county festivals. Calling it a festival is a stretch. I’m talking about small-town events where people are just walking by. We once drove seven hours to Johnson City and played a coffee shop to practically nobody. One person doing homework on their laptop with their headphones in.
Jameson: So going back into a genre where there’s zero infrastructure at home, you have to travel. Thankfully a lot of people steered us in the right direction and had faith in us. Dylan Jones of Dynamic Talent and Blind Path Booking, for example, without him, I don’t think we’d be relevant at all. We went to high school with Trey McGinty from Flesh Carving (ex-Discoveries) and went to him for advice when we first started. He gave us Dylan’s contact, and the rest is history. And then Jake Woodard from Welcome to the Family has helped us out a lot. It’s really just snowballed from there.
What’s it like navigating the different scenes across the state from where you’re based?
Jameson: It’s wild. Every city has its own thing, whether it’s Greensboro, Winston-Salem, Raleigh, Charlotte, or Wilmington. They’re all very different. Most people actually think we’re from Charlotte, which is funny because that’s the furthest one from us. We’re from Roxboro/Person County, which is 20 minutes north of Durham and 25 minutes south of Virginia. So we have to drive in every direction.
Jared: But we have a good advantage in that we’re only about two and a half hours from Charlotte and maybe three from Wilmington, so we can cover the whole state in relatively the same distance. We just go where it makes sense. There’s no point forcing yourself into a scene where the magnetism isn’t there. And playing at home? About 70% of the population would hear 10 seconds of our music and think it’s devil music. Our city limits are only around 8,000 people. Everybody knows everybody.
Image credit: Chris Stockard
You’ve got new music in the works. Can you share anything about it?
Jared: It’s coming out this year for sure. The songs are written. We teased two of them in our recent live session with Illage Vidiot Studios, which is on YouTube now. If you want to hunt for them, they’re in there. We’re excited to try new things and not just repeat the EP. We want to take the best parts of what we loved about Finite (EP) and just make the new stuff better. Always improve, you know.
Jameson: We have jobs, so it’s a little hard to move as fast as we’d like. But the material is there. We’re working on spacing things out over 2026 and into 2027. We’re just really excited about where it’s heading.
Any final words for someone just getting into the scene or thinking about starting a band?
Jameson: Starting out is always the hardest part. You don’t know what you’re doing, you don’t know where you’re going, you don’t know who to trust. But if you keep working through it, you will eventually find your people. Even if you think you’ve found them and it doesn’t work out, no sweat. You’ll find the people who really care about you. And when that happens, it’s right up there with playing shows. That alone is the best feeling ever.
Jared: The band wouldn’t work if it wasn’t the four of us. Mason and Zach make the sacrifice to drive an hour and a half to practice every time we call them out here. They listen to our banter and our constant deconstruction and reconstruction of music. We love them so much. We’re just super excited for what the future holds.
Who are some NC bands you’ve gotten to know or become fans of since starting the band?
Jared: American Theory, Harm, to name a couple. Wiltwither, though we haven’t even met all of them in person yet, but it’s coming. [laughs]
Jameson: Den of Wolves is fantastic. Escape Velocity out of Wilmington is really good. Snowblinder is sick, and bass player Mason is actually in that band. If you’re into shoegaze, you can catch him playing some crazy-looking guitar around the Durham area!
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
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