Conversations with Lauren Voss & John Panza Arms & Armour

Today we’d like to introduce you to Lauren Voss & John Panza Arms & Armour.

Hi Lauren Voss & John Panza, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
Lauren and John have built more than a band over their 18 years of collaboration, a kind of musical marriage. Arms & Armour has existed and evolved over its 15 years, morphing from a vocal/guitar/drums band into the electronic, sludgy monstrosity it is today. Together they also conceived and co-founded the non-profit Panza Foundation (www.panzafoundation.org), an underground music incubator serving bands in the Cleveland area since 2014. And they have been co-owners of Dark Current (www.darkcurrentcle.com), a recording and media studio in Cleveland, since 2019 and housed in a 140-year-old drill bit factory building.

Emerging from the industrial Mecca that is Cleveland and recording in their studio housed in a 140-year-old drill bit factory, Arms & Armour creates a doom wash of guttural noise, guitar groans, synth colorations, drone measures, and repetitive drums. Akin to bands like Ulver, Swans, Xiu Xiu, Phantogram, GGGOLDDD, Chelsea Wolfe, Portishead, Cult of Luna, Depeche Mode, Darkthrone, Brutus, and others, Arms & Armour blends crushing guitars with angular drums and soaring vocals to create a kind of soundtrack of recovery, from illness, from tragedy, from the pains of contemporary politics, from motherhood and fatherhood, from the realization that aging happens but art is forever.

Arms & Armour is a duo consisting of Lauren Voss (vocals, guitar, synths) and John Panza (drum machines, acoustic drums, guitar, and synths). Self-produced and self-motivated, they have worked as Arms & Armour for 15 years and have toured the US playing shows with just about any genre one can imagine, from acoustic to death metal shows, quiet to loud, direct to atmospheric. In all cases, Arms & Armour somehow fits. Gothic sensibilities filtered through doom with elements of EDM and post-punk, Arms & Armour treats genre like a game of literary whack-a-mole, but the whacker is a cudgel covered in drill bits.

Lauren plays guitar and synth, is the vocalist, and is the visual artist for the band, designing all of the album art and photography. John programs drum machines and plays acoustic drums (to build samples), guitar, and synth in the band. He also serves as Arms & Armour’s recording engineer and is responsible for all of the band’s recording. This is all done out of Dark Current LLC.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
John was diagnosed in 2012 at 38 with a rare and incurable form of cancer called malignant pleural mesothelioma. Mesothelioma is caused by exposure to asbestos, which John was exposed to as a child as his father worked in a factory that ground brake and clutches that contained asbestos. Thirty years after exposure the cancer was discovered after a series of bizarre and pretty grotesque symptoms and equally grotesque tests — the aftereffects of one surgery became the cover of Hiram-Maxim’s 2015 eponymous debut album. Despite a terminal diagnosis, 18-month average life expectancy, and a 5% survivability after 5 years, John has continued to live and thrive 14 years later, but only after multiple rounds of chemotherapy, radiation, and 10 surgeries, including the removal of his right lung, diaphragm, pericardium, lots of lymph nodes, and a rib. John’s online moniker of jp1lung comes from this part of his life. Now 53, John has dedicated himself to consulting with and helping newly diagnosed mesothelioma patients and has even spent time on the Hill in DC lobbying for research dollars. To say that the grotesque and in some cases violent side of this cancer has affected his musical sensibility is an understatement. John’s father died at 52 in 1994 of lung cancer more than likely a result of that same exposure.

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
John is an associate professor of English at a local college and an expert in Frankenstein and other gothic literatures. Lauren is an audiobook narrator for fantasy, science fiction, and spicy romance of all varieties (even Krampus porn…yep…).

Their studio, Dark Current, is progressively becoming their day jobs, though, as the studio continues to grow both in recording and visual work and as a show space for local, regional, and national touring acts. Recently they’ve hosted Souled American and Pedro the Lion. John is on sabbatical from his college until August 2027 to finish writing a novel and work on additional publications…and make music. Lots of music. Lauren’s audiobook work has been steadily increasing as people realize that AI sucks.

Lauren has a BFA in fine art from the Cleveland Institute of Art with an emphasis in performance art and photo/video production. John has a BA in English Language and Literature from John Carroll University and two MAs, one in English from John Carroll University and a second in creative writing from the University of Hull (UK). He is a published author with a specialty in dark, so-called American gothic fiction.

What do you like and dislike about the city?
Cleveland is a hub for live music, and the intense support for the local music scene by club owners and promoters allows for a lot of creativity and innovation. Genre means little to those who participate in the underground music scene in Cleveland. And this includes Akron as well. The most impressive thing to us about Cleveland is its affordability for working musicians. And the lake is superb.

Cleveland has the clubs, the promoters, the bands, and the studios. What it lacks is the other essentials associated with the music industry. The lack of labels, music PR, and music legal representation in the city can sometimes make otherwise national-leaning bands have to get help from other cities with that industry infrastructure. Not a bad thing, having to branch out to find help, but Cleveland bands would benefit from more immediate access to such things.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.armsarmour.com
• Instagram: @arms.armour
• Facebook: @armsarmour
• Youtube: @armsarmour6234
• Other: http://armsarmour.bandcamp.com