Being the neverending touring machine they are, I met John before Baroness’ show, on the Montreal stop of their latest tour with Deafheaven. At one point, he mentioned loving the arc in bands’ discographies. Well, he sure would be served by his own band’s arc! From their humble beginnings, serving a nasty Savannah, GA-style Sludge, to the airy and catchy Prog-influenced Metal of their latest LP Purple, their sound evolved drastically over the years, yet maintained a core that’s truly their own. The band is now about to open a new chapter with the release of Gold & Grey on June 14th which, by John’s admission is bound to draw opinions. Interesting!
Outside the band, John is also a highly talented graphic artist, who’s work graced many an album cover. Check out his work at aperfectmonster.com.
Pre-order the new album at http://smarturl.it/baroness-goldandgrey
What have you been listening to the most likely?
I’m not gonna try to pronounce it but I found some incredibly good Black Metal this week that I’m losing my shit on. BEKËTH NEXËHMU – De Svarta Riterna. A demo from 2013. This is my jam of the week right here. I think they’re Swedish. That’s my Black Metal for the week. Also, late, late, late, late night when I fall asleep, I’ve been listening to this band called DAWN OF MIDI. They are a jazz trio, but it’s not really the sound. They sound good, it’s really interesting. Somebody described to me like, very non-linear in the way that MESHUGGAH is, like the rhythms are the critical function. It’s a piano, upright bass and a drummer, but the rhythms are like…you know how like when you listen to Meshuggah, you can always nod in your head, but you never really know where the downbeat is? There’s some real tricky stuff going on. It’s kind of like that. They did this record called Dysnomia and it sort of sounds to me like it’s one theme for the entire length of the record but they sort of do different things with this really basic kind of melody structure. Just kind of flip the beat around or play with the dynamics for an hour or something. It’s incredible, beautiful, beautiful thing to listen to.
Then, it’s a new artist, KTL. It’s Stephen O’Malley from SUNN O))) and Peter Rehberg from PITA. It’s ambient music but it’s scary. It’s pretty screwed up stuff. It’s music that was created for a theater production. It’s ambient. It’s got elements of drone like SUNN O))) has. It’s just terrifying in a different way, you know. It is so cool. And I’m just back on GHOSTFACE KILLAH – Fishscale. Every other year, I just listen to that stuff all the time constantly, on repeat.
Just before that, I was going to say, you seem like the type guy who’s just trying to find new stuff all the time but then, you go back to your classics still?
Yeah, for me, that’s a super classic. And I’m always really excited to find music that’s old, that I haven’t discovered yet. Last night, Gina was playing the score for an Icelandic film called Metalhead. It’s this guy called Pétur Ben and it sort of sounds like Black Metal, I don’t know if it literally is, but it’s really awesome guitar playing. Really kind of bizarre, out there shit. That’s really been getting me to where I need to go recently, you know.
When Baroness tours, we have a thing every night where, when the show’s out, and the bus starts moving or we’re just hanging out because we have nothing better to do, everybody DJ’s. It’s a lot of old Funk and Soul music or Classic Rock or, you name it, modern, kind of minimalistic Electronic music and stuff. I mean, we’re pretty all over the map. We are like a family at this point, we see the same people all the time. I think there’s kind of a musical one-up-manship during the DJ sets, and it’s really cool. We always get to discover music, but also, we’ll kind of get stuck on certain things for whatever reason. Right now, we’re listening to AVERAGE WHITE BAND a lot. It’s fun, I enjoy being able to listen to things with a fresh set of ears or, like the other night we were just trying to listen to songs that had incredible baselines. So it’s everything from like the Beatles to TLC or whatever. Focus on one instrument sometimes or go over the top, you know. I listen to a lot of Punk and Hardcore as well. We never run out stuff.
Anything worth mentioning from the last playlist that you played for these guys?
Well, I very rarely run into people that know the band, but it was one of Billy Anderson’s side project called BLESSING THE HOGS. It was really, really gnarly, riff-y Sludge. And I think we listened to SIR LORD BALTIMORE. Insane guitar playing.
Insane vocals, too.
Yeah, totally psychotic.
And to think it was the drummer singing?
But it was definitely the guitar player mixing it because the guitars are just in your face all the time. That’s really funny.
Otherwise…MARKED MEN. They don’t really exist anymore. There’s this new band called RADIOACTIVITY, but I always love listening to them. So much stuff. That German artist called ANIKA that had the drummer from PORTISHEAD and his band playing backup for her…and then his band BEAK>, you know that band? Fuckin’ mindblowing.
Then there’s an Irish band I recently discovered. They are a five piece I think? LANKUM. They do traditional Irish music but they also do this really beautiful kind of Drone-y Folk stuff. They reached out to me recently to see if I was interested in doing some artwork for them. So I got into that. There’s a couple of songs that they’ve got, incredibly powerful, deep, heavy, rich, textured songs. I love old country too so you know, Hickory wind by GRAM PARSONS is always something to listen to. Red headed stranger, WILLIE NELSON, and you name it. I love it. I love it all.
What’s your favorite way of discovering new music? Is it live? On records? Through friends’ recommendations? Just dumb luck?
All the above. Yeah, for sure. I mean, when we tour, we have a tendency to do the European festival circuit in the summer and that’s always a great place to see who’s popping off. Bands from different disciplines and different genres. That’s always really interesting to me. But I think, hands down, the best way is just to ask “what do you listen to?” I’ll ask people and write it down and I’ll just listen to it. I try to stay very connected to our audience. I’ve always felt that’s a really critical function of bands in the modern era, to be not just respectful, but attentive and actually engaged with those people who literally support what you do. So if I’m going to our social media, just thanking people for posting pictures or whatever, and occasionally, somebody strikes up a conversation and I’ll go “what you are listening to?”, and that yields the most diverse responses. When you talk to musicians…musicians like bands that are fun for musicians. It’s kind of always the same sort of stuff. But when you ask way outside of your social zone, you can get something. It’s not always good but people always got something they want you to listen to, and I’m one of those people where I’m gonna listen to them, you know? I want to listen to the whole record. If I’m gonna hate it, I want to know why.
Yet, you’re a musician, yourself. So how do you switch from casual listening to analytical? How does the setting affects it?
The setting dictates it. Like, if I’m falling asleep, and I want something to hear, I tend to pay a lot more attention to it before my brain turns off and go to sleep. I’m isolated. I’m listening to music as a single listener, which I don’t think is the natural setting honestly. I think that’s an artificial thing that we’ve created. In more recent years, the industry has really focused itself on giving people unique individual listening experiences. But historically, music’s always been a group activity. There’s very little evidence, if any -at least in whatever little research I’ve done- that music was ever something that was just the musician and one audience. What drives us to be musicians to begin with is we use our instruments as conduits to express ourselves. Nobody is really talking about it, but by the time we’re playing a song that we’ve written, we have already decided that it’s worth sharing with people. So I think that the best, most visceral and long lasting experiences that I’ve had musically are as a member of a crowd, listening. As a non-musician, a civilian, if you will. Those are the experiences that have had the greatest impact on me. So, I try very hard to put myself in this position as often as possible. I live in Philadelphia and I try to see as many shows in a week as I can. Always. And I do not care what it is. If I have a week to myself to see music, I want to see something in an arena, and I want to see something in a house and I want to see something in a small venue, and I want to see something in a large venue. I want all of those experiences simply because I like it but also, I’m always learning. I assume that we’re never going to be the best at anything so self-improvement is part of playing music for me. Personally and professionally, we’d like to get better, we’d like to think that we get better continually. I think it’s ignorant to think that you can continually self-improve without opening your eyes to the world around, put your finger on the pulse of something else. I learn more from acts that are far different than we are then I ever will from the close circle of friends that I’m in.
For instance, at a stadium show, you’re going to see a production. You’re going to see the combination of hundreds of people working in unison to create something and the larger than life aspects of it, whether it’s lasers and pyro, or just the sheer volume that it takes to entertain 70,000 people. That, to me, is interesting. Simultaneously, the way that more underground acts interact with groups of 50 people or 100 people, that’s also thrilling to me, because they are two very different things. I put Baroness somewhere in the middle, we’re at neither end of that spectrum. So we can apply the things that work at this smaller, more intimate level but we can also try to, like, do low rent versions of the production tactics. It’s fun because why wouldn’t you try something new? The other thing that, conceptually, is critical is that we don’t repeat ourselves. One thing I would never ever want to do is play in the same type of room every week.
Yes, some bands will come back year after year in same room. But as a show goer, I tend to prefer experiencing different venues, you know?Exactly. I don’t care, put me on the middle of woods or, you know, when we get the opportunity to play these mega shows, it’s awesome because I’m terrified. Like the Corona (note: the venue they were playing that night) or something. It’s big, but at this point for us, we’ve played music long enough that it’s manageable. I know that even if we completely fall flat, we can keep things steady to the end of the show. But if it’s a stadium thing, and all the sudden everybody’s booing at you, I don’t know what I’d do. Gotta learn how to keep your skin nice and thick.
Part of the reason that I started playing music was that I didn’t want to go to the same job every day. I figured out a way to keep my environment changing and chaotic and new, and full of problems to solve, with new ways to be creative on a nightly basis. So I’ll be damned if I’m going to let any perceived success that the band has homogenize what we do and make it the same every night. That’s not interesting.
What is the most impressive band you’ve toured with? The one that you just had to watch every night? Did you learn anything from them/by watching them?
There was quite a few bands on tour where I’ve watched them a handful or many of the shows, but METALLICA is kind of an easy answer for me, because at the time we toured with them, we had never played those types of stages before. We weren’t equipped for it. We were outgunned and we were never going to be competitive on that stage. So you know, from the get go, all we’re doing here is fighting for survival, really. So let’s watch how they do it. The way that band behaved on stage and off stage, to me, really was enlightening because there were so many unexpected things that they did that you would only think that younger, or smaller bands would do that they did, just on a larger scale. Through those tours, I learned something about how to carry yourself through the rigors of success without completely losing yourself.
Obviously you go to a lot of shows. What’s the last band that you discovered live that really blew you away?
Uh, that’s a really tough question. Fuck, I wish that had happened recently. This wouldn’t be the most recent example of it but I remember years ago, hearing about the Belgian band AMENRA. Everybody would talk in this sort of hushed tones about how their performances came across. I don’t know why but for some reason, I didn’t give it a solid listen until I saw them. Then I was like, I want to be part of this, however I can. Same way that NEUROSIS made be feel when I saw them in ’98 or whatever. Same thing that I felt when I was 13 or 14 years old, seeing Nirvana for the first time. I was like “I want to be part of this part of this world”.
What are some of the most memorable shows that you’ve seen?
The first show I ever saw, which obviously left a big impression on me, was SONIC YOUTH, SUPERCHUNK and the BOREDOMS in Richmond, Virginia. It was the first show I’d ever seen. It just completely blew me away. This was a tour for Dirty I believe. It was on an island, festival grounds on Browns Island in Richmond, Virginia, which is in the middle of the James River. Seasons were changing, it was turning into spring so it was still kind of cold and the audience was steaming, like you could barely see the bands sometimes, it was wet and muddy. It was a really primal sort of experience and loud as fuck. They changed guitars every song, tunings were fucking nonsense; they hit the guitars with drumsticks and shit. And this is when they’re popular. They just seemed like they had nothing to lose, and I loved it. Then a couple months later, I saw NIRVANA on a college tour, like a month before they were the biggest band, on the Nevermind tour. I was already a huge fan of that point, they were kind of everything for me to that point. And my expectations were exceeded when I saw them play. I met the band after the show, because I figured out how to get behind the venue and they talked to me and my three friends for, like, 45 minutes or an hour. It was a coolest fucking experience in my life. I took it with me and I use that more than anything else as a model for the way that I should approach any audience that I was ever to have. You don’t treat people like they’re younger, you don’t treat them like they’re less than you, you don’t treat them like they don’t know what they’re doing and you do. You talk to them like anybody else you talk to.
I’ve got social anxiety. Outside of music, it’s not easy for me to navigate social situations. I have a hard time making friends and doing the things that come very easily to other people. But through music, I’ve learned how to speak to people and how to treat people and how collaborative everything is. Even insofar as our show every night, from 2003 onwards, the quality of our show is due at least 50% to the audience. We could play the best show of our lives but if it’s all crossed arms, then it’s not a very good show, isn’t it? If we’re sloppy and loose, and people are going fucking ape shit, jumping off the stage and whatever, that’s the best show. The best show is the one where your crowd is more important than you and they’re providing the vast majority of the energy for the show. I still estimate the value of any show that we’ve done by the enthusiasm of the audience.
Can you name 3 songs that you consider “perfect songs” and explain why or what they mean to you?
Shine on you crazy diamond (note: PINK FLOYD), I think is about as perfect a song and interestingly perfect a song as possible. Because it’s long.
Every parts, one through nine, or do you have a favorite section?
Well, that first section when you put the LP on, parts 1-5? Those eight minutes or whatever. before the reprisal. That’s a track, I guess. I think it predates a lot of what’s popular now, which is the tension build, and then release. Like these instrumental bands that really hone that. I always go back to that and say, like in art, we call it the efficiency of the line. You know, like graphic designers can say a whole lot with very little space. I’m not an efficiency guy at all. Nobody’s ever gonna accuse me of being simple and efficient. A fun thing to do is, just listen how much restraint is happening. Everybody who listens to classic rock has heard the song and remembers the chorus but the build to that chorus is unbelievably long. It’s beautiful and every moment of it is thrilling. As many times I’ve heard it, I still can’t anticipate the licks that happen. David Gilmour: best guitar player. I feel sometimes like he’s just playing a joke. He’ll do a lick and then he just does nothing for like a minute and a half. Then he finishes the phrase and it’s like, damn, that’s ballsy. It takes a phenomenal amount of skill and expertise to do that, in a way that doesn’t sound like a joke. It doesn’t feel like a joke, it feels like the only way it could happen.
Breathe in, breathe out. I’ve always liked that type of guitar player and soloist, who let the audience breathe it in.
Yeah. Because after the 60’s and 70’s, I think all that fantastic, over the top playing that was ever going to impress me, happened. Now, there’s tons of virtuoso out there but I just want a good melody. I want something that I’ll remember. I prefer the guitar players who, the guitar is more of a voice than something that moves faster than a voice. It’s the reason I like Brian May as a guitar player so much. He’s always playing something you can hum in your head. That’s how I decipher guitar. Personally, I’ve always heard it more as a voice than it is a rhythm or an instrument that’s meant to be fireworks all the time. You can have focal fireworks, sure, but what I’m saying is, the way I’ve always written guitars is primarily in a vocal way. So I appreciate that about guys like Brian May but David Gilmore, it’s very palatial, like poetry, you know? The way that his phrasing is, with tons of spaces and ellipses. So I really love that song and of course, the actual vocal melody of the song, and the texture and the tone. The way it’s all played, it’s really outstanding and beautiful. It seems very improvisational, but controlled. Despite all that, it’s a song too. A song you want to listen to again.
Another one, more on the heavy side of things, Stones from the sky by NEUROSIS. Much in the same way, it comes from a time before everybody was building, building, building and releasing. The parameters or the rule book for tension release hadn’t quite been set. There wasn’t the EXPLOSIONS IN THE SKY, ISIS, Holy Bible of how to build and then peak and then relax again. That song, in and of itself, it’s really two notes. It’s two notes and a mid paced rhythm, and tempo and they just build this entire universe out of it. I’m so in awe of it, that I’ve ripped that song off in Baroness on every record! There’s a point in the end of the song where they go *humming the riff*, just do the two notes over again, cut down on it, and the drums drop out and you’re just like, “oh!”. You see these beautiful, just heavy fuckin’ guitars and then the drums come back in, kind of unexpectedly. On Baroness records, there’s always a spot where the drums drop out, and the guitars goes *humming a similar riff*…we’re gonna play three of those tonight. So that one obviously left a considerable mark on my life.
Then Drain you by NIRVANA, my favorite pop song of all time. It’s just the best chords, lyrics, delivery and it comes across as like Rock or Punk-y you know, there’s a thing to it. Getting just one chord before you get the vocal. I’m like, why can’t anybody write a whole album of those? They already did it. I think that’s a perfect song, off of a perfect band, off of a perfect record. Perfect time of music for me, as a person growing up. That was awesome to me.
What would you say is the band that has the most perfect discography?Discography!? Oh, that’s tough. I almost want to say something like RADIOHEAD, or PINK FLOYD. But I don’t really like The Final Cut, you know? I didn’t like the last Radiohead record and the first ones, I don’t think they like it. But that’s a discography that I never get tired of. I go back to it over and over and over and over and over and over. And NEUROSIS too, there’s not a record I won’t listen to by them. Their discography, for me personally, is borderline perfect.
If we twist it around and say, the most perfect sequence of three records in a row, would that be either Radiohead or Pink Floyd?
Yeah. Or Neurosis. For sure. I mean, there are trios in there that you cannot fuck with.
Which one would it be for Pink Floyd?
Ah! Just choose any three up until The Final Cut! Honestly, I probably spent less time of my life with Dark Side of the Moon than anything else. But like Animals, Wish You Were Here, Meddle…but those are not sequential.
No, it’s Meddle, Dark Side, Wish You Were, then Animals. But then there’s a curveball, whether you count the Obscured by Clouds soundtrack, between Meddle and Dark Side.
Right, right. I love Obscured by Clouds.
It kinda ties in with Dark Side too because it was recorded during a break from the Dark Side sessions. Kind of bonus stuff and ideas they couldn’t use.
Oh! You want to talk about perfect performance? Echoes, live at Pompeii. Holy fuck. I don’t watch it without getting goosebumps every time. Like, I just want to be half as good as this…ever. Just once. I want to perform once and go half that far, you know? That would be fantastic for me.
Are you into live records?
I’m into good live records There hasn’t been tons of great live records recently, to me.
Is there a live record or maybe a song that you think is way better than the studio version?
No, I don’t think so. No. I’m racking my brains. I can’t really think of a live record that’s just out and out better than the studio record. I mean, Band of Gypsys (note: JIMI HENDRIX), there was no studio version of it but as a live record, it’s insanely good. I prefer Bitches Brew to Live-Evil (note: MILES DAVIS), you know? Even if it’s not the same. It seems to stand that if you’ve recorded an incredible record in the studio, part of what makes it incredible is something that was happening in the studio. It becomes really difficult to recreate whatever was happening in the studio on stage. That said, I think there are bands who, on a whole, their live shows are more thrilling to me than the records are. But that’s not to say that there’s a live recording that supersedes the recorded album.
Sometimes it’s just a different version that you prefer, you know? Like, for example, my answer to this question would be PORTISHEAD Live at Roseland NYC. To me, that’s the go to.
Is it? I like it but I much prefer the studio albums…Oh, I should have said Third before! I could never grown tired of that record. I never will. PORTISHEAD, MASSIVE ATTACK, RADIOHEAD. I just don’t get tired of those bands. They’re fucking incredible. Yeah, those are the bands that have all the good ideas that I want to steal.
And they’re great live too. That show on the Third tour is probably in my top five of best shows I’ve seen. So good.
Incredible, right? But I won’t say it was better than the record. A recording is a controlled thing, where the artist is giving you exactly what they want to give you. Live, you get more or less than you expect. The cool thing about live is, it’s louder, it’s communal, and there is the potential for it to go wrong. Whereas on record, you’re not going to hear a record a second time and go “Oh, they fucked it up that time.” It’s always the same, that’s why we record. But I think that the truly great bands and performers are capable of bringing something on stage that you can’t replicate in the studio. In the same way that you can’t replicate the studio’s. I’ve seen good attempts. I’ve seen very good attempts. PORTISHEAD, they give you a run for your money, studio-wise.
Even RADIOHEAD, when I saw them, I would connect with the live show in a much bigger way than I would with the records. I like these songs but they would bring mellotrons on stage. They’ve got like all kinds of bells and things hanging off his guitar, and he’s using them. When Radiohead did In Rainbows – From the Basement with Nigel Godrich, which is sort of half live half studio, there’s some of the songs that are maybe a little more soulful than the studio version. So it does happen but on the whole I can’t think of any examples. I don’t think I agree with you with Portishead but it is a fucking phenomenal library.
What would you say is your top five favorite records of all time?
Yeah, this is hard because these ones change all the time. Let me just rattle them off because the numbers…These are some of my favorite records of all time, and they change constantly. But yes, PORTISHEAD’s Third. I didn’t think that anything was going to get better but then, it took us by surprise. Then, the second record by TRAGEDY, Vengeance, was like…That was a reason I was like “I don’t think we’re going to get more intense and heavy than this, why would we try?” This beautiful record is in the world and we do not need to outdo it. We do not need to even try because that would be a failed attempt. That’s a perfect record.
In that realm, is there a better intro to a record than that one?
In ANY realm, is there a better intro than this?
The build-up is insane!
If you want to blow people’s hair back, show me a better song. And a better opener. And a better sound. Perfect.
The weird thing is, for the longest time, they didn’t play that song live. I never got that.
I would be terrified to play it if I had recorded it. There’s so much goosebumps. When that thing hits!? If I had written it, and had to pull it off, I’d be like “we can’t do that.” We can’t recreate that. But I’ve seen ’em do it.
Yeah, I eventually saw it on like, my sixth time seeing them. Perhaps, it was actually even better that way. Just like the song, it built up. Every time, it was like “oh, they probably won’t play it” and then, boom, they actually opened the show with it.
I love songs that have that feeling. It’s very much a mentality that I apply in Baroness songs. Nothing literal but there’s such an immense power to the first thing you hear. You associate it. By the second drum hit, you’re like “Vengeance-TRAGEDY, I know where we are”. The sound and the way it comes out. It’s a clue that tells you what you’re about to hear. It’s a nostalgia thing too, in the first few bars of Wish you were here. The whole record, if you’ve heard it, you know it’s all there, it’s just a matter of waiting to get into those mile markers. That’s a record I’ve turned so many people who weren’t familiar with that world of music onto. That song, that record, it’s kind of unfuckwithable. Again, when Baroness writes a good song, if it doesn’t already have it, it needs a sound at the beginning. Whether it’s a drum thing, or just a sample or whatever, you need that thing that tells people “ah, that’s a Baroness song”.
Great records…I’m the right age that I always will say Nevermind – NIRVANA. Complete barn burner for me. I understand that people who discovered them through Bleach say it’s a better record but I don’t think it is. I think Nevermind is kind of a perfect record. Yeah. In the same way that when WEEZER put out their first record, I was just like, this a fuzzy pop record. I like singing all the hooks. It’s super fun to sing. Most people, you supply them with enough alcohol and you play any songs on that record, people of an age will sing along. I know they’re not cool now but I can compartmentalize bands like that. I love Pinkerton too, for different reasons. It was like In Utero in a way, it’s kind of a weirder thing, but I still loved it. And then you know what happened.
Have you ever heard that version of Pinkerton, Songs from the Black Hole? It’s a concept album they were working on, as a follow-up to the Blue Album, which includes the main songs from Pinkerton. Then they ditched it and went to Pinkerton instead, but it’s very interesting. There’s a version of it floating around the internet.
No, I never heard about that. Sounds cool. I’ll look it up because I miss that band. I missed them from the moment they put the next record out. I’m a sucker for melody and they seem to understand awesome guitar sound. Plus awesome guitar playing, plus good songwriting plus accessible hooks in a way that there were very few bands doing and since, there’ve been very few bands doing. I mean, it’s just tricky. It’s tricky to write a convincing song that people want to sing along with that’s also cool.
I feel like with these answers are really dating me. hahaha I mean, there’s so many records that came out post 2003 that I worshiped. In Rainbows, I still think that’s the best RADIOHEAD record. Well, maybe not. I like OK Computer and Kid A as well. I like them all, fuck it. I’m an unabashed fan. I’ve learned how not to be embarrassed by these answers, whatever, I was alive in the 90’s, man. And I love MINOR THREAT and FUGAZI and all that stuff too. SLAYER, South of fucking Heaven? Fuck yeah. JESUS LIZARD’s Liar.
Does South of Heaven stand above all other Slayer records for you?
That one and Reign in Blood are close but I think the vibe of South of Heaven is a little more unique. Reign in Blood’s got maybe better individual songs but South of Heaven is in a really particular atmosphere and dark place the whole time for me. So it’s the one that I want to hear first. Plus, there’s a little more mid tempos, so it’s not always just completely going for it. But yeah, I really love that record. I mean, same for SABBATH records, kind of hard not to love that. Most of AC/DC, it’s kind of hard not to love that stuff. You know, I am a Rock fan after all, I do have to like this stuff.
Which AC/DC record would be your favorite?
See, that’s why it’s hard because, bands like that, those records are consistently incredible. The only difference is in production, really. It’s not like they got better playing or better songwriting, it started off amazing. It was always really good. Stuff like that, I’m struggling. There’s so much. GHOSTFACE’s Fishscale, I can’t let up on that record. It’s so goddamn good. For a while, it was the WU-TANG stuff because I love them. I was always really, really into the Liquid Swords record. I thought that was phenomenal when it came out. I still do. That’s a record that hasn’t left my constant rotation for 20 years.
I don’t know…so many things. But definitely, one more time, JESUS LIZARD, one of the greatest all time bands ever, ever ever, ever, ever, ever. Most people think Goat’s cooler but no, for me, Liar is the one. I like the bigger production on it, I like the songs. Lyrics are fucking amazing. And the playing is just top notch from start to finish. Jesus Lizard is other one, AC/DC-style bands, they just don’t make wrong moves somehow. I appreciate the wrong moves that I’ve made; I’ll back them up hard. You know, the bad songs, the funky things that we’ve done, and I really enjoy that but I like that out there, there’s an AC/DC and the Jesus Lizard and the slayer who are just kicking ass. Nah, don’t need to grow, we just need to refine, we need to be the best at our craft, above all else. I think that’s why those bands get elevated in that way.
More recently, on the metal side of things, I’ve come to see that AT THE GATES really never stopped, never lost it. CARCASS, same thing. They both had, what seemed on paper, their legacy albums done but they both put out phenomenal records. At that point, they didn’t need to. I love the fact that bands can go out with a bang, and then come back in. Even though you’re expecting it’s just like “Oh, we miss playing music and let’s put something together and hope the fire’s there” and it never is. But then, every once in a while, somebody does it. I’m psyched for that.
Are you typically more into the early material that a band puts out?
No, I actually love the arc. That’s why I mentioned bands like RADIOHEAD and PINK FLOYD and NEUROSIS because those bands were never about where they are now. It’s always a process. The best records are the ones that you thought were maybe not going to work but they’re just working out somehow. They kind of have that mentality like, you’ve built a beautiful house and everybody admires it but you just wipe it down to the foundation and rebuild. And you just hope that, based on the virtue of your building skills, to continue to strive and build a better house, or a more interesting house or just a different atmosphere. I really love watching lifespans and I have the utmost admiration for bands that are making every effort not to hit that space where they’re cruising. The cruise is not cool to me. You know, if I was ever to figure out some formula or something that worked, I’d do everything in my power to forget it.
Do you have any unpopular music opinion that you’d like to defend? Maybe stuff that you’ve been arguing with other band members for years?
I don’t know. I mean, I’m not a BEATLES fan and that seems to be really unpopular with just about everybody I know! I’m trying. I want to say I don’t think they matter but now I do. People keep illuminating me. It’s the most difficult opinion in the world to have musically, to think the Beatles aren’t worth anything. There are documentaries and books written on how they do so I keep getting proven wrong. I’ll say that, possibly my favorite thing that happens on a regular basis is I get proven wrong. I’ll have a strong opinion, you know, I’ll use lots of four letter words to defend myself and then somebody proves me wrong. I’m not so presumptuous that I’m going to stick to my guns. I love somebody to ruin my hard and fast rules on what’s cool and what’s not. But for me, music was never about being cool so I find virtue in the things that most people find annoying. Arguments that come up would be, I don’t really see what the big deal is about RUSH. I don’t see what the big deal is about STEELY DAN. I don’t see what the big deal is about YES. People love those bands and they’re okay but when I was growing up, that was square shit. It was the exact opposite of awesome, you know? Fucking pissing off your parents is cool, right? It was just very much the opposite, like, stuff that comes up when you’re at work. My parent’s music. I came around with a lot of it. A lot of music from the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s that probably sounded really lame to me at one point, but I cannot come around on Yes. I will never. I do not like that band.
Is there any band that for the longest time you weren’t into it, and it turned out to be one of your go-to’s or maybe something that you missed out on when they first came out and discovered way later?
I’m sure there are. Hum…part of the reason it’s difficult for me to answer these questions is because I listen to a new record every day of the week. This year, I’ve taken a couple days off, but when you listen to 300+ new records a year, it does get a little blurry. Like, did I spend the whole year last year listening to underground Swedish Techno Pop?!? Maybe, I don’t know. Haha. Like, all the electronic stuff that’s happening in England, kids come and go in a week, release fucking brilliant songs, and then you forget their names. This is the downside of having a chaotic memory. I mean, anything that wasn’t Punk or Hardcore or Hip Hop, I was late to the game with, because that was the only stuff i thought was cool as a kid. The noisier was the better. I hated metal. BOSTON and THIN LIZZY and IRON MAIDEN. JUDAS PRIEST was okay because they sound like they’re kind of scrappy. I hated it because everybody thought they can play guitar. When I was young, because I wasn’t good at playing guitar- the way we simplify things, we will get really reductive- I was like “well, if I can’t play guitar, then I don’t want to listen to somebody who’s good at it. I want to listen to somebody that’s banging on their instrument.” Then I came to realize that some of these guys that sound like they bang on their instrument are like reeeeal players. Now yeah, I’ll actually appreciate like, BAD COMPANY or something.
Do you remember the first record cover that really caught your eye?
Yes, LED ZEPPELIN IV, for sure. I don’t know what it was about it because I look at it now and I’m like, I don’t think anybody tried. I can’t see what was going on with that record cover.
Well, there was a mystery about it.
Sure, and when I was 12, that mystery was very real, you know? I think it may have been the first piece of vinyl that somebody played for me that I liked. My parents taste in music was different than mine and they weren’t big vinyl enthusiasts. I think we had a BILLY OCEAN 45 and an INXS record or something like that. Which is fucking badass. INXS’ Kick, that’s a badass record, by the way.
The first guitar lesson that I ever took that made an impact on my life- and I can probably count the total number of guitar lessons that I’ve had on these two hands – but my teacher was my friend’s dad, this guy Steve Oak, I credit him with everything in my playing. He was like ”Have you heard of LED ZEPPELIN and I was younger and living in the country and I hadn’t. He put it on and I still remember the wall of distressed vinyl spines and he pulled that one out and I’m just, ”Whaaaat!?”. He opens it up and it’s all handwritten, there’s the guy with the light. I mean, I don’t think I had experiences with artwork accompanying music at that scale. You know, I was listening to tapes and that was the first time I really spent time with something. He had an immense collection classic rock so I got to Roger Dean pretty quick and the YES covers. I collected all the Yes albums despite hating it!
What are some of your favorite album covers?
Relayer by YES, Burning Cold by DAMAD. If you need the original Savannah, Georgia sound, it’s all them. Some of them would go on to be in KYLESA but that band, they had Pushead do their cover. It’s one of my favorite Pushead album covers, along with the Damad seven inch. Two of my favorite drawings of his ever.
Otherwise, I will go back to Jesus Lizard’s Liar because that record cover is awesome. When I saw that record cover I was like, ”Holy shit, you can have kind of bizarre art on your album cover?” It sort of makes sense but looking at this is like, was this painted last year or 300 years ago?
I honestly was never really into the IRON MAIDEN covers; it seemed kind of goofy to me from the get go. But middle era JUDAS PRIEST was the guy Doug Johnson doing the covers, Defenders of the Faith, Screaming for Vengeance and Turbo. I have always admired the work that went into those. They feel very English to me. Very much from the era of Monty Python, some sort of post-colonial English illustration style, I don’t really know how to describe it but those three were fantastic album covers.
Do you have any favorite unusual packaging, like die cuts, foldouts, etc?
A friend of mine gave me this record…I can’t remember the name now…the cover is just a normal picture but the cover itself has three pieces of paper. The image is continuous across these pieces of paper and when you look at the back, when you open it up – you know, looking at it normal, spine on the left – you open it up and there’s some photography. When you close it, you can then open it backwards and it’s a different picture. Because the way the paper is cut, there’s four different album covers and you can bend it on these different axes. It’s so old, I don’t want to take it apart but I still can’t figure out how it was created. I can’t fuckin’ remember the name…some English guy.
Then, was it the BLACK JESUS record that had the big white cross? Fuck, I can’t remember anything. That was a good package. One thing I really liked, SIGUR ROS put out a book that their vinyl came in. It was a beautiful picture book, really well designed, and it had the vinyl in it. We were doing the Yellow & Green record and I was like, let’s do a book!
It’s really hard to find a sweet spot. The more elaborate packages are, the more people want to collect them, of course, but it’s tough to do because you have to create these things, and then pay for it! I remember I did this 10 inch record for TORCHE, an EP called In Return. They had this whole idea and Robotic Empire Records, which was doing the record, the owner was like, we’re gonna spend a lot on this, who cares if we make it back. I think there was 36 different vinyl colors for it, in two or three pressings. Red and Blue by Baroness are both over 40 different vinyl variants, but that’s over eight or nine pressings, you know? Anyway, they wanted their portraits on the inside so I did these portraits of the band. They wanted all these different colors vinyl, and then every piece had its own thing. Also, I don’t put text on album covers, if you see text on an album cover that I’ve done, that’s because it was absolutely forced on me and I fought tooth and nails every bit of the way.
So we took the vinyl bag and we made this big ridiculous black and white screen printed sticker that wrapped around the bag itself and had the band name and In Return and all this useless but awesome looking embellishment things all around it. Then, the dust sleeve was designed on the front and the back, their portraits were on the inside then all the credits were in this really weird spatial thing. Then, they wanted a CD too and they fit it on a mini-CD amount of material but they press it onto a regular CD size so it was clear and screen printed on top of it and I did just enough design that the ink covered where the information was and then the rest of it you could see through. I had all these Alabama records that I didn’t care about and I figured out how to do die cutting and I made this thing so you could fit the CD into this portrait of the band. It was all this hugely elaborate package that was just for an EP with six songs on it. There wasn’t really a huge release or anything either. Yeah, that’s a package that I did that I thought was awesome.
I think the first JUSTICE record, there was a bunch of different packages that I saw but there was one that unfurled into this big cross that was mat black, no shine on it, it just had the foil stamped Justice on it. I remember thinking that’s hard as nails looking. That is just a great looking piece of vinyl.
Jake Bannon from CONVERGE has also done some really fantastic things. The live set that they’ve put out that included vinyl, disc, a felt mat, a 200-page photo book and a DVD all pro-mixed and mastered and it just came in this black box with white stamp. I’ve always had a thing for the great designers that do those really solid, austere package elements because when you look at myself, it’s gotta be covered with everything, you know?
Final question, is there anything that you would you like to promote?
Yeah, well, a new record is coming, we’re on tour, yada yada yada. I have come to the end of spending two and a half years on one thoroughly exhaustive project that I’m very excited to release. But I’m more excited to be done with it and start sharing it, ’cause it’s gonna pull opinions out of people!
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