One of the main qualitities that come to mind when trying to define the career of Matt Pike as a musician would be consistency. As a guitarist who has been releasing records for thirty years now, I can’t think of a single release that he has ever been associated with that I would consider mediocre or even “simply ok”. It has always only ever been high quality stuff. I would even go one step further and say that, creatively, he’s only been getting better. I’m of the opinion that every High On Fire album is fantastic, but I would take the last four over the first four without hesitation. I love the classic Sleep records, but I would argue that The Sciences is just as good, and probably even better, than anything they’ve ever released. How many bands, how many musicians can you say that about at this point in their career? Very few, and that is a truly special thing.
What have you been listening to the most lately?
Lately, I didn’t listen to a whole lot of music. When I’m in writing mode, I try not to be too influenced by anything but I like fuckin’ lots of shit. I love D-Beat. I love TRAGEDY and DISSECT and DISFEAR, there’s so many bands. I like stuff like that for some days. I listen to PRIMORDIAL. Sometimes I listen to weird After-Grunge like SOUNDGARDEN and DAYS OF THE NEW. Sometimes it’s BLACK SABBATH, which I’ve always loved but you know, sometimes that gets burnt. I like JETHRO TULL, a particular album actually, I like Stand Up a lot. I always really liked that album. I listen to MAHAVISHNU ORCHESTRA. I listen to JOHN COLTRANE. I like a wider range, from Classical to whatever.
As of recently, I have this playlist of these songs I want to learn on acoustic guitar, just by myself, so I can sing and play ’em. It’s kind of a goal, just to make my singer-songwriter shit better. So yeah, I have some Soundgarden shit on there, some Primordial shit and Days of the New. A bunch of people call me lame for it but I fucking like that shit, especially the later albums, it’s so weird.
There’s so much shit I like that I’m just probably not thinking of, you know? All those classics, like SIR LORD BALTIMORE and Doom shit, all that good stuff.
You started with Tragedy and that’s my speaking my language there. What’s your favorite album?
I definitely like Vengeance, that would be my go to but I like the first one too. I came out of the Berkeley Punk scene so I got to see NEUROSIS and the MELVINS and all that shit before it was anything. I mean, we were just paying five bucks to go to Gilman Street and check out fuckin’ Punk, you know? I’d sell seven inches of ASBESTOSDEATH on the BART to get in on the way up and I don’t know, I got spoiled for a lot of bands like that and so many things from the past, CIRCLE JERKS and BLACK FLAG of course, COC when they first came out. I really fucking loved Animosity when I was a kid. But at the same time, I was listening to CELTIC FROST and IRON MAIDEN and just all the shit. AC/DC, the most perfect Rock band ever. You doesn’t like that?
Can you name three to five albums that really add a deep impact on you along the way, and say what makes them so special to you?
Oh, here’s one. It’s a big one and if you listen to High on Fire, you can tell. Celtic Frost’s Morbid Tales is probably a quintessential. If you don’t have that, you fucking don’t understand Metal. What’s so special about is those guys were taking chances with their music. They were trying shit that no one had tried and it might have been sloppy and crazy but it was just so fucking evil sounding. Just chord work and sliding all over the guitar and making those big fuckin’ dark chords. Not being afraid to play outside the box of what’s already known.
From that place in time, if we’re going with that style of Metal, SLAYER Reign in Blood was doing the same kind of thing. I mean, it’s chromatic. It’s like this experimental Jazz in the middle of this version of dark Metal. You can go back and there’s influences around Slayer, around the same time, like DARK ANGEL and Gene Hoglan on it, and POSSESSED and…there’s just tons of other bands in that scene, but Slayer happened to break out and push the envelope a little bit farther than everybody. I’d say that’s why they got attention. But I knew about that before, you know? I had the Haunting The Chapel picture desk and I had Hell Awaits and there’s a three song EP, Celtic Frost Emperor’s Return. You know, I was just a kid going to the GB&H record shop down the street from my house and I’d just buy whatever album cover looked cool and you know, there’d be a Metal band on it! *Haha*
I remember around the same time, METALLICA came out and this is before they were sold out but they got all this attention because the playing at the time was superhuman to everybody else. But all the people who kinda listened to Metallica, they go to Slayer and be all, “I can’t understand what they’re saying.” Well, when I was a kid, I was like, “that’s because you don’t read it”.
The first stuff I grew up on was SABBATH and ZEPPELIN and FLOYD albums that my father had. I just played that and then from there, I got into early Thrash Metal. And from there though, I must have been 10 years old or something, I had a Punk Rock babysitter, so I knew about the DEAD KENNEDYS and the CIRCLE JERKS and everything under the sun that we call Hardcore Punk from that generation. That kind of all mixed into my playing. Randy Rhoads is a big influence on me also. The little bit of albums that he did with OZZY, guitar wise, you can’t beat what he did. He’s laid the groundwork for everybody. As influential as HENDRIX was for Rock, Randy Rhoads did that for Metal guitar players.
I don’t know, that’s it in a nutshell, I’m trying to cover everything. I’m so into music and I’ve been that way my whole life. Like, I just put my foot in my mouth if I try to focus on one thing. I’m also like ADD kids, I go in 12 different directions at once all the time!
What are some newer release that you dig? Either from a young band, or an older band that just put out something recently.
Um, I haven’t picked a whole lot up but I don’t know, my wife got me into LANA DEL REY and PORTAL. *Hahaha* I know that’s the opposite spectrum…*Getting interrupted by someone walking up to Matt*
What are some of the most memorable shows that you remember ever seeing?
One would be PINK FLOYD in the 80’s on acid! Powerslave! I went to that in Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Denver. That’s quintessential, I have to say. Oh yeah, not everybody can say that one, I saw METALLICA with Cliff Burton. I didn’t get to see Randy Rhoads, that was kind of a bummer, I wish I had. I got to see SLAYER around Reign in Blood, I got to see MEGADETH’s Peace Sells tour. I got to see VOIVOD and KREATOR in 1987. I got to see POSSESSED and DARK ANGEL, right around that same time, maybe earlier. There’s a couple MELVINS shows that I saw them play to like four people and it just fucking destroyed me, as a kid. Once was at Gilman Street and then I saw them again some time later, when they came out with that 10 inch. It was just fucking mind altering when you’re a kid trying to be in a band and then you see that. “What the fuck is that?” Buzz Osborne and Dale just murdering everybody.
Is there any up and coming bands that you would like to recommend?
We’re on tour right now with POWER TRIP and these kids are really, really good. They’re fucking kick ass. They remind me of DRI-SLAYER kind of stuff, kinda 80’s sounding, which really I like. That’s where I grew up. My biggest influences were Metal and Hardcore from the 80’s. When I get later on, I like bands like OPETH and I like bands that are out but my roots come from a long time ago and I always go back to my roots when it comes to my writing. Oh, I like that KING GIZZARD AND THE LIZARD WIZARD band!
It’s incredible how much they put out. They release a new LP every year and it’s all amazing.
Yeah, they just put one out and this one sounds like Sleep and High on Fire. It’s good. Weird, weird, weird. Then they do other shit and it’s like, COUNTRY JOE AND THE FISH combined with like, DEVO. Just incredible. I really like him.
What are your top 3 heaviest riffs ever written?
Well, Into the Void, hands down. I mean, a lot of these would just go straight to Iommi, in my book but I got to be fair about it, kind of spread it out. Yeah, Into the Void is by far the heaviest fucking known riff that I’ve ever heard in my life. That changed me as a kid.
Fuck, there’s so many to choose from, I gotta say. Well, The Usurper by CELTIC FROST. Hands down, I gotta give that to Tom G. I gotta give it to Angel of Death too. I’m not sure if King or Hanneman wrote that one but I think it was Hanneman. The opening riff…well, just the whole song Angel of Death is a masterpiece. I’ll go with those three for like, what’s in my head right now and things that I always go back to and never really bum me out.
Do you have any unconventional music opinion? A band, album or song, where everybody is all about this one obvious thing but your favorite lies elsewhere? For example, someone who would say Technical Ecstasy is their favorite Sabbath album?
Yeah there’s bands like this, SABBATH is a good example. I mean, I love all the old stuff but then when they were getting into the weird, kinda cokey shit, I find the music really interesting and intriguing. It’s not as heavy as it was but once they reached that period with Hole in the Sky and Symptoms of the Universe and the last of when it was super heavy, then they went to super kinda of Psychedelic and cokey. You see bands do this vast change. JUDAS PRIEST did the same thing. It was always super leather and spikes but when they went Turbo Lover, it kind of fucked up their career a little bit ’cause they went this weird route and took a chance and a lot of people didn’t like it the same. Then they tried to come back with Painkiller and it didn’t do as good. OZZY is the same thing, he lost Rhoads, then he did a good thing with Zakk Wylde, the first couple records were really riffy and then after that, it just seemed like a lot of keyboards to me. I was kind of disappointed to see wasting a great guitar player.
What band do you believe has achieved the most perfect discography? A band with a long career without any weak spot anywhere in their discography?
That’s hard to find. I mean, MOTÖRHEAD is pretty close. SLAYER’s pretty close too, at least they’re consistent. Can’t say the same thing about METALLICA, unfortunately. You know, I’m just going off the top of my head here because I’ve been covering all larger, kinda commercial bands that are popular that I think people know about. You know, CONVERGE, they’re not conventional whatsoever but they deliver all the time.
Also, MASTODON, they’re buddies of mine, they’ve changed but I don’t think for the worst, I think they’ve just evolved. Lots of times, bands just evolve into something. Then some are consistent. But Mastodon, from Last Blood till now, obviously, have gone a little more Proggy but when a band gets better, they tend to go Proggy. It’s part of the natural evolution. As you get to be a better player, you start hearing your music and you know, you’re not as angry as you get older! Or you’re angry still but you want to make something a little more malleable to your talents. It changes the way that you hear things.
At the other end of the spectrum, is there a band or an artist who had only one release, may it be an album, demo or seven inch, that you really wish would have put out some more material before calling it quits?
Yeah, there’s a band called CRIMSON RELIC. They put out the ultimate Frost worship record, it’s killer! I have one copy of it and I only listen to it when I go shooting. It’s fucking stellar and it’s hardest thing in the world to find. If you can find it, it’s worth a listen, it’s fuckin’ bad ass.
When did it came out?
I don’t know, it’s in the 90’s or something. I lucked out finding this fuckin’ CD of it. I know they’re from Norway and it’s from the early 90’s I guess and it’s just fucking heavy as fuck and it’s awesome. Same thing with PRIMORDIAL man, I don’t think enough people pay attention to how fucking great that band is. They kind of have a little bit of a cheese factor because live, they have this show and the singer’s fucking great though but he dresses up like a ghoul. But whatever, their music, when it’s recorded, I really dig on what they do.
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