Matt: Baroness is the most surprising band.
John: Have you heard the new one?
Matt: Yeah. It`s fucking ridiculous. It`s like night and day.
John: From the first two?
Matt: Huge. It`s so good. So, an interview, huh?
John: It`ll be a quick one because you only put out an EP. Speaking of which, why wasn`t “Jackhammer” on it?
Matt: Well, we have always wanted to be prolific, rather than re-record a bunch of our stuff. Personally, it is probably my least favorite song. We tend to do everything backwards. Before we even thought about singing, we were a band for about nine months. We`re always about four steps ahead of ourselves, just because we were too scared to sing. But a lot of the earlier stuff we have somewhat gravitated away from as the songs seem to be more in relationship to a lot of stuff going on around us or what have you, rather than just, “This is the three of us and this is what we`re going to do.” When we began recording the EP, I think, and I am sure Adam and Alex will agree with me, we definitely turned a corner as far as how we were approaching what we do. I think that shows on the EP. I don`t know. Anything that I`m involved in about ten minutes later I`ll hate it.
John: So then what`s your feeling on the EP?
Matt: I`m actually really proud of that, as we all are. More so because it`s something we had total control over ourselves. I mean, we recorded it ourselves. Trying to get that process right was... It was the first time any of us had embarked on that.
John: The difference in sound between that and the Black Lung Rising demo is amazing.
Matt: The demo made us realize that in the situation we were in, as far as recording, we had to be on our toes, and think our way through each move we made. We tried building partitions out of sheet rock to be able to track live and it just never really worked. We did the drums first and tracked in separately and tried keeping the EP as live sounding as possible. Al is basically the engineer. He is not only the best musician I have ever played with, but has some of the best musical instincts I have been around as well. We wanted to capture how we sound, and he got creative with mic placement, vocal tracking, and all that. He pretty much figured out the logistics of how to get what we want and Adam and I would fumble around and get in the way... The space we were in was just a basement in Allston.
John: Is that where you recorded the EP?
Matt: Yeah. Sixteen track, half inch tape in a basement in Allston.
John: Who did the mastering?
Matt: This guy Matt Azevedo over at M-Works. It`s what we could afford. And he did a good job, given the circumstances.
John: Now how`d you get hooked up with Translation Loss?
Matt: Adam [Wentworth, guitars] has known Drew [Juergens] for a really long time.
John: So it`s cronyism.
Matt: Sort of, I guess [laughs]. He gave him the stuff and he claimed to like it.
John: He got you in Decibel.
Matt: I was so shocked by that. I went into a store and saw it and thought, “Oh, `Electric Wizard – The Making of Dopethrone.` This is going to be good,” and I looked down and was like, “Wait.” The guy who called me up, I spoke with him and it was just two or three questions.
John: It was just two or three questions? And I gotta come in here woefully unprepared and hash my way through this thing? Shit. Now are you going to put out the EP on vinyl?
Matt: I hope so. We gotta find someone stupid enough to commit career suicide and give us some money to put it out. Vinyl would be nice. A friend of ours has offered to look into it, so that would be cool. Adam did a really great job with the packaging.
John: That was another thing I wanted to ask. I read that it was based on 1970s Mexican horror movies.
Matt: It`s from a British horror movie. That and the color scheme is, believe it or not, from the 1968 Olympics. It`s from the movie Psychomania. Electric Wizard references it all the time. “..A Chosen Few” on Let Us Prey has references to it. The sample on We Live is from Psychomania. The aesthetics in those movies are so crazy, so crazy. It`s just beautiful cinematography. They made up for what they lacked in effects – most of the blood looks like red poster paint. Those people knew what they were doing. Well, either that or it was some really good dumb luck. Most people who are good are pretty lucky too.
It`s from wallpaper. It`s from wallpaper in a particular scene. It`s just cool looking. Adam does really great visual work. He has a unique style and wants to push the envelope. Alex and I will offer suggestions and opinions, but we have total trust in what he will do.
John: You don`t see that sort of artwork from bands that are mining the same loud dumb rock as you.
Matt: Yes. That`s kinda what we wanted. We could put some skulls on it, some weed stuff, but y`know, anything that we would do like that someone else who has already been around has done it. Sleep did it better. You know what I mean? We`re never going to come near that. Everyone`s chasing after Black Sabbath and Sleep and what they did and you`re never going to do it better.
John: Are you a doom band or are you a rock band?
Matt: I think we`re just a mess [laughs]. The one thing we all agreed upon was let`s just try to write the heaviest shit in the world, whatever it may be. “When the Levee Breaks” is some of the heaviest shit in the world. “South of Heaven” is some of the heaviest shit in the world. Same with “Master of Puppets.” Do whatever we feel like at the time. Some of the new stuff sounds like Venom. It sounds like a departure from what we were doing or whatever, but it seems natural to us because the commitment is to being heavy.
John: Speaking of which, you had a new song tonight.
Matt: Entombed. Huge influence. It`s shit like that. And the slower riff, um, well, "references" a part from "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida." Listen to "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" and there`s a chord progression that`s sort of similar.
It would be really hard for us to think about music in terms of “we are this.” I hate it when I hear people say, “They`re really good for a rock band” or “They`re really good for a hardcore band.” Are they good? Black Flag is good. Mahavishnu Orchestra is good. We`re concerned with good, bad, heavy, and that`s it. I`d rather have someone tell me, “You suck,” before telling me, “You`re pretty good at this.”
John: One of you is down in New York now.
Matt: Adam is.
John: How are you guys swinging with gigging out and practice and all that?
Matt: This is the first time we`ve played together in like a month and a half. We were practicing in Al`s basement in Allston but he bought a house in Medford. Allston is like Mogadishu – you can do whatever you want. You can make all kind of noise and nothing has to be soundproofed. But in his nice neighborhood in Medford, Al is building a studio there. It is being built properly, a proper rehearsal space and studio. The basement is just framed out now, so we haven`t practiced in a long time. Al and I will probably play together, just drums and bass, and Adam will come down on weekends. It`ll be fine. We`re sorta going to stop with the new material. We`ve always just pushed ahead regardless – I hate the whole idea of “I`m in my writing period,” like you can turn creativity on and off like a switch. But I guess we`re going to turn ours off, as our LP, our full length, is getting really close musically. It`s now lyrically just sort of coming together, trying to make it cohesive, I guess.
John: Where do you pull your lyrics from?
Matt: Literature. Mostly literature. Jus and Matt Pike do Lovecraft so well. They interpret that and reinterpret that so well that we just try to stay as far away from that as possible. I love Hemingway. Stuff like that that`s really simple. I was an English major in school and I really like nineteenth and early twentieth American literature. It`s desperate. Stuff like Sinclair Lewis, Upton Sinclair, Melville. It`s brutal and it`s factual. I mean, I don`t think our lyrical content is necessarily going to equal a great literary feat, however, the language used, the way it resonates... that is the quality that appeals to us.
John: I`m actually re-reading The Sun Also Rises right now. When I first read it, I couldn`t stand it. I thought it was too simplistic and boring, but now I`m realizing that it`s got some heft to it.
Matt: He`s got balls. He`s a tough guy. I like that. As far as musicians, the two that I love the most, and I am sure we all agree on, are Roger Waters and Pete Townshend. Roger is a grouch and he`s incredible at letting you know how much of a grouch he is. And it`s simple and he lets you know. There`s not much to wade through.
Anything that`s cryptic or, I don`t know, more like a hallucinogen is really cool, but for our stuff, to make it a little more different... We don`t have complex songs. It relies a lot on blunt force and I think if you just say what you`re going to say very simply and you mean it, it`s going to come across and make it even more powerful.
You can`t do “Sweet Leaf” again. That`s so good. That`s the best love song I ever heard and it`s about an inanimate object.
John: Let`s see, you`ve dropped Rogers, Townsend, Electric Wizard, Slayer, Venom, who else? Deep Purple, I know you dig them.
Matt: Hawkwind. Anything John McLaughlin related I really like. What else? You want just general shit?
John: Throw shit out.
Matt: I like Torche, Baroness, Doomriders. They`re all really good.
John: They`re all playing tonight.
Matt: [laughs] It`s fresh in my mind. Disfear is crazy. Entombed I love.
John: You hear the new one?
Matt: No.
John: It`s not that good.
Matt: There`s no Uffe [Cederlund]. He was the weapon. That run, from Left Hand Path through To Ride, Shoot Straight is fucking ridiculous. They all sound totally different but you know it`s the same band. Who else can do that? That`s a phenomenal, big feat. I love Sleep. A lot.
John: Om?
Matt: Oh yes. High on Fire I really like.
John: You hear that new one?
Matt: Yeah, I heard the new one. I dunno. I didn`t get me as much as the last one. Surrounded by Thieves is my favorite. Not because it sounds filthy, but because it`s so desperate sounding. That sounds like a really pissed off hesher letting you know he`s coming to get you. “Devilution” and a lot of the songs on Blessed Black Wings are just like that as well. I dunno. I`ve only listened to it four or five times, and it could be something that dawns on me. I can`t say I hate it, out of the four it`s taken me the longest for me to really get into. The new Om is fucking ridiculous.
John: They haven`t topped “At Giza” yet, but that third song is great.
Matt: People like what they like, but it`s so hard for me to criticize what they do. You line me up twenty people that play bass and drums and I guarantee you they won`t do anything half as interesting. That dude is a phenomenal drummer and Al`s something else. He took seven years off.
John: Didn`t he become a monk?
Matt: He`s a chess teacher. He teaches chess to kids. That dude Justin Marler who played on Sleep`s Volume One, he became a monk. Apparently the story is he literally just took off into the woods. “That`s it. I`m going to be a monk.” Which is awesome. I don`t go on the internet that much, but I`ve recently been going on the world wide web to check out how to become a monk. I like the attitude and the lifestyle. Out in the woods...
John: Chanting.
Matt: Brewing beer.
John: You could do a shit ton worse.
Matt: Like jail, a mental institution, a 9-5 job.
