20 Jul 2009

RUSH - ANTHEM


Rush kill me. They're amazing on so many levels: Neil Peart's drumming and liberal sci-fi lyrics; Geddy Lee's voice and look and the guitar's not bad either! I grew up with this track coming through the walls of my older brothers room. It's great that they've sold 30 million records or whatever. Above is one of the strongest rock looks ever - them in the '2112' era. And below is Anthem from 'Fly By Night' a few years prior...

17 Jul 2009

AN INTERVIEW WITH MOSS

I spoke to Olly, singer of the massively heavy and quality doom band Moss. He was at home in Southampton very hear where I grew up. (Photo by Sanna Charles)



Although it’s not that obvious, your sound and general vibe is quite ’70s inspired, isn’t it?


Yeah, ’70s horror and ’70s production techniques. Recently we brought an organ into the band. It’s a big old vintage ’70s organ with old amplifiers. It’s like something from Deep Purple. It’s great. And yeah, I pay more attention to ’70s stuff than pretty much anything else.

I love that decade, too. Why was the ’70s so cool do you think?


It’s weird. The occult was really big back then. And everything just sounded purer. When the ’80s came ‘round all the prog bands became shit. Production went crap. Everyone suddenly got a tinny sound and all these horrible digital synths came in. It just all went to shit really. The ’60s and ’70s are just really pure decades with innovation and new sounds. And they didn’t lose track. I can’t think of anything today that recreates that properly. It’s just a really big influence on us.

FULL INTERVIEW

TWO INTERVIEWS WITH SAVIOURS

I chatted to Scott Batiste from Oakland's Saviours before they came to ATP to hang out and watch Sleep's mind-blowing reformation gigs. Scott's a cool dude and the band really fucking shred now...



And after Roadburn you're popping to All Tomorrow’s Party’s in Minehead just to see Sleep’s reformation gigs right?

Basically, the Roadburn people were trying to get us a whole tour. They wanted to fly us out but they couldn’t afford to do it just for the one show. So I talk to all these people, but I don’t know, it’s hard to get people to correspond with me. So I was like ‘Fuck it. I’m just going to do this myself.’ So I booked the whole tour. And I saw Matt Pike one day at a practice and he was like ‘Dude, Sleep’s playing!’ and I said ‘Yeah, I know, it’s all over the Internet. People are talking about it.’ And so I booked the tour so it ends in London the day before. Matt was like ‘You’ve got be there so we can get blasted and shit.’ So we’re going to go to it and barge that shit, wreak havoc. Sleep seem really cool and excited.

FULL INTERVIEW

I also spoke to Scott in early 2008 for a doom website...

FIRST INTERVIEW