High On Fire Interview

Ahead of the bands impending European, Japanese and slot of this summers Sounds Of The Underground US Tour Metal Chaos caught up with Des Kensel of California's own mayhem merchants, High On Fire.

Hi Des, how are things with you and the other guys?
Good, but busy. We're getting ready for another little trip here. It seems like my time at home, my quote end quote time off is busier than when I'm out on tour. We are leaving tomorrow for Japan and the we have in two weeks shows in the UK, France and stuff and I gotta pay my bills before I go and stuff. All that fun shit you know.
The band appear to have spent the last several of months pretty much on the road. Does it feel like you are spending your life on tour at the moment and are you all still enjoying it?
It's getting to that point yeah. At least this year it has, this past year. There have been points like that on the road where I ask myself, what the fuck am I doing man? But after being a week at home, definitely want to get back out there. After a good packed show, that's what we're out there doing it for.
On the subject of touring the band have been confirmed on the Sounds of the Underground US tour. Sounds like a great line up with such bands as Lamb of God, Opeth, and Clutch amongst others? Have you played with any of these bands before?
We did about a six week tour with Clutch. I think that is the only band on the line-up that we have played with before. We know some of the other bands, the singer of Lamb Of God comes out to our shows in Richmond sometimes.
With such a diverse line up on this tour is the hope to gain some exposure to new fans?
That's pretty much the idea. Try and get to some of the kids. We are always playing to the drunk 21 and over crowd.
I’d like to go back to the “Blessed Black Wings” album. It been out now for a couple of months or so, what has been the reaction to the record?
The reaction has been great, every review I've seen has been pretty much positive. The reaction from the fans, at least over here (USA) has been awesome. I think in Europe we still have some work to do, we were just over there in April in Germany and Switzerland and a handful of shows in the UK weren't all that good. But I know we did two weeks in the UK which I've heard can be like a little too much. London by far was the best show, which it usually is. Birmingham, Manchester were great. We had a great show in Sweden, Italy we had a great response. Even over here at home in some of the smaller towns were we played when we first started, we went back there a couple of weeks ago and those shows were great. Everything has definitely been progressing for sure, and this album has helped that a lot.
The album sees the debut of Joe Preston. How is Joe working out? He comes with quite a pedigree.
He is working out great. I'm just hoping we aren't working him to hard with our tour schedule. He hasn't had chance to work on his own creative outlet. I mean he's got The Thrones and I know sometimes he'll do stuff with Sunn0))), but other than that he's a pleasure to have on the road. He's defiantly a good bass player.
As one half of the bands rhythm section are there any significant differences between Joe and George’s (previous bassist) styles of playing?
Yeah, Joe is a bit louder! His rig has got more high end tone that cuts through a little bit more. Joe plays a little more with cords which fills it up more which is a good thing. And he is sober! Not that George was a total fuck up and drunk, because he wasn't. It just means there is more beer for me and Matt. It all comes back to how it is better for me (Laughs out loud).
How did you come to decide on Joe for the vacant bassist position?
Me and Matt were trying to finish up writing the new record and George wasn't around, there was no input, we didn't have any bass lines for the majority of the songs. And finally we had to ask him, "dude are you not into it let us know", and yeah he was like "yeah I'm just not into it anymore". So were like alright, we finish writing the record and still record and hire some session musician. Matt even though about doing the bass himself. We were like, fuck it we've come this far we still got to record, so one day we were at our jobs thinking about who we could get to play bass and Joe's name came up. I got in touch with Greg at Southern Lord and he relayed the message, next day I got a call from Joe. The next thing you know he flew here and had to learn thirteen songs in four days. He had to learn the ten songs on the record, plus another three as we had a two week tour booked. It was definitely a very stressful summer.
Has the dynamic of the band changed at all as a result of Joe joining the band?
This has nothing to do with Joe, but I think we have all grown up a little bit over the past few years. When we first started touring it was like "lets party"!. Now we are trying to have a bit more of a professional attitude, we done it more and we want to keep doing it, we want our lives to be good as it's not a rolling party twenty four seven.
For “Blessed Black Wings” the band decided upon Steve Albini to produce. What did Steve bring to the party that differed from your previous producer Billy Anderson?
	We decided to use Steve for the reason to progress as a band. We've loved everything Billy has done, he's a good friend of ours. We felt it was time to experiment a little more with all kinds of different things; song writing, engineers and obviously bass player. I talked to Matt about it, he was like "lets give it a shot", so we called up the studio so we booked up a time slot. He had already heard of us, which I thought was kinda weird as I didn't think we were his kinda music. He was psyched to work with us. And as anything working any differently from Billy, they are kinda similar as you go in there and they don't get to involved with what's going on, they'll just let you know which take was better that kinda stuff. Steve's big thing is his choice of mikes, he has so many. Plus the studio we used he had a hand in engineering that and building it.
	The album was recorded in just 7 days, which is very fast. How did the band and Steve cope with such a tight time frame?
	I think we tracked in six and had to mix in two. By the end there, it was definitely a bit much. To mix a whole album in two days, wow! We know next time to give ourselves more time. It was two sixteen hour days, by the end of the second day none of us gave a fuck and we couldn't even tell the difference. You need to give ears a rest after six days of playing songs over and over again. It all added to the stress factor, but we got through it.
	Is the studio environment somewhere you enjoy being?
	We are definitely more accustomed to the live scene. Going into the studio is as much fun, it's just a different feeling for sure. It's cool after doing a song to go in the control room and listening to a good recording. That makes it all worth it.
	Lyrically “Blessed Black Wings” appears to have a more personal feel. Was there any significant change in the writing process of the album compared to “Surrounded by Thieves”?
	As far a lyrics, not really. Matt pretty much wrote most of the lyrics for this record. The lyrics usually start life by being scribbled on a cocktail napkin. (Laughs out load). As far song writing, we tried to experiment a little bit more with more acoustic sounding guitar parts and use that as a foundation of the song rather than a traditional power cord riff. Me and Matt would go to our practice days and talk about ways we could change riffs we had come up with, you know "cut this part out or change this"?
Is that how the song writing process works with the band as a rule, a collective experience based upon jams and practice sessions?
Songs usually start with Matt playing something on the guitar and then I'll play drums to it. We'll sit down and talk about different ways to build it into a song.
I understand that some of the songs are based on H P Lovecraft stories. Is this true?
Some of the lyrics yeah. Face Of Oblivion was for sure. The lyrics are really based around whatever Matt is kinda doing at the time. A lot of the songs on this record are based around parts of our lives where you have a rough time or a string of bad luck, which of course have an influence of the record.
So "Blessed Black Wings" is quite a personal record?
This last record more than the others for sure. We would be down there till three in the morning, and then have to be up at eight the next day to go to work to dig a ditch, fun stuff like that. I was definitely rough.
How do you guys juggle your personal lives with that commitments to the band?
Now we've being making enough to pretty much get by. Basically when we get home from a tour we pretty much hide. After spending four weeks on the round in bars and clubs, the last thing I want to do when I get back is got out to a bar. For some reason or another I always seem to end up at one. Before though it was rough, as out on the road you're not make a lot of money and then you come home and you have to pay the rent, so you have to find some shit job last minute. Now we are staying on the road enough to were we don't have to look for those jobs between the weeks or months between tours. But when it comes to where we have to take two or three months off we'll see where we are then.
You guys have also just shot a video for “Devilution”. Where was this shot? Did you enjoy the experience?
Yeah, we shoot that a couple of months ago. I heard it was getting some air play on MTV2 and Fuse, which is cool. It was our third video, but this one was kinda different. The first one we did was just live stuff, you know where a camera man follows you around on tour. The guy who did this one had a theme for the video, sort of went along with the lyrics. We went in one day at about five o'clock and stayed there until two in the morning, then went back the next day at like noon and stayed until five in the afternoon. They got a bunch of live shots and then he did the rest on his own. The theme he was going for was an early 50's B Horror feel. After he got all the live stuff he went up to Napa and did the rest of the stuff with a couple of actors. Out there in the wilderness. Videos are not something we really want to do, but today it's a good way to promote your music. Obviously putting visuals with the audio is a little more stimulating.
How do you feel the band have developed, both on a personal and creative level since the release of “Surrounded by Thieves”?
Definitely yeah. If you do as much touring as we have, it becomes a routine almost. You show up at a club and you have it down, we know when and how to do it and I think that has helped our playing. We have become better musicians. Just a matter of keep progressing.
Given Matt’s background with Sleep, do the band feel there is ever a weight of expectation when it comes time to write / release new material?
The only thing we want to do is do something as good if not better than we did previously. But as far as Sleep stuff, it's a different animal. It has a similar vibe just because Matt's guitar tones are similar, that's his sound. Sleep were more spacey we are more aggressive for sure. None of us feel we have to do anything special because of Sleep. I think we have kinda surpassed all that.
The bands sound has been described as Stoner, Sludge, Doom, to name but a few. How / what do you best describe your sound?
Every kinda music is going to get thrown into some kinda genre and I guess people are always trying to come up with new ones. It's like in the early 90's when something called Grunge came out, or Stoner Rock or Doom Metal. I think we get thrown in there because of Sleep. I figure we fall in there somewhere. That will be one thing good about the Sounds Of The Underground tour is that we are not going to be playing to that "Stoner Rock" crowd. So maybe we won't be put in that category so much any more. I think it was good, but now I think it is kinda holding us back. I've heard from other people saying "Oh yeah that is Stoner Rock"!
Do you find there is a distinction between European and US audiences?
We've hit some US towns so many times. I mean it takes time to build up a fan base in certain cities, and I think for Europe I think that is what we got to do. Keep going for people to get familiar with our name and our songs or just seeing us playing in their city. It just starts to spread. Like Columbus, Ohio. The first time we played there we played in front of probably twenty five people and the last time there were about six hundred. We have been there at least twenty times. There was one tour where we were out for nine or ten weeks I think during that tour we played Columbus four times. Every time we stayed at the same hotel and ironically every time we got given the exact same room. Really fucking weird. That is where the hard work pays off.
I’m intrigued by the cover artwork for “Blessed Black Wings”. Did the cover or the name come first? Did you have any input into the design?
With this one, we'd already figured that the name of the record would be "Blessed Black Wings" and the record had already been written. Matt and me did an eight track recording, one reason was to send it to potential bass players and another was to send it to Relapse Records to show them that the album was done and we were still around. But one reason was to send it to a couple of artists for them to get inspiration for a possible album cover. We just thought the name "Blessed Black Wings" stood out and had a good feel for an album title. Arik, the guy who did the cover, did one version of the album cover that was alright but we wanted something a little darker. And then he came up with the picture. He did the art for "Art Of Self Defense" too. We knew he would have an idea of what we were looking for.
Any last words to all your fans out there?
Come and see us at our shows! Come check us out.


All photographs and images used with kind permission of Relapse Records, Robin Laananen & Kevin Scanlon.