Music: Earth
A band so colossal they named themselves after a planet …
A band whose overriding contribution to music has revolved around playing very very slowly but whose 2014 album Primitive and Deadly saw them returning to slightly more familiar ground after the country-tinged excesses that had seeped into the previous couple of albums, with a plethora of slow and distorted atypical rock riffs played at half-speed, one per song, in a sort of measured and euphoric group catharsis. Primitive and Deadly also saw the reintroduction of vocals, courtesy of Mark Lanegan and Rabia Shaheen Qazi
Earth founder Dylan Carlson took some time out to answer a few questions about labels, band history and the creative process:
When you first set up the band, what were the initial influences and intentions? Do you think there were any direct precedents?
It was a combination of my love for Slayer and Venom, through The Velvet Underground, my exposure to La Monte Young and Terry Riley, and with a lot of influences from King Crimson – especially the albums Red and Starless And Bible Black.
You called your sound ‘ambient metal’ early on. What would you call it now?
I still think we’re a slow, ambient hard rock/heavy metal band.
With your latest album, you created something called the Ouroborean Creative Cycle. What is that?
Well I guess it has to do with the band coming full circle over the last 25 years – starting out as a weird heavy metal band, adding influences and sounds from further and further afield, then returning to the source on this latest album.
How do you go about writing a song; what are the seeds?
I start usually with a riff, then variations on that riff and then the riffs I’m working on generally coalesce into a song. Sometimes there’s a chord progression and riffs that work with it.
There are also vocal contributions on the album, for the first time since the ‘90s. Why now? Is it something you’d like to explore more in the future?
Well, the song ‘Rooks Across The Gate’ had lyrics written with it, so we needed someone to sing it – my voice was never much, and I haven’t used it in 20 years. Mark (Lanegan) and myself have always wanted to work together, and it happened he was free. And then he wanted to do another one so wrote the lyrics for ‘There Is A Serpent Coming’.
Can you tell me the line up for the tour?
The band consists of myself on guitar, Adrienne Davies on drums and Don McGreevy on bass guitar.
Future plans?
Get my Kickstarter manufactured and delivered, move to the UK with my new wife, Holly … and then make more music.
Earth, Komedia, Tuesday 24 February 2015, 7.30pm, £14
Follow me: @latestjeff
