Interview - Wino
11/26/03
Sam: How would you compare
your last project with The Hidden Hand, do you feel this is
one of your more political projects?
Wino: "This is definately like, my new,
main baby. You know I'm in Place Of Skulls, but I'm only going
to be doing a couple more shows with them. And basically this
thing took off right around the same time that Victor asked me to
join Place Of Skulls, and Place Of Skulls took a little bit of
time getting off the ground because of the bass player. So, I
just dove full on into The Hidden Hand and this is like, my full
on thing. I'm actually pretty excited about it because the
guys I'm playing with are both like super, super great musicians
and also, a couple of really good minds. I kinda feel like I
made a good decision. It's definately a little bit more on the
political edge just because we're...well, these times kinda
demand it, I think, in a way. I mean with everything going on
in the world it's really kind of hard...I mean with music, you
know, you pretty much draw all your inspirations from, at least
I draw all my insiprations from life. The stuff that goes on
around you, the people you meet, the things you see, you know,
what you might read or whatever. So, when the world is in the
state of affairs that it's in right now, it's really, it's
focused...your feelings are kinda focused on the immediate.
I think it's just kind of important that we ask questions."
Sam: The other day I just got the new
Spirit Caravan 2 disk cd, I like the versions of the songs
you guys picked...
Wino: "Yeah, we decided, you know in
hindsight when we decided that we would re-record some of those
songs, alot of times it's hard to re-create that same kind of
intensity, spontainious intensity. And I'd always kind of thought
that after 'Elusive Truth'...the versions of 'Darkness &
Longing', 'The Departure' were not quite as good as the original
version, so we decided we would put that together, we would
scrap the re-records and put the original versions. On 'Elusive
Truth' we re-recorded both 'The Departure' and 'Darkness &
Longing' and so the versions that are on the double disk that
you have, those are the original versions, which was...one was
on a single and one was on a comp. I think that they're the
better versions, I mean when you go to re-record something that
you've already done, I donno, it just didn't seem like it had
the same kinda vibe."
Sam: You guys are putting out a split LP?
Wino: "Yeah, we're gonna put out a split
with Wolly Mammoth, that's gonna be on McCarthyism (Records)
and I think what's gonna happen with that, what it's gonna do
is, we're gonna...it's kinda got some tenticles on it because
it's gonna be on vinyl, on McCarthyism, and it's gonna be 12",
a 12" EP on vinyl, 2 songs per band. It's gonna be on cd out
on Meteor City in the U.S. and XL Mainstream is gonna do the
cd and vinyl in Europe. We're actually working on that right
now, we're gonna track a new song...that should be out by the
new year. We've got another tune, we just submitted a tune...
there's a label out in Maryland here called Crucial Blast,
this guy Adam from Crucial Blast is doing this big Maryland
compilation with all the local bands from around here like
Internal Void, Clutch, Earthride, so it's gonna be like all
the local bands, Life Beyond, from here, so we just submitted
our track for that, so that should be kinda cool. That should
be out soon. So basically we've been staying pretty busy, we've
also got a track, the very first song The Hidden Hand recorded,
even before the single, we did a track called 'Falconstone'
for High Times magazine. They're gonna be coming out with a
stoner rock comp, it's been in the works for like 2 years.
But like, that's actually the very first song we ever recorded,
and submitted but it looks like it's gonna be the last thing
to come out so, it's kinda interesting."
Sam: What about the Probot single?
Wino: "Probot was like...Dave Grohl, he
basically came up thru all the punk and hard rock scene of
this area, the Maryland area. When he was like, really young
he was in this band called 'Mission Impossible', and he was
kinda like in a young punk band, hardcore band, but he always
kinda stood out because he was so great you know? So I remember
way back in the early days, this must've been in the 80's,
early 80's or something. The Obsessed actually did a gig with
Mission Impossible, and I totally remember David because there
was this wild drummer, this really young kid who is so great,
and Mission Impossible, they basically played hardcore and
then they would play the theme from 'Mission Impossible'
which was pretty cool. So I've known David...well, didn't
really know him then, but got know him a little bit later
when he was in Scream and stuff. So then of course he joined
Nirvana, you know, formed Foo Fighters and then, you know
great commercial sucess. But David has always been born and
raised on heavy music, and so he wanted to put together a
record where he would write the music for the songs, with
some of his all time, favorite singers in mind to inspire
him. Surprisingly enough I was very honored to be one of
those people, so he sent me a tape of the tune. He'd done
all the guitar, all the bass, and he'd done all the drums.
He sent me the tape and it was like, this fantastic tune man,
this very spacey intro kinda building up to this intense
kinda fevored pitch. I really dug the tune, I was kinda
blown away actually, I thought it was so perfect, and it
was really tailored for me, and I guess that's what he had
in mind. So I took him with me on a tour, and worked really
hard on the lyrics and stuff. And then we actually had this
really small window of time when he was back in Virginia,
and he was just like 'hey, you know, let's record your track',
so we actually got together to do it, which was really amazing
because, I think it was, me and Lemmy are the only 2 singers
that he was able to actually get together with to record the
tracks."