Interview - Sunn O)))
11/10/05
Greg Anderson
Sam: I was wondering,
on the new album, it seems like on every progressive album
you guys have out, it seems like it's even darker and more
evil than the last one. Do you guys try to top yourselves
every time?
Greg Anderson: "Not consciencely, I
mean, we sort of had some loose concepts for each of the
last 3 albums that we did. The White I, the White II, and
the Black I and really we weren't trying to out-heavy, or
make it darker than the last one. Just sort of whatever
the theme or concept that we were working with, is kinda
how it turned out. But it's never like a thought-out
conscience effort, it just comes to be."
Sam: It just kind of gets crazier by
itself?
GA: "Yeah, I mean, I donno, it's also
sorf of a matter of taste and opinion about what...I mean
I think some of the stuff we did on the White records were
alot more experimental and sort of left field than on Black
I. I sort of look at Black I as more of a cohesive record
and more, sort of staying true to the drone and the riff
style that we've had on our earlier records. I mean, we
definately tried to not make the same record that we did,
but to me this one has alot more..it's kind of like our
live shows where it's like, more riffing and less sort
of, quiet parts in songs that the White records have."
Sam: There's kind of more of a ambient
feel on the White records.
GA: "Well, I think all of them have
their own ambience, you know? I think the White records
have their own sort of asthetic and atmosphere. The Black
record to me, it does have alot more darkness to it, in my
opinion, the finnished product, listening to it now and
thinking about it as compared to the other records. But
I think all the records kinda have their own atmosphere
that evokes different feelings and stuff like that."
Sam: How did you decide who was going
to sing on this one? It kinda rotates around every time?
GA: "Well, yeah, that's one of the
things we've been trying to do since the White I record
is to sort of bring in different collaborators to try
and make things interesting and try to take things into
different directions. With this record it's like we, we
had some vocalists on the White I and White II record,
and we'd done some live shows with vocalists and we really
kinda liked how that was working out,so with this one we
decided we wanted to continue that sort of tradition from
the last couple of records but we wanted to have some
different singers. So, Steven and I were really fasinated
with some of the underground black metal artists, obviously
Malefic and Wrest and we thought it would be really cool
to see if they would be interested in collaborating with
us and contributing to some material. And they ended up
being really into it, and it was really I think a good
choice and a good experience for us to do that."
Sam: I know you guys are coming around
here in December, are you going to have a singer with you?
GA: "We're working on it, I'm not too
sure what we're going to do. We really hope so, I mean
it's something we did, we just did a West Coast tour and
we had 2 different vocalsists with us actually. We had
the drummer from Boris, he did vocals with us, and also
Malefic came out and did some vocals at the CA shows. And
again it's something we really want to try to do, it's
just sometimes the logistics of getting that person to
where we're playing. Steven and I live on opposite coasts,
I live on the West Coast in L.A. and he lives in NYC and
the vocalist we have worked with...well the drummer from
Boris lives in Japan so that's a little difficult to pull
off, um the vocalist from White II, Attila, he lives in
Hungary, and Wrest and Malefic both live in CA, but they're
sort of, not the easiest guys to get out of the house.
So, it's something we definately want to do, but I'm not
sure what line up we're going to bring out to the East
Coast yet. We haven't solidified it yet."
Sam: I heard on this album, you
locked one of the guys in a coffin for one of the tracks?
GA: "haha, uh huh,"
Sam: How did that go over?
GA: "Uh, well I think it turned out
great, I mean it's kind of like, almost beating a dead
horse, and doing the obvious. The thing Steven and I
liked about Malefic's records and the Xasthur records was
that, his vocals sounded very claustrophobic and very...
it had this really like, dark, desperate tone to him, and
claustrophobic that I really was hoping we could kind of
get that tone and that atmosphere on his performances
with our record. So we're like 'well, we could just overdo
it and make sure that it happens', you know we had this
idea at first like 'oh let's lock him in a closet or in a
small space' and then we're like well ' if we're going to
do this, why don't we go all the way'. We ended up getting
a coffin, and of course asking him if he was into doing
it, and he was very interested in trying it out. I think
the tone we got out of it was great, and plus just the fact
that he was in a really small, confined space really added
to his vocal performace on it."
Sam: Did you record any of the
instruments in a different way?
GA: "Yeah, actually we did this thing
that we hadn't really done before which really works
well for us. We basically, when we record the basic tracks
we also record a clean track direct into the board at the
same time. And then you take that clean signal and you run
it back through, you can run it back through different
amplifiers to get different tones and things like that.
We did that alot with like, we take a guitar take and
get that signal and then run it back through a bass amp
setup and obviously record that. It was a cool way to
basically not have to do any physical overdubs. It's kind
of like a ghost overdub, you've already done the
performance, you're just running it through a different
amp and adding layers onto your recording and tracking."
Sam: I heard you guys actually do
the whole Druid/robe thing live, how did that come about?
Have you guys always done that?
GA: "No, I donno, it basically came
about...We'd played a couple of shows live and I actually,
honestly wasn't into doing playing with this group live
because I was letting audience reaction sort of affect
my performance and what the music ment to me. To me the
music is, when I play it's like, you get into like a
trance, my goal when I'm playing is to try to just, get
out of my mind basically and try to really leave the
regular cares behind. It's kind of a meditative thing
for me if it works correctly. So, I was noticing that
playing live in, you know street clothes, jeans and t-shirt
in clubs in front of regular audiences was like letting
the opinions of the audience and their reactions affect
my playing, and I didn't want to to be like that for
this group, so basically we stopped playing live. And
then, we kinda had this idea that, shit, you know the
best really to experience Sunn O))) to feel the
physicallity of what we're doing is at a live setting
because, obviously it's alot louder than anyone's
stereo, etc. So, how can we pull off a live show and
make it not just your average rock n' roll or metal
show where people are rocking in jeans and a t-shirt,
just your regular dudes playing in front of an audience
at a club? What we came up with was to, turn the whole
entire thing into a performance, and make it sort of
like a ritual and give it sort of a really different
atmosphere so that people that come to see it are going
to take away something different than just going to see
a regular band play live. So what we came up with was to
have these robes, these kind of Druid-like robes and
it was cool because once we put those on, it just puts
you a different frame of mind, and you're not so worried
about what the audience is thinking because you're
entertaining them already by having a robe on. It's
something different, something unusual, so it kind of
worked on a bunch of different levels for us."