{"id":21039,"date":"2014-07-01T00:00:18","date_gmt":"2014-07-01T00:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/?p=21039"},"modified":"2014-08-05T22:00:49","modified_gmt":"2014-08-05T22:00:49","slug":"feature-corrosion-of-conformity-07-14-pt2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/feature-corrosion-of-conformity-07-14-pt2\/","title":{"rendered":"CORROSION OF CONFORMITY – The Nectar Reprised, Part Two (July 2014) | Features \/ Interviews @ Metal Forces Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Corrosion Of Conformity (l-r): Reed Mullin, Mike Dean and Woody Weatherman<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n
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Cutting material, the amount of studio equipment available to hand has increased throughout the years for Corrosion Of Conformity. \u201cOver time, it kind of did change for us,\u201d Mike confirms. \u201cAt first, we had the bare minimum type of equipment to go and have Eye For An Eye<\/em> recorded for us. Actually, as a result of us not being happy with Eye For An Eye<\/em>, those same people gave us one side of Animosity<\/em> for free to redeem themselves. They had stuff that could bankrupt you, stuff that could bankrupt your whole financial life \u2013 they were too expensive for individuals to acquire at that time. People who had that studio sound, they were really trying to live their dreams, and so they put what resources they had into it. <\/p>\n

\u201cTo get the minimum stuff to record on tape at that point was expensive, but then we kind of got into a situation where moving on and being on Sony, we had recording advances. We didn\u2019t know if we were gonna hang around on that label and meet the type of insane sales expectations they would\u2019ve had at that time, but we knew that we wanted to make musical statements. We used the resources we got to record at Electric Lady and Criteria, places that were the most amazing examples of analogue recording studios. Then around the time of America\u2019s Volume Dealer<\/em> (October 2000), we decided that we wanted to work at home without spending a lot of somebody else\u2019s money, and being worried about it. We made a record on the ProTools system, which was alright, but it was lacking a little bit. <\/p>\n

\u201cEver since then, it\u2019s been about trying to work on the computer, but to get that sound of the analogue situation, and to make something that sounds like a classic record. More, we\u2019re drifting back towards trying to acquire some of the same appliances that we had on the first records. We\u2019ve got a mixing console that we actually mixed the music on instead of a computer, and we have 1970s and 1980s compressors, and things like that \u2013 things that we\u2019ve dredged up to insert into that mixing console, just to get the true impact of the records that inspired us when we were kids. We\u2019re not saying that it\u2019s impossible to do all of that on the computer. Somebody can, but to us, just the work-flow and the methodology of turning knobs and hitting circuits like that is so much easier to do in terms of getting the sound that we want. It\u2019s amazing, so yeah. It\u2019s a bottomless pit of investment if you\u2019re not careful, but we\u2019re just trying to invest the bare minimum of what we need to do it, and we\u2019re almost there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Much of the bass work prevalent on IX<\/em> \u201cis really off the cuff,\u201d the frontman submits. \u201cYou asked me before about playing in a three-piece band as opposed to a quartet, having two guitars. Sometimes the role has to be supportive. Where it used to be supportive and stay out of the way, and just super-low, I feel that now there needs to be more of a present, kind of low mid-range to it to fill out that part of the structure \u2013 almost like a second guitar. I feel like sonically it has to be a little more distorted than it would if I was in a quartet, and just hang around a little more. It\u2019s just a mixture of the usual Geezer Butler-inspired stuff (Black Sabbath) with a little Jack Bruce inspiration (Cream), Billy Cox (Band Of Gypsys), John Paul Jones (Led Zeppelin<\/a>), Cliff Burton (Metallica) \u2013 things like that. I can\u2019t play like any of those dudes; I can only play like me. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a little bit of calculated, clever \u2018I\u2019m gonna play a deliberate harmony here or there,\u2019 but for the most part, it\u2019s like \u2018I\u2019m just gonna run around until I find something cool.\u2019 It\u2019s all pretty easy here, in this format. I might do things over again; I might do a few more tracks just to get something right, just because it is so upfront. I think with the whole record, with the bass, I guess you\u2019re talking more about approach, and I keep talking about sonics. With the whole record though, we enjoyed the whole experience of our self-titled and we\u2019re proud of that record, but we came away from it wanting the next record to reflect more of what our identity is in a live setting. Like to actually use our own amps and cabinets at battle volume. I put mikes in front of that in a way that would capture what the band is about live, so yeah, that was kind of the approach \u2013 a loud cabinet and not much messing around with other stuff, and the same with Woody\u2019s cabinets. Just trying to make it like being there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Prior to being committed to tape, none of the compositions on IX<\/em> had been performed live. \u201cThe live approach to these particular songs is kind of still to be determined, with the exception of the two or three songs that we\u2019ve played live now after the record,\u201d Mike discloses. \u201cSo yeah, we wanted it to be real and be in there, but I would say that there was some stuff that I was going for and barely did, stuff that might not be something that I can pull off live just like that. It\u2019s certainly possible, but yeah. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe did try to keep it honest and just go for it, but doing it again, doing it again, and doing it again live, and then having the opportunity to do it again. Basically though, that element of these songs in particular was just coming together. If it\u2019s on the tape, that\u2019s the first time that I did it right (laughs). But yeah, generally, that\u2019s the idea. It is a recording though, a studio album, so if it\u2019s not right then you do it again and again (laughs). Obviously, the difficult parts were the parts you\u2019d spend the most time doing again and again and again.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Corrosion Of Conformity 1991 (l-r): Pepper Keenan, Woody Weatherman, Karl
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IX<\/em> was produced by John Custer one again, whose Corrosion Of Conformity production tally amounts to seven full-lengths in all, the only exceptions being the opening brace of Eye For An Eye<\/em> and Animosity<\/em>. \u201cI don\u2019t really have any recollection of meeting John Custer early on,\u201d the musician confesses. \u201cThe first time I became really aware of him, I had quit the band. I didn\u2019t really have great expectations for Corrosion Of Conformity at the time, because Corrosion Of Conformity hadn\u2019t come out with anything for a couple of years. I just didn\u2019t know what they were gonna do, but all of a sudden I heard a record called Blind<\/em> (November 1991). It was tremendous, and it was just super-musical. I was like \u2018Woah. This is amazing. How could this be?\u2019 I saw the name John Custer on it, on the back of the cassette or whatever it was. <\/p>\n

\u201cFlash forward about 18 months, and Phil (Swisher, bass) had quit because they had kicked Karl (Agell, vocals) out. Suddenly they\u2019re asking me to play bass, and they were actually looking for a singer. They gave up on that idea, and so we were going to proceed as four people and get Pepper to sing. We convinced him that we thought that \u2018Vote With A Bullet\u2019 (on Blind<\/em>) was a great song, and that if he could do that with one great song, then he could do it for an album, etcetera, etcetera. Then I met John Custer, going into the studio to put some bass on the tracks for Deliverance<\/em>. I think at that time, it was a major label thing. Maybe the stakes were higher, but it seemed like at that time, he had a fairly specific vision that he shared with Pepper in particular. There was room for creativity, but they had specific ideas in mind. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think over time, he\u2019s kind of evolved with us to be accepting of happy accidents, and actually be looking for them. Working with him, I feel like he makes fewer suggestions. He sits there and listens a lot, but when he does come up with suggestions, it\u2019s usually spot on. I also think for us, we like having him around. We have space to do all of our creativity, but he\u2019s just kind of there with quality control. It\u2019s good to have a set of excellent ears there with a perspective slightly outside of the group of people. He can tell somebody that something\u2019s not right necessarily. but without it seeming personal and interfering with the band relationship as much. He just has that slightly outside of it perspective, and it\u2019s useful. We\u2019ve basically used him for every situation since then, although the role has evolved a little bit. It\u2019s only a good thing; I think we might do it again.\u201d<\/p>\n

The title IX<\/em> equates to the digit nine in Roman numerals, of course. \u201cIt\u2019s Roman numerals, man. They\u2019ve got good impact; they look timeless, like they should be carved in a great piece of stone or something,\u201d Mike enthuses. \u201cThe visual impact was good. Graphically it looks cool, carved across the front, and it\u2019s the ninth full-length studio record in all of these years. We experimented with other titles \u2013 in terms of taking the title of another song, or something like that \u2013 but I think we wanted it to be about the music, and not get on some big… And not try to force some type of broader concept on the group of songs. They seemed to hang together pretty well, but there wasn\u2019t any unifying theme, and we didn\u2019t wanna force anything. We actually did try a couple of other ideas, but I just liked the visual impact of it. It kind of visually reminds me of Vol. 4<\/em>, which is my favourite Sabbath record as well. That\u2019s IV<\/em> (laughs), but whatever.\u201d<\/p>\n

A music video is due to be issued for the track \u2018On Your Way\u2019. \u201cI\u2019m waiting to see how that\u2019s shaping out now,\u201d the four-stringer imparts. \u201cI\u2019m trying to not be anxious (laughs). I\u2019m not a big fan of music videos, but the guy that\u2019s helping us out with it, it seems like he might have a chance of making a good one. He just shot a video for Down sort of live in their practice space (\u2018We Knew Him Well\u2019, from May 2014\u2019s Down IV \u2013 Part II<\/em>). He\u2019s a nice dude. He likes Stanley Kubrick a lot, so we\u2019ll see what he comes up with. But yeah, we did our little performance bit here in North Carolina. The director\u2019s name is J. M. Stelly, and you can see his work on the most recent Down video, but yeah, he\u2019s doing the conceptual stuff today (June 30th). Hopefully, I\u2019ll have something to look at for the song \u2018On Your Way\u2019. I probably gave him way too many detailed ideas to the point where it probably is oppressive for him (laughs). We\u2019ll see what he comes up with under those terrible conditions.\u201d<\/p>\n

In developments unrelated to Corrosion Of Conformity, meanwhile, solo albums have curtailed any short-term ambitions for Vista Chino. \u201cBasically, we were all excited about the chemistry and the shows that we played \u2013 Bruno (Fevery, guitars), Brant (Bjork, drums) and I, in particular \u2013 but John (Garcia, vocals) had had it in his mind for a very long time to do a solo record,\u201d Mike laments. \u201cIt was time for him to do that, so we were a little broad-sided by that, but we respected that it was something he\u2019s wanted to do for a long time. He\u2019s off doing that, and Brant has of course retooled his solo game in response. He\u2019s got Bubba DuPree who played in Hater with Ben Shepherd from Soundgarden, and he was actually a guitarist in my favourite Washington, DC hardcore band when I was a kid \u2013 Void. Yeah, he\u2019s got Bubba on guitar and Dave Dinsmore playing bass, who\u2019s the younger brother of Clifford Dinsmore from BL\u2019AST! He\u2019s got this heavy band now, and they\u2019re actually gonna go on tour with us, so those guys both have their solo thing tooled up. <\/p>\n

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Corrosion Of Conformity (l-r): Reed Mullin, Woody Weatherman and Mike Dean<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n
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\u201cI would say that Vista Chino is on hiatus, but it\u2019s certainly possible that in 12-18 months they might come around, and realise that they have an option on their contract. I think that you can expect to see another Vista Chino album start coming together at that point. If I\u2019m invited, then I\u2019ll be an enthusiastic participant. It\u2019s something I would love to do, but that far into the future, it\u2019s hard to say what those guys will do. Yeah though, I would love to do that, because I feel like we were just starting to click and communicate and improvise as a band, especially the rhythm section. We were a little disappointed at the way things went, but that was sort of eased a little bit by the fact that I got the feeling that John\u2019s made a really killer record (John Garcia<\/em>, August 2014) \u2013 the musical collaboration with Robbie Krieger from The Doors (\u2018Her Bullets Energy\u2019), and things like that. It\u2019s not for nothing that we\u2019re ceasing operations at the moment. I guess it\u2019s to be determined, to give you a short answer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kyuss alumni Nick Oliveri occupied bass for the majority of tracks on debut Vista Chino outing Peace<\/em>, while as has been mentioned, Mike performed bass duties for live dates in support of that very effort. For those reasons, the status of the bass position within Vista Chino is unclear to outside observers. \u201cIt\u2019s nebulous, I suppose,\u201d he offers. \u201cNo, Nick just had a situation where he couldn\u2019t travel. He did actually quit the band, so they basically needed somebody else to come in. They got Billy Cordell to actually play some shows with them, but about the time they were recording, they were actually experiencing that lawsuit situation. To Billy, that just created a lot of anxiety. I mean, it created a lot of anxiety for all of them, but he just started to find it not to be a positive situation. He didn\u2019t want to deal with all of that uncertainty, and so he split. Then they got Nick back to play some songs, but then Nick had a situation where he couldn\u2019t travel to play. They called me in to play some spur of the moment shows, and learn a bunch of material. I ended up playing on one song on the record. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s pretty nebulous, but Nick\u2019s got his other things going on. It\u2019s possible they might get Nick; he\u2019s awesome, and everybody loves Nick. Whether I\u2019m involved I think is irrelevant, because what\u2019s most relevant to me is the chemistry between John and Brant and Bruno. I think I can plug in there pretty well, hang with them, and especially improvise with them, and stuff like that. Nick is awesome though, and another Kyuss member doesn\u2019t hurt the cause at all. Whatever they\u2019d like to do \u2013 whatever\u2019s right at the time of getting together a second Vista Chino record \u2013 is fine with me. I\u2019m happy to participate, but who\u2019s playing bass is fairly irrelevant.\u201d<\/p>\n

The existence of musical project Teenage Time Killer surfaced during May 2013, the involvement of the Corrosion Of Conformity singer being touted in publications. \u201cThat\u2019s primarily Reed\u2019s thing,\u201d he stresses. \u201cI feel like my role in it got over-emphasised, simply by being asked to stand next to Randy Blythe (Lamb Of God vocalist) in a photograph. Basically, that was something that Reed started doing with this guy John Lousteau, who was one of the engineers on the self-titled. He works at Studio 606, which is Dave Grohl\u2019s studio. I think their idea was to do something like a Probot-type project, which was a few years ago when Dave Grohl (Foo Fighters \/ Nirvana) basically composed some songs along with Bubba Dupree, who\u2019s playing in Brant\u2019s band right now. They would put some original songs together, and try to get their favourite, largely unheralded metal and hardcore vocalists to sing on them. They ended up getting Lee Dorrian (Cathedral \/ ex-Napalm Death), and Mike Dean, and King Diamond (Mercyful Fate), and Wino (Scott Weinrich, Saint Vitus \/ The Obsessed), and various people like that \u2013 Eric Wagner (Blackfinger \/ ex-Trouble) \u2013 to sing on these songs, and kind of put it all together, and make this super-collaboration. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think that John and Reed were thinking maybe a step bigger and a step more complex, because they recorded some songs together. The bassist for the band was mostly Mick Murphy, from this band called My Ruin out of Los Angeles. The guitar player, he\u2019s from Tennessee, and John Lousteau is from Tennesee \u2013 he moved out to California \u2013 as is Nick Raskulinecz, who used to be an engineer at Sound City. He\u2019s now a producer; he produced the last two Rush records (June 2012\u2019s Clockwork Angels<\/em> and May 2007\u2019s Snakes & Arrows<\/em>). They\u2019re this group of people who moved from Tennessee to Los Angeles. They kind of got together with Reed and created these songs, and then they started getting people to sing on them, including Randy Blythe, Jello Biafra (ex-Dead Kennedys), Max Cavalera (Soulfly \/ ex-Sepultura), and on and on. <\/p>\n

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Teenage Time Killer (l-r): Mike Dean, Reed Mullin and Randy Blythe<\/em><\/b><\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n
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\u201cThen they got Pete Stahl from Goatsnake; he used to be in Wool, and he used to be in Scream with Dave Grohl. Greg Anderson from Sunn O))) put some guitar on it. Pretty soon, you have this cast of characters \u2013 we\u2019re talking about a number of people. I played bass on a song, I tracked vocals on a couple of songs, and recorded Woody Weatherman playing guitar on it. Basically, I\u2019m somewhat conversing on what it is, but my involvement has been exaggerated (laughs). Last time I checked though, I did have a bass guitar track on a song, and I tracked Woody\u2019s guitar.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Teenage Time Killer\u2019s full-length debut will be issued exactly is uncertain. \u201cI wish I did, man,\u201d Mike apologises. \u201cLet\u2019s get it together. It\u2019s gonna happen. There are responsible adult business people involved, so it\u2019ll happen (laughs). I don\u2019t know exactly when.\u201d<\/p>\n

Similarly assembled project Probot \u2013 which the rhythmist referenced \u2013 issued its lone self-titled opus in February 2004, Mike having lent vocals to the track \u2018Access Babylon\u2019. \u201cI remember hearing about it, and then I remember getting a FedEx package with a very small two-inch reel tape,\u201d he recalls. \u201cI took that down to a studio, put it on, and thought that the song kind of reminded me of Bad Brains meets Void. I thought I would just try something with a lot of syllables, reminiscent of Bad Brains. About 15 minutes later I had a song, made a safety copy, went to the UPS drop-off, and sent him the tape back. Then I got a check for $2,000 (laughs). It\u2019s kind of like how you wish the music business was, ordinarily. As far as that record, I\u2019m pretty partial to the Eric Wagner and Lee Dorrian tracks (\u2018My Tortured Soul\u2019 and \u2018Ice Cold Man\u2019, respectively).\u201d<\/p>\n

IX<\/em> was released on June 30th, 2014 in Europe and subsequently on July 1st in North America, all via Candlelight Records.<\/p>\n

Interview published in July 2014.<\/em><\/p>\n

1<\/a> | 2<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Corrosion Of Conformity (l-r): Reed Mullin, Mike Dean and Woody Weatherman Cutting material, the amount of studio equipment available to hand has increased throughout the years for Corrosion Of Conformity. \u201cOver time, it kind of did change for us,\u201d Mike confirms. \u201cAt first, we had the bare minimum type of equipment to go and have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[391],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21039","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-corrosion-of-conformity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21039"}],"version-history":[{"count":28,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21039\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43956,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21039\/revisions\/43956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}