Interview: Impaled (2002)

This interview took place following one of Impaled’s rehearsals at their cuboidal-shaped practice space in a particularly warehouse-strewn part of gritty, blue-collar Oakland, sometime in June 2002. At this point in time, Impaled was Ross Sewage (bass, vocals), Sean McGrath (guitar, vocals), Raoul Varela (drums), and Andrew LaBarre (guitar, vocals). They are probably the funniest band I’ve ever interviewed. A tiny sliver of this material was used in a July 2002 article on Bay Area metal that I wrote for the SF Bay Guardian. [Note: I didn’t turn on the tape recorder right away, so the conversation picks up abruptly after a few minutes of talking about who-knows-what.]

Impaled circa 2002. L-R: Ross Sewge, Raoul Varela, Sean McGrath, Andrew LaBarre

Ross: I swear, we’re a good clean band. We’re straight-edgers.

You’re straight-edgers?

Ross: Yeah.

I’ll put that in the article.

Ross: We’re really into Minor Threat. We don’t allow girls in here, either, just like Minor Threat wouldn’t allow girls in their practice space.
Sean: Well, even if we did, it wouldn’t matter. They wouldn’t show up anyway.
Ross: Ok, I wasn’t saying that we didn’t get girls … but that’s the case.

Interview: Mike Patton (2003)

Telephone interview from 2003, done as background for a brief “studio report” blurb for Alternative Press on a few of Patton’s then-active bands (Tomahawk, Fantômas, and Peeping Tom). Of all the people I’ve interviewed, Patton is the closest to what I imagine a professional athlete to be like, speaking in canned phrases and being careful not to reveal too much. He seemed kind of annoyed–not so much by me specifically, but by the whole process.

Fantômas. L-R: Dave Lombardo, Patton, Trevor Dunn, Buzz Osborne. (Photographer unknown.)

Interview: Wolf Eyes (2003)

This interview took place in early 2003 after one of Wolf Eyes’ rehearsals. It represents a rare attempt (at least on my part) at interviewing an entire band at once over the telephone—which, as it turns out, is not the brightest idea. On top of that, I somehow forgot to hit the “record” button on my tape recorder until about a half-hour’s worth of the conversation had passed. As a result, there are a few potentially confusing references below to things that had been mentioned earlier in the conversation.

 

I saw this incarnation of Wolf Eyes (Nate Young, Aaron Dilloway, and John Olson) a handful of times between 2001–2004, and they were often amazing—especially the two Bay Area shows I saw in late 2001, one at Kimo’s in San Francisco and one at the Stork Club in Oakland (with an enthusiastic Grux among the dozen or so people in attendance). I have not really kept up with them since then, but I know they’ve continued churning out multiple new releases per year and are probably still at it as we speak.

Interview: Mirai Kawashima (Sigh), 2001

“If somebody listens to Sigh’s music, and if they thought they heard something funny or humorous, I think that is one of the right impressions that people could have….”

2001 interview with Mirai Kawashima, the main man behind Japanese black metal experimentalists Sigh. Their new album at the time was Imaginary Sonicscape, which I was really into—as much for the “wrongness” of some of the transitions and juxtapositions (of instrumentation, stylistic references, etc.) as for the not-infrequent moments of straightforward hard rock/metal indulgence. Thank you to Century Media, Sigh’s label at the time, for footing the bill for what must have been a pretty expensive long-distance phone call.

Interview: Karl Sanders (Nile), 2002

“I think people take death metal ideas much too fucking seriously. I mean, Jesus Christ, we might be writing about heavy subject matter, but you cannot … actually live those lyrics.”

This 2002 interview was done as background for a very brief (250 word) blurb in Alternative Press about Nile’s Egyptology obsession. I remember staying up all night trying in vain to compress an entire interview’s worth of quotes into essentially a couple of paragraphs—a ridiculous amount of effort for a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it filler piece of that sort. I have not followed Nile since the early 2000s, but I did get a lot of enjoyment out of their Black Seeds of Vengeance album. They were also a really great live act back then.