Talk to almost anyone who’s had their finger on the pulse of underground heavy metal’s last 10 years, and they’ll tell you that Thor is not, in fact, the God of Thunder. That title belongs to High on Fire’s Matt Pike. Pike’s tenure as vocalist/guitarist for High on Fire began in 1998 after the brief split-up of Sleep, a band whose own clout and influence on heavy metal had already been established. Over seven full-lengths, a number of splits and a live album, High on Fire’s reputation and commanded respect come as much from the enormity of their sound as it does from the tongue-in-cheek mythos that surrounds Pike himself, courtesy of metalheads around the world.
2015 will see the trio of Des Kensel (drums), Jeff Matz (bass) and Pike release their seventh full-length and likely some manner of winged, fire-breathing beast from the depths of hell as a result. While the latter may only be witnessed by the most faithful of fans, the former is sure to see one of underground metal’s most successful and influential groups offer yet another riff primer to all other bands. In anticipation of the band’s upcoming Jan. 6 show at Zydeco, I talked to Matt about the new album and why there needs to be a High on Fire Airlines.
Weld: You guys are about to start this tour to jumpstart the year, and you’ve got the new album coming out in a few months as well, Matt. Tell me a little about that.
Matt Pike: On this tour we’re getting a little rehearsed and a little warmed up to go in the studio. We’re going from New Orleans up to Salem, and we didn’t wanna burn up a bunch of big markets, and we really haven’t hit Birmingham and a few other cities that were kind of B-Market, second stretch tours, so we were like, “Let’s burn those now and get it warmed in, and maybe some of those people can hear some highlights of what’s comin’ out.” I don’t know how much of the new album we’re gonna be playing out live because of the Internet nowadays, but we’ll put on a good show. [Laughs] We’ll try to put a little bit of everything in there. It’ll be good to tour and just warm up. It’s good to be playing again. I haven’t had much downtime this year, really. It’s been back and forth constantly on different tours and stuff.
Weld: You’ve been incredibly busy touring with both Sleep and with High on Fire this past year.
MP: Oh yeah. I’m lucky to get two hours a night of sleep, man. It’s got me jumping from airplane to airplane. I think Southwest has an apartment for me now [Laughs].
Weld: It’ll be their new seating class: the Matt Pike seats.
MP: Yeah [Laughs]. I think they should just give me my own cabin at this point.
Weld: You guys need a Soul Plane kind of gig. Something like High on Fire Airlines.
MP: [Laughs] Oh man, I think we’ll need to sell a few more records before that happens. I might be able to buy a Beater and hope it doesn’t crash [Laughs].
Weld: You mentioned something just a second ago about your apprehension with playing new material on the road because of the Internet, Matt. It’s interesting because that whole culture shift from the music business perspective is something you’ve watched unfold over the several years you’ve been playing. Is that something you’ve seen kind of inadvertently affect the way you or the band creates?
MP: Yeah. You’ve gotta approach it in a different way as far as how you put it out. Back in the Dark Ages, we just had to get the furnace hot and then forge some record on an anvil and try to get someone to sign and distribute it. Nowadays it seems like there’s a lot more big businesses that throwing out all this weird marketing money. They’ll pay you for one song, and then you go in on your own with that one song and the money from that and record a whole record. That seems like what a lot of bands are doing.
Us, we got a little thing with E1 goin’ on right now. It’s a cool deal, and they’re really cool about us being artistically free. There’s always some sort of deadline, but if there wasn’t a deadline — most musicians I know are procrastinators and have ADD so bad they’d never get it done [Laughs]. Like we probably have six hours’ worth of music, and we don’t know which ones to put on a record. But you gotta be careful with the way you put it out into the world. If everybody sees it on the Internet they’ll probably go buy it anyway, but then people know there’s a process, and if you can keep it under lock and key until the date that it’s actually supposed to be out I think it benefits you in weird ways and then sometimes it doesn’t. It’s so fickle. It’s a weird situation.
Weld: It’s interesting because the Internet has created a kind of culture of hyper-consumerism, especially with music and art where things are just as quickly hyped as they are discarded. That said, though, it also presents an opportunity for artists to find unique avenues in which to market their creations.
MP: I think one of the things that’s made a big comeback, and it’s because of that, is that a lot of people are going back to vinyl. I’ve seen a massive raise in the amount of vinyl where pretty much all the bands that I know of are wanting more vinyl because CDs — we’ve pretty much eliminated that technology due to downloading stuff, but even if you download stuff you don’t have that piece of art. Vinyl is almost like a t-shirt and something you can listen to at the same time. It’s a novelty people are picking up on more and more again, which is an awesome thing. I think music sounds better on vinyl anyway. I’d like to see much more sales like that just getting back to the vinyl and people having record players. It’d be kind of cool.
Weld: Going from ’98, when High on Fire first started, to where you are now, Matt, do you find yourself approaching the music in the same way, or is it more of a constantly evolving process for you?
MP: We evolve. Every record we evolve in some different way, and this record’s no different. The music that we’ve been demoing is really off the wall. It’s what you’d expect, and it’s really solid, but there’s something more to this one than we even had on the last one. I suppose there’s still some of the thrashier, more super metal kind of stuff, but there’s melody in the songwriting on this one that makes it really epic. I can’t wait for the fans to get a load of this, because it’s definitely a step forward. It’s really trippy sounding music, and it’s really catchy. I try to mix it up with the guys. We want the fast and powerful, but we also want the melodic and catchy. I like to make a rollercoaster ride out of each album.
Des thinks of things, Jeff writes musical pieces, and I do my best to put it together and glorify it with my vocals and whatever guitar I can throw over, and the guys glorify whatever piece of music it is that I’ve been working on. It’s really cool having equal parts in the band as far as the writing goes. It’s gone a long way. I used to be kind of the band Nazi at the beginning of the thing, and then later on me and Des started writing more with just guitar and drums, and then Jeff stepped in the picture, and it’s just been evolving ever since.
Weld: Glorifying the riff is something you’re known for to an almost mythological degree, Matt. I’m curious as to where that started for you, man, and what keeps that creative fire burning just as intensely for you now?
MP: It started in my childhood. My dad was into Zeppelin and Floyd and Sabbath, and Van Halen was out and then AC/DC, and all those kinda bands were always playing around me somewhere. I always had a respect for classical music, and for some reason or whatever my brain just works with the way the patterns and frequencies in that music are. I don’t know. Just anything I hear I’ve always been able to dissect in my head and pick apart, probably even before I played guitar. I see music visually. It’s kind of a trip.
Weld: It makes sense and lends credence to the notion that even a music style as abrasive as metal is simply borrowing from musical structures and patterns used by composers three and four centuries ago.
MP: You can say that about any music. As I grew older, I realized I could pick apart blues like that, and I could pick apart jazz like that, and I could pick people’s songs apart and see how they go together like building a motor. You take it apart, and you see how it goes together in a certain way. People who can pull that out of thin air and make it happen — that’s what makes us all artists, and that’s what most important to me.
Weld: You’ve been able to watch the heavy metal underground over the last two decades, Matt, and you’ve seen the growth in exposure and even popularity for the genre both with critics and fans. From your perspective, how have you seen the genre evolve or in some ways even devolve during that time?
MP: I think in some cases it’s devolved and in some cases I think it’s evolved. I think a lot of people have put on festivals and large events where smaller bands can play with the bigger bands of our generation. They get together in the public arena and really bring it to the people who understand, and the fact that a lot of these festivals bring together all different types of artists, like hip-hop on one stage and metal on another. It gives everyone a flavorful platter of hors d’oeuvres, and I believe that’s the reason.
I’m not saying it was the best idea in the world, but I believe that’s why a lot of extreme bands have a bigger platform to work with now. Kids aren’t into just one type of music anymore. There’s a lot of different types of music that they’re exposed to because of the Internet and because of things like those festivals that put lots of different music in their face. They’re gonna eat up whatever you sell ‘em, but you gotta make a meal to tell ‘em what you are all about. So if you make a bunch of people feel something, that’s because you’re good at what you do. Mastering your art is being able to convey it to other people in an incredible way so that people wanna come back and they go “Oh my god, that was a trip. That was amazing.” [Laughs]
Weld: What’s on the horizon for you guys in 2015 long term beyond this tour and the album release, Matt?
MP: We’ll do this little tour. We gotta get this album done and get some things workin’ here, and hopefully that will be dropping by May or June. I’m hoping the sooner the better. Then we have a little bit of down time, which is well-needed for me to get some down work. I just haven’t had time off in like seven months. I haven’t had a moment to myself. But, you know, we don’t wanna overplay while the album’s coming out. We’re gonna hit it hard after the album comes out, though. There’ll be a world tour involved with that, or at least in the increments over the next course of the year. By the time we get to January of next year we should have covered this entire Earth with as much music and touring as we could have. You’ll be hearing from us if you’re out there. If you’re a fan or if you don’t know who we are, you’ll be hearing from us for sure. I’ll knock on your door and tune my guitar. [Laughs]
High On Fire will play Zydeco on Tuesday, Jan. 6. Windhand and Mountain of Wizard will open. Tickets are $15. For more information, visit zydecobirmingham.com.