| Rob: What are some of your favorite bands that you go see, or you have played
with more recently?
Dan: Well, we haven�t played a show in a really long fucking time, because of the whole last year of line-up bullshit. We have the Stoner Hands of Doom festival in Ohio coming up, so I guess it will be a different situation after that, but for now I can�t really say that there�s a band we�ve played with who I consider a favorite, just because it�s been so long since we�ve played with anyone. I haven�t been out to see any live music in a really long time. The last rock show that I saw was Low, and that was almost two years ago. They�re not even really rock, anyway. I saw Cat Power, too, about a year ago, but that was a one-woman show with her at the piano playing all new stuff. The last show I went to see that I was really impressed by, was Junior Brown. That was fucking great. He had a killer band, and they played for something like two and half-hours, and did a bunch of encores. I guess I find that there are so few rock bands who play with that kind of dedication to their audience, that it�s kind of a drag most of the time. I mean, I don�t need to pay upwards of twenty-five dollars to see some group of assholes with shitty songs who can barely get it together on stage, and who project this attitude of `We are doing you the biggest favor in the world by even showing up.` Also, the crowds here in New York are pretty fucked up. It�s usually either these jaded scene fleas who just go to shows to talk shit about the band that�s playing, or a bunch of drunken frat boys who come to start fights. It would be great if they held rock shows the same way as operas or symphonies, where there�s assigned seating, you�re expected to be silent during the performance, they won�t let you in if you show up late, and they throw you out if you make any noise. I mean you�re supposed to sit down, shut up, and pay attention when the music is playing. I think that would place more emphasis on the music and stop it from being some mixer for loudmouth assholes looking to get laid. People can go to a bar or a party if that�s what they�re after. I think it would also cut down on the amount of shitty bands out there. People might think twice about throwing together some poorly rehearsed piece of shit band that can barely play if they knew people were actually listening to them, rather than using them to provide a form of sonic wallpaper.
Rob: What kind of music do you listen to?
Dan: I listen to a lot of different things. Lately I�ve been listening to this album called `Passion Sources`. It�s all the original source music that Peter Gabriel based his music on for the soundtrack to `The Last Temptation of Christ`. It�s got all this amazing music from North Africa and Asia. In a lot of cases they don�t even know who the performers are. I mean it�s the real fucking thing. So I�ve been listening to that a lot lately. I also listen to a lot of country music from the 1940�s through the 1960�s, like Hank Williams and Buck Owens. As far as rock music, my favorites are Neil Young, Black Sabbath, and the Swans, as well as all the typical classic rock shit you would expect, like Jimi Hendrix, Deep Purple, and Led Zeppelin. As far as new music that�s relevant to this genre, I guess my tastes fall more into the `doom` category than the `stoner` category. `Busse Woods` by Acid King was one of my favorite albums that came out last year. I really like Goatsnake. The new Solace album is fucking phenomenal. I really like the new Candlemass album, and the Abdullah album, `Snake Lore`, is fucking awesome. I just have a real serious weakness for slow, down-tuned shit with clean vocals. But I also like some more `stoner` stuff too. I like Nebula, Natas, and that band Pawnshop from Sweden. I really like Spiritual Beggars a lot. In all honesty, I was pretty surprised to see such a conflict between people who are into `doom` and people who are into `stoner`. I can barely tell the difference. It just seems like the difference is in who�s ripping off Black Sabbath versus who�s ripping off the Stooges. It�s not like that�s even such a dramatic difference anyway. It�s not like we�re talking about the difference between Gregorian Chants and ska.
Rob: What would you describe your band`s sound as?
Dan: We get described as "doom" a lot, I guess just because the music is slow. When I was trying to get the band started I would call it a `sludge` band, but I just wasn�t aware at the time what the connotations of that were. I was pretty clueless about what was going on in music at the time. Now, when I hear the word `sludge`, I assume people are talking about Grief or EyeHateGod or Corrupted. I think that some of the people who like those bands might like Slow Horse, but I just don�t think we�re on the same level. Those guys are just completely all-out devil music, and we have too many of what they would probably consider `faggy` attributes to get fully into it. Like I don�t think they would like my singing, or the lyrics, or the nods to classic rock that we have. I mean I could be wrong, but I wouldn�t want to consider us a shoe-in for anybody.
Rob: What are your future plans? Upcoming releases, tours, recordings?
Beer commercials?
Dan: Nothing solid just yet. We�re still just in rehearsals, trying to get our shit together. Hopefully though by the time that�s all done we�ll be pretty active again. I don�t think we�ll be doing much playing out here in New York City, though. I kind of learned my lesson about that the last time around. I mean we�ll certainly still play here, but we�re not going to bank on it too much as a way of getting a following. When the last rhythm section quit we were playing out quite a bit, and we were in the process of trying to shop our CD. It was a really frustrating period for me, and I�m sure for the other guys as well. I mean they wouldn�t have quit if they were happy with how things were going. But at the time it seemed like we were doing all the right things, and it just wasn�t getting anywhere. We were playing out a lot, we sent out the music to god knows how many labels, and we were also trying to get a lawyer, and a manager, and it just wasn�t happening. So this time around we�re going to try and play away from home a lot more. Your friends can only come down to see you so many times, and playing to the same empty clubs over and over again can destroy any band, no matter how good the chemistry or whatever is.
Rob: What are some of the questions you hate being asked by interviewers?
Dan: There aren�t any questions I would necessarily say that I hate, but I seem to get asked to describe the band�s sound and talk about what music I like at every interview. It�s not like those are dumb questions, I mean those are pretty relevant to what�s we�re talking about here. Still, I can only be so creative in responding to the same questions for a certain number of times, and I guess I don�t want it to look like on my answering machine I have a recording that says `For my taste in music, press 9 now`.
Rob: How long have you been together and how did you start?
Dan: The whole saga began in November of 1996. I was about six months out of my previous band, and I was working on a project with a drummer named Mike Gandia that just wasn�t getting off the ground. I saw an ad in the Village Voice from another drummer, who wanted to do something that he advertised as sounding like `Kyuss, Barkmarket, and Kyuss`. I figured anyone with that level of dedication to Kyuss was someone I should probably be playing with. After that I went through two bass players and another drummer. It�s the second bassist and drummer who are on the CD, so by the time we recorded that I was already the only original member. I guess that was why when those guys quit I kept going with the band; the revolving door had been pretty active already. So I took six months off from playing, and then in January 2000 I started looking for people again. Ernest Anderson, our bassist, responded right away. He learned the entire CD before he even auditioned. He was pretty phenomenal, as you can probably imagine, but I also knew that when you have the possibility of working with someone with that level of dedication and professionalism you just do whatever it takes to hang onto them. Unfortunately, finding a drummer was a different story. Ernest and I spent January through the end of June trying different people out, but there just wasn�t anyone who we felt comfortable settling on, for a number of different reasons. One day at the end of June or something like that, I was walking home from work and I bumped into, of all people, Mike Gandia. He and I had lost contact in the last few years, and we started talking about what we were each doing. It didn�t take long for him to say he was looking for a heavy rock band, or for me to say we were looking for a heavy rock drummer. It was a real "You got your chocolate in my peanut butter" kind of a thing. In any case, Mike played with us a couple of times and that was that. He�s excellent, he�s just a total natural. And since we�d played together before we already knew what to expect from one another, in terms of our style of playing, so it was really easy for us to get back to playing again.
Rob: Do you do drugs, and what kind do you do? This can be a favorite drink or anything. This seems silly but maybe I want to know what to buy you when you come through my town someday.hehehe...
Dan: Aw, shucks. Well, unfortunately, I don�t do drugs and I hardly ever drink. Actually allow me to modify that statement. I don�t do any illegal drugs. I�ve been on antidepressants for over two years. As far as drinking or illegal drugs, I don�t have any moral objections to them or anything like that, except for heroin, but just because I�ve seen it seriously fuck people up. But just in general, drugs just don�t work out for me. The only drug that I can say "worked" for me, for any kind of serious length of time, was pot. But it eventually started making me crazy and paranoid and I had to stop. Besides that I think I did acid maybe five times. And I took ecstasy once when I was at Disney World. That�s really about it, and it was at least ten years ago. Those drugs are highly overrated, at least in my experience anyway. Before I ever did acid people would describe it to me in all kinds of exaggerated ways. I was expecting everything to look like I was in the movie `Yellow Submarine`. Boy was I wrong. Talk about twelve hours of nothing. And ecstasy, Christ that�s an overrated drug. I�ve had heavier drug experiences at the dentist. They should really call it `Pleasant` or something like that. Or based on how I felt the next day, they should call it `Back Pain`. As far as drinking goes, I mean I�ll have a beer or two every so often, and for my girlfriend�s birthday a few weeks ago I drank some champagne. But it does nothing for me most of the time, other than make me want to go somewhere quiet to lie down and wait for it to be over. The few times I�ve ever gotten actually drunk, in the classic sense, I would usually end up vomiting all night or blacking out or waking up with the most crippling hangover you can imagine. So I really would have to say it�s just not for me.
Rob: What do you think of the term "stoner rock"? Now be honest...
Dan: I think it�s cute. I don�t find it any more objectionable than calling it `Cosmic Fuzz` or `Space Doom` or any of the other idiotic sub-categorizations currently floating around. I mean to be perfectly honest with you I really think it�s just metal. I mean some of the bands more so than others, but I don�t really see anything about it that�s so dramatically different from just plain old regular metal, particularly since these bands are mostly just aping Sabbath when you get right down to it. If it was 1968, we�d be calling it `Acid Rock`. If it was 1975 we�d be calling it `Hard Rock`. If it was 1992 we�d be calling it `Grunge` for fuck�s sake. I guess to me the main distinction is really just what year it is, and what they have to call it that it hasn�t been called before so it can be packaged as new. Also the clothes are different. It�s just like how ten years ago dance music was called `Club Music` so people wouldn�t be put off by the dreaded "Disco" word, even though they were sampling disco records, and the music was being played in establishments with mirror balls. So I guess I would have to say that the term `Stoner Rock` is to me just what they�re calling metal these days, just re-packaged as something new. If people want to make the argument that it�s somehow different, I suppose they can if it makes them feel better, but the arguments I�ve heard to that effect have been pretty flimsy, like that it�s more influenced by `punk`. That�s a good one. First of all, punk is just speeded-up metal. Yes, that�s right, that is all it is. Second of all, they used to say all the New Wave of British Heavy Metal bands were `influenced by punk`. Can you honestly listen to Iron Maiden and then Saxon, and then tell me which one is more `influenced by punk`? The same thing will happen when people look back at today�s bands. I think in general people�s view of musical culture has about a three-year radius. There�s no sense of how history will view this particular moment in time. I had to study a lot of music history in college, and the history is taught in these incredibly broad, fifty-year increments. If it stays that way, then in 100 years when people look back on music of the 20th Century, I have a hard time believing that they�re even going to touch on heavy rock music, to say nothing of its millions of sub-categorizations. They�ll talk about jazz and maybe the Beatles. All this other genre and label bullshit will be forgotten, which is what it richly deserves.
Rob: How do you do the song writing and arranging?
Dan: That depends. Sometimes I just fuck around on the guitar while I�m watching TV. I usually get some good riffs out of that. Or jamming on riffs in rehearsals. Usually the way it goes though is that the riffs and songs tend to mutate over the course of a bunch of rehearsals. Once the arrangement is set, then I write the lyrics, most often on the toilet. Of course the lyrics tend to change the arrangements again. But we get it together eventually. I usually just need a lot of time for the songs to take shape. I really don�t like forcing a song into completion. I believe in really approaching the music from an objective standpoint, and trying to gain some perspective on it so I can see what it really requires, in terms of lyrics or arrangement or whatever, so the first time it�s presented to people I have confidence in it, and I can get totally behind it. I mean there�s always going to be little tweaks here and there, and I�m sure a lot of people would agree with me that there�s no such thing as a recording of your own that you�re ever 100% satisfied with. But as far as just the general arrangement and that kind of thing, I really try to deal with those things as much as possible before committing them to tape. Those are things you really don�t want to discover when you�re mixing. The agony of the `mixing discovery` is too horrible to discuss.
Rob: I gotta ask...What kind of gear do you use?
Dan: I play a 1981 Fender Stratocaster with EMG pick-ups, and I use Ernie Ball .13 gauge strings. We tune to B, which requires really heavy strings so you don�t go out of tune constantly, and those are the heaviest-gauge strings commercially available, at least that I know of. I play through a Peavey 5150 head, and I run that through a Road Case, which I had bass speakers put in, just so it can handle the low tuning. Needless to say, we play super-loud, I keep my toggle switch set to the front pick-ups, and the bass knob on my amp is turned up four times higher than the treble or mids, so I had to have a set-up that could handle that. Before that I was playing through a Marshall half-stack, which blew a single speaker cone at every show. When I switched to the Road Case I was completely stunned by it. It physically displaced air. I mean it actually generated a breeze. I�ve never used anything else since then, and it�s all worked out great for me.
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