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M: Well, I didn’t know we were No. 1 in May with you... but I’m happy that it is. So far, it has seemed to be doing very well with the press, which is strange because the last album was more comercial sounding and usually the press likes that... but I’m glad that they like the fact that “Atavism” is more pure and raw. I wonder where this will all lead? Hopefully back to Greece for us. Before
we go down to the details of the album, I always wanted to know how your
original name “The Lord Weird Slough Feg” occurred, what it meant,
and why did you change it into simply “Slough Feg”. M:
Well, we didn’t really change anything, the way we see it. It never
changed and is very unimportant how it reads. We are still the same band
with the same name... “The Lord Weird” is unimportant, we were
always know as “Slough Feg” by our fans. I guess, we just got sick
of it... and it always confused people when they were looking for our
albums in stores and distros cause they’d look under S sometimes and
sometimes under L.
Let’s
get down to “Atavism”. Taking into consideration the biological
point of view of the word, is there something in particular you want to
declare? M:
Not really, just the definintion of atavism and how it pretains to my
musical approach. We sound Atavistic as a band because we are bringin
back old styles, and feel atavistic as people. I started to learn more
about evolution, and found it interesting, and tried to explain
everything about myself, and mankind in general this way. I don’t know
if this is a good way to explain everything or not, but it’s my way. I
live rather primatively, I have no car, no cell phone. But I do have a
computer.
Don’t
you think that your musical turn from the magnificent but “shiny”
“Traveller” to the rougher and a bit darker new album was a risk? M:
I did when we made “Atavism”, but I didn’t want to make another
album like “Traveller”, that would have been very boring. I thought
maybe it would not be well recieved since the metal press seems to favor
such slick-sounding power metal, but luckily it didn’t happen that way,
and almost everyone likes “Atavism” better and thinks its our best
album.
I
personally think that you gave a good injection to the tired power metal
genre with both your latest albums. What are your influences, or the
magic stick that helped you distinguish yourselves from the crowd? M: There’s no “magic stick”, other than the guitar neck, for me. The influences should be obvious to see... early Maiden, early Priest, Sabbath, Lizzy ,Vitus, Queen, Beatles, American hardcore like Black Flag and Dr. Know. I think you can hear all of these in our albums. People always don’t understand the hardcore influences but I think it’s obvious in the rawness of our sound, that we grew up listening to some of this stuff. Power metal is mostly boring I agree, and sounds mostly like 80’s pop music, so I don’t want to go down that road. Death metal bores me too... so really I feel like I don’t have a choice, I just play what I play... it just comes out a certain way and I don’t have as much control over it as one might think. It comes out of the guitar neck... that’s the magic stick. I
could distinguish many folk elements within the songs. Where did they
come from? M: I don’t know. they just have acoustic guitars... but I don’t listen to or like folk music. I never listen to it. Really those songs are just metal guitar riffs done on acoustic guitars. Some of the Irish sounding songs are folky, but it’s not really influenced by folk because I don’t know anythng about that kind of music. I just write what I write and it comes out that way, the acoustic songs are more based on the Beatles songs than anything. I always wanted to write songs like “Blackbird” and “Mother Nature’s Son” from the “White Album”, so that’s sort of what I was trying to do with those “folky” songs. The
production here seems more solid. Could you elaborate on that a bit, as
I don’t have any information about who embarked on it? M:
Justin Phelps, who played bass for us from ‘91-‘96, he’s on the
first album. He’s a studio engineer now. It’s just a little more low-fi
I think, not as produced as “Traveller”, and more compact sounding.
There’s a lot going on on the album, and it’s all pushed together
into one solid sound. I don’t know how we really did that, we just
spent a lot of time on the guitars and tried to make them raw yet big
and symphonic. We use alot of different kinds of amps (Marshalls,
Oranges, Ampegs) and didn’t use any distortion pedals at all, except
for on a few of the leads.
Do
you agree that this time the band reveals the common roots with Hammers
Of Misfortune? M:
Somewhat, but the two bands still sound quite different. Maybe this is
our most Hammers-like album. But the concept of both bands is entirely
different.
How
does normally the writing-process of one of your records evolve?? Did
you follow the same recipe here? M:
I come up with guitar riffs or chord progressions in my room , on my
guitar and then record them on a box. Then I come up with a vocal melody
to go over the ones I want to sing over... all of this is very
instinctual and primative. I just find something I like, maybe a couple
of notes, and then follow the natural course of what feels right to come
next. It’s like a pattern that’s already there, I just have to find
it. Then later, when I put it together with the other instruments, I try
to put several parts together and make a song. I think this is how most
bands do it. Then comes the part when you have to think a lot and it’s
not as much instinctual. You have to try to put parts together than
sound right. That takes the most time and is the most frustrating, but
any songwritter knows that that’s the most important part, you have to
be very patient with it. Sometimes things evolve over months, and I thik
it’s best when several people are collaborating ideas. You get the
most interesting songs that way, like a story told from diffferent
perspectives. That doesn’t happend as much as I’d like it to in our
band actually, I write almost everything.
What
are the expectations from this album? Although for some you are a cult
band, I think that you have already created a large fan base, is that
right? M: I don’t know, really. We’ve managed to tour and all that, but I think we are still pretty underground. I don’t have many expectation because those tend to turn into dissapontments. I don’t really understand how the music business works, other than its all money. But I do know that to really make it you must make it in America, unfortunately. It’s the bigest market. we haven’t done much of that, but we’re gaining a little bit of ground with the new album. I never really know how much we are selling or how big our fan base is. I know that we don’t sell big, add the record company can never seem to tell me how much we are exactly selling, for some reason. I know I’m not making any money though, that’s for sure. It’s very hard to make money as a metal musician, as I’m sure you know, and you end up throwing a lot of your life into it, so you can see why a lot of people quite, because they have to concentrate on making money once they get a little older, especially if they have kids. I don’t have any though. It’s tough though because as you get older you realize you may never make money at it, and you have to shift some of your priorities, I mean, you should, I never have actualy, so I’m really poor. Oh well... What’s
on the horizon for Slough Feg? M:
A tour of the entire USA in July, which will be our first. A lot of
metal bands never get to do this because of the small scene here, but
we’ve hooked up with a good booking agent and will be able to support
the tour, we’ve got contracts and guarentees for all the shows, so its
cool. That’s comming in a month, and then in November we go over to
Germany for KIT festival, England, Belgium and Greece. Rich Walker fom
Miskatonic foundation and our label are really helping us out on this
one, along with other underground promoters. The scene in Europe is
really amazing that way, they really support bands in every way, way
more than a big label would probably do. It’s not all about money to
them, its about the music, which what Slough Feg is all about.
How
far do you think that you can go with Feg? M: Till I’m dead. That’s about all I can say, how far it will go in the material sense I can’t say. Most people would say we don’t have a chance to get really big playing such weird music, and maybe they’re right, but I’m not going to stop until I’m dead, so we’ll see I guess. I thnk if more people heard it they would like it, because the more it spreads, the more people seem to like it. I don’t know what it would take, or why labels support the bands they do and make them big, because most of them sound really boring to me, but for some reason that’s how it works. It’s weird, you’d think there would be more of a demand for interesting songs, but it seems like only underground fans are really listening to the music, and everyone else just buys records to part of some kind of scene or something. I don’t quite understands how these people think, it seems like they don’t really listen to music, they just put something on bang their heads without really listening to what’s being played, if they did they might get bored quikly. Let’s
go to some weird questions now!!! Which kind of rock music do you prefer
the most? M: 70’s metal and hard rock and progressive music. I also like early 80’s hardcore, but mostly early metal. I like stuff where the guitars are doing something interesting, musically, and the singer sounds like they are really into it, like they have something to say... I like lyrics that tell a story, or have a lot of attitude... like in the case of Thin Lizzy... you have some cool, raw guitar parts going on, and the vocals are simple but they have attitude and say something unique. I like singers that don’t sound like anyone else, and most importantly that they sound like they mean what they’re saying. That’s what metal’s suppose to do to you, give you an attitude you can carry into the world and live with. Something that gives you strength to overcome the obsacles of your life with. I think it mostly starts with self confidence, just like anything else. You have to believe in what you’re doing and not be scared of looking or sounding stupid. Just say what you want to say.
If
Sloug Feg’s carrier was a movie, which movie would it be? M: I suppose a movie about Celtic Battles. Or maybe a sci-fi movie with a space pirate, han solo type character. something that is focused on a dark anti-hero who has attitude. A one man against the universe’s type character. Do
you believe that internet has helped the bands to become more popular or
has caused many problems? M: Yes it has helped. I suppose it caused problems too though. But mostly I think it’s done good. One thing I don’t like though is that anyone can just make an album and put it out now, so the supply of music is so much larger than the demand. There’s so much crap out there now, because anyone can make an album in their bedroom, and sell it on the internet, and most of it is crap, but it makes in harder for real musicians to be recognized. There really is a lot of aweful stuff out there right now that passes as heavy metal, I can’t believe it sometimes when I hear it, it scares me. Makes me wonder what people who buy it are thinking. the internet defenitely helps us as far as touring and communicating with people in other countries goes, and doing interviews!! It’s way cheap this way!! Which
band do you consider that can take a leading part in metal music in the
future? M: Well of course, I’d like it to be myself... but I’ll leave that out. I don’t really know to be honest. All the old “reunion” bands are mostly wahsed up. Maiden and Priest were the big ones for me in 80’s, but they seem pretty dried up these days musically, ain’t don’t seem to come up with much that’s interesting. Maybe Brocas Helm, they’re not young either, but they’re still hungry because they never made it big, but they’re still really really good, and really really metal. They personify metal to me, they have that attitude, and they don’t care if they are playing in front of 800 people or 8 people, they still rock out with the same intensity. Basically, they understand that heavy metal is a form of Rock and Roll, and you have to rock out to play metal right. A lot of people don’t want to face that, but all the great ones do... to understand metal you must first understand Rock and Roll, right from the begning, from Elvis and Chuck Berry the whole way through The Beatles and Hendrix until you reach Dio and Ozzy. It’s all one big evolution, but carries the same vibe if you’re doing it right. Which
are the things that piss you off from today’s music industry? M: Do I even have to tell you!?!?! Isn’t it obvious? Just turn on the radio or the TV and you’ll have your answer, it’s the most obvious thing in the world. the big stuff is all shit and that’s all there is to it. Too many people with no talent, and business people who can’t tell the difference writing the checks out. The blind leading the blind. The part I don’t understand it that the public just eats it up, all that shit. Which
is the most overrated band today? M: I don’t now. But there’s alot of black/power metal that’s overated. And bad hardcore too. All that Limp Biscuit, Korn stuff is complete dribble, but people like it. A lot of those eighties bands that have “re-unions” are pretty bad. All you have to do is have a small name in the eighties and suddenly you get back together in 2004 and you are “a legend”. Like all these shitty bands like Grim Reaper or Company Of Snakes, or even worse, smaller bands get back together because they get offered free plane tickets to play to Waken and get their dicks sucked by the German labels because they had an album in 1985 that sold a few copies and people remember the name. So, you get all these bands at the festivals with names like “Nuclear Fate” that vuagely ring a bell in you mind from when you were 15, and they sound like shit and are all fat and haven’t played guitar in 20 years, but they get the good slots at Waken and Bang Your Head, while some good, new bands have to buy plane tickets and bust their balls to get on the 10 A.M. slot and get treated like shit by the arrogant metal promoters. It’s really shitty and over-rated. Some of them that never broke up are good though... like Raven!!!!! Imagine
that your girlfriend is selling your whole album-collection just to buy
for herself an expensive ring. How would you react?
J M: That’s pretty funny!!!I don’t think it would be a very good ring if it was bought with my record collection, nobody would really pay much for a bunch of old Yes and Genesis vynils, or my old Krokus albums. I got them all for $1 each, or found them on the street or something. The CDs wouldn’t be worth much either. Most of the stuff I buy I get on vinyl for next to nothing, ‘cause it’s stuff nobody wants. Well,
Mike. those were my questions. Thx for your response... and keep the
good work up! M:
Thanks!!!! See you soon, hopefuly, Mike. |
Hello
Mike! As you might know, Slough Feg’s “Atavism” is the “Album Of
May” for Grande Rock! From what I read the album must have gained
glorious support from the press, right???