At the University of Houston we were pretty bored and did stuff like record concept albums. Scott, Clinton, and I did a concept album about Tom Carter as a roommate. The songs were about things like �Tom ate all my food� and stuff like that. That�s where we came up with �Tom�s in the bathroom.� The funny thing is Tom laughs about it now but at the time he heard the cassette and actually had his feelings hurt. So yeah, while Tom and Scott came from the east coast the rest of us all grew up here for the most part.
I should add that a friend of ours, Kyle Silfer, got everyone together and made a "concept album� called Aetherion. That cassette is likely long gone but it was the inspiration for the narrative to Ashes in the Bong of God.
I should also add that John Cramer and I formed a band with Jim Otterson and Kurt Mackey. It was called Bongtooth and it was the proto-Mike Gunn band. I got tired of the whole Schlong Weasel thing and wanted to do something a bit more song-oriented. I hunted down John (who had gone into hiding after a bad acid trip) and we played for a short time. I can�t recall exactly the reason but the Mike Gunn began as a somewhat more metal band and the original guitarist, Elliot, left and they got John to take his place and soon snatched Kurt away as well. So, I can�t recall what happened but we played one last show at the Axiom and just burned that candle out. Some of the Bongtooth songs went on to appear on Mike Gunn records and I engineered the recording of the basic tracks of Almaron over at KTRU fm and you can also hear me curse on the air at the beginning of the second Mike Gunn album.
As for Linus, I think Clinton covered most of it. He forgot to mention our two part-time members � Flip Osman and Kelly Sandin. Flip stated playing keyboards with us and Carol electronics and vocals. They just fill in when they want but they do add a lot when they are here. A lot of the stuff on Killing You with Rock wouldn�t be the same without Flip but he doesn�t live in Texas so he�s limited in his participation. Carol sings vocals on out cover of The Pain Teens� My Desire�Oh wait that�s not out yet. Anyhow, after we�re done with our next album - �Bag of Hammers� that we�ll likely finish this summer � we�re hoping Carol can really put some input on the following record.
Larry: What I've been listening to recently: whatever is on KTRU, for however long that lasts. The old standby Black Sabbath of course. Ozzy-era Sabbath totally rules. Lots of "Fu Man Chu". "Kyuss". My one "Nebula" CD. Austin's "ST37" and "Primordial Undermind". In January I went on a kick and was listening to my few James Brown CDs over and over. Beastie Boys. In Prague I picked up a couple of "Plastic People of the Universe" CDs and have listened to them a few times. I regularly catch myself singing phrases from Mike Gunn albums, so hopefully that counts. I still listen to Miles Davis' "Bitches Brew" and one of my Art Blakey albums regularly.
Stephen: Lately I have been listening to alot of High on Fire. Sabbath with Ozzy is also the standard too. I will be seeing Willie Nelson in concert soon too that will be fun.
Ramon: Charlie has it right � horns was
between C6 and ATAL. The reason it got all
mixed up was because ATAL was kind of a
ninja record. What happened during C6 is
that the mixing process took forever and I
had some bug up my ass to go all out and
just make some kind of definitive statement
on Linus. So, I cashed out my 401K and sunk
the whole fucking thing into the record. I
kind of figured, I�d rather have something
to show my son when he�s older to show his
old man wasn�t so square. But anyhow, I got
with Steve and we did a lot in secret. The
band didn�t know that what we were recording
was kind of a done deal and Steve and I
mixed, tracked and did a lot in secret. By
the time we told the band, it was largely
done. The thing that sparked that album and
set the tone was �Southern Pine.� Clinton
wrote that and it kind of bridged the gap
between the melodic stuff you hear on Horns
and the more heavy shit. As for influences�.
I have a lot of the same influences as
Clinton though I also have to cite Hendrix,
as Old Crow totally has that Band of Gypsies
shuffle, and there are a lot of classic rock
and punk influences to be sure but I tend to
borrow small things from local musicians a
lot. I started finger picking as a result of
watching my friend Mlee Marie (Hearts of
Animals) play. There is a song I think
Charlie wrote that you�ll hear on Bag of
Hammers which I play slide on and I kind of
steal from Mlee and Jim Otterson there. I do
some things you hear with my analog delay
that I stole from Christina Carter like on
�Alien Abduction� and bands like the Fatal
Flying Guilloteens are apparent when you
hear �She Bad She Thowed.�
In terms of other bands I�m listening to
right now? What I�ve been listening to in
the last few weeks? Well, I�m really digging
the new album, Cold Comes to Claim, by that
Chicago band Brontosaurus and I�ve been
playing a lot of Dungen (Ta Det Lungnt is
amazing � thanks Mlee for the
recommendation) and Randy Newman. I don�t
think any of those bands have anything in
common now that I think of it.
Clinton:
My favorite Texas psych/stoner act is ST 37 out of
Austin, Texas. Hearing them live is a great
experience because every performance is different,
improvisational - but at the same time they hold
down a basic idea with great hooks that pull the
audience in and play with a ton of power. But sadly
a lot of the great heavy bands in Texas have broken
up, and so a lot of the time we feel like dinosaurs
-- not a bad thing, necessarily. To be honest, I
think that right now there is as much or more
momentum for stoner rock outside the United States
as there is inside it. Which is funny, because
there's always a great fan base here for heavy
music, even though our mainstream media avoids it
like the plague.
Charlie: I'm with Clinton on ST 37, but
honestly I don't get out much to see live music as
often as I'd like, and when I do, it's usually
improv/free jazz, noise, whatever's currently going
on in the Houston local scene... right now it seems
like psych isn't that big here. It's a lot more of a
pop-rock kind of thing going on, which is cool in
its own right, but often makes me feel like we're
out of step with the current times. Not that there's
anything wrong with that, but it does often make
finding bands to do shows with a little tricky, and
sometimes it results in an awkward fit. Other times
the disparity between what we do and what others on
the scene do results in a more varied and
interesting show though, so I can't really complain.
And a lot of these newer bands do put on a pretty
good stage show, so that's something.
Stephen: Local band Venomous Maximus is
pretty bad ass, Witch Doctor General is killer too.
Ramon: You know to be honest, in Houston,
there isn�t much stoner rock informed by psych that
I know of. Austin may actually be having a revival
now. I know they are having a three day Austin Psych
Fest with a lot of good bands like ST37, the Black
Angels, and more but those bands aren�t quite
getting down over here. For the most part I�m not
feelin� a lot of the heavy stuff from Houston. I
mean if, it�s fast and crushing like the hardcore
bands, it�s amazing but stoner when informed by
psych for the most part rolls to more the sludgy and
slower paces. Sure there are a lot of bands that
cite Sabbath and all that but the riffs to me just
seem pedestrian � something is missing in those
bands. It�s all heavy but no psych. It seems that a
lot of those bands are all about tattoos and
whoop-up. They will put on a great live show but you
leave feeling no different than when you came it -
it�s music as a distraction. So, yeah, the heavy
stuff here doesn�t engage me likely because it�s not
very psych. Psych kind of goes to a deeper level.
Yes, it can have it tongue firmly in its cheek even,
but the guitars, the space between the notes, the
atmosphere � that kind of goes to a deeper I guess
you could say spiritual level. Like smoke a bowl and
listen to any Bevis Frond album and tell me that is
not soul stirring. That�s when psych is at its best.
We likely need to get our asses up to Austin again
and check out what happening but we�re likely in the
wrong city for the kind of music we do because psych
is out of fashion as far as I can tell right now in
Houston. But that�s typical for Houston � it�s a
young city. I know phenomenal bands who are in their
early 20�s now but who were the talk of the town
when they were like 19 and now are considered old so
you can imagine how we, a 16 year old band, look to
that crowd. But psych comes in waves and we don�t
ever follow trends � we just stay true to our thing
and maybe that really great wave will hit. If it
does � awesome � but if it doesn�t we still had a
great time in the surf. In the meantime, people in
Europe and other parts of the US still have an
appreciation for what we do and we�re grateful. To
this day, it�s still a great feeling when we see
that some person in Greece, Germany, or California
picked up our record.
Look, God made weed and he made guitars for a reason
so don�t fucking take it lightly. Put on a Stoner
Rock album, smoke a bowl and, if it doesn�t open
your third eye � throw that abomination in the trash
right then. Life is too short to waste on shitty
music. Go out and find it no matter where it hides.
That is a lifetime quest.
Charlie: The next release is tentatively entitled Bag of Hammers, and is planned to be a double vinyl release of our most recent material. Basically we (unintentionally) followed the path from the lighter poppier stuff of Horns of Ammon, through the heavier rock of All Things Are Light, and now this is even heavier stuff, some of it almost approaching metal, or at least metal as filtered through Linus psych-rock. It's not all like that; as with almost all of our records, there's a lot of variety, which I think is crucially important to producing something interesting and lasting. In this case, we have a pretty dreamy psychedelic song called "Rust", and a kind of bluesy rocker called "Saving Throw" (which is all about Dungeons & Dragons), a multi-part song called "Starchimp" that goes through heavy swinging psych-rock and a dual psych guitar duet and then ends up in this slamming coda part, and though we're not 100% sure, we're thinking at least one side of one of the vinyl records is probably going to be taken up with some improvised material or something experimental; we're not really clear yet on that side, but it's wide open for something interesting and different from the rest of the album. It's been remarkable how quickly it's all come together for us. Clinton wrote most of the songs and unlike most of the previous times when songs have either come a few at a time or have taken us tons of time to develop, these were all pretty much written and ready to go in bulk. And then we surprised even ourselves at how quickly we were able to record them, so long gone are the days (such as with C6H8O6) where we take months and months to get anything done. Of course, we're not finished yet, and there's still mixing and mastering, so I guess we're not out of the woods yet. Anyway, if there's one thing I'm overjoyed about with this record, it's that I think it's better than our previous records. When you can do something for over 15 years and it doesn't feel like you're retreading old ground or running out of things to say, that's a pretty awesome feeling.
Clinton: Our recording sessions so far have gone well, with most of the basic tracks already done. We are at a good spot where we are playing the songs very well but haven't worn them out yet, which can happen if you take too long to get them recorded. We are very lucky that Stephen is not just our bass player, but also a sound engineer who has his own studio in Houston, Digital Warehaus Productions. So we have access to some top quality gear, and Stephen took a lot of time to work on things like the drum acoustics. The results so far are great, and I think this record will sound better than anything we've recorded up to this point.
Stonerrock.gr: Thanks to all members for this interview , we hope to listen the new work soon .
The Linus Pauling Quartet (US) on the WEB
