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Of Monoliths and Dimensions
by Matt Smith
With the release of Sunn O)))'s latest opus, Monoliths & Dimensions, Greg Anderson and Stephen O'Malley have created something so unique that it literally defies classification. At times an all out dark ambient drone-fest, complete with dark spoken-word pieces by Attila, to Disney-like soundtrack pieces complete with harps. Greg Anderson took the time on a day off from their current tour to talk to me about the new album and some other things I've been itching to ask him.
GASP: Hey Greg, how's it going?
Greg: Good, we played last night and we just loaded out today, it's our day off.
GASP: Where did you guys play last night?
Greg: We played in St. Louis, we're still here. We played at this place called the Firebird. Where are you?
GASP: Worcester, MA, about an hour from Boston. By the way, are you guys coming up around this way any time soon?
Greg: Yeah, we're playing the East Coast in September. I don't think we're playing Boston, but we're playing Providence.
GASP: Nice, that's just as close to Boston for me.
Greg: Yeah, we're doing Philly, Providence, Pittsburgh, New York, Baltimore, then we're heading down South.
GASP: Who are you guys touring with?
Greg: The support group is Eagle Twin, a new band, really great, an amazing band. They actually have a new record coming out on Southern Lord.
GASP: I've heard the name but I cant say I've actually heard them yet.
Greg: Yeah, they're fairly new. They're great, man!
GASP: I look forward to hearing them. I absolutely love Monoliths & Dimensions, I feel it's your most ambitious effort to date. Was there any initial inspiration behind it or was it mostly based on improvised pieces like your past works have been?
Greg: Well, there was a lot of improvisation on the record, but as far as inspiration goes, there's several musical and artistic influences but it's really kind of like life and where we were all at as people and it was a huge influence on this record. I know that sounds pretty vague, but I think it's a reflection of a lot of the records we've made beyond the musical style of the record there's also this sort of emotional or non-emotional quality and I think this record has a lot more emotional quality to it and more of a range of emotional quality than say our last record which was a lot colder and not as, I know this sounds cliched, dimensional as this record (laughs). There's a lot more depth to this record. Not to belittle the last record, but to me there's a lot more going on depth-wise than on our other records.
GASP: Yeah, that was one of the first things I noticed when I first listened to it. Out of all of your releases it's probably the most diverse and it's really cool to see you expanding your sound and adding so much more to it. This album has a lot more vocals than previous ones, I love the stuff with Attila, it's sounds really creepy, and adds a darker edge to it, not that your previous albums didn't have that, this just makes it much more dark sounding with his spoken word stuff on it. Was this something intentional or did it come about unintentionally?
Greg: Well, we've been doing a lot of live performances with Attila in the last four years or so and he's become a huge part of the live shows and there's a lot of stuff that happened with the group at the live shows that we were hoping to capture on the album and we had never worked with Attila in the studio on any record. What we would do is when we finished a track is we would send him the track and then he would add his vocals to it and send it back to us. But this time we were in the studio interacting with each other and feeding off each others energy and getting inspired by what the other people were doing. He was getting inspired by riffs and we were getting inspired by his concepts lyrically for the album and it gave it much more depth and made it much stronger and gave it a cohesive sound by working together in the studio. The thing with Oren Ambarchi the guitar player, who we worked with several times, I mean he's been on several other recordings we've made but it's all been done through the mail, but this time it was really great to work together in the studio and come up with ideas and bounce ideas off each other.
GASP: It definitely shows! The last track, "Alice", is probably the most eclectic Sunn track I've ever heard and very unlike anything you've ever done. It makes me think this could be used in the new Tim Burton Alice in Wonderland movie he's making. Was this kind of inspired by that story?
Greg: No, actually it was inspired by and named for Alice Coltrane actually. She's an artist that Stephen, Oren, and I are heavily inspired by her work and it was a track we named as a tribute to her and it was about breaking it down and simply about trying to challenge ourselves and trying to be able to create a track that was using dynamics and space and quietness in a track but make it sound heavy. We wanted to challenge ourselves by not using layers and layers of guitars, it was all about stripping it down. That was the basic concept, to try and create a record that was not what people would come to expect of us.
 GASP: I was pleasantly surprised by it and very impressed with the diverse sounds you have on that track. I'm sure the sky has always been the limit for you guys but there's probably also this unspoken expectation for you guys to do something similar to your earlier work. I mean AC/DC pretty much puts out the same album every release and I really wouldn't expect them to do something drastically different.
Greg: If Motörhead did that it would be inappropriate and it would probably suck. I mean different bands do different things and I love Motörhead and I love the fact that they've made the same record for the last twenty years and it's just a different way of approaching music and that's not what we're about. We're not about creating the same album over and over again and for me it's about experimentation and exploration and that's not what other bands are about and that's totally fine. There's plenty of room for different ideas and concepts of music and I feel honored to make my contribution for whatever it's worth.
GASP: That's the way I've always been and that's usually the reason I end up quitting a band because they don't want to experiment and broaden their sound. I love bands that aren't afraid to experiment, you know a band like Voivod who started off as extreme Thrash and ended up doing Space Metal a few years later.
Greg: Right, I think that's great and there's different kinds of people and different ways of approaching music and some people aren't comfortable taking a step into the unknown. I understand that and I have nothing against those people and I don't think that what we're doing is better than anything else. Everyone is different and has a different way of approaching the music. I love total classic bread and butter bands that stay the same like Dismember or something similar and they're not changing their sound and I totally respect that. I'm just a huge fan of music in general and I listen to all kinds of stuff and there's definitely room for all kinds of music.
GASP: I agree, there's some bands that you want to stay the same, like if it's a Swedish Death Metal band you kind of want them to sound like that.
Greg: There's a time and a place for that in my life and I love to listen to that and I'm glad somebody's doing it. (laughs) There are days when I just want to hear Motörhead and I don't want to hear Sonic Youth or Miles Davis or something like that and I want to listen to something I can rely on for a certain feeling or reason and I think that's great.
GASP: Exactly, I've always been attracted to slow, down-tuned metal and I even own the first Earth 7-inch, the one that is etched on one side and when I first heard of Sunn O))) it was great to see you guys were influenced by them. Since I bought the The Grimmrobe Demos when it first came out in 2000, I got the original black plastic gold spray painted cover version, it seems like there has been a much bigger interest in this style of music. Do you feel you are one of the founders of this modern metal version of trance/drone music?
Greg: Well, I don't know if I would consider ourselves founders, we've had a lot of influences for what we're doing but I don't know if we've created anything new and the other problem is what do you actually call it? I mean the labels are really a sticky situation and once you've labeled something you've put some limitations on it. And the group has always been about working without limitations or boundaries so that's a difficult question or subject for me to comment on. But I will say that I'm really surprised and grateful that what we have created and people have responded to it in a way that is real positive and or connecting to it. It's really strange because the music is really challenging and experimental music for me is not something that appeals to a wide or large group of people because it's so challenging and people aren't really willing to check it out and its exciting to me and it's flattering when bands are influenced by what we're doing. We don't really think of it in those terms. I mean we do what we do and we're passionate about what we do and we actually don't even hope that somebody likes it (laughs) and when they do we're very grateful to pander to an audience that likes what we're doing and we do it because we believe in it and when people respond to it I think it's amazing and if it's a negative reaction that's good too because when music creates ANY kind of reaction it works.
GASP: That's the way I feel about approaching music. You're making it for yourselves first and if any one else likes it that's even better. Talking about influencing people without knowing it, while I was playing in WarHorse I never really thought much about how much it would influence people someday...
Greg: You were in that band?
GASP: Yeah, before they recorded for Southern Lord, nine months during 1998-1999. Unfortunately I had to leave due to family issues but I played on the Lysergic Communion 7 inch and The Priestess 12 inch.
Greg: Those are great. That Priestess 12 inch is like one of my favorite things WarHorse did, I think that was great. I had no idea.
GASP: It sucks because when I quit the band I left them high and dry before an East Coast tour because my fiance at the time was getting depressed about me leaving for a week or two so I quit the band, it was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do in my life because they were the best band I ever played in. But I don't regret it because I have an 8 year old son that I wouldn't trade for ANYTHING in the world.
Greg: Right on.
GASP: It's funny when I mention to people I played in WarHorse they're like "really?" and I would never have realized it back then that they would have influenced so many bands like ten years later. When you're playing music you don't think about those things because you're doing it because you love it and if other people like it cool, but I never thought at the time what an influence the band would really have.
Greg: Exactly. I mean I've played in a lot of different groups over the years and you have certain expectations because you put a lot of time into practicing and honing your craft so to speak and you have traditional aspirations most bands have, make a record, put it out on a label and get in a van and go out on tour and with this band we never had any of those aspirations. (laughs) It was just about playing music together because we were friends and we had a mutual interest in certain bands so we never had any expectations at all and if we did they were minimal. And it's just that extra special thing because it's not something we were hoping for or really trying to achieve and we kind of laugh because it was kind of just put in our lap. It's not that we were ungrateful or taking it lightly it's just that we didn't expect it.
GASP: I know and it's really cool when you're just doing your thing and all of a sudden people want you to start playing shows and pay for the recording of an album or slab of vinyl. I had never experienced that in any other band I had been in and it was a really cool experience. Now that I'm divorced I'm trying to recapture a little bit of what I had then and I have a new band that's definitely influenced by WarHorse but we're trying to add another dimension to it with experimental sounds like analog synths and stuff. Kinda like The Priestess 12 inch mixed with Zoroaster.
 Greg: Cool, what's the band called?
GASP: Faces of Bayon, the name is taken from these ancient temples in Cambodia at Angkor Wat that have these huge stone faces carved into the temple and surrounding area.
Greg: Yeah, i know about that.
GASP: Enough of this shameless self promotion (laughs). I was wondering, is most of the equipment you use vintage analog stuff?
Greg: Pretty exclusively, I mean there's not really anything digital. The amps we're using are like 30 or 40 years old and the synths are all analog, but we did use a reissue of Moogs Voyager that's pretty awesome that we use on this record. But yeah, for the most part it's just kind of a stylistic choice that we're making, we're not snobs about it or anything like that. Steve and I have spent a lot of time trying to perfect or find the right tones that we like and a lot of it comes from these old amps, these really powerful amps that really had been phased out because of technology and peoples desire to have things smaller and smaller and they don't want to have the burden of lugging around a heavy piece of gear. The same thing goes for the transition of records to CDs to mp3s because people want things smaller and smaller (laughs) either their instruments or their albums, you know? But yeah, we exclusively use older analog gear.
GASP: It sounds so great and you can really tell when people are using it because it's got that real sterile digital vibe to it. i mean I would rather have ten pedals than use a rack mount processor. That's what I've always loved about your albums is they just have this warm vibe to the sound. I mean you probably couldn't have made the albums you made with modern equipment.
Greg: That's something we didn't even really try because these are the tools we use to create our music, we're not gonna switch the tools to something that is inferior and that would create an inferior sound. I mean its crucial to the overall aesthetic of the sound.
GASP: I know what you mean. You've collaborated with many different bands and artists throughout the band's history, are there any artists out there you would like to collaborate with that you haven't yet? I always thought you guys would sound great if you collaborated with Throbbing Gristle or Helios Creed.
Greg: I'd be up for that for sure. I honestly don't know a lot about Throbbing Gristle but the recordings that I have I think are cool and I like what they're doing and their sound is pretty interesting. As for artists we haven't collaborated with that I would like to, I mean it would be a pretty huge list but I don't feel comfortable divulging names because I feel like it could possibly jinx it because a lot of the collaborations we do kind of just happen naturally we don't really seek out collaborators, it just sort of happens. There's a ton of people I would love to do stuff with but by throwing it out there it doesn't feel right and could potentially jinx a collaboration from taking form.
GASP: Most of the time it's better to just let that stuff happen.
Greg: Totally, and that's just the way it's been for us for the last ten years. We're going to continue to operate like that.
GASP: That's the best approach. The droning landscapes you create always have a time transcending feel to them and many times while listening to them I lose track of time. I did an interview with Aaron Weaver of Wolves In The Throne Room and we discussed this phenomena. I wanted to know while you're creating these pieces do you have the same type of experience or is it just something you notice after the fact?
Greg: It's not such a conscious decision, I think by stretching the notes out you can create that sensation of transcending or stretching time. A lot of the time when we're playing live I have no idea how long the show was and we've played shows where we've played like thirty minute sets and it felt like two hours. Or we would play like an hour and a half and it would feel like a half hour, you know stuff like that. The sense of time in a good show is just thrown out the window and you've transcended time by playing the music.
GASP: That's a really cool experience. Do you ever feel like by creating this type of music you're creating an alternative to psychedelic drugs or do you feel like it inspires people to take them as opposed to using the music as a stimulant to achieve the same state of mind?
Greg: Definitely, I think drugs and alcohol just get in the way of it and sometimes it's fun to take drugs or drink while playing but most of the time it's just not necessary. And by creating the music you're transcending time and you just don't need anything extra.
GASP: I actually prefer to be completely straight when playing music because the music is enough to get me high naturally.
Greg: Yup, totally.
GASP: You guys have a dark image to your music, almost a mystical vibe to it, what are your beliefs on the afterlife or religion?
Greg: Nothing that's relevant to the music we create, I try to keep the whole ideology or personal thoughts out of the music. Music is nothing but a group sound and aesthetic and I try to keep any strong individual thoughts about religion or politics out of the music. It's about what we create together, THAT I guess could be considered a religion. (laughs) There's not a specific message that we're trying to get across with the music, it's beyond us. I like to think the music we're creating is beyond the individual and more from the group as a whole. Each one of us has individual thoughts on politics and religion but it's just not appropriate for what we're doing. I have some beliefs and some theories and thoughts about religion but nothing specific that I follow in my life.
GASP: I hear you, well that about wraps it up, thanks for taking the time for this interview and I look forward to seeing you guys when you play around here.
Greg: Great man, good talking to you.
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