YOB Interview with Mike Scheidt: Communion with Doom
Returning after a four year absence and finding their name now synonymous with the top echelon of this decade’s doom innovators, the Eugene, Oregon trio YOB have released a new album in the form of The Great Cessation (Profound Lore) that only further solidifies the position and notoriety gained while they were defunct. Would have been something if they came back and sucked, next to impossible as that would be.
The band who gave us Catharsis and then-swansong The Unreal Never Lived now features bassist Aaron Reiseberg, drummer Travis Foster, and of course, vocalist, guitarist and main songwriter, Mike Scheidt, who in the wake of YOB found himself in a legal shitstorm with follow-up project Middian getting sued by a band of a similar name who don’t deserve the small publicity a specific mention might give them. That lawsuit effectively ended the band, but not before Scheidt changed the name of the project to their lone album title, Age Eternal, and bassist Will Lindsey joined Wolves in the Throne Room. In the meantime, Foster got in touch and, well… here we are.
As someone who’s interviewed Scheidt three or four times now (and only this time confirmed that he does prefer the all-caps version of the band name), I can honestly say that his consistent down-to-earth tone and open willingness to discuss his creative process in times good and bad is refreshing and, each time, makes for an interesting feature. For anyone who’s a sucker for print, the following Q&A appears (somewhat abridged) in two parts over two separate issues of New Jersey‘s The Aquarian Weekly. If you’d rather just read it now, it’s after the jump.
Was it just Middian?s legal battles that led to YOB reforming, or was there something else?
?I can?t say the name legally, I can?t say anything about it, other than we went through it and it?s over. What we changed our name to Age Eternal, so I?ll just use that, AKA The Name That Shall Not Be Named. Yeah, the lawsuit tore us apart ultimately, is what it did. There was already a little bit of band tension, just personality-wise, and you put that on top of it and it made it worse. At the tail end the lawsuit happening, Travis Foster got in touch with me and said, ?Man, it?d be fun to do a reunion show.? In the back of my mind, I?d already been thinking of doing a YOB studio album. A studio album geared more toward the YOB side of things than the Age Eternal side of things. A lot of people think that they?re exactly the same, but in my mind they just aren?t. Age Eternal had an approach for me, mentally and YOB had an approach for me, that was very different. That was something we started talking about, he and I, and I told him we changed our name and that Age Eternal was going to be my priority, but that to do a YOB record, just for studio and fun sounded great. Well, as it worked out, Age Eternal?s drummer moved to Idaho and Will Lindsey moved to Olympia and joined Wolves In The Throne Room and what was gonna be a side-project became a full-blown band. We decided to get a bass player and we did with Aaron Reiseberg. I had a couple songs written and we got together and it just flowed fantastically. Next thing you knew, we had a record.
Is Age Eternal still a band? Is it on hold?
Yeah, I wouldn?t say it?s on hold. It?s gone. It?s unfortunate, but it was an incredible learning experience, going through that whole process, and what can you do? The irony is that while I miss those guys and I miss the songs that we played, I?m really happy playing YOB stuff again and things are just going really well for the band. I know that the guys from Age Eternal too — Will?s doing great in Wolves In The Throne Room, and Scott [Headrick]?s pursuing a career in Idaho, so it?s good.
In light of everything that shall not be named, how do you look at the time in Not Middian? Can you think about it without being soured on it?
Yeah, you know. The experience definitely sullied it, for sure. My memory of it. But, you know, we did have some really great times and played some great shows. We enjoyed what we were doing and it certainly paved the way for our connections. Will most likely wouldn?t have connected with Wolves In The Throne Room. He might have, but certainly The Name That Shall Not Be Named paved the way. The tour that Age Eternal did with Minsk helped me solidify a relationship with Sanford [Parker] that would allow us to do some production and have him record us for The Great Cessation. I don?t remember it as lawsuit-only. I don?t remember it as that, but there?s some of that left over, and undeniably we all harbor some negative feelings about how it all went down, but what can you do?
How has your attitude toward YOB changed? You mentioned before, coming back as a side-project, then as the focus. Have you changed your approach to the band at all?
The approach has changed not in how we approach the music itself. We approach the music itself in a very similar fashion as far as our influences and the creative process and how we conduct ourselves as a band. That has not changed, but I do think that there was a period of time where starting out the band and really thinking doom is this little bitty thing that was starting to grow. It was starting to branch away from the European Candlemass/American Saint Vitus-worship and including those things, but starting to grow, but with a very small audience. Truly the people that played it, there was no concept remotely of it being an ambition or something that was going to have an audience outside of what was already there. So when label offers started coming our way and bigger and bigger shows started coming our way, we just looked things and said, ?Well, do we want to do this?? and weighed the pros and cons and stepped up a lot of times, like with Metal Blade. When Metal Blade got in touch with us, we were like, ?What the fuck do we do with this? Do we sign with Metal Blade? We?re a doom metal band. Why does anyone want to do it? We?re not gonna do anything for them?? Every time these opportunities came, they just blew our minds away. There was a period of time where we thought, wow, maybe this is something, maybe we should step up and do these things, maybe it?s possible. It?s everybody?s dream to do what they love anyway, but to make money on top of that is unbelievable. To have somebody hand you a paycheck is just like, ?What? Really? Wow, okay.? But I think we?ve really backed away from any concept of that. We are very much not ambitious now. We throw our energy into the record, we throw our energy into the material. We?re being careful. We?re doing handfuls of shows — cool shows — not looking to do the big tours anymore. We?re at ages where we have kids that are growing up and they have needs and they cost money and it?s nice to have a job. It?s nice to not work a minimum wage job or lose a job every time you go on tour, just because. For me, if I didn?t have kids, it wouldn?t be an issue. I would do what you gotta do, but that?s not the reality. There?s a bigger deal than me and that?s my kids, so they?re the priority. Our drummer has a really good job and a girlfriend and she has a child. That?s real life and that?s how it is. We?re not bitter about it. It?s a relief. ?Cool, we can just be us and take advantage of the opportunities as they come up.? We don?t have to tour. We?re on a label, Profound Lore, that puts artistic excellence above trying to be a product in the world of music commerce, so we can do what we want to do, and that?s a change for sure. It?s not like we were ever trying to hit the road nonstop and ?make it? or anything, but I do think we stepped up a lot more than we?d ever planned to and toured a lot more than we?d ever planned to. Certainly we got a lot bigger than we thought we would, so we?re just careful now about what we do.
What was it like when you first started writing for YOB again?
It was an old, familiar, comfortable coat that I slipped right into. It?s a cupcake. It?s easy for me. It?s what I did for years and years and years, so it was easy. Age Eternal was tougher in some ways, because my initial thought with that band was, wow, it would be rad to bring my influences to a couple of players that weren?t from the doom scene at all, or weren?t from the stoner rock scene and hadn?t played in those bands, and what do we come up with. Well, we had these three very electric personalities that came from everything from rock to country to hardcore and grind and metal and just came from a lot of different places. The way that I approached the riffs was very different because it was trying to bridge gaps in between us. Will has probably seen YOB 50 times, so he understood the style and he had his take on it. It was much more of I didn?t sit back into my YOB (laughs). I didn?t sit back into it. It was just a lot more immediate and straightforward to me, where YOB took its time more so. Even though the songs with Age Eternal were still long and everything like that, I think they just got where they were going sooner and then bludgeoned there longer. The other thing too — I?m trying to put my words together as I?m talking — I haven?t thought about this in a while. But the other thing too was, and this was a big difference, when Age Eternal started, it was kind of riding off of where YOB left off. The two guys that left YOB, Isamu and Travis, were done touring. They didn?t want to tour anymore. I wasn?t ready to give that up and things were going so well with the band, so when it was time to do this band and pick up the Metal Blade contract and move on, I had two guys who were significantly younger than me that were very ambitious, that were jumping into an opportunity and also didn?t have anything tying them down. There was kind of pressure from me, unsaid and implied, you know, ?We?ve gotta get some material together, we?ve got to get an album together, we?ve gotta get a tour booked.? YOB was never approached that way. Never. With YOB, things came and we did it. We wrote songs, ?Well, it?s enough for an album, we should probably record it.? It was never a pressure. It was never a thing where, ?This has to be done.? It was right around the time where that level of output from me started hitting the reality of I didn?t come up with enough money to pay my end of the bills again, my kids are getting older, they?re going through major changes and I?m on tour. All these things started happening and I realized I?ve got to reel way back and not do what I?ve been doing. There was a lot of discord in the band, because they signed on for this thing where it was going to be at least one or two major tours a year and an album a year and I was starting to realize that that was not going to be realistic. And so there was a lot of stress within the band for players to be active, for players to be on the road, for players being very ambitious. To go back into YOB and have it not be that is, for me, it?s exactly where I need to be, and those guys too, obviously. Will has been on probably eight to 10 tours in the last two years in his time in Wolves In The Throne Room, so it?s exactly what he needed. It really worked out for the best, but that?s a big difference.
Was there a time when you sat down with Travis and Aaron and said, ?This is what the band is going to be??
It was already understood, because when Travis and I first started, it was kind of like, ?Well, this is where we left off,? which was, ?We can?t do these big huge things like we did before, we can just pick and choose.? When Aaron came in, we made that clear to him. Aaron has another band called Norska and he has some commitments with that and he?s also a full-time student, so yeah, this is gonna work just fine. Plus, the opportunities that are coming our way are so rad. They?re just exactly what we want to do. Like the Planet Caravan fest, and we?ve been made an offer from Roadburn — a really good offer. Then there?s a number of booking agencies in Europe that have been wanting to have us come over sometime next year for small trips, two week trips, two and a half week trips, so it?s like these things I did and some of the shows that we?ve done like San Francisco and Seattle and Portland. We got an offer from somebody in New York City to fly us out to do a show, just a show, so it?s like, ?Wow, we get to play all of our best shows that we had as a band anyway and not have to be on the road for weeks at a time. Okay? (laughs). I had a lot of great times in the Midwest too, don?t get me wrong, but 14 and 16-hour drives? Nobody likes that, I don?t care how into the road they are (laughs).
It?s only been a couple years, but have you gotten a sense of the reception to YOB changing since coming back? It seemed like after the band was done it suddenly got bigger.
Oh yeah. It?s really a trip, man. Seriously. It?s the weirdest classic scenario, where the band goes away, the band announced that we broke up, and our fans already are like, ?What? Ah?? just like I?ve done many times when my favorite bands disbanded, you hold a candlelight vigil listening to all the records, and then there?s a bunch of people that are like, ?Who broke up? Who?s this?? and so they go on and they go check it out and they go, ?Oh wow, I would have really liked this. I would have really liked to have seen this band.? Just over the years and as those records circulated around — music has kind of a life of its own. You record it and create it and put your life and soul into it and put it out into the world, then if you?re lucky, it circulates around and becomes its own thing and it?s not really any of your business anymore what it does. People do things with it. People climb into it in their own way, and for us, it really has grown quite a bit. Shit, for us to be reviewed in The New York Times? Seriously? That?s crazy! To do things like that, to have places like Pitchfork actually pay attention, we?re just like, wow. In our heyday, things like that just weren?t going down. Shows with airfare and hospitality and hotels. Wow, I hope we?re good. We better get up there and deliver if people are paying money to see us. It?s very different, but at the same time it?s not, because 90 percent of what it is, is we live in small towns in Oregon. It?s like a cyber-reality. We read interviews and get email and it?s cool and all, but the daily reality is we?ve gotta sweep parking lots and take care of the kids and wives and all that stuff, so we?re kind of removed from it too.
The song that sticks out to me lyrically on the album is ?Breathing From The Shallows.? Lyrically it seemed much more grounded than some of the other tracks on The Great Cessation. What?s the story behind the song?
Well, that was the first song I wrote straight out of our lawsuit. I think I wrote it actually maybe at the tail end of it while it was still happening. In my mind, that might have been the first YOB studio-only song, and so I think that being wrapped up in this scenario where you?re trying to escape persecution. It?s so hard not to? the details are very public about how it all went down. But it also, to me, it still ties in lyrically and symptomatically to what I?ve wrote about all along, which is about kind of how human nature and my own human nature connects in with the bigger picture. Where usually it goes that my magnifying glass has gone from micro to the macro, that one is in the other direction. But you know, I said some things in it that I wanted to say, and it?s all good. I read those lyrics and go, ?Yeah, that?s what was going on.?
You mentioned the Planet Caravan fest and other shows around. In terms of other plans, I recall you used to say you were always an album ahead in terms of writing, I was wondering if that?s still the case or if there?s at least ideas for future songs.
I definitely have been getting the rumblings of the direction for the new stuff. It?s always important to me to try and be stylistically loyal and stick to what we do and not to rehash it at least in vibe, have every record have a new vibe, where they?re very distinguishable. That vibe to me is all-important. Without the vibe, all you have is riffs. Everybody?s got riffs. Riffs are cool. Everyone has a good riff, but for an album there has to be a feel, a vibe and a cohesiveness, and if I?m not feeling that first, then all I?ve got are riffs. And I?ve got shitloads of those, but it?s not enough. It?s gotta have that feel. So I?ve been getting some rumblings of what that?s going to be and I?m pretty excited to start climbing into it. The way it?s always worked in the past is if I try and sit down to actually write, it doesn?t work. I end up just writing riffs. I have to wait till I start feeling the real vibe, then I can sit down and then I?ll write a record. I think I?m getting pretty close to that. I would not be surprised if we recorded another record in 2010 and had it available. It would be awesome if we did, but I can?t say for sure.
Talking about that vibe — how does that manifest in the artwork? Take a look at the two albums next to each other, The Great Cessation and The Unreal Never Lived, and it?s like one is a negative of the other.
It?s crazy because it?s the same band and same artist on both of them (laughs). Yeah, you know. I think ultimately what it comes down to is I just go with my vibe. Where I wanted this earthy/celestial quality to The Unreal Never Lived, wanted it to be looking like you have all these pictures that are flowing into each other, but you take any one picture it makes it look like it?s real, but you put them in succession and there?s this weird flow and it seems unreal, abstract or psychedelic or whatever. With The Great Cessation, I wanted this space and I wanted the cover to be black. Not black negative, black as in everything?s in it. It creates space for everything else and it draws the person in, rather than a picture that is blasting out, where you feel like you have to sit back in order to climb into what it?s doing. This one, it?s bringing you in. But with all the symbolism of the waves in there too. It?s just the quantum soup ocean that everything is. No matter what it appears to be, it?s just all one big thing. That was my idea, something that draws a person in, rather than projects out. Something that has more space.
Tags: Oregon, Profound Lore, Yob
Oooh! I hope YOB is coming to NYC this year. I love the new album.