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The Obsessed Interview with Dave Sherman: On Sacred Ground

the obsessed (Photo by JJ Koczan)

In the interview that follows, The Obsessed bassist Dave Sherman talks about his bandmate, guitarist/vocalist Scott ‘Wino’ Weinrich, as one of the principal figures in doom. And no doubt he is. But what Sherman leaves out of that equation for the most part are his own contributions to the style. In his attitude and in decades of music in WretchedSpirit CaravanEarthrideWeed is WeedKing Valley and a slew of others, Sherman has come to embody the relentless pursuit at the heart of Maryland doom. Approachable, good natured and a lifer in his commitment to the heavy, he is no less a figurehead for that scene than WinoBobby Liebling of Pentagram, or anyone else. Maryland doom simply wouldn’t be what it is today without him.

Next week, The Obsessed — ShermanWino and drummer Brian Constantino — headline the second annual Maryland Doom Fest alongside Bang and Mos Generator. They just wrapped a full US tour with Karma to Burn and The Atomic Bitchwax (who cut their portion short due to injury and were replaced by Sierra), and announced along the way that they’ve signed to Relapse Records for the release of the first full-length by The Obsessed in more than two decades, tentatively-titled Sacred. It’s been a long, crooked road getting Wino and Sherman together as The Obsessed, even counting just from The Obsessed starting their reunion at Roadburn 2012 (review here), then dropping that to get back together and tour as Spirit Caravan before swapping one moniker for the other earlier this year, but to hear Sherman tell it, the journey seems to have been no less satisfying than it was complicated.

When we spoke a couple weeks ago, The Obsessed were getting ready to head into the final portion of the aforementioned tour, and were camped out in San Francisco waiting to go soundcheck at Slim’s. It was a relatively brief conversation, but in it Sherman talks about working with Frank “The Punisher” Marchand and Rob Queen on the new recordings — Queen also helmed the recently-unveiled “Be the Night” demo (posted here) — the signing to Relapse, the band’s place in doom history and more.

Full Q&A after the jump. Hope you enjoy:

You’re in San Francisco now, right?

Yes, we are. We’re getting ready to roll out of our friend’s house here shortly after this interview, doing a little laundry today. Domestic bliss, right?

You’re almost in the home stretch of the tour, how have the shows been?

They’ve been phenomenal, to tell you the truth. I think New York was real good, D.C. was real good. Chicago. The ones, not the major cities, they’ve been okay, but the major cities have definitely been fucking slamming. Packed show, people really into it.

I would assume San Francisco would be pretty decent.

Oh yeah, man. I’m sure tonight, we got the pick in L.A. Weekly, I don’t know if you saw that. We’re picked as number to see The Obsessed in L.A. overthe-obsessed-2 like Venom Inc. and a bunch of bands, so that’s exciting. And obviously we got signed to Relapse.

Yes, congrats. How did Relapse come about?

Our manager and us, we were searching around for labels and such and we had a lot of stuff on the table, well not a lot, about five or six labels that were interested. We had a couple of European ones that were interested too. We were thinking, basically, we thought it’d be best to keep it near where we live. Relapse is right out of Philly. We figured it would be smart to keep the label in our backyard and go with Relapse. We figured they were going to sign Spirit Caravan a real long time ago but things, obviously the band went defunct and didn’t get a chance to sign with them. They were looking at us back then, a long time ago. Now they’re in our backyard and we’re real excited, and they’re real excited and we’re going to make a new Obsessed record. It’ll probably be out next year, January or February. There’s a lot of time to record it and get it mastered properly, and we’re going to hit you with some new songs, a few old ones and it’s going to be pretty good.

I was checking out the demo of “Be the Night” and I saw Spirit Caravan play that last year at the Vultures of Volume festival.

Yeah, it’s kind of a shock, because people are expecting it to be like a total doom thing, but The Obsessed, man, back in the day was kind of on that punky edge too. Not just all gloom and doom. There were up-tempo songs kind of like Saint Vitus. We’re going on that older, faster tempo songs too. Didn’t it kind of throw you for a little bit of a shock, when you heard the tune? Man, this is up-tempo. This isn’t sludge or something.

You opened the Spirit Caravan set with it at Vultures of Volume and it was over before anyone knew what was going on.

Right, exactly. It hits fast, right? Now you have time to sit there and listen to it.

Was getting back to doing faster songs, was that a factor in changing from Spirit Caravan to The Obsessed?

Not really. Me and Wino have been playing for so long now. When we first formed Spirit Caravan, we just played a lot of The Obsessed songs and a lot of Spirit Caravan songs formed into The Obsessed songs that were going to be on The Church Within 2, per se. But obviously that record never came out and Shine formed. When we first formed Shine, we didn’t have any original songs for Shine or Spirit Caravan because we just started hooking up with riffs, so basically I told Wino, let’s just start playing some of the Obsessed songs. So we were fucking around with “Concrete Cancer.” We played a lot of those and some of the old ones too, “The Way She Fly.” These ones that were in the past catalog, basically. Just start riffing around. Then we formed these songs, but we took a lot of the ideas that was gonna be that record and we used those songs on Spirit Caravan’s Jug Fulla Sun. That’s the way that went. “Melancholy Gray,” “Fear’s Machine,” etc.

How has the writing been this time around? Where are these songs coming from?

These are new riffs and some old stuff. We’re probably going to redo “Sodden Jackal,” because the recording was not that good. I know it’s classic, but it was kind of — we’re just going to bring it to life again. Put some fresh energy into it. So it’ll sound a little different, the recording will be a lot crisper, obviously (laughs) in 2016. We’re bringing new life to the band with some old songs. The new writing process is a lot of — some Wino stuff he’s been working with and Sacred is probably going to be the record’s title. We’ve been playing that one too. A lot of riffs from Wino right now but I’ve got a lot of ideas, we’re going to mix and match. I consider us the Paul McCartney and John Lennon of stoner- doom rock (laughs). Then with our new fucking drummer, fucking Brian, man. It’s fucking great, dude.

You’re hitting all my marks. Tell me more about bringing Brian in on drums.

That’s the reason too – Brian has known Wino since 1983. Way back when he was a kid before he even played drums. So he’s been inspired by Scott all his life. Man, he was working for Eddie Gulli, the old Obsessed drummer back in the day. Man, he just hits on all cylinders man. It was like the porridge and stuff when you go into the house, one is too cold, one is too hot. Just right. Brian man, he hits the mark. He’s been with Scott for such a long time. He lives about 10 minutes from me, the stars and moons kind of lined up. Now that we got Brian, man, it’s like a power three-piece now. We’re kicking ass.

Do you have definite recording plans yet, do you know who you’re recording with?

Yes, we’re going to record with Frank Marchand.

The Punisher.

The Punisher, exactly! I’m not sure on the name of his studio but we’re goingmaryland doom fest 2016 poster to go up there for about two weeks. We’re going to sleep there, we’re going to use Rob Queen on it as well, the guy that made the demo. He’ll be in on the recording process too. So we’ve got Frank The Punisher and Rob Queen working on this shit, who did the Relapse record for Deceased, Luck of the Corpse.

That’s going back.

Oh yeah, one of the first Relapse Records releases ever.

When do you start?

A little bit after [Maryland] Doom Fest.

I know you’re not short on Maryland doom history yourself but to be in the band The Obsessed and to be working with Wino again, how are you feeling at this point? What does it mean to you to be in The Obsessed?

I gotta say, it’s a blessing to be working with Scott anyway. Me and him have had a long run and we’ve worked together a long time. To me, it means the world, man. It’s pretty much a dream come true. Playing with Scott and being in Spirit Caravan, that was a dream come true too. But then, this kind of steps it up even more. This is almost like stepping back in my musical history that got me to where I played other music with the other bands, or whatever project I do. I’ll always have a little bit of The Obsessed and Pentagram in me. Those were the bands that, and Asylum too. Unorthodox, whatever. The old-school, before everybody was into it. That’s what got me to be kind be an O.G. of this genre. From listening to that and seeing this music so far back, and then watching all the other music, Kyuss, everyone of them that’s been really successful. QOTSA, everyone, High on Fire. All of the ones, Sleep. They’re all kids compared to Scott, you know? And Pentagram. They’re the real O.G.s of that shit. Obviously Black Sabbath, Blue Cheer, Jimi Hendrix (laughs), those are the real O.G.s, but the ones after that. Being lumped in with that kind of legendary thing, man, it’s really humbling and really cool man. Can’t say much more about it than that. It’s just overwhelmingly cool.

Tell me about headlining Maryland Doom Fest. I don’t know where else you guys would play on that bill, but that’s got to be special too, right?

Just Internal Void, Place of Skulls, all the bands. I’m really stoked to see them all. I’m sure all of those who’ve been touring, whatever they’re doing, going to their jobs every day and just really psyched for the fest. I’m sure they’re fucking stoked to see us as well. After all this touring that we’re doing, when we come back we’re going to be firing on all cylinders obviously.

I’m looking forward to it.

We’ll try to blow some minds for sure.

Anything confirmed for the fall? Europe maybe?

We’re working on that. We’re really focused on recording the record right now and getting all the songs in order and to really — our whole, we’re building up our thing. But I don’t think touring for this year, we might probably do the States again. Right now we’re just really focused on recording and getting this deal clarified — we’ve already signed the contract. We’re on Relapse for sure, but with the song release and all of that. But making a video, we’re going to make a cool video. Be on horses, you never know. Riding motorcycles through space or some shit, you never know.

If the video isn’t that I’m going to be a little disappointed now. You gotta make that one happen.

Okay (laughs). I’ll try, man. If Red Fang can do their shit, you never know what we can do.

The Obsessed, “Be the Night” demo

The Obsessed on Thee Facebooks

The Obsessed on Twitter

Relapse Records

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One Response to “The Obsessed Interview with Dave Sherman: On Sacred Ground”

  1. ron says:

    I like Sherman… he’s one of my favorite singers. And, Earthride is my favorite doom band. Even he would consider that blasphemy, but you can’t fake what you love.

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