Might Could Interview with Erik Larson: Dixie Doom and Moonshine
A little while back I did an On the Radar profile of Richmond, Virginia southern metallers Might Could. The four-piece outfit boasts current and former members of Lord (that’s bassist The Rob), Facedowninshit, Inter Arma, and Alabama Thunderpussy — the latter being rhythm guitarist and one of the South’s best heavy riff writers, Erik Larson. His being involved in a number of projects (Parasytic, Birds of Prey, Freeman, Hail!Hornet, and so on) as well as lead guitarist TJ Childers touring with Inter Arma and playing in War Graves — both six-stringers handle vocals — preclude Might Could from being a full-time project for the moment, but their first demo and short tour made waves nonetheless, and I figured now was as good a time as any to get Larson on the phone to discuss.
When we spoke, he was on the road driving for Relapse Records technical death metallers Obscura (the rules being: “there’s no smoking, whatever drugs they bring they have to be able to eat it, and there’s no rap music in my van, ever.”) on their US tour. Nonetheless, Larson openly and honestly discussed how Might Could formed around himself and drummer Ryan Wolfe, their plans, how he balances time between his sundry bands and real life, etc.
Q&A is after the jump. Please enjoy.
How did Might Could get together?
Pretty much when ATP broke up, I went full-force into Parasytic. I’d been playing a lot more drums, so I wasn’t thinking about trying to play guitar in a band. The drummer Ryan Wolfe, who played in Facedowninshit, was moving to Richmond. He called me up – we’d been friends since the early ‘90s – and he was like, “Hey man, I’m moving to Richmond, I’m looking to jam. I know you ain’t doing shit since ATP broke up, so we’re gonna be in a band together.” I was like, “Okay…” and he was like, “Find other people to play with,” meaning find a bass player, find a lead guitar player. I was like, “Okay” (laughs). I knew one thing taken from my experience with ATP was I did not want to have a lead singer. I’m sick and tired of dealing with the fucking egos, and especially after my experience with Kyle [Thomas], I just didn’t want to deal with it. So I needed to learn to play guitar and sing at the same time. That was the biggest challenge, learning how to do that, but I pretty much just looked around town at people I thought were talented and good players but who are also relaxed people. Like, “Hey man, we’re gonna make it!” No. We’re gonna write songs, we’re gonna hang out, drink some moonshine and have a good time. That’s why I asked Rob, the bass player. He was in Monarch for a while, and Lord from Fredericksburg. TJ, he’s a drummer, but he’s one of those assholes who can play an instrument better than anyone you know. He’s a killer guitar player, lead player. I’m pretty confident I can write a pretty good song, but I’m not really a lead guitar player, so I wanted to have that. I asked him if he’d be interested, and we got together and everyone started jamming, and it worked out really well. At first it was predominantly my songs and now TJ’s brought in a few songs. It’s a nice balance, which is what I was looking for. I wasn’t trying to be a leader of a band or anything. I just wanted to have a group of guys who hang out, drink some beers together and also play some killer songs. It’s worked out.
So the songs on the demo, that’s mostly your stuff?
Yeah. “Let ‘em up Easy,” is TJ’s song, but the other three are mine. We have about 11 songs at this point, so we’ll try and do a record. Initially, I was like, “Okay, we’re gonna try and shop this shit, get picked up, then go in and do an album.” After a couple weeks of trying to do that, I was like, “Man, this is stupid. We need to just go and play.” People respond to sincerity, so if we’re a good band, labels’ll come. I’m not worried about it. Once I get home from tour, we’ll probably record an album and see what happens from there.
How are you balancing your time? You mentioned Parasytic, and you’re in about 13 other bands.
(Laughs) Yeah. I have a pocket calendar (laughs), and I write everything down, and above and beyond being in bands, I’m a father and a husband, so I have to run everything by the boss to make sure she’s cool with me leaving or doing whatever I’m doing. She’s real supportive. She met me when I was still in Avail, and she was on tour with us, so she knows what she got into, but the older you get, the more considerate you have to be towards your partner. Especially when there’s children involved.
Of course, but I mean is Might Could your number one priority band-wise?
I don’t know. It’s kind of weird, prioritizing the bands. In Richmond I have three working bands I participate in. I’ve got Parasytic, which would probably be the number one group, because we’ve got the most going on right now. Then Might Could, we do stuff, and TJ plays in Inter Arma, and they’re touring a lot this year, so that kind of by default makes Might Could on the back burner for everybody, but we do what we can when we can. I play, in Charleston, a band called Freeman, which is basically the lineup from the first two records of Avail, with a different singer. We just recorded a record, so that’s gonna take off a little bit. I take it as it comes and I’m honest with everyone that I play music with, saying, “Hey, this is my schedule, this is what I’m doing, and if we want to do something, we need to plan it way ahead of time.” I have Birds of Prey playing Maryland Deathfest this year, and after that, I go to do a two-week West Coast tour with Mourn. I don’t know. It gets all jumbled.
Tell me about singing and playing guitar at the same time. Was that hard for you to do?
Initially. In ATP, I always did gang vocal backups, so back then it was a matter of, “Alright, as long as my right hand is doing the same thing my voice is doing, I can do this, no problem.” But with Might Could, I’m actually singing counterproductive to what my hands are doing, so yeah, it was difficult to learn how to do that. I used to sing and play drums in Kilara, so I kind of have some experience with the five-way coordination thing. That probably helped, but it’s still a very unique thing. With drums, it’s easy. You’ve got big targets, you just aim and hit. With guitar, you’ve got these tiny little targets your fingers need to hit, and if you fuck it up, it’s really noticeable. It takes practice. I have mad appreciation for people who can sing and play guitar really well at the same time. It’s unique. Especially people who do it without picks, like Lindsey Buckingham or Greg Strzempka from Raging Slab. They play with their fingers and sing their asses off at the same time. How the fuck do you do that? It’s crazy. But it is what it is. I’m still learning. I’m still trying to figure this shit out. There’s one song in particular we have that, the music’s done, I just have to figure out the patterns. It’s a really staccato song, and figuring out how to sing to it is kind of kicking my ass right now.
I guess at that point you just practice until it’s muscle memory, right?
Yeah. I tried to lame out, like, “Alright, you sing this one, TJ,” and he was like, “Nah nah nah, that’s all you, man” (laughs).
Worth a shot anyway.
Totally.
Do you have a preference, guitar or drums? It’s almost evenly spread throughout your projects.
Yeah, they’re different experience. Drums are more of a physical, visceral exercise. Especially with Parasytic, everything’s super-fast, a lot of double bass, but in Hail!Hornet, it’s a little more rocking. There is double bass going on a lot on the new record, but in Morne, Morne is very mid-tempo, and it’s very Dave Grohl. It’s almost easy just to get lost in it. Guitar, with Might Could it’s a different experience because I’m singing and my head is somewhere else. My body’s going along. In Birds of Prey, playing guitar in that band, it’s a little more intellectual, because I have to remember things and articulate things in a more metal way. Every band’s different, every instrument’s different. It’s fun. I like the challenge of trying to do different things.
You mentioned Hail!Hornet. There’s a new record?
Yeah. I actually finished a year ago and it took Vince [Burke; producer, also guitarist for Beaten Back to Pure] a while to finish it, to get T-Roy and Dixie to come and do their parts. But it’s done and I’m going to be hand-delivering copies to Southern Lord and Matt Jacobson at Relapse in the next week or so. Because it was so long ago when I finished, when I got it back from Vince, I was like, “Wow, I did that? That’s awesome” (laughs). It’s just a really, really mean, aggressive album. We had a song that’s not on the record, but we might use it as a bonus track or something, that Randy Blythe sang on it. That’s one of those bands, like Birds of Prey, where we’re more than likely not gonna tour or play shows. We’ll just make a good record and then hopefully the label can recoup.
Is next more recording with Might Could?
Yeah, definitely. This month I’m out driving these guys, and TJ’s touring with Inter Arma as well. We get back in April. My guess would be July or maybe even if we can squeeze it in, in May we might try and record a record. Ryan understands the situation with me and TJ constantly touring and it frustrates the shit out of him, but he’s definitely like, “Alright, come on, come on, we gotta do something. Every time we try to do something you guys are leaving, come on.” We’ll try and play some shows in May and hopefully record. We’ll see. We share a practice space with this band Windhand, which is the original second guitar player in ATP and one of our ex-roadies. They’re really good like early-High on Fire, early-Pentagram devil worship with a female singer. The lead player in that band, Garret [Morris], is the one who recorded the demo. He just recently got a 16-track reel-to-reel machine, and I pulled out all this gear from my father-in-law’s collection, so I’m helping him to build a studio. Basically he owes me some free studio time (laughs). That makes it easier to do. The same thing with trying to shop the demo around. Small Stone instantly was like, “Yeah, we’ll totally put out a record by you guys, but we’re not gonna give you any money to record,” because that’s how Scott rolls. Whatever. We’ll see what happens. We’ll get a record done and hopefully send it out.
Would you put it out on Small Stone?
Yeah totally. He’s got decent distro. He doesn’t really do all that much for you, but he puts it out there. He leaves it up to the band to do the promotion, i.e. touring and stuff like that, which is a totally honest and legit way to do things, but you have to be more invested.
I had wanted to ask about recording the demo and who had done it, if it was Vince.
No, Vince didn’t do it. Vince is like two hours from me, door to door, and I would love to have done it, but I have to pay Vince. Garret did it for free because he wanted to record us, and it’s right there in the practice space, so it’s really easy. I would love to do a Might Could record with Vince, it’s just we don’t have the money (laughs). I’m sure I could fuckin’ lean on Vince and be like, “Hey man, come on, just hook me up, give me a free session,” and he probably would, but that’s not really fair to him. He works his ass off. Like with the last Birds record, he worked on it all Fall while I was on tour with Parasytic, and every dime I got from Relapse I gave to him, because he earned it. Having produced and stuff like that, I know what it entails. Sitting for an hour trying to EQ this one particular thing. It’s a pain in the ass. If I ever get money, yeah, we’ll work with Vince. For now, we’ll probably stick with Garrett. He’s pretty good at what he does; it’s just a matter of spending more time with him.
And building a studio is fun. If you’ve got the opportunity to do that and bring in the equipment and know everything you’re working on, it’s a great thing to do.
Yeah. My father-in-law passed in January, and he ran the theater department’s sound for State College of Pennsylvania for 30 years. Any time they would upgrade, he would just take the old gear and put it in his garage. I just gave Garrett four patch bays and several old ‘60s compressors, a bunch of gear I brought home from that. Hopefully it’s gonna work out pretty well and we’ll have a pretty cool studio. I just hope people get to hear the Might Could stuff and dig it. It’s more like back to what ATP originally was, which was a bunch of people hanging out and playing songs with a little bit of punk edge to it.
Would ATP comparisons bother you?
I don’t give a shit. Whatever gets people in the door. Honestly (laughs). I have faith enough in the songs and in the people I play music with that I’m not worried about people misrepresenting what we’re doing. When you see us and you hear it, it speaks for itself.
Tags: Might Could, Richmond, Unsigned bands, Virginia
