Tomorrow night, March 22, Baltimore heavyweights Sixty Watt Shaman will take the stage at the Windup Space as headliners for the Moving the Earth 2 festival. It’s a bill they share with a host of others loyal to the Doom Capitol in geography or spirit including Iron Man, Black Lung, Kingsnake and Wasted Theory, among others, and the beginning of a reunion some years in the making. Sixty Watt Shaman called it quits after the release of 2002’s Reason to Live on Spitfire Records, arguably as they hit their peak of notoriety. As bassist Rev. Jim Forrester elucidates, however, it wasn’t so simple as that. To be fair, it rarely is.

Moving the Earth 2 is the first of several fests at which Sixty Watt will appear in the coming months. They’ve been confirmed for Desertfest in both London and Berlin at the end of April, and May 3 will find them at the top of the bill at The Eye of the Stoned Goat 4 in Worcester, Massachusetts. Granted, they’ve played intermittently over the last decade, but it speaks to the continued relevance of Sixty Watt Shaman‘s studio albums that their work precedes them after all this time. Before Reason to Live served as their swansong, 2000’s Seed of Decades and 1998’s Ultra Electric positioned the Marylanders among the forerunners of what was then still a pretty deep underground. They’re a band whose influence has seeped into a lot of East Coast heavy rock, and the response to their return has been appropriately loud.

Comprised of Forrester, lead guitarist/backing vocalist Todd Ingram (who replaced Joe Selby), returned drummer Chuck Dukehart III (also of Foghound), who left in 2000, and guitarist/vocalist Daniel Soren, the reinvigorated Sixty Watt Shaman has hinted at new material of one form or another to come this year, and reissues of their past albums are in the works, though details remain to be solidified. Wherever they head after these fests, as Forrester describes in the interview that follows, the four-piece are taking a more mature, “grown-up” approach. So no, it seems they won’t be crashing on your couch this time around.

This interview was conducted a little while back, but Rev. Jim — whose involvement in post-Sixty Watt projects like Angels of Meth, Soaphammer, The Devil You Know and Serpents of Secrecy as well as his reputation as an all-around good guy precedes him — was kind enough to shed some light on how the Sixty Watt Shaman reunion came about, how it’s been getting back to work with the band, and where he thinks it might all be heading.

Please find the Q&A after the jump, and enjoy:

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