High On Fire interview
High On Fire
And The Art Of Getting Known
It’s the middle of August, and High On Fire drummer Des Kensel and frontman/guitarist Matt Pike have been swooped up from their Oakland homes and flown to Philadelphia. Philly (Upper Darby to be exact) is home to Relapse Records — High On Fire’s label — and where Kensel and Pike spend the next few days talking to press about their new album, Death Is This Communion, which was released September 18th.
Appearing: October 19th at Double Door in Chicago.
In the past Kensel and Pike would have just done the phone interviews from home, on their cell phones, whatever. There were press requests, but not enough to warrant being flown across the country for multiple days of phone chats with multiple rock scribes. But that was before 2005’s Blessed Black Wings, the group’s third full-length and the one that more or less introduced the world to one of today’s best metal bands. In-the-know metalheads have long been familiar with them and Pike’s old band Sleep, but Blessed Black Wings largely snuck up on those outside that circle. Those people later jumped on the HOF bandwagon, drowning the trio (then including bassist Joe Preston) in accolades, and are the reason Kensel is talking to IE on one of Relapse’s office phones and not from the comfort of his couch.
Not wanting to take the whole thing too seriously, the drummer jokingly announces, “Our presence is known.” In all seriousness, though, it is. Kensel knows High On Fire won’t sneak up on anybody this time. They can’t — Pike was in Rolling Stone for heck’s sake! The grizzly voiced and nimble-fingered frontman made the “New Guitar Heroes” list in the February 22nd edition of the magazine, where veteran writer David Fricke said “in a single power chord, Pike sounds like 10 Tony Iommis” and called Sleep’s Dopesmoker ‘”Iron Man’ on killer weed.”
It was a trip, Kensel says, to see his bandmate featured along with John Mayer (Pike and Tool’s Adam Jones were the only metal guitarists included), John Frusciante, Jack White, and Nels Cline, but not because he thought Pike was undeserving, more like underexposed. And definitely underpaid.
“We were looking at it’s just like, ‘damn man, you’re probably the only dude in here who is still scrounging rent money and doesn’t have a car,'” Kensel laughs.
Release a killer album, score exposure, create expectations. The Rolling Stone piece proved High On Fire aren’t just faves of long-haired hessians anymore. They’re now on the radars of more respectable, mainstream types. That would mean pressure for some, but it’s still new enough to be exhilarating for Kensel. “Seems like people are pretty psyched about the tour and the release date and stuff. There’s definitely excitement,” Kensel says. “Since little kids we’ve dreamed about being professional musicians, not like rock gods, but it’s want we want to do. We want to make good music and get it out to people and have them enjoy it as much as we do. We’re glad there is a lot of hype around it.”
As of press time, it’s still weeks before Communion is available in stores, so little critical feedback is available. But anybody who says this is anything but the best High On Fire album to date is cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs.
The first thing you’ll notice is the songwriting. Like High On Fire material before it, Communion is a battering ram of heavy, but this time it’s also very carefully crafted. Blessed Black Wings and songs like “Devilution,” the title track, and “Brother In The Wind,” tunes that had traces of hooks and choruses and memorable, repeating moments, showed the band had this capability. Communion, then, is the natural next step. “Fury Whip,” “Turk,” and the excellent title track are razor sharp, intensely focused, and perfect representations of the album as a whole.
“I think that’s the big difference right there, there’s actually like some more catchy choruses,” Kensel explains. “The songwriting is better, it just . . . it just grabs you more — even the title track, I think the chorus from that just gets stuck in your head.”
The other thing sure to be obvious to anyone familiar with HOF’s catalog is Pike’s improvement as a vocalist. Solely a guitarist in Sleep (and their predecessor Asbestos Death), Pike didn’t step into a frontman role until forming High On Fire in 1998 and was really learning on the job through 2000’s The Art Of Self Defense and ’02’s Surrounded By Thieves. Even on Blessed Black Wings, Pike’s raspy howl was difficult to discern without liner notes.
The raspy howl is still there on Communion, but Pike shows growth by leaps and bounds as a vocalist, something he predicted in May of last year when he spoke with IE. Then promoting Kalas, a Bay Area act he was fronting, Pike thought the chance to solely focus on singing would ultimately make him better.
“I started singing with them and it was really good vocal practice for me,” Pike said at the time. “It’s improved my range; it’s improved my breathing; I can hold a note a lot longer now — I’m in key more. It’s just improved my singing a lot, it really has.”
Kalas was short-lived, splitting up soon after releasing their impressive self-titled debut, but the impact on Pike can be heard on Communion.
“It helped, definitely,” Kensel says about Pike’s time with Kalas. “It helped him get more confidence in his singing ability.”
Having Jack Endino produce the project didn’t hurt, either. The band hooked up with Endino (Nirvana, Soundgarden) through new bass player Jeff Matz, whose former band, Zeke, worked extensively with him. Blessed Black Wings was recorded with Steve Albini here in Chicago, and though Albini nailed the raw, primal sound High On Fire wanted at the time, Kensel thinks Endino’s more hands-on approach was exactly what the band, and specifically Pike, needed this time.
“Writing this record, a few times I would say to Matt ‘maybe try a different key’ or maybe ‘let’s change the key of the riff to fit your vocals better,’ so we kind of wrote around his range a little bit more on this one.
“And then getting in the studio and just having Jack’s input [helped]. He really pushed him a lot more, to get the good takes,” Kensel says, “or have him stop if it’s 4 in the morning and the bottle of whiskey is empty and Matt’s like ‘Fuck it, let’s just keep going, man.’ Jack is like ‘No, let’s get some rest and start tomorrow.'”
Kensel insists that didn’t happen nearly as much during Communion recording sessions as prior projects. Always known as a hard-partying outfit, High On Fire are trying to tone it down, kind of.
“For me personally, I don’t drink before I play now, which I think my playing has gotten a lot better because of that,” Kensel says with a slight chuckle. “For the takes and the studio, yeah, we’re trying to be a little more professional about it. Plus, I just think the new music is getting a bit more complicated, too.
“I mean, we still like to, you know, hang out and party and stuff,” he clarifies. “We’re just trying to have somewhat of a professional approach to it all.
“We have to earn our liquor now.”
— Trevor Fisher
