Here comes an interview with a wonderful fella - Scott Simpson of Beneath Oblivion.
Hey man!
Let’s begin! We haven’t heard anything from Beneath Oblivion for awhile; why is
that and are you preparing something new?
Hello there
PhillO)))! We haven’t put out any releases for a few years because we’ve been
writing new stuff and playing shows. We’re not one of those bands which can
just churn out a bunch of run-of-the-mill riffs and songs. It takes time and
sincerity, and you really have to get into that black corner of your headspace
which is hard to visit sometimes because you don’t always see things you want
to see, and it’s not exactly a comfortable place to be. Furthermore, if I was
always in that mode then I don’t think I’d ever want to come into contact with
other people.. we usually have to shut ourselves in to make these sounds
happen. Now we have a whole bunch of material to be released soon. It’s always
feast or famine brother..
Does the thick beard help you improve the skill of writing doom songs?
Haha. Not
particularly, its just an acceptable way to look unkempt.. It’s hard to shave
everyday when you’re on tour or when you’re mind is elsewhere. Plus it seems
that when I have a beard people are much more polite to me. If I’m clean shaven
people will treat me like a child, or they talk
down to me like I don’t know anything.. just
a strange observation I’ve made over the years.
What influences your songs the most and what is reflected in them? What kind of muse
comes to you?
I get influenced
by everyday life. Living, loving, hating, having to go to a shitty job.. all of
it finds ways to shape the music. We also enjoy a fair amount of classical and
sometimes contemporary literature. I just got off of a Cormac McCarthy kick,
and recently Allen loaned me Hubert Selby Jr’s “Last Exit to Brooklyn,” so I’ve
been enjoying that. Sometimes when I’m in a rut, just reading a few passages
can put me right back into the muse and motivation.. It helps to see that someone
else who’s life was a complete mess was able to get up out of his drug stupor
and write something incredible.
I’ll dare to suppose that you like to listen to the loudly playing Black
Sabbath on a tape recorder and cook barbeque. And what do you think about their
last album? Did you like it?
I do love to
listen to some Black Sabbath, and pass the joint while turning some steaks or
slow cooking some ribs.. I wish I could cook meat in the apartment I’m living
in. My girlfriend doesn’t like me using her utensils for that. We make
compromises, and so I listen to a lot of Dead Can Dance, Pallbearer, Khanate,
or Goatsnake while cooking pastas, soups, and Asian cuisines. Maybe I’ll have
to come to your place and we’ll cook some porterhouse steaks with scallops,
crab legs, stuffed jalapenos and potatoes.. We’ll drink Scotch and smoke some
good herb. That latest Black Sabbath album has some killer riffs and guitar
tones.. Anything Tony plays is golden, though I’ve gotta say Ozzy’s vocals and
lyrics on that record are terrible! I liked the last record they made with
Ronnie James Dio a whole lot more.. It was doomy as
fuck.
I’ve heard that the name Beneath Oblivion came from a novel that was
written by one of the band members. What was the story about?
I came up with
the name Beneath Oblivion back in 2003 when this band was in it’s infancy and I
was jamming with a bunch of different people. I’ve written a lot of short
stories, prose, poems, etc, but I haven’t yet finished any novels. The story of
the name was that it was a line in a poem/prose piece I’d written.. something
like ‘to go beneath oblivion and...’ I really don’t remember, but what I do
recall is seeing those two words together and thinking about how it spoke
volumes while saying very little. To be beneath oblivion is to be less than
nothing, it’s to be so low, it’s to be non-existent. It’s being in the darkest
spot life hands you. It evoked the same feeling that was coming out in the
music and in the harsh vocal style.. It seemed to be a perfect fit and still
is.
Do you remember your first concert? What emotions did you have while
standing in front of people on a stage for the first time?
My first concert
was AC/DC when I was 13 years old. I never thought I’d play music at that
level, but it restored my desire to pick that guitar back up even though I’d
had a bit of a struggle to learn how to play, and I’m still doing it today.
Years later I saved my money to get a Gibson SG because I wanted to play in a
riff band just like Angus Young and Tony Iommi.
And now a bit about the band members. What do you value the most in each
other and what do you hate? What makes you stick to each other?
Well I can say
that I love all of the other members of my band, past and present. Keith is
like my rock, that I can always count on to pick me up when I feel like I can’t
go any further or do anything. He’s someone that it genuinely feels good to be
around and he helps me out immensely with things even though he has little time
and is just trying to get his ass finished with college. Allen has riffs for
days, and is someone I always kind of looked up to. We’ve got a long wild
history, and having that second guitar there just makes the music so much
heavier. Jimi, the new guy on drums is someone I’ve been friends with for a
while.. he loves and knows funeral doom, noise and all around minimalist music,
so he’s a great fit! As far as things I hate, I’ve gotta say I wish there was
more time in the day and that we had all the means and money to do this and nothing
else, but then I guess it wouldn’t be a struggle, and I suppose in that case it
wouldn’t take on the same meaning anymore. That’s just the way she goes I
guess.
What would you call the hardest and the tensest part in your music life
(playing live, getting up early with hangover having to go somewhere else,
sleeping in tight and smelly tour buses, etc)?
Some of those
problems we’d be lucky to have, like being on an actual tour bus.. Scraping
money together every month to pay for the rehearsal space is tough, doing
everything yourself is tough, when you see some shitty bands pop up in under 3
years without a full-length record, but start touring the US and Europe and
become the darlings of the press because they are paid off.. that’s pretty
disheartening for a minute, but then I realize those bands are just dildos, and
won’t be around for 10 years or so. That’s when you can call yourself a real
band, when you’ve stuck it out a while and you’ve stayed true to your ethics
and vision. Thank goodness for zines and folks like yourself who do it for the
love.
What do you think about critique on the Internet? How does it help the
band’s creativity? And do you do what you like despite other people’s opinion?
I never really
read things about myself or my band on the internet because it doesn’t matter
to me whether people like me or not, I’m still going to be playing. I didn’t
get into this to make friends, or be part of a stupid scene where everyone
strokes each other off; I’m just playing doom. I probably should be more
social, but that’s not me. I don’t give a shit about anyone else. My only
competition is with myself. I don’t typically care enough to impress anyone
else because I’m doing this for me, and if someone doesn’t like it they can go
listen to some hipster bullshit.
Who of your stage colleagues stands out for you among little-known bands?
Which one of them deserves being heard by everyone?
I really dig
Bloodmoon from California, Usnea from Portland,OR , Destroyer of Light from
Austin, TX, In the Company of Serpents from Denver, Communion of Theives from
El Paso, Twingiant from Phoenix, Fister from St Louis, Tombstalker from
Lexington, KY, Seider & Panopticon from Kentucky, Black Tar Prophet from
Nashville, Before the Eyewall from Columbus,OH. Coelacanth, Grey Host,
Highgate, Mala In Se, Machinations of Fate, Faithxtractor, Estuary, the
Vladimirs, Opium Doom Cult, Thorns of the Carrion.. All of which are from
Cincinnati. Check them all out.
What band do you think is the heaviest in the sludge/doom community?
That’s a tough
one.. We’ve played with Jucifer, and I’d have to say they are heavy as fuck!
When I listen to Monarch! or Moss I’m always pretty floored. Disembowelment,
Meth Drinker, Corrupted, Winter, Warhorse, Grief.. It’s real tough to say.
The sound on your last album was very heavy and strong. Did you record it
at a professional studio or at home? By the way, what instruments do you use
and what guitar pedals can you advise to novice musicians?
FROM MAN TO DUST
was recorded in an old factory which used to manufacture shoes during the World
War II era. We tracked all of the drums in a big giant concrete room with mics
all over the place while the guitar amps were isolated to get a tight sound,
and then overdubbed in the big room to get the same massive sound as the drums.
We mixed it with our guy Andy Perkins, then we had Billy Anderson master it.
I’ve gotta say we had no clue how it would turn out, because the whole thing
was kind of an experiment, but the result was pretty damn good. Our newer tunes
SAVIOR NEMESIS REDEEMER (coming on a split 7” with Fister) and THE LIAR’S CROSS
(coming on a split 10” with Mouth of the Architect) were recorded in a studio
in Northern Kentucky by our bud Marc Kennedy, then mixed and mastered by Andy
Perkins.
My rig is a
custom made cabinet with 4x12” Celestion guitar speakers and 2x12” bass
speakers by a Cincinnati company called Omega Enclosures, with a Laney GH-100L
head powering the guitar speakers and an old school (from before they started
making them with cheap components) SWR 300 Workingman Series bass head powering
the bass speakers so I get an extra layer of sludge and filth in my sound. I
have a couple boost and distortion pedals I absolutely love by a boutique
company based out of Arkansas called Taurus Pedals. They are about to send us a
bunch of new pedals I can’t wait to try out! I’ve also been using a pedal which
adds a leslie organ effect to my guitar by Earthquaker Devices out of Akron,
Ohio, and other than that I try to keep my sound pretty dry, because if you add
too many effects you start sacrificing heaviness, tone and sheer cut through
sound. For guitars I usually use my ‘06 Les Paul Studio, which I’ve hot-rodded
out with some Seymour Duncan Invader pickups in the bridge and DiMarzio Super
Distortion pickups in the neck.. My backup guitar is a Fender Telecaster, but
honestly, whenever I’m playing that or any other guitar I’m wishing that I was
playing my Les Paul.
Thank you very much from Robust Fellow! Don’t be shy, add something in
conclusion))
Thank you
PhillO))), I appreciate what you do, and I appreciate all of the positive
support we’ve been getting from Ukraine, Russia (I wish the two of you would
get along :-)), Croatia, Czech Republic, all over the Balkans and throughout
Europe. It seems that in the States everybody listens to what the big magazines
and media outlets owned by larger corporations tell them to listen to, whereas
the smaller zines go quite unnoticed by other Americans but Europeans catch onto
the good bands with enthusiasm. It’s quite strange. I blame it on our fat,
short-cut taking, non-thinking fast food culture. I find it quite interesting
as well how our brand of extreme doom metal has been embraced in currently and
formerly wartorn regions, even in places throughout the Middle East. What
exactly does that mean? I’m hoping it means people in places of oppression and
totalitarianism, or places with a brutal past are able to listen to this bleak
music and move forward into doing the best they can with what is available.
Abandon all ideology, religion, and government allegiance to reach
enlightenment; get real high and listen to the FROM MAN TO DUST album in the
dark. It’ll take you places and it’ll help you work things out before you stand
back up and press forward. We’ll have a new record out soon that will take you
on a similar journey.
(Questions by Alexander Bilous & PhillO)))
Receive the heaviness during Beneath Oblivion's US Tour in May 2015:
