So it’s 2014… If you haven’t noticed. Time for introspection and to look forward with resolution. Time to get back in shape. Time to get your finances in check. Time to go back to school. Time to get a matching Dungeons & Dragons tattoo with the singer/guitarist of one of the most bad-ass bands in the Pacific-Northwest! (Hell, let’s just say one of the most bad-ass bands out right now.)
Now you may say to yourself, “Well, Self, only a couple of these things are on my list of New Year’s resolutions.” Well, you’d be right, because guess who’s resolution it is to get a gnarly randomly-selected, matching tat from the D & D Monster Manual?! This Guy! With Jon Weisnewski of Seattle’s sludge/metal act Sandrider set be the recipient of the other tat.
In case you missed it, B.G.M. co-founder Jon and I just ranked Sandrider’s November release Godhead, # 14 of our Top 50 Albums of 2013. In my brief review of the record I said that Godhead is such an awesome and heavy release that it’s “the kind of record that you could play on a pair of headphones and still feel like a fucking bad-ass if you were wearing a knit sweater, a tutu, and ruby-red slippers in 30 degree weather!” And boy do I mean it, cause I may have tried… Anywho, I love this album and was able to get in touch with Weisnewski recently to shoot the shit about the new album, all things Seattle, and lay the ground work for our matching tattoos.
B.G.M. – First off, I co-founder Jon Robertson and I are huge Seattle Seahawks fans and we happened to be watching their game on Monday Night Football and saw a featurette of you guys playing live during a lead out to commercial break. I was pumped when I saw it! How did that opportunity come about?
Jon Weisnewski – It was luck, pure and simple. ESPN was planning on doing a quick spot for the broadcast to see how a Seattle rock band stacked up against Seahawks fans in a raw decibel comparison, and they happened to be in town filming on the night of our album release show. Somebody tipped them off that we were a loud rock band and probably what they were looking for (thank you kind stranger!!) so they got in touch and sent out some camera guys to get footage.
We were of course excited, but I was a little skeptical it was actually going to air, just because… this kind of stuff just never happens to us. But there we were in the third quarter! I’m still in slight disbelief about it. Bonus points that the Seahawks destroyed that game too!
B.G.M. – I saw in a recent online poll for a Seattle-centric site, it was voted that if Sandrider’s music was a Seahawks player it would be Marshawn Lynch because the sound is so “beastly”. Care to weigh in on who your vote would be for?
J.W. – If you’re going to make me draw an analogy, I’m going to have to go with head coach Pete Carroll. Not because we’re “coaches” or bosses or anything, but because despite the fact that we’re just showing up on a lot of people’s radars, the band members have actually been around and working hard in various groups for a long time. There’s kind of a “hard work paying off” vibe that I think is comparable.
Also, he is always smiling, which I love, and for me playing in Sandrider makes me smile a lot too. It’s a slightly different vibe than Akimbo which was more about aggression and explosions. Sandrider has this rock & roll groove mixed in with the other heavy/aggressive/yelling stuff that feels familiar and good.
So your sophomore album Godhead dropped a couple of months ago and I have to say that it absolutely just flat-out kick some serious ass. How would you describe the vibe of this record in comparison to your first release?
It’s hard for me to answer questions like that because I’m so close to the songs. I wrote them, worked on them with the band, worked on the lyrics, recorded them, both albums are extremely personal to me so I don’t know if I can accurately put my finger on a big difference in vibe between the two albums. The group of songs we wrote for Godhead definitely have a little more of a traditional composition, in the sense that there’s more verse/chorus/verse/chorus/solo/chorus type junk.
We had more time to work with Matt (Bayles) on the production this time around so the album sounds more polished than the first one, which resonates with some people. Some people prefer the production of the first one too, which I understand, but personally I’ve always preferred a more polished sounding record. I guess the short answer would be “kick ass, in different ways, but still kick ass.”
During the time between the self titled release and Godhead, you decided to call it quits with Akimbo which was your primary focus for a long while. How has changing to focusing exclusively on Sandrider’s sound impacted the way you shaped this record?
We definitely had more time to practice and write, but other than that it didn’t change much of anything. I think if Akimbo was still going we would have released the exact same album. It probably just would have taken us a little longer to get it out.
What is your inspiration for the lyrics in Godhead? Is there a concept to the record?
The easy answer is “nerdy bullshit”. There’s no over-arching concept or anything. I get inspiration for lyrics from the things I’m passionate about, which is sci-fi, horror, videogames, books, movies, comics, etc. There’s a lot of references to “nerd subculture” for lack of a better term. I hate that term, but it helps describe the stuff I get excited about. Making reference to videogames, comics, or hard sci fi as “nerdy” undermines the thought, passion, and straight up hard work that goes into the art form.
It’s some of the most progressive and new art happening right now. I’ve played some games and read some comics in the last few years that have hit me just as hard, if not harder, than any of the classic films, poems, paintings, books, etc. that people typically refer to as “high art”.
The cover art for the album is pretty trippy, almost a mash-up of sci-fi monster and Middle-Eastern diety. What was the inspiration for that image?
Without knowing what it is, you’re pretty right on with that guess! Jesse Roberts, our bass player, painted that. He is an incredible artist. It’s his personal interpretation of the half man half sandworm character that is the central figure in Godemperor of Dune. The lyrics for the track “Godhead” are also about that character. Godemperor of Dune is hands down my favorite installment in the Dune series. (Frank) Herbert is an insane writer. He can explode your mind with a single sentence. You’ll read that sentence over and over, put down your book, and just space out thinking about the weight and implications of that one fucking sentence.
Brian Cook of Russian Circles and Botch fame (a couple of our favorites) gave Godhead a shout out before it’s release date letting people know that this record was going to blow people away. Is he a friend of yours? Or did he just stumble across a leak? Haha.
Brian is a friend of ours, yes, and he is also a great music writer. He writes for The Stranger and possibly a few other publications that aren’t on our radar. Nik at Good to Die Records sent him an advance copy so he could write our bio that G.T.D. is using for publicity. Brian has the ability to write about music and have it not come across as obnoxious or just the same old comparisons you always read in music journalism. It’s very genuine and speaks to a lot of my sensibilities, so when I read his stuff I feel like I actually have a pretty good idea what a band might sound like before I’ve actually heard them.
So that’s how he got it. We’re mutual fans of each others’ bands. I grew up seeing Botch every other weekend, he would come out to Akimbo shows. Akimbo and These Arms Are Snakes both started to kind of take off around the same time. And obviously I love Russian Circles, I was a big fan before he joined the band and he really added something great to their sound.
So yeah he was digging on Sandrider back before our first album had really started making the rounds. In fact I remember a long time ago he wrote kind of a hype/pity piece on us that was basically “Sandrider has this awesome album and no one is releasing it. It’s just sitting there collecting dust.” Flash forward to us on ESPN in front of 15 million viewers. Haha. Thanks again Brian!
What are your favorite song or songs from the new record to play live? I am sure you are biased to all of them at the moment, but if you had to choose…
“Ruiner” is a top contender for me. We intentionally kept that song very simple and stripped down because it is just so crushing to play. It’s very much a caveman approach: “Let’s take one chord and just pound it as loud as we fucking can for as long as it doesn’t suck.” I also really like the way the dual vocals worked out on that song… we ended up adding a lot of texture with a very simple approach. Another one I love to play is “Tides”. It has this steady down beat that is relentless and really fun to add guitar accents to.
What does the upcoming tour schedule look like for you guys?
Sadly we are still pretty land locked to the pacific northwest. No big tour plans right now and our personal lives only look like they’re going to get busier. My work life will be insane through 2014, Nat (Damm, Drums) is about to have his first offspring, and Jesse just opened a new tattoo shop as a partial owner that he will be busy getting off the ground. Doesn’t leave a lot of room for romping around the world crushing heads.
Seattle is definitely known for having a super rich music scene, do you have a favorite venue in town that you feel is home?
A few months ago I would have said The Comet Tavern, hands down, but unfortunately it fell under some hard times and almost went out of business. It’s under new ownership right now and under renovation, so the jury is out on whether it will be the same place we all loved when it re-opens. Fingers crossed!
Other than that we’ve been lucky enough to play Neumos a few times, which is a great room and has a great sound system. Shout out to the Highline as well. We haven’t played Showbox Market yet, but the shows Akimbo played there were awesome and I’d love to get Sandrider on a good bill in that room.
The first time I heard Sandrider was a couple years ago when I was looking up bands similar to The Sword. You guys get all sorts of comparisons to other bands from sludge bands like Torche and The Melvins to noise rock bands like The Jesus Lizard as well as a slew of metal bands. Have you been compared to any bands that you aren’t a fan of and kind of been like “What the fuck?!”
Recently Jeff Tweedy of Wilco made a comment on stage about Sandrider being “the Stray Cats of grunge”, based on our Monday Night Football appearance. I only have partial context through word of mouth of what he was getting at, but I have a hard time seeing how that is a compliment! I say this with humility and humor… I have been guilty many times of making flippant comments on stage that I’m sure are “what the fuck” moments for other people, so in no way am I sore or brooding on it… but it definitely fits your question as a “What the fuck?!” kind of comparison.
Is there any band or artists that someone might be surprised that you like to listen to when no one else is around?
I love Goldfrapp. Abba as well. I’m a huge Abba fan. And I’ll play that shit regardless of who is around. No shame.
Lastly, would you ever get a matching tattoo with a complete stranger? If so… What should we get?
Yes. I have been wanting some classic D&D art inked on me for a long time. Shall we pick a random page from the Monster Manual?
So there it is folks. I’m in for the tat completely Jon! Lets do this! What are we getting?!
Sandrider Links:
Bandcamp
Facebook
Twitter
Related
13 Questions with Sandrider’s Jon Weisnewski
So it’s 2014… If you haven’t noticed. Time for introspection and to look forward with resolution. Time to get back in shape. Time to get your finances in check. Time to go back to school. Time to get a matching Dungeons & Dragons tattoo with the singer/guitarist of one of the most bad-ass bands in the Pacific-Northwest! (Hell, let’s just say one of the most bad-ass bands out right now.)
Now you may say to yourself, “Well, Self, only a couple of these things are on my list of New Year’s resolutions.” Well, you’d be right, because guess who’s resolution it is to get a gnarly randomly-selected, matching tat from the D & D Monster Manual?! This Guy! With Jon Weisnewski of Seattle’s sludge/metal act Sandrider set be the recipient of the other tat.
In case you missed it, B.G.M. co-founder Jon and I just ranked Sandrider’s November release Godhead, # 14 of our Top 50 Albums of 2013. In my brief review of the record I said that Godhead is such an awesome and heavy release that it’s “the kind of record that you could play on a pair of headphones and still feel like a fucking bad-ass if you were wearing a knit sweater, a tutu, and ruby-red slippers in 30 degree weather!” And boy do I mean it, cause I may have tried… Anywho, I love this album and was able to get in touch with Weisnewski recently to shoot the shit about the new album, all things Seattle, and lay the ground work for our matching tattoos.
B.G.M. – First off, I co-founder Jon Robertson and I are huge Seattle Seahawks fans and we happened to be watching their game on Monday Night Football and saw a featurette of you guys playing live during a lead out to commercial break. I was pumped when I saw it! How did that opportunity come about?
Jon Weisnewski – It was luck, pure and simple. ESPN was planning on doing a quick spot for the broadcast to see how a Seattle rock band stacked up against Seahawks fans in a raw decibel comparison, and they happened to be in town filming on the night of our album release show. Somebody tipped them off that we were a loud rock band and probably what they were looking for (thank you kind stranger!!) so they got in touch and sent out some camera guys to get footage.
We were of course excited, but I was a little skeptical it was actually going to air, just because… this kind of stuff just never happens to us. But there we were in the third quarter! I’m still in slight disbelief about it. Bonus points that the Seahawks destroyed that game too!
B.G.M. – I saw in a recent online poll for a Seattle-centric site, it was voted that if Sandrider’s music was a Seahawks player it would be Marshawn Lynch because the sound is so “beastly”. Care to weigh in on who your vote would be for?
J.W. – If you’re going to make me draw an analogy, I’m going to have to go with head coach Pete Carroll. Not because we’re “coaches” or bosses or anything, but because despite the fact that we’re just showing up on a lot of people’s radars, the band members have actually been around and working hard in various groups for a long time. There’s kind of a “hard work paying off” vibe that I think is comparable.
Also, he is always smiling, which I love, and for me playing in Sandrider makes me smile a lot too. It’s a slightly different vibe than Akimbo which was more about aggression and explosions. Sandrider has this rock & roll groove mixed in with the other heavy/aggressive/yelling stuff that feels familiar and good.
So your sophomore album Godhead dropped a couple of months ago and I have to say that it absolutely just flat-out kick some serious ass. How would you describe the vibe of this record in comparison to your first release?
It’s hard for me to answer questions like that because I’m so close to the songs. I wrote them, worked on them with the band, worked on the lyrics, recorded them, both albums are extremely personal to me so I don’t know if I can accurately put my finger on a big difference in vibe between the two albums. The group of songs we wrote for Godhead definitely have a little more of a traditional composition, in the sense that there’s more verse/chorus/verse/chorus/solo/chorus type junk.
We had more time to work with Matt (Bayles) on the production this time around so the album sounds more polished than the first one, which resonates with some people. Some people prefer the production of the first one too, which I understand, but personally I’ve always preferred a more polished sounding record. I guess the short answer would be “kick ass, in different ways, but still kick ass.”
During the time between the self titled release and Godhead, you decided to call it quits with Akimbo which was your primary focus for a long while. How has changing to focusing exclusively on Sandrider’s sound impacted the way you shaped this record?
We definitely had more time to practice and write, but other than that it didn’t change much of anything. I think if Akimbo was still going we would have released the exact same album. It probably just would have taken us a little longer to get it out.
What is your inspiration for the lyrics in Godhead? Is there a concept to the record?
The easy answer is “nerdy bullshit”. There’s no over-arching concept or anything. I get inspiration for lyrics from the things I’m passionate about, which is sci-fi, horror, videogames, books, movies, comics, etc. There’s a lot of references to “nerd subculture” for lack of a better term. I hate that term, but it helps describe the stuff I get excited about. Making reference to videogames, comics, or hard sci fi as “nerdy” undermines the thought, passion, and straight up hard work that goes into the art form.
It’s some of the most progressive and new art happening right now. I’ve played some games and read some comics in the last few years that have hit me just as hard, if not harder, than any of the classic films, poems, paintings, books, etc. that people typically refer to as “high art”.
The cover art for the album is pretty trippy, almost a mash-up of sci-fi monster and Middle-Eastern diety. What was the inspiration for that image?
Without knowing what it is, you’re pretty right on with that guess! Jesse Roberts, our bass player, painted that. He is an incredible artist. It’s his personal interpretation of the half man half sandworm character that is the central figure in Godemperor of Dune. The lyrics for the track “Godhead” are also about that character. Godemperor of Dune is hands down my favorite installment in the Dune series. (Frank) Herbert is an insane writer. He can explode your mind with a single sentence. You’ll read that sentence over and over, put down your book, and just space out thinking about the weight and implications of that one fucking sentence.
Brian Cook of Russian Circles and Botch fame (a couple of our favorites) gave Godhead a shout out before it’s release date letting people know that this record was going to blow people away. Is he a friend of yours? Or did he just stumble across a leak? Haha.
Brian is a friend of ours, yes, and he is also a great music writer. He writes for The Stranger and possibly a few other publications that aren’t on our radar. Nik at Good to Die Records sent him an advance copy so he could write our bio that G.T.D. is using for publicity. Brian has the ability to write about music and have it not come across as obnoxious or just the same old comparisons you always read in music journalism. It’s very genuine and speaks to a lot of my sensibilities, so when I read his stuff I feel like I actually have a pretty good idea what a band might sound like before I’ve actually heard them.
So that’s how he got it. We’re mutual fans of each others’ bands. I grew up seeing Botch every other weekend, he would come out to Akimbo shows. Akimbo and These Arms Are Snakes both started to kind of take off around the same time. And obviously I love Russian Circles, I was a big fan before he joined the band and he really added something great to their sound.
So yeah he was digging on Sandrider back before our first album had really started making the rounds. In fact I remember a long time ago he wrote kind of a hype/pity piece on us that was basically “Sandrider has this awesome album and no one is releasing it. It’s just sitting there collecting dust.” Flash forward to us on ESPN in front of 15 million viewers. Haha. Thanks again Brian!
“Ruiner” is a top contender for me. We intentionally kept that song very simple and stripped down because it is just so crushing to play. It’s very much a caveman approach: “Let’s take one chord and just pound it as loud as we fucking can for as long as it doesn’t suck.” I also really like the way the dual vocals worked out on that song… we ended up adding a lot of texture with a very simple approach. Another one I love to play is “Tides”. It has this steady down beat that is relentless and really fun to add guitar accents to.
What does the upcoming tour schedule look like for you guys?
Sadly we are still pretty land locked to the pacific northwest. No big tour plans right now and our personal lives only look like they’re going to get busier. My work life will be insane through 2014, Nat (Damm, Drums) is about to have his first offspring, and Jesse just opened a new tattoo shop as a partial owner that he will be busy getting off the ground. Doesn’t leave a lot of room for romping around the world crushing heads.
Seattle is definitely known for having a super rich music scene, do you have a favorite venue in town that you feel is home?
A few months ago I would have said The Comet Tavern, hands down, but unfortunately it fell under some hard times and almost went out of business. It’s under new ownership right now and under renovation, so the jury is out on whether it will be the same place we all loved when it re-opens. Fingers crossed!
Other than that we’ve been lucky enough to play Neumos a few times, which is a great room and has a great sound system. Shout out to the Highline as well. We haven’t played Showbox Market yet, but the shows Akimbo played there were awesome and I’d love to get Sandrider on a good bill in that room.
The first time I heard Sandrider was a couple years ago when I was looking up bands similar to The Sword. You guys get all sorts of comparisons to other bands from sludge bands like Torche and The Melvins to noise rock bands like The Jesus Lizard as well as a slew of metal bands. Have you been compared to any bands that you aren’t a fan of and kind of been like “What the fuck?!”
Recently Jeff Tweedy of Wilco made a comment on stage about Sandrider being “the Stray Cats of grunge”, based on our Monday Night Football appearance. I only have partial context through word of mouth of what he was getting at, but I have a hard time seeing how that is a compliment! I say this with humility and humor… I have been guilty many times of making flippant comments on stage that I’m sure are “what the fuck” moments for other people, so in no way am I sore or brooding on it… but it definitely fits your question as a “What the fuck?!” kind of comparison.
Is there any band or artists that someone might be surprised that you like to listen to when no one else is around?
I love Goldfrapp. Abba as well. I’m a huge Abba fan. And I’ll play that shit regardless of who is around. No shame.
Lastly, would you ever get a matching tattoo with a complete stranger? If so… What should we get?
Yes. I have been wanting some classic D&D art inked on me for a long time. Shall we pick a random page from the Monster Manual?
So there it is folks. I’m in for the tat completely Jon! Lets do this! What are we getting?!
Sandrider Links:
Bandcamp
Facebook
Twitter
Related