MORGAN Y. EVANS: You’ve known Gentry Densley (vocals, various other instruments) a long time, since he was in the band Iceburn and you were in Engine Kid and toured together in the ‘90’s. Those bands were more jazz and indie rock influenced, less doom, obviously. Since then you’ve both done lots of heavier stuff also. How was it coming back to collaborate and experience how you’ve evolved as musician’s since then?

GREG ANDERSON: It was a really cool collaboration and something we wanted to do for a really long time that never really happened. Gentry is someone whose playing I’ve been a fan of a long time. I’d been revisiting a lot of jazz and fusion stuff I’d listened to for awhile and had thought it would be cool to play with Gentry and make some sounds and music now, all these years later. We’ve both been through a lot of paths and bands and combine our experiences from over the last few years, like you said. It ended up being really cool to work with him. We hit it off right away as far as writing, playing and recording the material. It was exciting and easy for us in a way.

MYE: It’s funny ‘cuz it almost seems like a refinement in some ways. It has it’s own aspects too, but like “Trills and Cones” from the old Iceburn record Metavalutions was like part of one long piece and has a real snazzy Ornette Coleman type section near the top. Sunn O))) [Greg’s main project] has some long material also. Some of the new Ascend almost sounds like movements. Even though it is separate songs it feels unified like a film score at times. There’s some heavy guitar at times, with more drums than Sunn O))) or something. Your earlier bands, not that Engine Kid sounds naïve or Iceburn, but you can tell you are bugging out having fun incorporating those influences whereas now it feels like you really know exactly what you wanna do.

GA: Wow. That’s interesting because to be honest a lot of those Iceburn records are very conceptual and even though a lot of the material was improvised, it’s based off a sort of larger picture. The fact that you hear that in what the Ascend record is is interesting because it was improvised and we didn’t have a large, conceptual idea for it. Each person would throw out some ideas that would turn into this piece of music. That was one of the things that I felt was really successful about this recording. A lot of times when you do things piecemeal it doesn’t sound cohesive but I think we were able to pull off something where everything is appropriate even though it was recorded at different sessions or some ideas reworked. It was important to us that it was cohesive sounding and that was what actually fueled the album coming out. First we were like,” Let’s just play…”

MYE: See what works.

GA: Right, it wasn’t this big concept. Let’s play some music and see what happens. It came together so well we thought it could be an album.

MYE: Yeah! There’s different songs and not like each track is similar but there’s an overall kind of, it’s almost an animalistic vibe. Not only dark, but it reminds me of nature, almost. A very real, tactile quality.

GA: Mmmhmmm…

MYE: As far as the recording being broken up [between Dec. 2006-being mixed in Jan 2008], it gives you more time to figure out what you wanna do. You had a lot of collaborators to coordinate schedules with but, it feels like a meeting of minds kind of expanding outwards.

GA: Yeah, I mean, the way that this final album came out is somewhat similar to the way that Sunn O))) has been working for the last couple records. The way is to just roll tape and to keep recording all these ideas. Not necessarily to be too concerned about making a mistake. Just going for it, stream of consciousness in a way. A lot of the album takes shape in the mixing process which involves a lot of editing.

MYE: Find the best happy accidents or shit…

GA: Exactly, exactly. This is something Sunn O))) has been working with over the last few albums and it’s the exact approach we took with Ascend, even though there’s more traditional elements of rock recording with Ascend like bass, drums, guitar and vocals.

MYE: As opposed to more experimental ritualistic drone or weirdness.

GA: Some semblance of structure. Even still, a lot of these pieces for Ascend became what they are in the mixing stage of recording, I like working that way because it allows you to become free and uninhibited and let your ideas come out there and if they don’t work they don’t work but like you just mentioned, the happy accident could become the best part of the piece or song.

MYE: Yeah, it’s a challenge but it’s exciting.

GA: It is. It keeps things fresh too and opens you up to not be so reserved. Other bands I’ve been in and you’re practicing and working on these songs for months and months.

MYE: Then you’ve gotta tour them after that. [laughing]

GA: [laughing] Yeah, yeah, yeah. They kind of lose their specialness in a way and you’re really concerned about the execution of it but with this you could make an accident that ends up being the crux of the song or a revelation that you work other things around. It’s a cool sound collage that you create a song with and a different way than I’ve worked with before. It’s a new way of making music for me, starting with Sunn O))) and it can be really fun.

MYE: It almost reminds me of hard bop or early jazz where dudes would take their sax solos or whatever and stick within certain parameters but just go for it at the same time and it’d create unique musical adventures. You guys have got different instrumentation in this and aesthetics and like in Eagle Twin Gentry has a kind of bluesy edge that resurfaces here or in stuff like Goatsnake, one of your bands, you had a song like “El Coyote” with great use of harmonica. It’s like seeing what each song needs and not being afraid to try different things.

GA: Yeah, talking about the hard bop stuff. The editing on this was inspired by Miles Davis and learning about his work in the late ‘60’s. Being a huge fan of the Bitches Brew album, and getting the boxed set and finding out that it was heavily edited and not knowing that at all, thinking when I first heard the records that they were played front to back exactly how you heard it…then learning there was this entire editing process that went on, it was like, “WOW! This is a cool way to approach music.” It was a huge inspiration.

MYE: That’s cool. I was thinking in terms of live playing and didn’t know Miles did that, but I guess it figures there’d be some of that, too.

GA: Yeah, it was groundbreaking at the time because a lot of jazz records, the theory or concept of jazz was based off of working off of charts and you play it and that’s how it comes out, but with Bitches Brew and also In a Silent Way, with Miles Davis there were moments he wanted to feature or put in different parts of the structure of the piece. Or looping things! There’s some looping on Bitches Brew that’s totally amazing and I didn’t know about it and I was like , “Holy crap!” Basically, if you’re improvising music this is a cool way to put together a piece out’ve the best parts of everything. [laughing]

MYE: You find the special parts that you want to survive.

GA: Yeah, and those special parts can become a new feeling or mood depending on where you place it in the composition. You can place something that happened at the end and put it at the very beginning and that can be the platform the rest of the piece becomes based off of. On the title track “Ample Fire Within” on the Ascend record, that’s what happened. It’s made up of four takes of these ideas we had but the main line that Gentry put his vocals over happened at the end. We put it at the beginning as the jumping off theme of the song!

MYE: Attila from Mayhem is on that song with Gentry singing too, right?

GA: Yeah. [laughing] It was a really cool time. Sunn O))) was in Seattle recording for a new record that will come out next year and Attila was in Seattle recording for the Sunn O))) record and he was staying at the house that we mixed the Ascend record at (mixer) Randall Dunn’s house. We were all just kind of there and at the same time I was making the Ascend record, and I was also working on this other record with Attila, called the Burial Chamber Trio. We recorded that all within the space of a month out there and were all sort of hanging out, playing…no rules. Attila popped his head in during Ascend to see what was going on and we said “Hey! Do some vocals on this.” And he was like, “Ok, man!” [laughing] It was a really fun time and we were all together making sounds.

MYE: That’s dope. If you let me ramble a minute …I love your musical open mindedness, like really honoring music as a gift to respect, it feels. Like, I was very pleased to find you on Youtube talking about the band Silkworm, for example, who were very different from Sunn 0))). I love that! I think your bands on Southern Lord really emphasize, well, metal and even hardcore sometimes can be like a big family tree and Southern Lord is kind of a crucial bridge nowadays between drone, true punk aesthetics, experimental and even black metal elements. And this band, Ascend…You’ve got Kim Thayil of Soundgarden and Bubba Dupree of Void coming together with you on V.O.G. which rules! Who is doing guitar leads, is that both of them?

GA: That’s actually mostly Bubba. They tracked separately when they did it and Bubba soloed for about six minutes. Kim only played for about three minutes or so. Those solos were highly edited and we took the coolest highlights of Kim’s stuff and almost used it as a call and response to the lyrics and how the main riff was going. Bubba, we just kind of let him go and moved it in and out with the mixing. Those guys were great. It’s funny. I’ve ended up striking up a friendship with Kim, and Bubba is his best friend, so those guys are always around, and usually when we record in Seattle they come around and hang out and drink beer. [laughing] Then we try and convince them to play music. [laughing] They’re way more interested in beer!

MYE: [laughing] I always wanted to hear more of Kim Thayil post-Soundgarden because he laid lower than some other people since then and he’s a monster player, an all time fave of mine.

GA: I know. Chris Cornell [ex Soundgarden singer] was obviously out there with Audioslave. Matt Cameron [ex Soundgarden drums] is in Pearl Jam and Ben Shepard [ex-Soundgarden bassist] has a few bands. Kim hasn’t really done anything. When I see him I’ve kind of asked him and he feels like he hasn’t found the right thing in a lot of ways and doesn’t wanna do anything really commercial.

MYE: It’s cool in another way though because he’s chilled and fans like myself miss him and it underscores how, I think, he was the sickest part of that band. Him and Ben Shepard, not to take away from the other dudes who ripped it.

GA: Totally! His playing was so out there and different, especially for a band that was of their status. Obviously, Cornell helped them break more into the mainstream thing, but they had this weird, cool guitarist with the pop melodic singer, and it worked perfectly. The chemistry on Superunknown is perfect, in a lot of ways. It’s accessible but…

MYE: You can still take acid every day to it when you’re a teenager like I did, and it had the sickest B-side “Cold Bitch”.

GA: Yeah! There’s so many weird time structures Kim wrote. His soloing is totally insane.

MYE: That’s why I wasn’t sure if the soloing was Kim or Bubba because there’s some warped, out-there notes!

GA: That’s probably why they are such good friends and the rumor was that Bubba ended up in Seattle because he apparently was gonna join Soundgarden near the end and he’d moved out there from the East Coast. That didn’t work out and he just ended up out there but I know it seems like one of the reasons. Actually, Bubba played with Ben Shepard’s band Hater for a while too. It makes sense, his playing has that Black Flag almost Greg Ginn thing and some jazz and punk Stooges, it’s there.

MYE: A crossroads, kind of. I love the name Ample Fire Within, which obviously sounds like Amplifier, cool play on words whether intentional or not. It has nice double meanings like someone’s soul or potential which is amplified by actions or personality. Or in this case, like art…Our ability to achieve or fail determined by the spirit facing adversity. That’s just my interpretation.

GA: Yeah, Gentry came up with that, and in all the Iceburn stuff they were obsessed and always making references to fire in their albums, and song titles, and graphics, so it was a nod to that, and also this statement where Gentry and I…a lot of people might hear this record who haven’t heard anything we’ve done since the hardcore and early days, and even though we’re older now, there’s still this fire and drive within us. The final way I interpreted it, one of my favorite album title’s of all time is The Obsessed’s The Church Within. I’d just put out a compilation on the label called Within The Church of The Overlords and I was into this whole concept of within a church or a church inside and it’s where my and Gentry’s heads were at at the time.

MYE: It’s like the interior life of a person. Speaking of the Obsessed, Southern Lord has a Wino [famed ex-guitarist of The Obsessed, Spirit Caravan, Probot, The Hidden Hand, St. Vitus] record on the horizon, right? Jean -Paul [Gastier] from Clutch drums on it, right?

GA: Yeah, we’re hoping to have it out in October. The Hidden hand broke up and Wino had a lot of songs and wanted to keep playing and they got a new bassist I’d never heard before from Wino’s area. It’s totally ripping, man. The stuff they’re doing is very great. It sounds like Wino, the Obsessed and Spirit Caravan but it’s developed into another direction working with Jean-Paul, who’s such a great drummer.

MYE: He’s so loose and yet controlled.

GA: Yeah, it’s bad ass. I’m really excited about it and I think it’s gonna surprise a lot of people because Wino really steps out melodically more than he has in the past and his songwriting is really strong. The lyrics are really cool.

MYE: I must’ve seen Spirit Caravan play with Clutch five or six times and The Last Embrace final discography collection Wino did with Spirit Caravan, that’s like one of five albums I’d want if stuck on an island.

GA: [laughing] Yeah, exactly!

MYE: Back to you guys and the incorporation of different elements. Sunn O))) uses ambient elements and instrumental experimentation, like when you used MOOG’s instead of guitars to great effect. This Ascend LP, its great, you have Steve Moore from Earth using Wurlitzer and trombone…the horns almost remind me of dub music horns, like a background texture highlighting the overall mood…and I love Wurlitzer’s. I always wanted my band to play Anesthesia by Cliff Burton on one!

GA: [laughing] That’d be cool! I’ve been really into Fender Rhodes and a lot of the records I heard with Wurlitzer’s, I thought they were Fender Rhodes. When I met Steve and started playing with him, his instrument of choice over others is a Wurlitzer. I really like the way he approaches it. He’s incredible. That guy is such an accomplished musician, playing with Steve. He reads and writes music and is a multi-instrumentalist. It makes me kind of feel like a little inexperienced or green when I’m with that guy. [laughing] He’s a total jazz musician and started playing piano when he was fourteen.

MYE: They know how to intimidate people. [laughing]

GA: It’s not his personality. The way he adapts into different situations is amazing and here he plays with Earth and with Sunn O))) too. I’m amazed with his open-ness to different sounds and some extreme directions. Being able to cope with that, a lot of schooled jazz musicians wouldn’t be into it or would think it is dumb heavy metal music. [laughing] But Steve totally connected to this madness and found a place where he fits into it, you know what I mean?

MYE: It’s one thing if a band is smashing their instruments to make aimless feedback, that’s cool and all but you guys, it’s free but guided also.

GA: We were in the studio recently doing some even newer Ascend stuff actually and Gentry and I were talking about some metal groups and Slayer’s REIGN IN BLOOD came up and Steve Moore, he’d never heard the record!

MYE: No shit!

GA: That seems so foreign to me! It’s one of the most classic records since I’ve been alive, one of my favorite records. When we played him some of it, he thought it was really cool, but I really wanted to be inside his brain and see how he was analyzing it or taking it in with virgin ears! It wasn’t from the same sort of…

MYE: Saturated to it way that we are.

GA: It’s the way a lot of metalheads like us would listen to jazz for the first time, with a feeling of discovery. I thought that was amazing when people from different backgrounds can connect and adapt to something different and that is what Sunn O))) and Ascend try to go for, to push into different boundaries and directions, even though the core of us are metalheads.

MYE: Ascend is planned as an ongoing project, right? I can’t believe your output with so much going on and running such an influential label which must be so challenging but rewarding. What forms do you think Ascend might take in the future?

GA: We already started recording more stuff. Steve Moore was on tour with some other groups and they happened to be in L.A. and had some days off. That guy stays busy constantly and said he was in L.A. so we recorded and showed up with his Wurlitzer and trombone and we made it the same way as the first recording and hashed it out and rolled tape and we’re gonna work on it later. We happened to be in the same place and so worked on stuff and will happen to have something to work from in the future. It turned out cool and we didn’t wanna overanalyze it and the process works so we’re gonna keep on doing that. Kind of how Sunn O))) was inspired too, some good friends making music together and taking it from there. I definitely think there’ll be at least another record. We’ve talked about doing live shows but aren’t sure yet.

MYE: This way is cool because the reality or personality of the band almost reveals itself to you even though you’re in it!

GA: Totally! The thing with Ascend is Gentry and I are really both into the ECM record label or the CTI label from the ‘70’s, these jazz labels. Looking at their catalogue output, musicians who were friends or had catalogue together would make albums and just keep them coming and I love that and thought that was a really cool idea that doesn’t happen in the rock scene so much, an ongoing collaboration between people where the results get released.

MYE: It’s so cool, you have these things like the Coltrane and Thelonius CD from a few years ago no one knew was around until NOW!

GA: It doesn’t have to be in the structure of a band that goes out and tours half the year. The whole concept of the band doesn’t need to be adhered to so closely and you can make records and work with other people and put out cool collaborations and not stick to the usual formula. That’s what we were loosely thinking initially with Ascend and with Southern Lord, too, different people.

MYE: I always think it’s great when you guys or even Mike Patton does collaborating constantly. I always think if I had a time machine I’d wanna go back to weird early punk scene moments where people jammed together and no one recorded it and it’s lost to time.

GA: [laughing] Yeah, exactly. Ipecac is another example of a label that does that too. They’re putting together different combinations of people and releasing it and whether it is good or not is up to the listener but they move forward and keep things interesting and fresh. I really enjoy that aspect and think it’s something pretty new in the hard core scene or metal.

MYE: Hopefully it’ll germinate.

GA: Yeah.