Salem's Pot Interview

Salem's Pot have been on an upward trend of exposure ever since Daniel Hall heard their Watch Me Kill You demo, and subsequently formed Easy Rider Records (soon to become RidingEasy Records) just to make sure the recording got a wider release and vinyl editions.  In addition to the releases Sweeden and ...Lurar Ut Dig På Prärien, the Swedish group has released a couple of singles and a split with Windhand; recently, that catalog has been expanded to include the band's first 'full-length' album, Pronounce This!.  Salem's Pot were kind enough to indulge our questions about their influences, the changes within the band, and what they see on the horizon.

The Burning Beard: Hi there, and thanks for letting us throw some questions at you.  To start things off, what's the worst question you've been asked in an interview?  Aside from this one, of course.
Salem's Pot:  That is actually a good question.  Any questions about what drugs we took during our recordings or about drugs in general are pretty boring and we are pretty fed up with those questions.  Communication in music is deeper than just chemicals, if you've been there you know what it's about and it just comes out naturally.  I mean, have you reached yet?

TBB: As fans of old sleazy movies, have you come across any lately that really got you excited? 
SP: Recently saw "Who could kill a child?" and I really liked it.  Possessed Spanish children on an island without spoiling too much.  Perfect summer movie. 

TBB: Are there any particular visual artists (in film, painting, live performance, comic books/strips, etc.) who have had a special influence on the music and/or album presentation of Salem's Pot, or whom the band-members just dig on and would recommend fans of the band look into?
SP: Anything from the compositions of Ennio Morricone to the movies by Kenneth Anger and the music/live performances of Hawkwind.  Giallo movies and Hammer Films artwork are also a big inspiration. 

TBB: If Salem's Pot could provide the soundtrack or score to a movie by any film-maker, live or dead, who would the top contenders be?
SP: Stanley Kubrick and Dario Argento.

TBB: Do any of the members have a favorite Stephen King movie, or is there no real connection there beyond the name?
SP: Stephen King's stories have haunted us since we were kids and Salem's Lot, Misery, It and Carrie, to name a few, are all awesome.  But Kubrick's The Shining is probably one of the best movies ever made. 

TBB: In previous interviews, you've said that you never wanted to get stuck doing a single type of music.  What are some exercises or methods you use to keep things fresh?
SP: Well, it's pretty much impossible to make something that's never been done before, but we're trying to not restrain ourselves.  We never start a song by saying that it should sound like this or that, we just play what comes to our minds and if it sounds catchy enough it doesn't really matter what genre it is.   Also we are all into different stuff so we put in a little bit of everything, as long as it's creepy. 

TBB: As a band which started out as a two-piece, what's it like to be working with such a comparatively large line-up these days?
SP: When the two of us started the band it was only one of us who played an instrument, so we took in a bass player and a drummer just to have a beat to make noise over.  The other one took care of the artwork and the visual parts as well as the concept.  He eventually learned how to play the organ and synthesizers and with the addition of that I can focus more on actually playing guitar.  We used to have a hard time finding a drummer who lived in the same town so a friend of ours, who's really a guitar player, took the job.  Finally he got sick of playing drums and was about to leave, so we put him on a second guitar and recruited the drummer from his old band.  It was really difficult in the beginning and pretty much sounded like total chaos, but now I can't see it any other way.

TBB: You did a great split with Windhand a few years back. Are there any other bands you'd really like to do a split record with?  Actually, let me fork that into two parts: bands who are currently active, and bands which you'd have to do some magic to reunite or bring some members back to life for recording purposes.
SP: Currently Beastmaker, otherwise The Cramps. 

TBB: If money and other logistics were of no concern, what would your dream pack-in item for a Salem's Pot album be, aside from merciless psychic expansion?
SP: Probably an anti-gravity machine. 

TBB: Was there any special consideration as to who wore which masks on the cover of Pronounce This!, or was it just what you dug out of your closets/picked up at the local costume shop?
SP: We all picked out which masks we wanted to have for our live performance and the clothes are from our own and our girlfriends' closets.

TBB: What are some of the strangest things you've encountered on tour so far?
SP: Russia was pretty crazy, everything from the vodka-fueled train ride to the drunken/stoned crowd in our dressing room.   One guy stage-dived without anyone catching him.  But there's been a lot of weird stuff on the road, some of it isn't even weird anymore.  After a show in Munich one of us tried to put his mattress into a small closet because it would be like "sleeping in a coffin".  It obviously wasn't even close to fitting and none of it made any sense, I guess he ended up on the floor.

TBB: Are there any annoying misconceptions about the band that you tend to come across?
SP: We've heard a lot of things, anything from that we really are a side project of Windhand to that we ride bicycles to our gigs.  Some people seem to be upset about that we don't play the same riff for 20 minutes anymore, but truth be told we just did that because we couldn't play any better. 

TBB: What are Salem's Pot's plans for the near future?
SP: Amsterdam this weekend and Sonic Blast festival in Portugal in August.  And then a European tour with Electric Citizen in October that should be announced soon.  Apart from that, try to stay sane and not get eaten alive by the society. 

TBB: Is there anything else you'd like to say to our readers?
SP: Thanks for sticking with us, without you this world would be long gone. 

TBB: Thanks very much for your time and the excellent music!
SP: Thank you!

~ Gabriel

Gabriel's Top 20 for 2014

Gabriel's Top 20 Picks For 2014

Well, it's that time of year again.  The time of year at which I start seeing other people's top picks for musical output from the past 12 months (usually jumping the gun by a few weeks, if not more), and as I read them, asking myself "How did I miss this?".  Sure, I've got more albums, EPs, splits, and singles on my plate than my budget of time or money allows me to wolf down to the last bite,  but even so, there's always great-looking releases with glowing praise that didn't even blip across my radar.  And then there's the albums that I did hear, and now I'm wondering how they got so many people to fall in love with them when they left me so unmoved, bored, or even disappointed.
So if you don't see the albums you feel should have taken these spots in this list, there's a number of possible explanations.  Maybe I didn't hear it, maybe I was left cold by it, or maybe I just didn't enjoy it as much as I did the following releases.  There's also the option, like a large number of records I spun repeatedly and enjoyed immensely, that it just didn't fit the RWTD flavors (yeah, it happens).
Whatever the reason, I still want to know what you felt the top albums of the year were, so leave a comment, send an e-mail, or swear bloody vengeance against me, just give me some suggestions (or commandments) on what I should be hearing.  In any event, I'm glad to have been able to have been a link between these bands and you, our readers, and hope that next year is half as great with its musical output as 2014 was.  Without further ado, on to my top 20 picks for studio albums from the past year!

#20. JETDOG - OUTER SPACE IS THE PLACE
"One of the first things you'll notice once you plug this stuff into your ears is how massively fuzzy it is; going with the name, it works as either a dog-fur-lined wall of amps, or the rumbling radiation of a cruiser burning through the cosmos."

#19.Zeppheroin - Methadone Jesus
"Throw yourself down a flight of stairs, get a painkiller prescription, and then blare this as loud as your senses can stand; your neighbors might not appreciate it, but your ears should."

#18. Narcosatanicos - Narcosatanicos
"Distorted vocals add to the fever-dream impressions, with phasing of instruments getting your head to the point of reeling in short order, which they capitalize on by launching into heavy-end crescendos."

#17. Mamaleek - He Never Said A Mumblin' Word
"Sometimes quiet and subdued, other times roaring with a wall of noise, there’s plenty of juxtaposition going on, and the album asks listeners for more than the usual level of openness to trying new things."

#16. Brain Pyramid - Chasma Hideout
"Capturing the spirit of jamming out in the country-side and lathering it up with some toothy distortion and sweet-finger licks, there's a lot of unruly and vibrant energy coursing through the album as it riffs and rips all over the place."

#15. Kalamata - You
"Though there's a sense of doom metal to some of the music (most notably in the way the bassist wields his chords), there's also enough of the more positive, sun-baked desert rock vibes to let the band shift around in the range between the two without getting pinned to either."

#14. Hijo de la Tormenta - Hijo de la Tormenta
"In the midst of their amazingly tuneful heaviness, the drums do a lot to keep things from getting over-saturated, with counter-point rhythms, inventive fills, and a crisp sound to the drum-hits generating some defiant liveliness beneath the down-tuned doom rock."

#13. Merlin - Christ Killer
"While we won't be seeing Russell Crowe hold a thorn-crowned head up on the silver screen anytime soon, Merlin's interpretation provides a satisfying alternative for that experience, melding a Pantera-like sense of hard country...with some psychedelic-edged doom for a trip into alternate history."

#12. Qualeaceans - Capture Of Ziz
"They have an amazingly fluid quality to their music, evident in the rippling echo of the drummer's cymbals, the sinuous guitar-work, their ability to jump from one time signature cleanly into another (or a few simultaneously), and the song's structure, which moves about like a snake that can't stop shedding its skin."

#11. 3rd Ear Experience - Incredible Good Fortune
"At over an hour of expansive musical soaring, there's plenty of opportunities for them to show off their more-than-capable instrumental flights of fancy, with the guitars blasting off and leaving ringing waves of feedback in its wake as the drums, bass and keyboards meld together in some tasty fusion."

#10. The GTVs - Sh'Bang!
"[A]side from the essential electric piano, which adds some serious dazzle to the affair, the personable vocals, hip-shaking riffs, and unabashed attitude all blaze with a liveliness channeled from the likes of the MC5, Mitch Ryder, and Dick Dale, but with a slight layer of ear-pleasing grime on top of it all, as though the recordings have been rescued from the back stacks of some negligent record label."

#9. Wolf Blood - Wolf Blood
"The long and the short of it is, if you have a taste for experimental doom, sometimes fast and heavy with a splash of thrash or death metal, Wolf Blood is not to be missed."

#8. Funeral Horse - Sinister Rites Of The Master
"Funeral Horse's latest release is a fine slab of fuzzier-than-thou stoner rock, perfect for blasting out of your car's windows on a muggy night.  While the distortion on the vocals can sometimes make the words a bit tricky to properly hear, that fits right in with the buzzsaw guitar and drums that thump like a neighbor who thinks you've got the music turned up too loud."

#7. Major Kong - Doom Machine
"The guitar sounds like something out of a sci-fi film (I mean that in the best sense), the drums feel like they should be leading a hooded procession through subterranean chambers, and the bass just swells up and out, filling the room. That cave-like feeling is further enhanced by the almost-complete absence of vocals, aside from the opening sample, so that you can just sit back and let it engulf you."

#6. Billy Tsounis - Nefelibata
"Psychedelic to the point of being semi-hallucinatory, the new album from Billy Tsounis pulsates with energy from the first moments, billowing out in expansive waves of guitar and bass held down by the solid drum-work.  Mr. Tsounis put everything together himself, and the quality and sense of interaction between the assembled pieces deserves some recognition; there's some truly intricate stretches of sound to be found here, and imagining the multi-tracking behind it all is enough to make your head start to spin."

#5. MotherSloth - Moribund Star
"They know how to work a groove, as testified by the opening track, "Hazy Blur Of Life", in which they get a roomy bass riff going, backed up admirably by the drummer, before launching some loose and limber guitar and making everything spark, then just fanning that flame as it burns through the rest of the song and into harder territory.  The rest of the album takes the blood-shot colossus sound of the first song and gives it tweaks here and there, working it into new forms without losing that primal groove connection."

#4. Sunken - Recoil
"The inventiveness Sunken shows is made even more admirable by their decision to go with only two instruments, as it really drives and challenges them to turn their hats inside-out with all the tricks they pull on this album.  The sheer fervor they inject into those instruments has the duo sounding bigger and meaner than bands three times their size, and the way in which they dole it out, making sure the listener will have gotten comfortable with the crunchy melodies before getting blasted by an assault without warning, deserves much respect and recognition."

#3. Sunwølf - Beholden To Nothing And No One
"[T]he full-on metal vocals erupt from the sedation, the guitar swings into action with a grimy buzz, and they rumble into life like a long-buried war machine reactivated after decades of decay; after a few more songs, the rust has been rattled away, and a cleaner, sharper form emerges, rolling relentlessly on into crushing terrain, until all the concrete forms have been wiped away, leaving them back where they began, with only themselves still around to destroy."

#2. Dopelord - Black Arts, Riff Worship & Weed Cult
"They find a more-than-happy medium between the blueprints of Black Sabbath and the more aggressive edge of modern fuzz-and-film-samples storms from groups like Electric Wizard and Dopethrone, then dive in head-first, kicking up splashes of psychedelic doom with enough black-light energy infused to make your speakers start to glow."

#1. Salem's Pot - ...Lurar Ut Dig På Prärien
"If you’ve ever wondered what early Black Sabbath might have sounded like if they’d gone into the studio while on acid (and used much more reverb on Ozzy’s vocals), this album will give you a believable answer.   Thick riffs, quick-drone grooves, and an almost trance-like atmosphere help the album deliver a steady stream of ambiguously occult psychedelia."

Smokey, Sleazy & Easy...

Salem's Pot ~ ...Lurar Ut Dig På Prärien (2014)

I didn't think the mighty Salem's Pot could really out doom themselves after the Watch Me Kill You EP. Goes to show what I know. ...Lurar Ut Dig På Prärien or Lurking... Dig Out ​​On The Prairie, (thanks Google translate!.. Yeah, I don't know what it means either) crawls right out of its hole and instantly greets you with a whole big bunch of creepy space rock fuzz. It's a bit of a change of pace for the Swedish doom mongers, well, less of a change of pace more of a revert to their beginnings as on the whole this new outing has slightly more in common with their 2012 release Sweeden. The main, and most noticeable difference being an increase in clarity of the production. Weird thing to first notice I know, but having spun Easyrider Record's last two brilliant releases from these guys more times than I care to recall, it felt quite apparent. Fear not though, Lurar... still contains more cult inspired doom than Christopher Lee's resumé. Where before there was a down right LoFi grittiness running through the entirety of Watch Me Kill You, the guys have this time opted to travel down that meandering acid doom path, and you know what? It really suits them. They've mixed it all up with their own brand of haunting psych and eerie (boarding on) post/space rock ambiance, but everything sure as hell points to them moving one step closer to joining the ranks of Uncle Acid, Windhand, Black Prism and the likes. It falls slightly short of being branded a change of direction, but the band have seemed to make a conscious effort to really work on their sound and harness a new and focused outlook, rather than just jumping on and ever increasingly crowded bandwagon. You could say they've stepped it up a gear. Dabbling with the experimental, pulling more engaging riffs from their collective hats and ramping up their creepy factor by a good 10%, at least. There's also something of a drug fuelled occult feeling that underlies this whole LP. A slow rumbling psychoticism that I've only been able to achieve before by accidentally playing a Sabbath 7" at 33rpm. It's beautiful and wholly terrifying all at the same time. I can't wait to drop a heroic dose of shrooms and slap this vinyl on the turntable. If you've got any sense, come April 29th you'll join me, once again, all courtesy of the fantastic Easyrider Records!
~ Jay

For Fans Of; Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats, Windhand, Druglord, Witchsorrow, Monolord

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Watch Me Kill You (320kbps) • Sweeden (320kbps)

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Back On The Pot...

Salem's Pot ~ Sweeden (2012)

Fancy some unbridled, weed tempered doom? Well hell, are you in for a treat!
If you missed our coverage of their Watch Me Kill You/Run The Night EP, then, well, screw you! But you can somewhat redeem yourself here...
Just like so many of the classics of the genre(s) such as Dopesmoker, Blood Lust and Amerijuanican, Sweeden possess all the fuzzy malevolence of an eerie ghost train coming chugging towards you through a thick haze of bong smoke. Bordering on progressive in places and acid rock in others, it's real charm lies within it's sheer creepiness and ability to almost draw you in to a voodoo trance like state. I swear, every time I chill out and chuck this album on within minutes I catch myself staring into the distance, almost frozen in place except for my head just bobbing along of its own volition. It's power to just wash over you and seep into you soul is pretty mind blowing, even when you're not chock full of illegal narcotics or whiskey. I'm sober as a judge right now and I'm still finding it mesmerising as hell. I think it has something to do with the fact that it sounds like playing an Uncle Acid 7" at 33rpm. Seriously, its uncanny! If you've got Poison Apple of Mind Crawler go try it, I'll wait...
See! Weird isn't it? So I guess those good old Swede's really did discover the formula to classic stoner doom, and to nail it on their first album too... Damn, many a band would sell their grandmothers for that accolade.
So how exactly do you go about improving on such benchmark of an album? I'll bloody tell you how... you give it to Dan over a Easy Rider Records and let him work his brilliant vinyl magic on it thats how! Yup, following their beautiful press (and subsequent repress) earlier in the year of Watch Me Kill You/Run The Night, they've finally followed it up with Sweeden. It's been worth the wait too, just feast your eyes on these beauties! Limited to 30 Test Presses, 50 Gold (Die Hard), 75 Orange, 75 Burgundy, 100 Purple, 150 Violet Red. In suitable fashion they hit the store yesterday on Halloween, so hurry over be they're all snapped up! Failing that, or if you just want a no frills download, you can hit up their Bandcamp site below and pay what every you want for all of their work... What a start to the weekend eh?
~ Jay

For Fans Of; Windhand, Belzebong, Mountain Witch, Kamni, Spelljammer

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Sweeden (free) • The Age Of Salem (free) • Watch Me Kill You (free)

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The Salem Weed Trails...

Salem's Pot - Watch Me Kill You (2013)

What's dirty, heavy and practically free?... Nope, not your mom. I'll just tell you, Salem's Pot, thats who. 

I really wanted to bring you these guys a little sooner, but I also wanted to have the vinyl in my hands as I did so, but thanks to our postal service and their willingness to drag it through customs and then slap me with an £19 ($30) import bill, it got somewhat delayed. Sorry. Actually, no, no I'm not, bollocks to you all. You wanna blame someone, blame the pricks at Parcelforce.
Anyway, I digress. I found these guys much in the same way I actually stumbled upon the awesome Moon Curse, through Instagram of all places. Having landed on the profile of a small west coast record label that goes by the name Easy Rider Records, I delved a little deeper and discovered a cracking little treasure trove of limited pressed vinyl, short runs and rarities. It goes without saying, I franticly began clicking away and adding things to the sites cart, then blitzed through the checkout. Amongst my first clicks was a couple of the preorders for Watch Me Kill You. Now if you've got half a brain in your nut, you can probably roughly deduce Salem's Pot's sound just from their artwork. Dark, heavy, doomy and fuzzy right? Well, spot on. Like a slower, sludgier version of Electric Wizard tuned so low that they could loosen the bowels of Satan himself. In fact if you ever heard Electric Wizard's Supercoven EP, just imagine that slowed down and played through a haze of bong smoke... Ta dah! That's the sort of treat you're in for here. There's only two tracks running for a total of about 25 minutes but every moment is fully laden with relentless waves of crushing and fuzzy riffs, drum beats and tales of the occult and torture. Interspersed with Knate's occasional whaling guitar solo's and healthy doses of feedback, the whole effect coupled with Skoog's deeply haunting vocal interludes goes on to paint one hell of a dark and twisted audible picture. It's like a Hammer House Of Horror psychotic death trip through the mind of Aleister Crowley. Dark, groovy and to the uninitiated fantastically creepy... I love it!
Which actually explains why I picked up a couple of copies of the thing on wax and a tshirt, which you should too! So dig out your wallet and act fast, because the die hard version ( /30) and super diehard test presses ( /25) have now flown off the shelves and I will bet my bollocks that the purple wax ( /75) and the black ( /150) are not too far behind. Head over to Easy Rider Records right now! You'll be supporting a great band and an awesome little record label. Besides, just look what you're missing out on if you don't...

~ Jay

For Fans Of; Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats, Windhand, Mountain Witch, Moon Curse, Black Land

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Watch Me Kill You (320kbps) • Sweeden (320kbps)

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