We’ve had an opportunity to speak with Russian Circles’ bassist, Brian Cook. He told us what he thinks about post-rock, Neurosis, working with Kurt Ballou and of course their last album „Guidance”.
We have 2016 and you’ve just released a new album called „Guidance”. Post-metal and post-rock music aren’t as popular as they were a few years ago. But you’re still there playing and recording. Is it harder now to be a band being labelled as post-metal?
I really don’t give a shit about things labeled as post-rock or post-metal. I don’t pay attention to those scenes. There are bands i enjoy that fall under that banner, but they tend to be bands that were just doing their own thing that somehow got lumped into that scene. I don’t think Tortoise or Trans Am or Turing Machine or Grails think of themselves as post-rock bands. I never thought of Neurosis as post-metal. They were just good bands. When we toured with Red Sparrowes in 2008, there was a conversation between their guitarist Cliff and our guitarist Mike and post-rock came up. Mike innocently asked what post-rock was and Cliff had to explain to him that it’s the genre label both our bands get stuck with. So i guess post-rock chose us, not vice versa. You are saying post-metal is not as popular as it was before… i had no idea. We seem to be doing just fine by ignoring it and doing whatever the hell we want.
„Guidance” was recorded with Kurt Ballou behind the producer’s table. How would you describe his impact on your work in studio?
Kurt was very easy to work with. We’d thought about asking to work with him on previous records, but we enjoyed working with people like Greg Norman and Brandon Curtis… names that weren’t usually associated with heavy music. But for „Guidance” we were interested in working with someone who knew our reference points for heavier artists. And I think Kurt was excited to work with a band that had a broader palette of sound than a lot of the more straightforward hardcore and metal stuff he often works on. Consequently, it was a very smooth process. Kurt had a lot of great ideas in terms of tone and accenting heavy parts, and that was his biggest impact on the album.
While working on a new material are you focusing more on developing a story or on constructing songs?
Constructing songs is our only focus. Developing a story certainly helps give writers and music critics something to talk about, but we’re more interested in the primal, visceral reaction we have to music and less interested in creating talking points for bloggers.
Your music is entirely instrumental so it’s often hard to guess why song have that title and not another. Could you guide us through „Guidance” and tell us how did you come up with titles?
The titles are references to people, places, and things in our lives that were relevant to us during the creation of the album. I could elaborate on the specific meanings, but i don’t think it would enhance any of our listeners’ appreciation for the material. if anything, i think it would decrease their appreciation for it. For example, it’s already been explained elsewhere that 'Lisboa’ is titled as such because Mike wrote the song during some downtime we had in Portugal while on tour. Does that enhance the experience of listening to the song? Does it make it better to envision Mike sitting in a backstage room at a rock club fiddling with some chords and stringing them together into a full composition? Or does knowing the backstory diminish the mystery and the overall vibe of the song? I’m inclined to think it’s the latter.
What does the artwork of „Guidance” presents? How is it connected with the meaning of the whole album?
The photographs were given to my husband by an old war veteran that volunteered at his work. It was a strange and unsettling gift. We’ve had the photos for many years and we weren’t sure what to do with them. We didn’t even know the backstory behind the images. With „Guidance”, we were all unsure of our futures, and the uncertainty in those images spoke to us. We’re all in a state of flux where none of us know where we’re even going to be living a year from now. We’re all being guided to some unknown conclusion. I remember driving across country by myself back in the winter of 1998 and somewhere around the Idaho/Utah border i had a mild panic attack. I had overdone it on coffee and i was in the middle of nowhere by myself in freezing temperatures. If the car broke down, I was fucked. So i checked into a motel and wound up watching a documentary on a team of explorers trying to get to the North Pole. That really put things in perspective for me. My situation was nowhere near as dire as the explorer’s trek. Similarly, any hardships or uncertainty we face in our current lives doesn’t compare to the scenarios in those photos. And there’s something mildly comforting about that.
On your last album you have done one song with Chelsea Wolfe. How was it working with her? Have you ever thought about engaging more vocalists on you albums?
Working with Chelsea was great. It was really effortless. It’s just a bummer that we don’t get to play 'Memorial’ live more often, and for that reason we probably won’t make guest vocals a recurring practice with our band.
There are some parts in your new album that reminds me of Neurosis from the „Through Silver In Blood” era. Do you consider them as your inspiration? What bands would you mention as the most important in your career and personal life?
Neurosis are a great band, and the era from „Enemy of the Sun” through „Times of Grace” was a particularly powerful moment in that band’s history. I definitely look to them as an inspiration in the sense that they were a band that seemed in full control of their sound and aesthetic, but they also seemed to channel something otherworldly. They weren’t standing around on stage cracking jokes to the audience between songs; their sets were fully immersive experiences. But the big bands for me were Fugazi, Minutemen, Nomeansno, and Undertow. Fugazi was my first show, and just seeing the intensity of their performance, the ideology of their conduct, and the sonic diversity of their songs were all very inspiring. Minutemen and Nomeansno were inspirations because bass was such a prominent component to their songs. All the instruments were on equal footing. They were like Rush, but they didn’t have that unattainable arena-rock vibe. Undertow were a hardcore band from Seattle and they were the band that made me feel like I could actually get involved in underground music. And i thought the drum and guitar parts of 'Harper Lewis’ inadvertently sounded a lot like Undertow’s 'At Both Ends’, so i… um… borrowed the bass line from that song.
Do you have that one song that needs to be on every setlist?
Strangely enough, i don’t know if we’ve ever played a show without 'Harper Lewis’ in the last 8 years. It’s still fun to play, and people still seem to love it.
Soon you will be playing 3 shows in Poland. Do you have some memories connected with Poland?
Lot’s of memories. Poland is always memorable. The crowds are always cool but getting to the shows is always complicated! Poland is also where we were introduced to the Zubrowka mixed with apple juice, which is absolutely delicious. I also recall playing Poznan on our first Polish trip and the opening band was a bunch of teenagers. There weren’t very many people at the show and most people just stood at the back of the club during their set. So the band members’ mom came backstage and lectured us about how our fans were shitty because they weren’t dancing to her sons’ band. So there’s that memory…
