By Andrew Bansal
New Orleans sludgelords Eyehategod haven’t put out a full-length studio album since the 2000 effort ‘Confederacy Of Ruined Lives’, but are now finally ready to end this 14-year drought with the release of their new self-titled album, set to crush North America on May 27th via Housecore Records. A tribute to recently deceased drummer Joey LaCaze, this LP has been in the making for a while, and is an apt representation of everything Eyehategod have stood for over their 25-year career. On May 7th, I spoke to vocalist Mike IX Williams, who seemed to be in high spirits during the time of the interview, to talk about this new album, Joey LaCaze, expressing tragedy through music, Phil Anselmo’s involvement in the album, live performances, the band’s recent LA adventure, and more. Enjoy the conversation below.
Mike, it’s great to have you again on Metal Assault. The new Eyehategod album is finally ready for release. It’s been in the making for such a long time, and more than anything, it must be a relief for you to see its release now.
Yeah, it is a relief, but it’s a good feeling though. It’s not like a kind of relief where it’s like, “Oh man, thank god it’s over with.” It’s nothing like that. It’s a good thing, you know. We’re real excited about this record and there’s nothing but excitement within the whole band. Everybody is psyched up, ready to go on tour and just ready to bring the chaos to the people! People have been digging the record a lot and we’re all real excited about it.
Because of such a long process where you’ve written songs over a period of a number of years, do you think that itself lends a degree of diversity, as opposed to an album that’s written in a few months and follows a similar theme?
Well, we usually take our time. Some bands that go in the studio and sit there and go, “Ok, we HAVE to write a new album now.” I don’t agree with that process. I mean, may be it works for some people but not for us. For us it’s a lot easier to just take our time. We don’t say, “Let’s write an album this week”. There might be 5-6 songs in a matter of 3 days and then some other song might take 5 months by itself. It’s all part of the process and we just take it slower than some people may do it. We try not to force anything. We’ve tried before to force a new record and it just never worked. You can’t do that, not with Eyehategod, you know.
Exactly. But one important thing about this album is the drumming, because of the tragedy with Joey LaCaze that you went through recently. Did all of his drum tracks make it onto the album? Or how much of it is his drumming?
100 per cent. It’s all Joey’s drums. From the first session we did in the studio, we scrapped every single thing except for drums because the drums came out klller. So yeah, it’s all Joey, man. And we’re all very proud of that because I think it’s a perfect tribute to him, you know. I mean, thank goodness that we did that and saved his tracks! Before that last six-week tour we did in Europe, right before he died, we could have easily been like, “Let’s just scrap the entire thing. We can record it when we get home.” But that wouldn’t have happened, because as soon as we got home from that tour, he died 3 days later. So we’re really lucky that we kept those tracks. It sounds awesome and he was an amazing drummer.
Yeah man, everything happens for a reason and this is just another example of that.
Yeah I agree with that too, you know. I used to not believe in stuff like that but now more than ever I believe that things do happen for a reason and parts of the puzzle start coming together.
Right! So, obviously you guys must have had a hard time dealing with this sudden tragedy, but as musicians you at least have that outlet where it can fuel your musical expression and in that sense you must be feeling fortunate to be in that position.
Yeah, of course! That’s how I’ve always expressed myself. Even when I was younger, it was always more of an artistic type of thing. Like when I was really young, I was drawing, painting and writing. I’ve always written. But now being in a band, being able to scream and just get all that out of you live, it’s great. We’re all very lucky to have that outlet.
This new album is releasing in America through Phil Anselmo’s label Housecore. How much was he personally involved in the making of the album? I believe you worked in his studio as well, right?
Yeah I’m there right now, actually. I live upstairs from the studio. It’s a few hours from New Orleans, out in the country. It’s where I live and Phil is right across the way here. So it was easy to get together at night, have some drinks and go right in the studio, right down the steps from my apartment. He was a great help with the vocals. Stephen Berrigan was there and he recorded us. He was in the studio when we worked with Billy Anderson too, but that kind of fell apart and then Stephen redid the bass and the guitars and recorded my vocals out here, but Phil was very helpful. We work well together. We did the Arson Anthem record together which was basically just me and him in the studio. So, we knew what it was like to work with each other and we just really wanted to do it again. I’m not going to turn down the opportunity to work with one of the most successful metal singers there is! Of course you’re not going to go, “I don’t need any advice from you.” So we definitely jumped at the chance to work with him again and he loved it. He wanted to do it. He said he’s really proud to be a part of this record and I believe him.
Making this a self-titled album instead of choosing a title must have been a no-brainer too because it represents so many years of the band’s past since the last album’s release.
Yeah, you are the first person to actually say that without having it being a question. Some people just don’t get it. We definitely went through tons of different one-liners, sayings and phrases that could have been the album title. We had talked about it before Joey died, about self-titling it. But then after he passed away, it was a no-brainer. It was just totally logical. I don’t even think we discussed it. We were like, “Yeah, it’s going to be called Eyehategod.” Because it’s got his drum tracks, it’s a tribute to him, plus it’s a new start for the band with Aaron Hill our new drummer. It just all fits together pretty well.
Now to coincide with the album’s release you have a US touring run coming up, and in the light of that I would like to ask you, to express Eyehategod’s music live, what does it take for you as the vocalist to prepare yourself and get in that frame of mind before you get on stage?
A bottle of vodka (laughs). I mean, that’s just the truth. A few drinks to loosen up and relax your throat so that you can scream a little deeper. I’m not recommending that to any kids or anybody, but it’s just what works for me. I’m an alcoholic. But people have their ways and that’s not all. There’s other things I think about and go through before I get up on stage. We go out there to have fun, but to do what we do it’s got to be real aggressive and raw because that’s all we know how to do, just go out there and beat people over the head, you know, like literally sometimes. So it all works out in the end.
I saw you at Los Globos in LA last January and that was supposed to be the only LA show of the tour leading up to Australia, but obviously we know what happened with that and you ended up staying here, playing like what, 10 shows in a week? What was that like for you?
We played like 7 shows in 5 days, not including Los Globos. For people that don’t know, we were supposed to go to Australia the next day or the day after that, and the promoter was just a complete joke. This guy brought us over there a few years ago and it was great. He treated us well and we had a good time. But this time the guy was completely out of his mind. I don’t know what his deal was, so we canceled that. We had to, we had no choice. I feel really bad for the fans out there that had already bought tickets and I hope they get their money back. It was something that couldn’t be done. So anyway, we stayed in LA and we booked a week’s worth of shows in just 2 days! We lined up all these shows and they were all just super-packed. It was amazing. It was so old-school, Black Flag style. We played two shows a day for 2 days, where we did an early show and a night show. Like I remember we played at the 7th Street Warehouse I think it was.
Straight across from the LA Greyhound station, right?
Yeah yeah, exactly. We played there and as soon as we finished playing, we were at the next club and I was still soaking wet sweating from the first gig. I was like, “This is wild!” But it was also very cool that we could do all those shows. So it was like 7 shows in 5 days and it was really a way to see if we could even do something like that at our age. We aren’t exactly kids anymore. But after doing those shows I can say that I think we have more energy now than we did then!
And you kind of made a new connection with LA because this is something you wouldn’t really do anywhere.
Yeah! I mean, we could have just gone home, which would have been stupid because we had other shows on the West Coast so that’s where we needed to be. But we could have just gone home, waited 4 or 5 days and then come back to do Seattle, Oakland and San Francisco. But we were like, “Fuck it, man. Let’s just stay out here and do as many shows as we could possibly do in a week and see what happens.” And it turned out great. It was awesome!
A lot of the local fans of yours here enjoyed that a lot and I think many of them went to all the shows too.
That’s great man, that’s really cool. I think we won over some new fans as well. That whole experience was really cool. We love LA, man. LA treats us right, you know.
Exactly. So yeah man, that’s all I have for this interview. It was great talking to you as always, Mike, and I’m sure you’ll come to LA soon even though you’ve played 8 shows here already this year.
Well there’s always that guy that’s always on our facebook page going, “When are you guys coming out to LA?” (Laughs) We just played like 8 times in the area. How could he miss that? It doesn’t make any sense to me. But we’ll be back. We’re doing this June tour in the mid-West and East Coast and will be back out there probably next year sometime.
Eyehategod links:
Eyehategod.ee
facebook.com/OfficialEyehategod
twitter.com/EyehategodNola
Eyehategod US tour dates w/ Ringworm & Enabler:
5/28/2014 Masquerade – Atlanta, GA
5/29/2014 Drunk Horse – Fayetteville, NC
5/30/2014 Chop Shop – Charlotte NC
5/31/2014 611 – Frederick, MD
6/01/2014 Underground Arts – Philadelphia, PA
6/02/2014 Rex Theater – Pittsburgh, PA
6/03/2014 Strange Matter – Richmond, VA
6/04/2014 American Legion Post 80 – Binghamton, NY
6/05/2014 Brighton Music Hall – Boston, MA
6/06/2014 Even Flow – Long Island, NY
6/07/2014 Europa – Brooklyn, NY
6/08/2014 Basement Transmissions – Erie, PA
6/09/2014 Bug Jar – Rochester, NY
6/10/2014 Loving Touch – Detroit, MI
6/11/2014 Now That’s Class – Cleveland, OH
6/12/2014 Birdy’s – Indianapolis, IN
6/13/2014 Cobra Lounge – Chicago, IL
6/14/2014 Pyramid Scheme – Grand Rapids, MI
6/15/2014 Bottom End Bar – Appleton, WI
6/16/2014 Triple Rock – Minneapolis, MN
6/17/2014 Diamond Pub – Louisville, KY
6/18/2014 Fubar – St. Louis, MO
6/19/2014 Hi Tone – Memphis, TN
6/20/2014 Southport – New Orleans, LA
6/21/2014 Dollhouse – Savannah, GA
6/22/2014 Orpheum – Tampa, FL
6/23/2014 Looseys – Gainesville, FL
6/24/2014 Zydeco – Birmingham, AL
6/25/2014 The Handlebar – Pensacola, FL