This interview was conducted by Philip A. Wickstrand with vocalist/guitarist Mike Sheidt at a Starbucks in NE Portland, OR on February 19, 2011.

While world Doom-ination may not be one of YOB's goals, one could argue that they someday may achieve it with their heavy, light crushing riffs and a rhythm section so thunderous that Zeus himself quakes on Olympus every time they play. With five full-length albums under their belt, these titans of Metal forge forward and prepare for their sixth and some much anticipated touring at home and abroad.

Phil: First of all, it's been a little while since The Great Cessation came out; tell us a bit about the new material YOB has been working on.

Mike: So far, honestly I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around it as far as a description. I mean, it's certainly recognizably YOB, but it is definitely is, like some of it's really, super aggressive and just bashing but yet kind of patient in the way it does it, but it's really just explosive and some of it's really discordant, like we have some tunes that are really discordant, have a lot of gallops over Doom beats, so it's almost kind of like backwards riffing and really shooting for a ton of different vocal textures on this album and we're really going to go nuts with… I want to use samples and I want to use a lot of different vocal stylings and we're going to have a couple really rad vocal guest appearances for a section. We're going to have one kind of crazy tribal piece and we're going to do a bunch of fairly elaborate intros and outros, so we're really trying to write a more ear candy and complete kind of record, you know, with interludes, so we're being pretty, for us, ambitious about how we want to do the next record.

Phil: It sounds like it'll be pretty long; are you thinking maybe a two disc set?

Mike: We were initially thinking about that but I' kinda out back on that idea. What sounds better to us is we want to do a couple splits after this. Either split twelves with another band or maybe even do a couple EP's and release 'em kind of randomly and on our own is what we're thinking and then be able to really explore some different vibes, you know, 'cause initially we were talking about doing that and having one album be a little bit more atmospheric and celestial and almost kind of a benevolent feeling and then one being kind of darker and more pummeling. But at the end of the day I want to write an album, you know, I don't want to write two albums. So I think we're kind of dialing that back, but that being said, it still has tons of really melodic pieces and the real quiet stuff that we're kind of known for, get the kind of FLOYD-ian stuff happening. But that being said, the songs that we're going to record, it'll probably be a fifty-five or sixty minute record. But we have songs that we're not going to be using, so we have stuff at least three-quarters of the way written that will be ready to go for something else. I mean, it's very conceivable that we could have two releases in one year.

Phil: Those splits and EP's you were talking about theoretically doing, would those be vinyl only or would they be vinyl and CD as well?

Mike: We'd do vinyl and CD's. I mean, I love vinyl, but I love CD's too. I do. I think vinyl sounds better but I'm not one of those vinyl snobs, you. I mean, I like being able to have a CD.

Phil: For the album itself, are you going to have Southern Lord handle the vinyl again or are you going to be doing that either yourself or by some other label?

Mike: I do not know.

Phil: Aaron being the newest member of YOB, how much involvement has he had in the song writing process?

Mike: I think the song writing process is kind of the same as it's always been. I write and arrange the music to a greater degree and then when I get something that I feel is worth bringing to practice, I'll bring it and then we'll all check it out, then we decide as a group whether it's something we want to spend time on or not. If all three of us aren't feeling it, then we're not going to do it. That being said, Aaron certainly has more ideas and opinions about how we approach those things than any other player in YOB ever has. He's just a very ultra positive presence in general, so when we're all clicking, it really is good. Like, we're all just having fun and kind of bending time and forgetting what we're doing. It's going good.

Phil: Are there any distinct lyrical themes or is it just whatever happened to be on your mind at the time of writing?

Mike: No, there's a theme. The theme of the album I think is going to be somewhere around… about how a person mentally, physically and spiritually prepares the way for true, lasting growth as person. And whatever belief system fits for them. But whether that person is somebody who's a Christian of if they're a Buddhist or if they're just somebody who doesn't have a particular belief system but goes through a period of time where they realize that they need to make some significant changes in their life for the better and I think that's what the album is about, is about preparing the way, preparing the ground for becoming, theoretically, better. Stronger, happier, more fulfilled, whatever it is. So it's definitely kind of a lofty spiritual theme in one way, but it's kind of rooted in the earth and dirt and it's sweaty and muddy and so it's also meant to be sincere and authentic and human, not just like some kind of removed ideal, not like an iconic image to achieve.

Phil: Tell our readers what you have planned as far as touring for the next year or so.

Mike: Our hope, we're putting our intention forward, we're going to play two shows at South By Southwest and maybe a couple other Northwest shows but the goal really is by mid to the beginning of late summer to do a full U.S. tour. Like a four to six week tour and then about a month after that, go over and do the same thing in Europe, do four to six weeks, which is biting off a big chunk for us, you know. To do that kind of thing, most jobs don't allow you just to go do it, so we're kind of throwing caution to the wind and making it happen. And our goal is to also take DARK CASTLE with us and we'll go do that as a DARK YOB or YOB CASTLE world tour. [laughter]

Phil: Do you think that YOB has seen an increase in popularity since the reformation?

Mike: Absolutely. And what happened was we grew in our absence. It really had nothing to do with us in a way. It's like, lots of people and lots of bands record music and those bands come and they go and their music, whatever kind of staying power it has, has nothing to do with them. It has to do with people and we're lucky enough that there has been a growth in people wanting to check out the band and so when we reformed, we had our fans that we had when we broke up with us and excited, but then we had this whole group of new fans that we never knew we had/. So it was very surprising.

Phil: Tell us a little bit about your other active musical projects.

Mike: Well, Travis (drums) and I are working on a band, I say "working" in parenthesis, we're going to do it. It's called VOID SPLATTER and it's extreme, super extreme Black/Death, but like, extreme to the point where it's practically noise. Like it's just not melodic, not at all remotely. Our goal is to not really have footholds in the regular kind of melodic sense of a lot of Death Metal, just really barreling, like the earliest KRISIUN or MENTAL HORROR, BLACK WITCHERY as reference points, but different than that too. And then Stevie Floyd from DARK CASTLE and I have done a project called SPIRIT RITUAL that's ambient and kind of ritualistic in a way and I think we're going to do a full record and then also I'm going to start working on a band that I'm going to call URN OF SACRED ASHES. It's going to have kind of a foothold in Doom but my goal is to have it be something really… I don't want to say stony and I don't want to say psychedelic, but kind of, you know, celestial trip but have it be very… instead of SLEEP being a reference point, it's more like… very bombastic and kind of Classical, minimalist music but done with distorted guitars and a plethora of world instruments and drums. It's going to be very articulated and kind of repetitive, just meant for people to come in, put on headphones and just be hit in waves of heaviness and trance out.

Phil: Cool! That sounds really neat.

Mike: Yep.

Phil: Where do you think YOB will be in a year?

Mike: That's a fantastic question. I think, really, we don't even ever ask ourselves that question. Our goals really don't go much beyond the completion of a short term goal. So like, a short term goal is to record and takes six months or eight months to put that together, then we make the plan to that and turn in everything we need to a label and after that, that's done. If we're thinking of a tour, okay, it's a tour. We get through that tour. As far as what that's going to do for us and how that's going to be a stepping stone to something that would stretch out to a year, we never ever think in those terms. We're not ambitious, per se. Though we're getting busier, but I think our ambition at best is to hopefully, for six or eight months, to be able to make just enough money to survive and pay our bills while we're doing what we're doing and to give us just enough money to find jobs again. That's our goal. [laughs] That's it.

Phil: To not starve to death.

Mike: Well, yeah. And I mean, the band is, right now, we're far from roughing it. When we're playing shows, the guarantees are real. The accommodations are real. We're being treated very well and in ways that you can't ask for or demand, you know, we're just lucky it's working out that way. We're just doing our best to be amiable and be professional and be worth it to those people. It's a two way street. But for us to go on tour for six weeks in Europe and six weeks in America, I mean, we're making enough money to actually, I think, do what I'm hoping. Not to make a career, but to have it support us at least in that time period when we're doing it.

Phil: How much does fan appreciation mean to you?

Mike: It's everything. I mean, otherwise, we're just three dudes stroking on stage, you know? For us, there's an environment that is a band and the people are coming to share that vibration that the band is creating and if a band forgets that… if they think they're up there working some magic on the crowd, I think they're just missing the point. I think there's magic happening in the environment and it's every single set of eyes and ears involved and so, to me, that is what it's about. And so fan appreciation is literally, for me, the very soul of the inspiration to do what we do.

Phil: Okay, last question - recommend a book for our readers and then explain why you recommend that particular work.

Mike: Well, in the past when you've asked me this question…

Phil: You recommended Edward Lee and I read a couple of his books and I felt so filthy that I felt like I needed to take a shower for a week. [laughter]

Mike: Yeah. I'd say lately, as far as reading material goes, I'd have to say The Path to Being a Human Being by Dennis Genpo Merzel. He's an American born Zen master who is remarkably cool and funny and serious. He got his inka from… Maezumi-roshi, who was a very, very famous Zen master in the 20th century, so he's very legit. He's worked very hard to make that kind of understanding of Zen Buddhism very down to earth and everyday and try to kind of cleanse away the kind of mystique that people think that when they're getting into something like that it's like putting on some really fancy piece of clothing, you know, and I think he's really trying to make it about how to basically reclaim what it means to be human and what our place is in the planet and in relation to everything else. Not in some kind of Earth First way but in a very profound way. Not that Earth First isn't profound, but the real heart and soul of what would make a person give a shit.

Phil: Is there anything else you'd like to add?

Mike: Endless thanks to everybody who's sent us good vibes. We'll always do our best to give them back.

YOB's Mike Sheidt

Interviewer: Philip A. Wickstrand

March 15, 2011

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TO THE TOP

PHOTOS BY PHIL A. WICKSTRAND

(Click on Photos to Enlarge)

(Click on Photo to Enlarge)

Formed: 1996
Eugene, Oregon  USA
Label: Profound Lore Records
Genre: Stoner/Doom Metal

CURRENT LINE-UP:

Mike Scheidt:  Guitars & Vocals
Aaron Reiseberg:  Bass
Travis Foster:  Drums

DISCOGRAPHY:

YOB (Demo-2000)
Elaborations of Carbon (2002)
Catharsis (2003)
The Illusion of Motion (2004)
The Unreal Never Lived (2005)
The Great Cessation (2009)

Guest Vocalist:
Stevie Floyd of DARK CASTLE

Guest Vocalist:
Stevie Floyd of DARK CASTLE

Check out Peter's review of Atma here