 
What happens when you stick three death metal musicians in a room with
a suitcase-full of hallucinogenic drugs? Well, there are two possibilities.
Either they start licking the walls, proclaiming that Ozzy is their
spiritual guru. Or, they strap on their geetars and create a din of
psychedelic lunacy. Old Grandad formed more than a decade ago with the
sole intention of being a "drug-oriented side project." On
their latest release, Hocus Corpus, the San Francisco trio combine elements
of rock, blues, and metal into a masterfully original, infectiously
catchy album. Hocus Corpus is easily my album of the year. A hidden
gem? Absolutely! Manifesto: Outside of the Bay Area, where else are you guys popular? Will: Prison! Tell him about the letter. Erik: This guy in a South Carolina prison wrote to us. He read the lyrics from our last album, The Last Upper, and wanted us to mail him acid. He said it would be so much better (in prison) if he could have some acid! Manifesto: So, why did you guys start Old Grandad? Will: I've known Erik since high school. My old band Warfare D.C. used to open for his band, Epidemic. Erik approached me one day and said "Hey um, you wanna jam with us?" Erik: It was an Obituary show! I was like "You want to play some pot smoking music with me and my roommate?" We had a 4-track with 4 of the songs which ended up on Vol. 666 (OGD's 1995 debut album). There were no drums and we gave that tape to Will. (laughter) Will: It was awful! It was them (Erik and Max) playing in a bathroom and screaming into a boombox! Manifesto: How would you describe your sound? Erik: Drug metal. But we're not just a metal band. Drug metal, rock, blues.' Will: I like to call it "ain't getting' a job any time soon metal!"(laughs about) Calling in sick metal! Erik: If drug is gonna be in this description, it should be acknowledged that there's a lot of different drugs involved. I mean, it's just what we imagine it would be like. What we think it would be like if we did, which of course, we don't. (ed. note - this is said as joint number two is being passed around!) Manifesto: Although there are only 8 songs on Hocus Corpus, each one has its own sound. Was it tough making every song unique? Will: Ever since CDs came out, people don't make complete, full albums. When it was vinyl or cassette, you only had enough space for 10 songs, so every song was gonna be a great, well-crafted song. Now bands put albums out with 16 songs! I don't care who the fuck you are! You can't write 16 killer fucking songs! Even my favorite bands! There's always a couple of throwaway songs on CDs now. Manifesto: The song "You'll Never Know" struck me as somewhat of a departure from Old Grandad's traditional style. Almost Nirvana-like in certain parts. Will: I wrote that one. We actually recorded that one for the first recording (Hocus Corpus was originally going to be a long psychedelic album, but the idea was scrapped, and the album was re-recorded.). It was like 8 minutes longer than it is now. Manifesto: What was different? Will: It had this death metal middle part. The producer, Guy Higbey, liked the beginning and end, but he didn't think the middle part made sense. And he's right. I was totally like tooth and nail fighting at first. I was so proud of that part, but he was right. So, we axed the whole middle part, which can be an entire song in itself. Manifesto: Speaking of Guy Higbey, how's working with him? Max: He's a killer producer! Erik: He had a much more active role on Hocus Corpus. He wasn't a co-writer or anything, but he would say more things about developing ideas and whittling down lyrics. Will: He had a heavy hand in arranging, and this is the first album where he's done that. Manifesto: And you were ok with that? Erik: Oh yeah, that was the arrangement Max: It was fun. Will: It turned out to be a completely different album than what it was originally going to be. Max: We'll always come back to that other stuff. Erik: Yeah, the songs aren't scrapped. They're just not done yet. Max: And left to our own devices, we would probably go on and on with a riff. I was like, "with this album, lets make it a little more listenable." Manifesto: The vocal melodies stand out much more than on previous albums. Will: The vocal tracks took a long time. Max: ...And trimming down, ironically, is harder than building up (a song). It took basically a whole year to get through this album. Manifesto: Also, there is less repetition than before. Erik: The whole overview of the album was to scale down. The thing is, the next time we could go in the complete opposite direction. Manifesto: What kind of music influences your sound? Max: Influences? It can all be summed up by David Lee Roth's solo work.(laughs) Manifesto: What's it like to play songs from the first album, now some ten years after the fact? Will: For me, certain songs, I love playing live. Certain songs, I don't ever want to play again! (laughter) And lyrically, I don't know what any of these songs are fucking about still today! It doesn't make any difference to me! It means nothing to me, I just scream 'em. Erik: Yeah, it was fun getting Will to sing lyrics about getting kidnapped by aliens on the first album. I was in the control room, sitting right there, telling him to sing "info injected...floating slime screams!" Manifesto: Any plans for a tour? Erik: We would do more touring if we had the financing for it. Max: I'm looking forward to playing Modesto. Manifesto: Modesto, "Little Texas" as I refer to it. What a frightening place. Max: I lived there for a number of years. Manifesto: I'm sorry Max: Luckily I was young enough to block it out of my little brain. As far as touring goes, I don't know, man. I'm scared of America. It's easy to do what we do in San Francisco. Erik: Cops on the road Max: Cops on the road, lifestyle wise, I don't know. Will: There's nothing scary about touring America. I was in a band called The Cutthroats 9 (with Chris Spencer of Unsane) and we did 8 full length coast to coast tours in 3 years. We got pulled over a total of 3 times. Max: Using your Jedi mind tricks, huh? Will: Yeah Manifesto: Was there as much acid used as on the lst album? Will: LSD? Not at all. Not one iota. Max: Well, that's an oversimplification. It's always in the back of my mind. You know, a little crackling-like thing. Erik: Absolutely! Once you're there, you're always there. It influences everything we ever do. We've all done shitloads of the stuff! Old Grandad suggest that you buy their albums, merchandise, and go
see them play live. You can (and should!) get Hocus Corpus at Rasputin
Music. Contact Old Grandad through their label, Double Down Records,
at www.doubledownrecords.com/
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Old
Grandad Interview