Localized
by Andrew Glassett [andrew@slugmag.com]
Issue 236 / August 2008 More from this Issue
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Get your black t-shirt ready, August 8th’s Localized is going to be aplague-driven experimental metal fest. Reviver will open and Pilot ThisPlane Down and Nine Worlds will make sure that no ones leaves withouttranscending space or time. Well maybe space, not time. Either way, UrbanLounge (a private club for members) will host, and you would be a completemooncalf to not experience so much talent for a mere five bucks. In a spiritof reverence, I talked with Pilot and Nine Worlds to figure out what the hell isgoing on in hell these days.
Alex Johnson – Drums
Josh Hardesty – Guitar/Vocals
Justin Wilson – Bass
Kory Quist – Guitar/Vocals
Friends often make the best band mates, but sometimes they make the worst.Take for example Nine Worlds, a group of musicians that have traveled, foughtand esteemed one another for two years. After a recent incident with a pink dildothat forced one of the members out of the band, they have regrouped and haverededicated and refocused their energy into playing the heaviest and darkest musicthey know how to. They are in their honeymoon phase and seem to have found asense of Zen.All the skunky-sour diesel doesn’t hurt either.
SLUG: Give me a brief history of the band.
NW: Josh and Alex started the band two years ago while Josh was studying musicengineering at the Seattle Art Institute. When Paris Green broke up, Justin decidedto join Nine Worlds and moved to Seattle. Nine Worlds went through a few line-upchanges while living in Seattle and replaced Tyler with Donny Miller. Then in thesummer of 2007 Nine Worlds and XUR went on a two week west coast tour. Thisis when they met Kory who played bass in XUR at the time. Josh graduated andNine Worlds made the move back to SLC. Back in SLC, Nine Worlds went throughanother line-up change, teaming up with Kory on guitar and vox, and are now in fullforce.
SLUG: It seems to be a trend in metal-related music to have a theme or some sortof concept driving the music. What is the concept for your band?
NW: Well, music is art and art is the imitation of life, so I guess you could say thatLIFE is the theme of our music. Not to mention that the world around us is going toshit, so I guess a lot of our drive in writing music and lyrics is the failing world that wesee everyday. Everybody is fucked, and it’s too late to turn back.
SLUG: Why have you chosen to be a musician? Why not express yourself in someother way?
NW: We all grew up with music being a huge part of our lives. Back in the day, wewent to shows because we didn’t fit in with the jocks or cool kids, we needed ourown thing to relate to. Shows and music were the only place we felt comfortable andaccepted.So with that being said, we play music because we have to, it runs through ourveins.
SLUG: What is the plan for recording?
NW: We just finished pre-production on a four-song demo with Andy Patterson,and we got a few more songs in the works. We hope to to be ready to record a fulllength next spring, and hopefully it will get picked up by a label.
SLUG: What ties you together as a band?
NW: Living in Seattle for two years was quite the challenge. Five dudes in a shittytwo bedroom cockroach-infested apartment. We were broke, working shitty jobsand all the while trying to write, record and tour. Then there are the many tour storiesabout breaking down in the middle of nowhere, getting into fights with band mates,good shows and making new friends. Couldn’t ask for more.
Nine World’s demo songs are currently on their myspace (myspace.com/ninexworlds ). Be prepared for post-metal delicacies, including a chilling clip of theslaying of a false prophet from There Will Be Blood.
Matt Wigham – Drums
Jason Weidhauer – Bass
Sean Miller – Guitar/Vocals
Chris Clement – Guitar/Vocals
It seems like bands always have that one short and/or squatty and/or ugly memberthat just seems to hold everyone back – usually the bass player or the drummer. Notso for Pilot This Plane Down, they are all tall, slim and clean cut. They have jobs andfamilies and are one of the older functioning bands in Salt Lake. There is somethingspecial about a band that can keep its original members for more than five years.Coty Creighton was an original member, but now drifts in and out as he sees fit.He even helped record their latest album Glory of the World, which will be releasedon the night of Localized.
SLUG: How has the band dynamic changed over the years?
PTPD: It started out with Chris and me making noise around one a.m. every nowand then. It was literally noise – nothing but feedback, breaking things, drums andyelling for an hour straight. It was pretty nutty stuff, but we would record it ontocassette tapes and go home and listen to it over and over again thinking how greatit would be to make a band out of it. We asked Matt and Coty, who were playing inanother band at the time, and later Jason to come check out what we were doingand see if they wanted to be a part of it. At first, it was totally disorganized andimprovisational; Ideas flew around all over the place. We talked about recordingsoundtracks for independent film and incorporating film or other visual media intoour live performances. We really tried to blend as many mediums into what we weredoing as we could. At one point we even tried to play our improv mess in real timeinstead of in musical measures. We all played to a giant digital timer and madechanges based on different time intervals. It was a great idea on paper, and uttercrap in practice.Slowly we organized the mess into something more coherent that we couldreproduce live and the result was the material we put together when we recordedAirs with Andy Patterson. It was much more listenable than what we were doingbefore, but a lot of the improv/noise elements survived in transitioning to that firstrecord.After Airs, the music dynamic became much more conventional. We wrote actual,individual songs instead of the 21-minute jam fest featured on Airs.
Alex Johnson – Drums
Josh Hardesty – Guitar/Vocals
Justin Wilson – Bass
Kory Quist – Guitar/Vocals
Friends often make the best band mates, but sometimes they make the worst.Take for example Nine Worlds, a group of musicians that have traveled, foughtand esteemed one another for two years. After a recent incident with a pink dildothat forced one of the members out of the band, they have regrouped and haverededicated and refocused their energy into playing the heaviest and darkest musicthey know how to. They are in their honeymoon phase and seem to have found asense of Zen.All the skunky-sour diesel doesn’t hurt either.
SLUG: Give me a brief history of the band.
NW: Josh and Alex started the band two years ago while Josh was studying musicengineering at the Seattle Art Institute. When Paris Green broke up, Justin decidedto join Nine Worlds and moved to Seattle. Nine Worlds went through a few line-upchanges while living in Seattle and replaced Tyler with Donny Miller. Then in thesummer of 2007 Nine Worlds and XUR went on a two week west coast tour. Thisis when they met Kory who played bass in XUR at the time. Josh graduated andNine Worlds made the move back to SLC. Back in SLC, Nine Worlds went throughanother line-up change, teaming up with Kory on guitar and vox, and are now in fullforce.
SLUG: It seems to be a trend in metal-related music to have a theme or some sortof concept driving the music. What is the concept for your band?
NW: Well, music is art and art is the imitation of life, so I guess you could say thatLIFE is the theme of our music. Not to mention that the world around us is going toshit, so I guess a lot of our drive in writing music and lyrics is the failing world that wesee everyday. Everybody is fucked, and it’s too late to turn back.
SLUG: Why have you chosen to be a musician? Why not express yourself in someother way?
NW: We all grew up with music being a huge part of our lives. Back in the day, wewent to shows because we didn’t fit in with the jocks or cool kids, we needed ourown thing to relate to. Shows and music were the only place we felt comfortable andaccepted.So with that being said, we play music because we have to, it runs through ourveins.
SLUG: What is the plan for recording?
NW: We just finished pre-production on a four-song demo with Andy Patterson,and we got a few more songs in the works. We hope to to be ready to record a fulllength next spring, and hopefully it will get picked up by a label.
SLUG: What ties you together as a band?
NW: Living in Seattle for two years was quite the challenge. Five dudes in a shittytwo bedroom cockroach-infested apartment. We were broke, working shitty jobsand all the while trying to write, record and tour. Then there are the many tour storiesabout breaking down in the middle of nowhere, getting into fights with band mates,good shows and making new friends. Couldn’t ask for more.
Nine World’s demo songs are currently on their myspace (myspace.com/ninexworlds ). Be prepared for post-metal delicacies, including a chilling clip of theslaying of a false prophet from There Will Be Blood.
Matt Wigham – Drums
Jason Weidhauer – Bass
Sean Miller – Guitar/Vocals
Chris Clement – Guitar/Vocals
It seems like bands always have that one short and/or squatty and/or ugly memberthat just seems to hold everyone back – usually the bass player or the drummer. Notso for Pilot This Plane Down, they are all tall, slim and clean cut. They have jobs andfamilies and are one of the older functioning bands in Salt Lake. There is somethingspecial about a band that can keep its original members for more than five years.Coty Creighton was an original member, but now drifts in and out as he sees fit.He even helped record their latest album Glory of the World, which will be releasedon the night of Localized.
SLUG: How has the band dynamic changed over the years?
PTPD: It started out with Chris and me making noise around one a.m. every nowand then. It was literally noise – nothing but feedback, breaking things, drums andyelling for an hour straight. It was pretty nutty stuff, but we would record it ontocassette tapes and go home and listen to it over and over again thinking how greatit would be to make a band out of it. We asked Matt and Coty, who were playing inanother band at the time, and later Jason to come check out what we were doingand see if they wanted to be a part of it. At first, it was totally disorganized andimprovisational; Ideas flew around all over the place. We talked about recordingsoundtracks for independent film and incorporating film or other visual media intoour live performances. We really tried to blend as many mediums into what we weredoing as we could. At one point we even tried to play our improv mess in real timeinstead of in musical measures. We all played to a giant digital timer and madechanges based on different time intervals. It was a great idea on paper, and uttercrap in practice.Slowly we organized the mess into something more coherent that we couldreproduce live and the result was the material we put together when we recordedAirs with Andy Patterson. It was much more listenable than what we were doingbefore, but a lot of the improv/noise elements survived in transitioning to that firstrecord.After Airs, the music dynamic became much more conventional. We wrote actual,individual songs instead of the 21-minute jam fest featured on Airs.
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