SMELL & QUIM interview - Fever Pitch fanzine (1994)

THE GEROGERIGEGEGE - Juntaro Yamanouchi's last known interview before suddenly going "missing" for over 10 years! - Life Without Sex 'Japan Noise Special Volume 1' (2001) -

KILSLUG interview (by Curtis TAANG!) - Your Flesh fanzine (1986)

 

KILSLUG interview - Trendy Rag #33 fanzine (1987) - by Jim Hildreth

EARTH interview - Magnet (#? 1995) USA magazine (soon after 'Phase 3' album release)

Originally published by USA magazine ‘Magnet’ (#?)

Interview conducted soon after 'Phase 3 : Thrones And Dominions' album release on 'Earth Day' April 25th 1995.

https://www.discogs.com/release/388388-Earth-Phase-3-Thrones-And-Dominions

***INTERVIEW START***

"I got some cool mail the other day," says Dylan Carison, the starship commander/minor guitar celeb of the band Earth. "It was a copy of the first CD (Extra Capsular Extraction) snapped in half and taped to a piece of paper that said, 'I'll never buy another Sub Pop release again.' It was pretty cool."

And indeed, for those fortunate enough to be familiar with the Earth idiom, it's obvious Carlson is of such soul-shredding, slo-mo riffing and wunderkind guitar wizard stock that a reaction saturated with such venom and vehemence ultimately comes as no surprise. Though, of course, in this case, it's a big boot in the denims.

"Fan" mail like the broken CD, though undaunting to Carlson, nevertheless colored the marketing personality with which Sub Pop is heralding Earth's latest LP, Phase 3: Thrones And Dominions, clearly the magnum opus of the band's thus far supra-triumphant trilogy of releases. Easily Carlson's furthest foray into anything even hinting of commercial viability-with some "move-ments" up to 10 times shorter than those comprising both the aforementioned pantpeeingly impressive debut EP as well as 1993's Earth 2 LP. Unwilling to sink a real budget into what some view as a whimsical pet project of Sub Pop moguls Bruce Pavitt and Jon Poneman (both long known for near-impeccable musical taste), the Seattle label has launched Phase 3 not with the usual advance compact discs, snappy promotional pictures and overwhelming media and advertising blitz (all trademarks of said label), but with dubbed cassettes and backyard Polaroids taken by Carlson's friends. "Obviously I'm not a big commercial success, and I'm not going to be farmed out to a major anytime soon," Carlson admits. "But I feel as though there is somewhat of a marketing problem with the label and that the bands tend to get blamed. It sort of annoys me since this is the first of my records that has songs short enough to play on the radio. And then I get told they're not doing any promo CDs, just cassettes. Nobody's going to play an advance cassette on the radio."

As for selling records, Carlson says his output may be stigmatized by the very logo thousands of teenage boys would give up their left nut ring to stamp on their record sleeves: "The people that are into rock see the Sub Pop logo, buy an Earth record and are disappointed by it. The people who might be really into my stuff see the logo and won't touch it."

Though Carlson notes the unlikelihood of any of Earth's releases becoming a surprise success, he says he still feels a bit duped, and cites cases like Nurse With Wound and Current 93, bands of arguable commercial stability that established and retained record-buying audiences for lengthy careers.

"The general feeling is that there are a lot of people who express interest in Earth, but stop short of buying the record," he says, paraphrasing one Sub Pop employee. "Critically, we've done welL Even Forced Exposure gave us a great review, and I don't think they ever like Sub Pap stuff. I think that a lot of reviewers saw the first EP as sort of a hip test. They didn't know how they were supposed to respond to it: 'Ooh, do I say I like this?"'

Aside from problems with Phase 3's marketing scheme, Carlson says he almost didn't even get into the studio to put the album to tape. "This record turned into a lot of trouble," he says. "I work really quickly in the studio. Usually if I don't get a track down in one or two takes, I leave it and come back to it, or just forget about it. So I started recording Phase 3 and things were going pretty well,but then I had trouble getting down to the studio for the days I booked. I had to borrow all of this equipment and I don't have a car, so I was depending on other people for rides. Everyone was flaking out on me. This guy was supposed to drive me over there and decided he had to go get crack instead, stuff like that. It was a nightmare. Sub Pop got mad and pulled the plug, so I had to wait like a year before I could finish it. In that respect, I think it's sort of like two different records since the tracks were laid down so far apart."

Carlson hopes to tour in Europe this summer and says he wants to cover the U.S. as the opportunity arises. Until then, he's polishing his resume and searching for a lab tech position. But Carlson shamelessly admits that "given the choice, I'd prefer to be a wealthy rock star."

***INTERVIEW END***

Listen! 'Phase 3' full album

EARTH interview - London May 1995 prior to live performance @ Disobey (released as 'Sunn Amps...' CD) - Here Be Monsters #9 UK fanzine (Nov '95)

Originally published by UK fanzine 'Here Be Monsters' (#9 Nov '95). 

Interview by Clive Roberts and shared with his permission.

Transcribed by Michael Gillham 2002 to share with Southern Lord forum users. MG notes:

1. Interview conducted at The Garage London May 18th 1995 prior to Earth's live performance at Disobey Club which was released as "Sunn Amps And Smashed Guitars Live!" CD on Blast First. This was also Earth's debut UK & European live performance.

2. For the most part, I've left punctuation, spelling mistakes, etc, as originally printed.

All photos by Mark Benny

***INTERVIEW START***

At the garage dead on time. Now getting in..... I hate it here - they can be right funny. Thru the first doors - no-one in the Ticket Office ! Shit ! How am I gonna get thru the next Security Doors ?? Wait a short while, try the Security Doors and Oh, there're open !! Walk right in announcing my arrival & try to find someone..... Great, 3 geezers gathered round a table in the Venue area itself. Before I can introduce myself, I'm greeted in the er, time-honoured fashion London style by one of them. "How the F**K did YOU get in ??" he bellows. "Thru the F**king Front Door like everyone else ! If there's sposed to be Security there should make sure it IS there" I retort, expecting a Bunch of Five !! The guy is suddenly embarrassed and while he's off probably giving someone ELSE a Smack in the Mouth, I'm shown upstairs via the Main Bar and a Hole in the Wall (Honest Guv !!).

In a Cell-like room Upstairs at the Garage sit Four men. My arrival has spoilt their conversation and they stare at me as I Clock them each in turn. I recognise Three of them 1> Ex Wire man, now 'Bee Keeper' at the Disobey Nights - Bruce Gilbert. 2> Head Honcho of Blast First - Paul Smith. 3> EARTH Leader Dylan.....so the other guy MUST be with HIM. Luckily they know I'm coming and leave us while we, er, TALK. Y'see I'e purposely not prepared any questions as I know full well EARTH will make-up tonight's set as they go along, so appearing fully in command of the situation I begin ! I quickly find DYLAN is highly intelligent yet a slow quiet talker with a tendency to tail-off and mumble at the end of his sentences, whilst IAN is just as intelligent but more articulate. The only other thing you need to know is that they're swigging from bottles of Campari !! We're off!!

D> Dylan Carlson

I> Ian Dickson

DID YOU HAVE AN IDEA OF A DEFINATE SOUND WHEN YOU FIRST STARTED ??

D> "I definitely had an idea of where I was headed for. I've been thru 9(?) people...I don't know if they didn't fit in or I'd forced them out..... we'll say that they didn't fit in !! It's just attitude - everybody wanted a controlling link. When I started out I was REAL control freak !!"

WHAT ABOUT SUB POP AND YOUR FIRST RELEASE. HOW DID THAT COME ABOUT ??

D> "We had recorded that before. We did a Show the weekend before with L7  and we were approached at the end of that".

WHAT'S AUDIENCES REACTIONS LIKE ??

D> "It's always been sorta (LAUGHING) people leaving or people into it, and I'd rather people be sorta polarising rather than 'just like another Rock Band.'"

YOUR NEW CD'S SORTA 'COMMERCIAL' !!

D> (LAUGHS) "We wanna shift units !! Anyone that says they don't start a Band for the desire to be famous or sell alot of Records....".

ANY OF THE THREE MINUTE TRACKS BEING PLAYED ON COLLEGE RADIO ??

I> "Yeah definatly !! They've started to show up on the CMJ (COLLEGE MUSIC JOURNAL Chart and stuff....which has been weird....and there's been a much better reaction....".

WHAT ABOUT THE 'PHASE III' TRACK. HOW DID YOU GET THAT WHITE NOISE SOUND ??

D> "It was basically an old 'Maestro' Phaser played into the Amp. Not guitar based - just the Pedal played into the Amp. So it's just like waiting..... and I told the guy to run the Tape and he really wanted to add something....and that's it ! But this album I didn't get to do everything that was planned....".

I> "It was an Oddissy in Creation !! It took a Year to make. It took 3 different Recording Studios. Er, different members of the Band kept leaving and joining. They were basically temporary members ! Dylan was like the Core of the Band. People like me would come in - I didn't play on the Record - I work for Sub Pop and I kinda oversaw the Production on the Record. It was a strange creation process....".

D> "It was a f**ked up time !!"

HAVE YOU PLAYED TOGETHER BEFORE?

D> "No !! And that's the way I like it..... like I used to be a real control freak about er, Live and it had to be SO.....then like I just abandoned that. And that's the fun of Live things - the Rollercoaster!! The things that could go completely wrong ! Yeah like I'm not gonna play anything from the Records..... this ain't a Set List.....it's a Catalog !!".

I> "Well, the way I thought we'd do the Set was he'd start off and play like low & like maybe something off the Record ?!?!?!!".

YOU GUYS HAVEN'T EVEN DISCUSSED IT YET ?!?!? THIS SOUNDS REAL GOOD !!

I> (LAUGHING) "and then I'll like join him up and it'll be good !!"

BY THE WAY, THEY'RE DRINKING COMPARI AND IAN WANTS SPONSERSHIP! BUT I SUGGEST THEM DOING A SOUNDTRACK FOR AN AD....

D> "Yeah, a really long one !! (BIG LAUGHS !!) Like a Seventy Two Minute Compari Ad....".

HAVE YOU EVER BEEN APPROACHED TO DO SOME SOUNDTRACK MUSIC ??

D> "No, not yet. We're open to it though. I've always been influenced by Film alot....".

THERE'S A LULL. SO I ASK IF ANYONE'S INTERESTED IN THE INTERNET.

I> "Yeah, I'm interested - it's sorta what I do for a living. (POINTS) He's a Luddite !!! Earth is on the Internet and so's Sub Pop. So now I can get my Hate Mail direct !! And I'm making a video of this whole Tour process....and I'M gonna post that on the Internet. It will be mostly out-takes from the Austin(?) Show and some Audio and I'll package it and post it...".

DO YOU THINK THE NET WILL EVER BE CONTROLLABLE ???

I> "Oh NO ! It's beyond control. With Incryption on if they shut it down everyone would create Hell coz Microsoft and all these big companies are heavily invested in the Internet - there's no way they're gonna shut it down. There;s strong Incryption out there already like PGP Pretty Good Privacy? that people can like Incrypt any live message into a completely unbreakable form - which is like Public Key Incryption where you like send out a Key. It pretty much stops anyone from knowing what your're sending. In fact it's illegal right now to export that PGP Program from America for National Security reasons...(PUTS ON CAR SALEMAN'S VOICE) But I happen to have a copy for sale....!!!".

PROGRESS HAS ALSO BROUGHT US THE CD. ANY VIEWS...???

D> "Well, that's what's Cool about Vinyl...like to order of the Tracks, the Packaging, the Whole Thing y'know ? The CD is just all there".

I> "Back to the Cave for us all".

D> "I think you have to live them. Lie 'EARTH II' was the perfect response to the CD. One Song !! I mean what can they do !?!?! They can skip foward and it sounds kinda like where it was before or take it off & listen to it !"

A CASE OF BEING ANTI-MUSIC ??

I> "It was anti-FORMAT. It was meant to utilize the format to it's Extreme....".

D> "....And it was against the format at the same time".

THE CAMPARI'S FLOWING NOW & WE START SERIOSULY GOING OFF AT TANGENTS....!!

D> "We talked to the N.M.E the other day & the guy was just a SURLY ASS !!"

I> "I get the feeling he had sorta pre-conceived ideas about us. There're more like Tabloids...like they hear all the rumours... We saw some Monuments today near Buckingham Palace to all the er, Mounted / Cavalry Regiments of The British Empire (listed by Country) & that was like a Religious Experience (LAUGHS) thinking about God & The Regiment !!"

D> "If they can inspire a Twenty Seven year old American with something that happened 150 Years ago....!!!??".

BUT THE BRITISH EMPRE WASN'T MUCH TO BE PROUD ABOUT. IT WAS BORN OUT OF FEAR, CONQUEST AND SUPERIOR FIRE-POWER, ETC...

D> "Actually it wasn't Fire-Power. Do you know what they couldn't stand?? It was the bayonet charge !!! They begged to die anyway at the end of that !! It was like watching a line of men walk in and emerging from this sorta Hellacious Fire without firing back... Yeah, like Cortez had 500 men. The other natives hated the Aztecs and helped him. But Pizarro went to Peru & took out the Inca Civilisation with FIFTY men and some dogs and he gets no credit ! I think he was a Massive Hard-Ass !!! ".

SO WILL TWO GUYS FRO EARTH WIN OVER THE AUDIENCE TONIGHT ???!!

I> "Well we have 2 Marshall stacks - what does the Audience have ?!".

Head spinning I stumble outside to a Shop & buy a can of Coke. I drink it staring at the traffic crawling around the busy Highbury Corner, just glad to be back out in the Real World !!!! Shit - it sure had been a weird Forty-Five minutes !! I couldn't make it to the Show but I heard it was an Event !! I bet it was.....!!

Recently I got onto the INTERNET at Work and managed to see IAN'S er, Handywork. Yep, I got in to SUB POP's Net Address & pretty cool it is too. Amongst the Discographys, News, Band Info and nice Color Pics, there's the chance to Download Songs and even a coupla Videos. Great stuff....and it's gonna get better.....

***INTERVIEW END***

Earth live @ Disobey was released by Blast First as 'Ripped On Fascist Ideas' on 'Sunn Amps And Smashed Guitars Live!' CD 

https://www.discogs.com/release/920138-Earth-Sunn-Amps-And-Smashed-Guitars-Live

Listen! 'Sunn Amps...' full album

Two random audience members played the final section of Earth's set! 

Please comment if you know who either of them are.

All photos by Mark Benny

EARTH 'earth 2' album 1993 > '20 Years On' article/interview plus original release era articles/interviews, reviews, promo materials, etc

The Unbearable Heaviness of Being
Feeling Doom-Drone Classic Earth 2's Tremors 20 Years On
by Dave Segal (December 2013)
https://www.thestranger.com/seattle/the-unbearable-heaviness-of-being/Content?oid=18503358

Can you feel it? That massive, mind-blotting buzz from the planet's core? That's Earth 2: Special Low Frequency Version. Sub Pop released this record by Seattle duo Earth in early 1993. Its truculent tremors still ripple through the heavy-music underground. Nobody's made a big deal about 2013 being the landmark album's 20th anniversary. We need to redress this oversight. Admittedly, Earth 2 is no Nevermind in terms of sales (understatement, ahoy!), but its impact on subterranean metal may be just as historical as Nirvana's breakout LP has been in mainstream circles.

On Earth 2, guitarist Dylan Carlson—with help from bassist Dave Harwell—invented ambient metal, a devouring swarm of down-tuned guitar and bass dirges that coalesced into a threnody for forward motion... and possibly the human race. Never has sonic stasis been so domineering and exhaustive. It is Metal Machine Music as interpreted by a La Monte Young acolyte. Its infernal growl makes the Stooges' "We Will Fall" seem like sheerest New Age and Black Sabbath's "Iron Man" sound like bubblegum pop. Perhaps only Melvins' Lysol rivals it for sheer mass. Unlike most metal, Earth 2 insinuates doom. It needs no lyrics to convey the dread aura at its molten center. Earth 2 pulverized metal's cartoonishness and took the genre to the ashram.

To commemorate this vastly influential recording, The Stranger interviewed some of the key figures in the making of Earth 2, as well as a musician inspired by it. (Sub Pop boss Jonathan Poneman was unavailable for comment. Harwell did not respond to an interview request.)

BRUCE PAVITT

Sub Pop cofounder

What were your first thoughts when you heard Earth 2? The first time I heard the Earth tapes, I was struck by the conceptual nature of the tracks. Ambient metal. I was fascinated by the extreme nature and artistic vision of the band.

Did you and Jonathan Poneman have any arguments about whether Sub Pop should release the album? Jon and I both recognized that we needed some "sub" to go along with the "pop." It was important for the label to find a balance between the commercial and the adventurous.

Did Earth 2 present any particularly difficult marketing problems? Do you know how many copies it's sold? As for selling it, we felt that people would either get it or not. We didn't have high expectations. By allowing for elaborate packaging (double album, clear vinyl), we hoped that it would attract the interest of collectors and those who appreciated high-concept projects. At the time of release, we only pressed 2,000 copies of the record, which we knew would sell out. We did manage to sell some additional CDs... most likely another 2,000.

Do you view Earth 2 as Sub Pop's most extreme release? I do think that [Earth 2] is the most extreme recording ever put out by Sub Pop.

Where do you think Earth 2 fits in the grand scheme of rock music? I've always felt very proud of Earth 2. In the grand scheme of rock music, I think it stands next to Metal Machine Music by Lou Reed. Conceptual, ambient, challenging. My favorite Earth memory is when they opened up for the Ultra Lame Fest show at the Paramount in '92. Although they opened for more popular bands like Mudhoney, it was amazing to see them perform for a sold-out crowd at such a prestigious venue.

DYLAN CARLSON

Earth mastermind

What was your state of mind when you went into the studio to record Earth 2? There were a couple of ideas. We'd already done long songs. So we wanted to do one album-length piece. Unfortunately, this was before Pro Tools; you only get 30 minutes max per reel of tape, running at 15 ips [inches per second]. That's why there are three parts to [Earth 2]. At the time we were doing that, the CD was like 75 minutes long, and we wanted to fill the entire CD. Those were two of the parameters we were working with. The first stuff we had done at a little eight-track studio. This was our first time using two-inch tape, so we wanted to use every track. The idea was to try to make it as big as the live thing that we did. It's funny, because when I was working with Stuart [Hallerman of Avast! Recording Company] again on Angels of Darkness, we were talking about how if we had to do that album now, how differently we would have gone about it. We loaded all our gear in there that we used in the live show, then turned everything up and did a bunch of stuff that is technically incorrect [laughs]. We mic'd all the speakers individually and ran them to separate tracks. It turns out there's a bunch of fade cancellation and stuff like that that we didn't take into account. And then realizing later on that if you crank up a small amp in the studio and record it, it'll sound bigger than cranking up a big amp in the studio. So we basically set up and played live with that crazy mic'ing going on. Any tracks that weren't filled later, we went back and did some overdubs.

What was the rationale behind using drums very sparingly? We didn't have a drummer at the time, and I got tired of programming the drum machine. The first two tracks, when we played 'em live, had a drum machine, but I didn't really want to record with the drum machine. And I figured it would take tracks away from guitar.

The idea was to come up with overwhelming waves of guitar and bass? Yeah. On ["Like Gold and Faceted"], we tried to have some drums, but it didn't work out well, so we ended up using cymbal washes, but that was it for percussion.

Did you conceive of this album as having a functional value, as the text on the back of the record suggests? That kind of came after we did it, when I was coming up with the cover. I had worked at a record store at the time [Peaches, then Beehive], over there on 45th. I grabbed a bunch of stuff when I worked there, and a series of meditational cassettes Atlantic Records did in the '70s caught my eye. It seemed to fit the mood. There was one that was sea sounds, one that was nature sounds. It went along with a series of Medical records that I had. Stuart mentioned that our songs seemed to be part of something else; they fade up and fade out, but sound like they keep going. I like that idea. It would be like this was a record that was part of a series. But I don't know where the series is; this is the only one that survived. It's funny when I listen to Earth 2—not that I listen to it that often or anything—we were trying to make this really huge record, but in a weird way it has this claustrophobic feel to me. Because of the way we did it, it has this weird murkiness. If I had to do it now, it would sound a lot more expansive.

Do you ever perform those songs live anymore? No. We haven't played those in many a moon.

Is it because you don't want to wallow in nostalgia or is it because you're so far out of that mind-set? Some people had mentioned the idea of us doing that this year. Since Earth is still a going concern, I don't really want to do that. I'm not really into that idea. It would be one thing if Earth had stopped at a certain point and we were coming back. But the fact that we're still going, revisiting stuff... I mean, we revisit stuff in the live set, but when we do 'em, they're updated and altered for the situation. With Earth 2, those would be really hard to do that with because they're just one thing. I don't feel the need to repeat it. I'd like to be the one band that's not playing an album from 20 years ago. [Laughs] It makes sense to me if you're a band that has a hit or hits back then and you're playing the hits for the fans. [Earth 2] is not like that. It's funny how so many people now are like, "Earth 2, Earth 2," but at the time, not many people got it.

It's acquired this [reputation] rather than starting out thinking it was this. People may view it as a seminal work, and that's great. I'm glad people like it, but I still feel there are better Earth records and more to come. So maybe if Earth in the future are doing a last tour, maybe then we'd break it out. But until then, I really don't want to do that.

What about the photograph in the inner part of the CD with you and Dave Harwell aiming the guns at the camera? It seems at odds with everything else on the cover. We were both firearms enthusiasts. It was a jarring bit of aggression in what was otherwise a fairly soporific album cover. [Laughs]

Whose work is that on the front cover? I had originally picked out some other photos from a book, but trying to get the licensing from the photographer was proving difficult. So I went through a book of stock photography with Art Aubrey. They weren't free, but there was just a flat fee. I tried to find photos that were close to the ones originally wanted, which were from this travel book about India. There was a picture of this castle in Rajasthan that has all these little mini towers hanging off the wall. The pill bottles had the same effect. Obviously at the time I had narcotic interests. [Laughs] The front photo is a picture of Mongolia.

Do you view Earth 2 as the band's ultimate statement? Maybe the first iteration of the band, but even then I'm not sure, because Pentastar I really like a lot. But I don't think it's Earth's ultimate statement. That's another thing about redoing stuff like that—a record is a snapshot of a certain time and mental state and environment. You can't re-create that. There was some talk of doing Earth 2 stuff again this year. The only idea that sounded cool to me, I had been talking with Lori [Goldston] about doing an arrangement of it for strings and an orchestra. Something like that would be appealing to me more than a "here we are cranking out the hits on tour" kind of thing.

If an avant-garde classical ensemble could do Metal Machine Music, it seems like you could get Earth 2 into some slightly different context and it would sound just as good. There was talk with ATP about doing that. It's okay to mention now because it never happened. It looked like it wasn't going to work out. They could sense I wasn't super-psyched about it. The logistics were proving to be difficult.

What did your musician friends—particularly Kurt Cobain—think of Earth 2 when it came out? Kurt was kind of in the midst of exploding. [Laughs] Nirvana were not in town very much at that time. You never really know when you play stuff for your friends: They say they like it, but who knows? I can like people and not like their band, but a lot of people you can't do that with. They think that if you like them as friends and you say you don't like their band, they get all huffy or get in a snit about it. I've always been like, I can like you as a friend, but I don't have to dig what you do musically.

Whatever happened to Dave Harwell? I tried to contact him, but he never responded. I see him every now and then—not as buds, but around town. This one time I saw him a couple of years ago, I said, "What's up?" and he acted like I didn't exist. [Laughs] For some reason, he and Joe Preston have some ax to grind. I've never quite figured out why. Back then, there were people I actually fucked over, and I get along with them fine now. Slim Moon, too... I don't know what I did that made them so angry at me. I've never had any ill will toward any of them. I don't know what's up.

Do you think that this album has received its proper due from critics? It's not for me to say what its proper due is. People seem to revere it and mention it quite highly. A lot of people say they were influenced by it. I can't complain. I'm glad people dig it. It took a while, but it's always nice when your work is appreciated.

Do you think Earth 2 was the hardest one to accomplish of all your albums, or the easiest? Hallerman said you guys would join him in the control room while the guitar and bass were going. He was kind of surprised. Earth 2 went pretty easily. (A) The budget was small; (B) we didn't have a ton of studio time. The first two tracks we'd played live, so we had 'em pretty down. The hardest part was playing the first two without any rhythms, since we had a rhythm track to play it live. That was the most difficult aspect of it. And then trying to figure out the weird ways to get as many tracks as possible without... Nowadays, obviously, I would book studio time and do a lot of overdubbing, whereas back then we didn't have that luxury, so we have to get all these at once—especially trying to overdub on a 15- or 20-minute track. It's not like you can do a lot of punch-ins and stuff. It would get pretty messy and mind-warping. But it did go pretty smoothly. The fact that we were young and Stuart was young and willing to try crazy stuff that we'd probably know better about now helped. We were excited to be in the studio with someone paying for our record to be made rather than us paying for it.

Do you remember how Sub Pop reacted when they first heard the record? My relationship with Sub Pop had always sort of been with Bruce, who was the more adventurous, experimental guy. Jonathan's strengths were knowing what would sell—he definitely had an ear for pop and hard rock. They seemed into it, especially Bruce. Bruce asked us to be on the label. They put a lot of effort into it. They did the nice vinyl version and made some nice shirts for it. It didn't get a lot of reviews at the time, other than British press. I remember being excited because the header said, "Slow Death, Immense Decay." Any reference to a Slayer song in a review of something I did I was pretty happy about.

STUART HALLERMAN

Earth 2 engineer, owner of Avast! Recording Company

Can you discuss the recording sessions for Earth 2? Did things go smoothly? What was the mood like in the studio when the tracks were being laid down? It went quite smoothly. They had a plan laid out. It was mostly the two of them—Dave and Dylan. Some things took me by surprise. After tuning up their guitars and getting a good roar going, it was time to get the first bass and guitar tracks; I walked back to the control room, and they followed me there and sat down and said it was time to roll tape [laughs]. The guitars were being played by EBows out there. Okay, interesting. I hit "record," and that was the bed of the first piece of music. Then they went back to retune their guitars and got the EBows going again and again followed me back into the control room. They said, "All right, that'll be our second track." I thought, "What have I gotten myself into here? This is going to be the most boring week on earth." It was already an interesting mood there, but as soon as the layers of the two instruments two times were there, the magic tapestry began to appear. So while filling reels of tape with sounds that way, it was a very relaxed vibe. I wish more days went by like that.

Were there overdubs or was it all just done in real time? Did you go back later and do some editing? They did the background tapestry of the layers of drones and EBow tracks and they did multitrack layers of riffs and parts over that that they played. It was done to tape—two-inch 16-track back in those days. No editing, really.

Did this music present any special challenges to you? It seemed pretty unprecedented up to that point. Patience. One of the stated things of Earth at the time was to out-Melvin the Melvins. I'm appreciative of both the fast Melvins and later the slow Melvins, but that was a noble experiment.

Did you feel like something momentous was happening during the recording of Earth 2? Did it stand out among the sessions you'd done? Not in the way the question would necessarily be wanting me to say, "Yeah." To me, it just seemed like this really cool drone record that I personally liked when it was done. I'd put it on in my living room for roommates or friends or visitors at appropriate moments—maybe late at night or just at a certain place in the evening—put this on and people would say, "What's this?" They'd pay attention to it and then give me this weird look, like, "Why are you doing this to us?" Four minutes later, they'd say, "This is cool." They'd relax into it.

To me, it was almost a parlor trick or experimental music, lovely in its own little porcupine way. It faded into obscurity, and then [in 2003 Autofact Records] reissued it and the label wanted me to write liner notes for it. I had a story or two—the preproduction meeting and first day of the session and whatnot, a few anecdotes, a short remembrance of the making of. Then, while checking the spelling of the members, I learned that unbeknownst to me, in the intervening years, around the world, people were doing doom-drone rock. I was pretty unaware of that. I knew about Sunn O))) and Boris and stuff like that, but didn't really get that there was this whole genre of this stuff. It might've even been before Sunn O))) and Boris. The momentous thing was there, but I was certainly taken by surprise that anyone had noticed or had spawned a genre.

Has anything you've worked on since then surpassed Earth 2 in sheer intensity and heaviness? Sunn O))) and Boris, the planets that orbit around Earth. There's some bombastic stuff that attempts to out-Melvins Earth. There was a Sunn O)))/Boris split record and one of the joking ideas was to release it instead of in a 5.1 surround sound, in 1.5 mono plus five subwoofers. For a moment we thought, "Why wouldn't we do that?" There was a mocking one-tenth-serious proposal to do that with the Sunn O)))/Boris split.

STEPHEN O'MALLEY

Guitarist for Earth-influenced band Sunn O)))

What thoughts were going through your mind the first time you heard Earth 2? What sort of associations did this music trigger in your head? I was living in a house in the U-District. A friend of mine, Curtis Pitts, worked at Sub Pop. He'd come over and hang out. I lived with six people at one of these terrible college houses. He brought over a promo of Earth 2. He wanted to give it to me because Dylan was wearing a Morbid Angel T-shirt on the promo photo. I was really into death metal. He thought I would respond to it. I did, but in a quite different way. I think I was 19 or something. It was my first year at the University of Washington. I was totally getting into LSD and black metal, as a graduation from death metal. Earth 2 was very different from anything I'd heard before. It kind of fit into that frame somehow. I didn't have any real experience with experimental music, so probably like a lot of people who got into that, we were coming from metal. It's kind of a gateway into minimalist music and experimental music—something that now over the years I've been educated on. But at the time, hearing purely instrumental guitar music was rare, especially in this format that I know now is referencing La Monte Young and raga music and various other types of meditational music. To a 19-year-old death-metal kid, it sounded like slow Slayer. Melvins had done some stuff like that, right around the same period, actually, but Melvins were always clearly a rock band. Earth 2 was the most non-rock album that they did. It's the most abstract album they did. Although some of the rock stuff they did on Pentastar is pretty abstract.

I actually saw the Earth duo of Dylan and Dave Harwell play at that time at the Sub Pop Ultra Lame Fest. I think they played right before Mudhoney and right after Seaweed. Earth played some riffs that I recognized from Earth 2, but the audience was not into it. It was at the Paramount Theatre, and after a stage-diving Seaweed set, it was like, "What the fuck is this?" [Laughs]

Did Earth 2 sound to you like an ultimate statement, a kind of ground zero for heavy music? No, it never did. I think people give it more credit than it deserves. I think it's a great experimental record. I don't know if Dylan was trying to make an ultimate statement about music. I think he was trying to follow his ideas and interests into another area. Which is how he still does music. He follows his own path. People worship the past—especially art and music and literature and film. Various works are worshipped as being these pinnacles, and in some cases they were meant to be by the creators, but generally they pick up that reputation or presence after the creative process is done.

I love [Earth 2]; I was very educated by it as a guitar player and a musician, but I don't know if the album itself is really that important in that way. It affected some people. That band was put out on Sub Pop [because Carlson was Kurt Cobain's buddy]. Poneman and Pavitt wanted to please Kurt, so they put it out. Sub Pop didn't know what the fuck they were doing. Now, of course, they've re-pressed all these old records. When they actually came out, it was like, "Whatever," you know? "Bleach sold another 50,000 copies; sure, we'll put out another Earth record. Whatever."

It may be one of the most interesting records the label put out, as far as minimalist music. There's not much minimalist music on that label. It's a great doorway, for someone coming from metal. It introduced New York minimalist music like Tony Conrad, Glenn Branca, guitar orchestra music, La Monte Young, the Western take on raga music. It still sounded heavy, like slowed-down Slayer, as it always was described, but it was drone music played with guitars, extremely long songs.

What do you think about Earth 2 today, 20 years after its release? Do you think the album has gotten its due from the press and the public? I think it's a historical album, and what more could you ask? It's 20 years later, and people still consider it to be a very important record. Every time Sunn O))) puts out a record, [Earth 2] gets mentioned—which is a compliment for us. It's a tower in the musical world. I don't know if it's due anything. Earth got its due when Dylan re-formed the band and turned it into a real band, who produced a lot more music that's more important than that album, actually. That Earth has continued to make interesting, compelling music on their own terms, that's more important. It's nice to have Earth 2 in the background.

When I was a teenager, I was into hardcore. But then I got really into death metal with a couple of friends. I'm glad I was discovering marijuana and LSD at the time, because I probably wouldn't have been open to Earth 2 otherwise. 

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