There can be few bands around today as challenging both to the listener and their genre (whatever that is) as Neurosis. For the past 10 years, the Oakland sextet have created new levels of intensity with a truly frightening mixture of scarifying guitars, tribal drumming, keyboards played with fists, brain-frying samples and their own particular world vision. Their last three albums, Souls At Zero, Enemy Of The Sun and 1996's Through Silver In Blood, have just been re-released by the good folks at Music For Nations. In some ways however, their thunder has been stolen by more celebrated acts in past years. Despite this, recent tours with metal heavyweights Pantera and Ozzy Osbourne have raised their profile Stateside, but Neurosis have always been popular in Europe, they're certainly no strangers to Belfast. Iain Henderson talked to birthday boy Scott Kelly, one of the three guitarists and vocalists, in Katy Daly's, aided and abetted by his very pissed partners in crime, Brendy and Marty.

I: Is there an Oakland scene as we've been led to believe?
"You know, I don't really pay attention actually. There's not really a cohesive scene. I mean, we know Machine Head, cos they're from Oakland. There has been in the past, when it was the punk rock days. There is a certain affinity for people who come from the same region. There is a great underground music scene. The Bay Area always seems to turn out really original bands, but people from other places, doesn't matter where it is, like Americans idolise some kind of English music scene that probably doesn't exist either, it's all kind of a myth."

I: Why are bands like Neurosis more popular in Europe than in the US?
"Probably because Europe seems to be a bit more art orientated, they're a little more open minded. I say that reluctantly though. I used to think that absolutely, that America was just about cliques, you were either punk rock or heavy metal or this, that and the other thing and I thought that Europe was especially appreciative of things that are different, off the wall, off the beaten path. Over the last few years though, watching every single European I know get into techno music, I kinda take that back."
M and B: (Disgusted) Not us, not us! Fuckin' despise it!
"All right, thank you. Bless you."

B: Why aren't there better photos of you on the albums?
"It's not about what we look like. We do it for us."
B: We buy the fucking albums.
"I know and we appreciate that! Our whole thing is artistic expression of what we have to get out from inside and it has nothing to do with anyone else. We never cared about what anyone thinks of our music. We've never pandered to any kind of audience or critique because all those things poison purity and what we're trying to do is pure emotionally and spiritually in our heads and, honestly, we feel like we're just medium communicating energy and feelings to people and that we, as individuals, what we look like has nothing to do with anything. We hate taking pictures. I feel like the American Indians feel about pictures, I think it captures your soul and I'm not into that shit. I hate cameras. We do it once in a while to appease the magazines cos we know that we'll get no press if we take no pictures, but I hate it. It has nothing to do with it."

I: Are you playing any new songs on this tour with Entombed?
"We've been on tour since Through Silver In Blood came out, so we haven't had time to write any new material. We're doing a support slot set too, so 45 minutes is about time for four songs. We haven't been on the types of tours were we do sound checks. Ozzfest we didn't get a chance to. No, we can't write on the road. It's impossible. Sound checks are 'hurry up and get it done'."

I: What goes into the process of creating a Neurosis song?
"It happens in a lot of different ways. Sometimes someone will have an idea of just how they want it to feel and we'll all kind of jam on it together. Sometimes it'll be improvisation, other times people will have riffs or ideas at home that they'll bring to the group. It's a long process. It's a lot of weeding out. Each part we analyse pretty hardcore and if it doesn't convey a certain type of strong emotion or anything slightly weak, it's out. We throw away way more than we actually come up with. Nothing is done deliberately. We obey the music. The music requires a certain type of attention and none of it is planned out in here, it all comes from the gut and so if a song has to be that long to get the point across that's what had to happen. It's all about feeling and not about thought at all. It's about what happens, what flows."

M: Your music is completely new and different from anything that's gone before. Do you have any influences?
"Yeah, I don't know if they're so much musical as just, you know, to me I'm inspired by people that do something different and that look to their own thing rather than 'I like that, I'll take that; I like that, I'll take that'. Any band that puts themselves out as intensely and honestly as they possible can. Our influences are even beyond music. It's life experience." I: What contemporary bands do you like? "I don't like a whole lot of heavy bands that are out there these days. I do like Zeni Geva and I've always loved The Swans. I listen to a wide range of stuff, folk music, classical music ."

M: Do you think you've evolved or do you think it's people's minds opening?
"We're definitely evolving. The second we stop to evolve, we're gonna stop. It always has to outdo the last thing, always has to change. We've never put out two records that are the same, or why bother? Always just further. Further expansion. You start in the centre point, which was the beginning and you expand out, you never go back."

B: One question, right? Northern Ireland. No-one else bothers, why youse?
"We just took a pledge years ago that when we played England we'd play Ireland. It seemed right."
B: That's damn good. The last decent gig we saw here was Iron Maiden in early '96, a year earlier was Megadeth.
"We've never considered ourselves a metal band. We came from the punk rock scene really, if you want to trace it back to where we're coming from. Neurosis was started in 1985 as a hardcore band basically. Just because we have a big guitar sound doesn't mean we fit in with heavy metal, we don't fit in with anything. We've evolved into something that's our own type of music. It's not punk, it's not heavy metal, it's not any of those things, it doesn't fit into any of those categories. People wear little blinders and put music in little boxes and decide this is industrial-alternative-metal-crap-whatever the fuck they want to say. A lot of those people can find something to enjoy in our music, but we really don't follow any of those rules. Our whole trip is about bursting those boxes for people."

As intense as Neurosis' studio recordings are, nothing can prepare you for the onslaught of their live experience. Accompanied by a backdrop of disturbing visuals, courtesy of sixth member Pete Inc., the feeling of discomfort is overwhelming. The footage of a man being shot through the temple at point blank range is an image that once seen is not easily forgotten. The same goes for Neurosis.

This page hosted by Get Your Own Free Home Page