Friends,
Our latest release, "The Anxiety of Influence," is now available for free download here: http://www.againstnature.us/discogra...nce/index.html.

We also will have a limited-edition CD of this release available soon. Please check the "News" section of our web site www.againstnature.us for information regarding this and other upcoming CD releases on our label Bland Hand Records.

Cheers,
John Brenner
Bert Hall, Jr.
Steve Branagan

__________________
Against Nature
www.againstnature.us

Friends,

Bert and I obviously have too much time on our hands this month (September will be incredibly busy, though!). We "interviewed" each other, just for fun and to post on the myspace site, but I thought I should share the results with everyone. Bert also interviewed Steve, and we'll post that whenever Steve has the time to answer (he has been busy, unlike us).

Interview with Bert Hall, Jr.
questions by John Brenner 8/10/05

You play in 3 other bands; what made you want to play bass with Against Nature?

I dislike sleep intensely. 2 other bands and bass in one. All of them are very different situations. Two of those have out of state members(California and New Mexico) and rarely DO anything but for when people come to town.

Playing in this situation feels very natural, actually. I get to concentrate on the bass and contribute in a way that I’ m very comfortable with. I write a lot so I have a lot of riffs. You‘ve seen this. I just tossed out Splatterism, and the riffs for Children cope with boredom off the top of my head. I’m glad we have that day on film! So, I can throw out riffs to ad to what you have and being a singer too, I can put vocal lines and lyrics together.

In one of the other situations I’m the band leader/guitarist/lead singer. Another situation I’m the primary songwriter again but playing bass AND singing. And in the last situation I’m just playing guitar on a bunch of aggressive and really odd songs.

This situation is a lot of fun because of the fact that the three of us have a chemistry that I think is ridiculous! Personally and musically! It just works on a level that a lot of situations I’ve been in and around don’t.

How, specifically, do you think Against Nature compares to the version of Revelation you played in?

The material is better, we play better, and we have a sense of perspective now, I think. I feel much better about what we are doing now.

Do you think Against Nature fits the trajectory that started with Revelation, or is this something new?

I think we might have made this music at this point had we kept going but sometimes you have to get off the bus for a minute before you can enjoy the whole ride. It feels like a natural progression. I think I’m able to contribute much more than I could have in Revelation.

What do you remember about recording that first Revelation record?

We were just talking about this. My out of tune 8 string Rickenbacker bass! I remember being in a studio in PA but little else at this point besides rerecording the bass! I recall falling asleep during the mix.

Many people refer to the “Salvation’s Answer”-era of Revelation and the record itself as classic. What is your opinion of that?

That’s cool. I’m glad people even remember it!! I heard a lot more feedback before this about “Silence” actually. I was convinced that maybe 4 people bought Salvation’s Answer or something. I thought the songs were cool on that one but then, after time, I know I play better than that now. I was amazed when I met people who commented on it. People have been very friendly to me actually. I think that people have been very accepting has made it easy for me to just get on with playing without any anxiety.

In addition to Geezer Butler and Geddy Lee, what non-“traditional” influences show up in your bass playing?

Chris Squire from YES, James Jamerson (Motown house bassist who Geddy himself lists as a huge influence, there’s section in Outlet that is inspired by Jamerson at 1:00-1:26), and Andy Rourke from the Smiths(listen to the first bass riff in Organon and the Smiths’ “This Night has opened my eyes”). There should be some gasps of horror from some of those, I’m sure. I really like Bob Daisley’s (Rainbow, Ozzy ) playing a lot. I like people who do something interesting. I used to hate having to cover Michael Anthony’s bass from Van Halen in bands when I was a teenager. You fall asleep. He does exactlywhat’s need for those songs but he can have that gig. I also like Paul Chambers from the Miles Davis quintet, Jimmy Garrison from the John Coltrane quintet. No real serious influence. I just like what they do with the music.

Describe the experience of playing live with John and Steve for Against Nature’s debut at Templars of Doom.

It was great because people made us feel comfortable. It was almost casual in a way that is not typical of a lot of my other experiences. We had worked so hard to get the tunes together, it relieved SOME of the anxiety. The gig itself was a LOT of fun. I felt like people were actually listening, which is rare here in Baltimore. I think it went well other than the train wreck during the medley. I would have slashed my wrists if that had happened to one of the other situations I‘ve played in but it felt good enough to laugh off there.

Interview with John Brenner, Part 1
Questions by Bert Hall, Aug. 2005

John, how does it feel to be playing music again after such a long time away?

It’s been fun so far. I didn’t stop playing music altogether since 1993. Classical music has always been the standard of beauty, composition, and ideas for me (that’s what makes it classical!), so I played my classical guitar regularly. Also, around 1998 or so, you and I had our avant-jazz thing (“Poets and Fascists”), where I played bass. That was funny: you had all these electric guitars, and I wouldn’t touch them, like they were poison. I would play only the bass.

I especially like the challenge of recording on my own. The recording and production side has always interested me, and I love doing them both again. Technology has made everything much easier than it was in the 80s. I like being able to record 20 takes of a lead or vocal, without the clock staring over my shoulder. And I can experiment, too, without worrying about wasting time and money.

How did Against Nature come about and why did it happen when it did?

I don’t even remember now. When you lent me your guitar and amp, I started writing riffs, just to see what would happen (“Alogos” is the first song I wrote). Josh and I jammed, you came over to play, and we asked Steve to come try the practice drum kit you bought. It just kind of came together without a name, just playing and screwing around for fun. I re-arranged the songs from “Salvation’s Answer” in June 2004 and recorded the guitars. Then I started recording those new riffs, along with some old riffs I found on a cassette tape from 1992 (“Organon” and “A Priori” are from those tapes). I think it all just happened: before you knew it, we were talking about choosing a name and rehearsing. I remember hearing the music at a “big amp” rehearsal at Steve’s for the first time. Seemed like there was no turning back at that point.

Playing music is one aspect of your transition; however, for you doing this involves the extra wrinkle that how you've chosen to enjoy music again tends to attract some attention, and even, comparisons to what you were doing before you stopped. How has this been for you?

It’s odd in many ways. For years, for almost the entire 90s, I didn’t listen to heavy music. I couldn’t. The comparisons don’t bother me—it’s the same kind of music, after all. My ears are better these days, if my fingers are still the same.

On a serious note: depression is a disease that has only in recent years come to the forefront of public consciousness. When you played music with Revelation , a good deal of your lyrics dealt with your personal struggle. Have you come to terms with this aspect of your past work?

Staying somewhat detached from it seems a good way to come to terms with it. I don’t really listen to those first two Revelation records, although I’ve worked a bit on re-mixing and re-recording “Never Comes Silence.” Realizing that those years were a different country, that person is almost a stranger, that feeling is nearly gone—all this helps. I don’t look over my shoulder at it. It is what it is. People have been telling me recently that they relate to those words and those songs, that their own lives are or were on the same trajectory. I find this incredibly sad. But again, I know who I am now, and I neither fight it nor ignore it. I just accept those days for what they were. I would never want to relive them out of some misguided sense of nostalgia or sentimentality.

Appease and Panoply don't deal lyrically with the subject matter you explored in Revelation. Has this been a liberating factor for you in being able to create in a way that does not root you in the person you once were?

Twelve years passed for me in between playing heavy music. Think of all the things one can read, hear, learn, experience in over a decade! When I write lyrics now, all those things bear on the words. It’s also definitely liberating not to need to write “genre” lyrics. Somehow, depression and struggle became a genre: “doomy lyrics.” That’s just wrong. I never wrote that way to fulfill a genre, to sound “doomy,” to play a part, to write the “doomiest, darkest lyrics ever.” It’s a lyrical cliché with so many bands today, isn’t it?

Today, I can experiment with words, play with double and triple meanings, with connotations and with evoking images. The words I’ve been writing these days are less hermetically sealed, more open to the possibilities of meaning.

Revelation managed to build to a point where people were aware of the music who had never actually met the band. Numerous tapes circulating, a compilation track, two albums, tours abroad came about and then you walked away from it all. Would you mind talking about what led you to that place and what prompted you to consider returning to music?

Walking away from it all was the only way to find my soul, that essence of who I am that underlies everything I do or think. I was meeting new people, people who weren’t into heavy music, and they befriended me anyway. Sometimes I was embarrassed because when I looked at the music I was writing and playing from the outside, it just looked so childish and boorish, even destructive. This new perspective made me see something: I wanted to discover who I was. And I recognized the train wreck that was waiting for me if I didn’t—I saw it coming, I was beginning to make it happen.

Rush prompted me to return to music! For some reason, I started listening to “Permanent Waves” and “Caress of Steel” (still my two favorite Rush records) around 2000 or so. It was like seeing a photo of my closest friend after years apart: I could see it for what it was, all the inanity, pretentiousness, faults…but also the beauty of it, the joy of listening to music and playing it. Gradually, I re-acquired some of the music I had given away or thrown away in 1993 (I gave away my entire record and tape collection—thousands of things). I became a fan again, but a fan who could see a bit more clearly, who could step outside it when necessary and see it for what it is. Music crept back into me; I began dreaming of riffs and songs, waking up trying to hum them. I didn’t have a guitar at the time. (Technically, I still don’t: the guitar I play is yours, Bert). I began to see that I could possible return to music, play it again, without the negativity of the past, without falling into those old, self-set traps. I think I’m right.

We've talked about the fact that we "aren't 25 anymore". Clearly, among some of the groups we played with at Templars of Doom " we visually stood out as older, even down to "forgetting to wear denim,leather, etc. What are your feelings about playing music, and specifially this music as you approach 40? Do any of the usual conventions involved with the doom metal genre or the perceptions of the genre prove more challenging today than in 1990?

The “conventions” make things easier: I can disregard them at will and with a purpose now! Revelation never really made conventional music, not even conventional doom metal. We never felt chained to a genre; we were creating a genre. Josh Hart recently explained it to me perfectly. He said “when we write music, we listen to what we love, and then we re-write it the way we would have if it were ours.” This is precisely what I do—listen to Asylum, The Obsessed, Black Sabbath, Rush, Trouble, Penance, and write it the way I want it to sound. I think many bands today simply imitate. Such music is pastiche; it’s more about tribute or idol-worship than about invention. It’s more about being a fanatic, defining yourself by what you listen to, than it is about being a composer, a creator.

Approaching 40…I don’t feel 38, anyway. At the Templars of Doom festival, I honestly felt much like I would feel years ago—a part of things but apart from things. I admit that I felt some of that negativity seeping back in; at times that day in Indianapolis, I wanted to walk away, to be somewhere else, to do something else. This is something I need to mull over in the coming months, especially if we intend to play live. It struck me as amazing that so many aspects of playing this music hadn’t changed: the people, the attitude, the bullshit, the good and bad. But I had a great time, and all went smoothly. Being on the stage felt good. I wish it would have been more like that 15 years ago!

Hah—we did look a bit different, right? Well, maybe we are different. I want to be different sometimes. I feel more in control of that now; I can be who I am, and it doesn’t matter what most people think about it. I don’t need long hair and jeans and black t-shirts to be who I am. I don’t need to wear “the uniform.” Even in Revelation, we never bothered with all that. I’ve never cared about image; I’m not an actor or an advertisement. The music is all that matters.

I don’t know about playing this music forever, much beyond 40. Who knows? It’s good now.

During your time away, we were actually neighbors for 3 years during which time you listened very heavily to a number of jazz artists. In comparison, your recent writing is much more advanced in the doom genre than the work you created years ago. Further, the jazz that you listened to shows no outward influence in this music. What, if anything other than time has helped you develop your writing?

Ten years of listening to jazz, mostly avant-garde jazz, has made me less afraid to experiment musically. Also, the whole jazz attitude of playing what you want with whomever you want has changed my outlook. Why not release different versions or takes of the same song? Why not use the same melody or riff in different songs? Why not re-arrange songs whenever the art demands it? Why not explore new sounds, things that may eventually become orthodox? Rush broke boundaries, and that added 20 years to their career. Of course, Against Nature isn’t exactly experimental or new. But the attitude underneath the band is new, so on the surface, expect odd ripples to appear occasionally. Also, I have a better appreciation of musicianship, of what standards to aim for. The standard for great musicianship certainly isn’t simply turning up as loud or playing as slow as you can.

What are your goals with Against Nature and music, in general, this time? Why are you here, and with such enthusiasm?

Against Nature, I hope, will personally remain friends and artistically continue to challenge each other to be our best. Hearing what you and Steve are doing with this music has kept me on my toes; I know that I can’t become complacent with my writing or my playing. My plan is for Against Nature to record as much as possible over the new few years, playing with bands we enjoy hearing, at places we enjoy visiting. I’d love to go to Europe or Japan and play. I also want to make music with other friends: Dennis Cornelius, Rich Freund, Eric Little, Terry Weston, some projects with them. Why the enthusiasm? I don’t know. I can’t explain it. That old feeling is back, that feeling of playing loud, challenging music, of holding your breath, waiting for comments from others, of listening to what’s coming out of the speakers and yelling, “hell, yes!”

You did a "review " of the Templars gig that was both candid and humorous. How do you feel about playing in front of audiences again?

It’s difficult. I was so nervous at that show, being on stage, everyone watching me. That was exactly like the past, unfortunately. But I just closed my eyes at times and tried to concentrate on, to listen to what we were playing. Admittedly, I love playing for people. I love it that people want to spend their time listening to us, when they could be doing something else. Sharing music in this way still satisfies me. But I will not live and die by the gig! Writing and recording, with the occasional gig, makes me happy. A short tour or two, I could do. I’ll probably never get over my nervousness at being on stage. Teaching is like this for me, too. But if I pretend I’m not nervous, pretend I’m confident, most people can’t tell the difference. Perhaps after a while there’s no difference between the pretending and the reality.

end of part 1