This is Matt Longo with Mind Over Metal and I’m happy to be talking today with Brian Patton, guitarist for SOILENT GREEN. Thanks for joining us today, Brian … I really appreciate it.
Oh, no problem, man … the pleasure’s all mine.
Alright, so I wanna start off by saying that I’ve been loving you guys ever since “Confrontation” and you’ve become known for genre-defying, gear-shifting music, but always with an organic flow that keeps it from sounding like “Metal cobbler” … what is your songwriting process like?
That’s great: “Metal cobbler” [laughs] … we’ve got all very eclectic tastes, y’know what I mean? I listen to everything from Blues to Jazz to R&B and we try to incorporate some of those actual parts … but as far as the writing … you acknowledged the flow … that’s actually the hardest part of the writing is trying to put these parts together and make them flow … it’s challenging, man, cuz anyone can take a bunch of parts and slam them together and make them kinda cut-and-paste, but to get that flow, it takes a bit of work.
Right on.
Also, we get bored playing really easily, so it’s nice to kinda move on to something else … we write a riff, flesh it out, play it 3 to 4 times, move on to something else.
Funny you should mention that, cuz one of the first things I thought after hearing you guys was ‘man, they have musical A.D.D., but it works!’
[laughs] Exactly … well, thank you, man!
Now you just mentioned cut-and-paste vs hammering something out … you guys don’t use Pro Tools, do ya?
No … especially with the recording process, it’s the one thing that we’re anal about … we’ve always done tape, and this is actually the first time we’ve recorded digitally … but we do not edit … it’s just us playing on the tracks and they’re all 100% organic tones with our instruments … no triggers and stuff like that.
Nice.
We try to keep it real, y’know? Especially in a lot of music nowadays, it sounds so computerized … a lot of bands go in there, play the riff 1 or 2 times, and it’s up to the producer to basically build the record. We’re an actual band that like to play music!
Because the market is so saturated these days, what do you think a band has to do to stand out?
It’s definitely hard … I mean, we’re in our own world, man … we’re part of the New Orleans scene and we just kinda do what we do … we kinda keep what was true to Punk Rock and Metal alive by just being a real band, y’know? The market is extremely saturated with a lot of mediocre talent, but there’s a lot of amazing new bands out there and a lot of new cats that are really doing well.
You said earlier that you listen to lots of different kinds of music … does that go for all you guys?
We all have varied tastes … our drummer is the epitome of Heavy Metal … he’ll listen to BLACK N’ BLUE, y’know, and if it doesn’t have a distorted guitar then he doesn’t listen to it! That’s how he is, and we all have our varied styles and different tastes. Personally, I regress into a lot of old, old music like CHARLEY PATTON and SON HOUSE, as far as Blues goes … and a lot of the old Jazz guys … and the 70s R&B Soul thing I’ve been digging a lot lately … I have no idea about these bands nowadays … if I wanna hear something extreme, it’s the [Metal] I heard when I was a kid … if it’s gonna be something new–especially with SOILENT GREEN–I try to pull from varied styles, and not from my Metal influences too much, because then it becomes something that’s already been done, and what’s the point of doing it then?
Makes sense. Now here’s something I feel I should know, and I don’t. Why did you all choose SOILENT GREEN as a band name, and why the change in spelling?
Well, we were young and we loved Charlton Heston! It was just one of those things where we were all sitting around–and I’m horrible with names and everyone in our band is horrible with names–and our drummer came up with the idea of doing it and we were all just like ‘okay, let’s do it’ … and we didn’t wanna get sued, so we changed [the 'y'] to an ‘i.’
[laughs] That is all it was, huh?
It’s really kinda stupid and simple, but that’s the bottom line! But I also believe that a band makes the name. You take a band like BUTTHOLE SURFERS–one of the most amazing bands in the world, with one of the stupidest names in the world! The band makes the name … it’s definitely one of those things where we were sitting around, there it was, and it just kinda stuck with us.
So this time around, you worked with Erik Rutan, who also helped produce “Confrontation” … was it smoother working with him this time around, since he’s more familiar with you guys as musicians?
Oh, it was great the second time around! For one, he’s in a new studio … when we did “Confrontation,” we did it at his house. So it was basically us living in his home, and him popping up and doing the record. It was actually fun, but now he’s got a massive new studio and he knows our tones and he knows what we like … he’s an amazing producer and he can adjust his abilities to do organic tones and stuff we like, so we’re totally pleased with the production. Erik … man, he’s great to work with! We’ve known him since we toured with MORBID ANGEL, so we were just friends … and to have your producer be your friend makes for a happy, creative recording process. Sometimes it can be really stressful in the studio, and working with him is smooth as glass … we hope to go back to him!
You’ve said that your song titles make it hard for fans to call out and request during live performances … do you include more succinct names because of this, or does it just work out that way?
Well that’s Ben Falgoust, man … he handles a lot of the lyrics and he likes to make people think a little bit, y’know? It makes you use your brain, but it does make it difficult for the fans who know the songs to burst em out live, cuz they are quite long-winded–and that’s a running joke within the band–but a lot of them make sense, and they’re actually saying something.
A major difference on this album was including the non-Metal portions into the songs themselves, rather than tracking them individually … why is that?
Well one reason is corporate bullshit. They actually charge you for those songs on the internet. I mean, we love doing songs like that and we’re already writing for the next record. If it was me, I would do an entire record with crazy Blues and Country and stuff like that. But back to the point … you only get paid for 10 songs when you have a record out, so if you overload it with a lot of songs, you’re cheating the fans, cuz you make them purchase all of that and it’s supposed to be fun … you shouldn’t have to pay a dollar for an intro, so we just worked them into the songs themselves.
How do you feel about file-sharing? Do you think it’s been helping or hurting you guys in any way?
It definitely depends on the situation. I mean, our record leaked maybe a month or two before the release date, and it got circulated quite a bit, from what I understand. It’s not a bad thing, as long as people follow up and enjoy the package. Personally, I’m a vinyl fan and I like to have the physical product in my hand, looking at the artwork, etc. … as opposed to a fucking file on a computer screen. It definitely helps, as far as spreading the word … but if a band is touring, on the road, trying to make a living, it can injure them. But again, it goes both ways, man … it circulates it and gets it in people’s ears, but at the same time it can keep money out of our pockets and make it a little bit rougher, touring-wise, y’know? But we hang in there, man … we’ve been doing it for 20 years and we’re used to being poor … that’s us, man … but if you’re listening to our music, it’s all good … however you need to get it, get it!
You’ve recently switched labels … what’s the biggest difference between Metal Blade and Relapse?
Metal Blade is amazing. I mean, Relapse is amazing, too … you gotta realize that a lot of the stuff that happened with Relapse was kinda on our side, cuz of all the accidents and all the stuff that was going on in our band’s history … it messed things up for them. How can you work a band when every time they go out on tour, they get in a van accident or somebody gets killed or some ridiculous crap goes on and cripples the band for a while … it’s understandable, and we actually left Relapse on good terms. Now Metal Blade, they were fans of us before we even signed with em. To actually have that feeling of confidence that these guys are gonna push the album and are extremely positive … for a band like us, who’s been through what we have and lucky to still be doing it, it’s great … we love Metal Blade … hey, it’s why I’m talking to you right now!
Yep, that’s very true!
Very, very true!
So you’ve got a new video for “Antioxidant” … could you talk about that, and maybe throw in some trivia for all us Metal dorks out there … maybe something you’d miss on an initial viewing?
Well as far as the shoot goes, it was an extremely tortuous fucking thing! We filmed it in an abandoned house in upstate New York where this lady pretty much bought an entire town and it’s all gutted out … we played in an abandoned school auditorium that probably hadn’t been entered since the 1950s, and it was surrounded by many, many feet of snow. We had a truck, maybe 80 feet long, full of gear to load in through all this ice and snow. I’m from New Orleans, man … me and snow don’t really work well [laughs]. It was maybe 10 degrees, and 10 degrees less than that inside the goddamn place! Plus, video shoots are always weird, cuz you’re playing the song for like 10 hours in a row. But it was a good time, man, with good people–Dave Brodsky directed it. We wanted to go for that old-school, “Susperia”-type, sado-masochism thing, and he did a good job, man.
Yeah, the end gets pretty creepy with the chick in the mask and everything …
We basically wanted to do as much as we possibly could, without it getting banned from airplay. It was a very surreal and strange experience.
You guys are going on tour very soon with CHIMAIRA and DETHKLOK … I’ve heard some rumors about what the DETHKLOK live show is like … is there gonna be live people or will there be screens up showing the animated band?
There are going to be screens up … it’ll be silhouetted so you won’t see the musicians themselves–they’ll be shadowed out–and the screens behind them will be synched up with the music. It’s gonna be pretty much watching a cartoon band … it’ll be great! We love it, cuz it’s something we actually enjoy watching, and we know Gene [Hoglan] pretty well … whenever you can tour with a friend, it’s always a beautiful thing. We’re on tour with DEATH ANGEL right now, and that’s an amazing experience cuz I grew up with those guys.
That’s about all I got, Brian … any last words?
Thank you for listening to us if you are … and if you really like it, come see us live, cuz we are a live band that pride ourselves on playing our music for real … we’re better live than we are in the studio!
Cool … and for more information, you can go to your MySpace page and you guys are also on Facebook now, too?
Yeah … gotta love it!
Alright, well thanks again for talking with me today, Brian … take care of yourself, and I’ll hopefully see you on tour.
Yeah, and thank you … see ya later!
Official SOILENT GREEN Metal Blade Page
Official SOILENT GREEN Relapse Page
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