Interviews : “If The Title Is Easy, It Doesn’t Restrict The Potential Of The Album.”- An Interview With John Baizley (Baroness)

                          John Dyer Baizley – Baroness

There are good bands and there are great bands. And then there’s Baroness, a force to be reckoned with in the world of music. The Savannah, Georgia sludge and prog metal lords have been creating waves a plenty since their monumental release Red Album. Following a scarring experience that was a miracle, a wake-up call and a life changing event, the band made their successful return to the stage in 2013 and released their fourth full-length album Purple last year, much to the delight of many. Metal Obsession had the honour of having an insightful and inspiring chat with none other than the charming, down-to-earth John Dyer Baizley, who shared life after the crash, the band’s recent lineup changes, creating his signature works of art and more.

Baroness have been very busy since their latest release last year and things are going extremely well for them. “It’s been great, incredibly good and no complaints whatsoever. Especially live the response has been fantastic to the new album. Just everything we see – the tons of new faces, people who are seeing us for the first time, it continues to amaze us even now. Because when we ask the crowds, ‘how many people are seeing us for the first time‘ the majority of the audience raise their hands and yell which is massive for us. We’re really proud of how things have turned out and how things are going.”

Baroness like my favourite Germans Heaven Shall Burn, have an ardent love for being cryptic and mysterious. Many will remember the severely epic way in which Purple was released bit by bit, with the band making fans piece together the cues as if doing a musical jigsaw of sorts. “You know, I think that in modern music now, we have effectively scrubbed out all the mystique and mystery out of it completely. But for us, we wanted to keep things under wraps wherever and however it was done. We had made a record that we were very proud of and  so as not to overwhelm ourselves our our audiences, we  just really wanted to release a little bit of information at a time. These little bits of content that would give hints, and a bit of insight of what the purpose was going to be.”

This record is Baroness’ triumphant return and an incredible display of what will power, passion and dedication to your art. “I guess the feelings were not quite that mixed. For those of us that have been through the traumatic event that we did, the main thing for us is that we’re just happy that we could at least put a part of that story behind us and in a way make it a positive outcome. It would’ve been distasteful to capitalize on it so instead we took our experiences among other things to create an album that we’re thrilled with. We stood behind it and like I said, we’re proud because under slightly different circumstances, it could not have been made.”

What was in the minds of many is whether Baroness would be Baroness after the terrible experience they had – it would be their first album post the occurrence.  the fact that this would be the band’s first album post the bus crash  ” It was a lot easier than I thought it would be. Of course it wasn’t easy from the get go but all we knew is that we wanted to make an album.  All it really took was just getting a couple of tours under our belt, especially with Sebastian and Nick after which the focus was getting a month of writing and rehearsal done, developing as a band. “ John also shared his thoughts on the transition period, when the band welcomed the two newest members Nick the bassist and Sebastian, the drummer, both who joined in 2013. “I’d be lying if i said I wasn’t surprised by it. The fear that it just might not work lingered at the time. But we’re thrilled with them because somehow when we needed something to work, it did – they were the right guys. It’s been a pleasure working with them both. Writing the new album was quite therapeutic and liberating because it helped a lot during that period. Music itself is a creative outlet and  working on this record especially got me through a very hard time.”

Quitting would’ve been an easier way to deal with the kind of ordeal that Baroness went through But they didn’t. In fact, they came back stronger than ever to create the absolute majesty that is ‘Purple’. Inspirations behind the album, beauty is subtle. “I know what you mean, I think that having Seb is a blessing for us to write, because I knew that in some way shape or form conceptually there was going to be a little bit or a lot of what I was going through. Lyrically I focus on experiences, and especially the experiences I’ve had prior to writing a new album so  I think, Nick, Pete and Seb wanted to write something that had a lot of energy,  that was direct. From their point of view, they didn’t want to screw up something that existed before them and that gave me the idea to create a juxtaposition and tackle something that could have been very dark and dismal otherwise. In  doing so  we figured out a way to tackle adversity and subjects that would be difficult to deal with.”

Purple does represent an evolution in Baroness’ music but in a very subtle way. “We never have an idea of where we are going or when we start writing music for a new album – we just know that we want to constantly move forward. There are things that we do which I think people identify as being a part of our sound, as long as our style and the spirit is genuine, we felt comfortable doing new things. Really, once we got past the initial ‘getting-to-know-you’ stage in the writing and rehearsal sense, it wasn’t difficult. We all knew those benchmarks of our sound, and so if everything felt like it met the criteria for our song, then we developed it. It was as simple as that to be honest.”

I still remember when I first heard Baroness and came across the ‘Red Album’ – “It might not seem as philosophical or interesting as most people think. But it came about when  we had got to a point of a label interested in releasing an album. Relapse wanted to put out our album so when we had this discussion at the time, we talked about what we would call it. Our previous releases were named numerically, so our first EP was called ‘First’, our second EP was called ‘Second’; you get it. We thought that since I was so engaged in artwork, which it was always known I was going to be working on simultaneously, that if we wanted to continue this kind of simplistic system of titles we could do it with colours and the idea stuck. Our drummer joked at the time that if we kept that up, we’d have an interesting looking merch table. But the other thing is, that I recognize our music as being relatively dense and at times it can be pretty obtuse and difficult to decipher. So in light of that, it made a lot of sense to use some aspect of the album that wasn’t too tricky, and if the title is easy, then it doesn’t restrict the potential of the album and it’s sound.”

John, apart from being a stellar musician is also an incredible artist. His work, especially Baroness album covers, seem to stare back at you if you look at them long enough and to create that sort of vibe with a piece of art, it truly is fascinating . “Well, it should come as no surprise to you that that kind of artwork – figurative art as a medium is becoming less of a trend, possibly in the same way that guitar-based music isn’t quite the powerhouse that it used to be. So what I’ve had to figure out and really consider over the years, is why I  continue to make artwork like that when it is so out of fashion.  For starters, the beginning of any piece of mine is really based a lot on research to be honest.  I’ve found that the collective writings of Joseph Campbell and Carl Jung are a great source of inspiration as well –  the idea that we as a species have stories and mythology hardwired into us, despite geographical and cultural differences, there are tons of common stories that we share. Over time,  I’ve realized, a lot of imagery I use falls in line with these stories and honestly, these are just images I like drawing,  occur to me in dreams, or semi lucid moments during the day. So what I do when I’m making artwork is. I’ve developed an alphabet or language that uses a fairly restricted number of images – in terms of how they’re composed, what they represent and how people view them differently. It’s nice because they can be manipulated to fit with any one culture or any one ideology when in fact, they are resonating with many.”

Baroness were last here in 2014 as part of the massive Soundwave Festival bill, and also did some insanely beautiful side shows with Mastodon and Gojira. “That was definitely a highlight when we were there last time. It was really nice to have the opportunity to breakaway from festivals for a bit and do that thing that we like to do best which is play shows. Nothing against festivals but you’ve got only a limited time and you have to sort of stick to a template of just playing your power-hosue songs. We broke from that routine and what we’re really looking forward to now is coming back and playing our set for people; play the songs that we want to play in the way we want to play them, without a follow up of festival stuff like sitting around and waiting etc. We enjoy the process of doing shows on a smaller scale like setting up our stage, sorting things out, choosing our set list with no real agenda but just to play the best music we can. So we’re super psyched about coming back!”

The mighty John Dyer Baizley had one last message to Australian fans before Baroness bring their music back down under. “Wherever we are, and wherever we travel we make a concerted effort to get outside of the venue and see the city. We love to explore and experience the culture, see museums and what that city is like. That being said, we’re planning something like this for Australia. We want to meet our fans there, we want to have interactions and we’re going to set up a lot of things to make that happen. So follow our social media, stay tuned and we’ll see you there!”

Catch the mighty Baroness on tour across the country in December:

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