Om plays The Earl tonight (Sat., Oct. 17)
Saturday, October 17th, 2009
For this week’s Vibe feature story I put together what essentially turned out to be a 900 word record review of Om’s latest four-song masterpiece God is Good, which was actually a nice change from the standard 150 words that our reviews usually get.
This long-form dissection of their new album happened en lieu of an actual interview with new drummer Emil Amos and bass player Al Cisneros, but not for any lack of trying. Truth be told Emil and Al did get back with me — after we had to go to press. I know… Om was formed out the ashes of Sleep, who set the standard for stoner metal with the monumental riff fest known as Dopesmoker back in ‘98. There’s a bevy of stoner jokes to made here, but who am I to judge?
Here is abridged version of the Q&A we did online, only minutes before they walked on-stage in Detroit.
Hello Emil. First, how did you come to be a part of Om?
Emil Amos: Om and Grails did a couple tours together where we’d often stay up late after the shows and talk a lot of random music science/philosophy. A couple months later Al called me out of the blue one day while I was at work and explained everything about Chris’ departure. We scheduled a time to record the Sub Pop seven-inch before we’d even played together and gave ourselves a couple days beforehand to put it together. After that he began to fly up to Portland and stay with me periodically while we wrote the record for Drag City.
Did you detect any backlash from Om fans when the line-up changed?
Sure, a little bit… But they didn’t really have any material to go on so part of the backlash was pretty innocent. If a random 10 second video of us improvising on a random night somewhere in Finland appeared on YouTube there were some people that took that as the band’s entire new direction.
Om, Lichens and Six Organs of Admittance play the Earl tonight (Sat., Oct. 17). $12-$14. 9 p.m. 488 Flat Shoals Ave. 404-522-3950.
