A Q & A With Dead Meadow: Fusing Past And Present

by Harper Bridgers
02/17/2008

Birthed out of the punk/indie scene of Washington D.C., Dead Meadow has brought back a sound far from what you'd expect. For 10 years they have been fusing 60's psychedelic tunes with modern indie vibes that produce a truly unique atmosphere.

Dead Meadow united in D.C. after childhood friends Jason Simon (vocals/guitar) and Steve Kille (bass) joined forces with drummer Mark Laughlin, who was later replaced by old friend and collaborator Stephen McCarty in 2002. Their new album, released on February 5, 2008, entitled Old Growth, embodies their guitar-driven grooves that will take you back to the original psychedelic era. The songs are as tight as their organic loose sound permits them to be. Singer/guitarist Jason Simon took some time to talk to me as they made their way across the southern United States to Athens to play at Tasty World on February 19th.

Athens Exchange: How is your tour going so far?

Jason Simon: It's about a week into it, it's been going pretty awesome. We just played Austin and Dallas. It was really fun, yeah the shows have been really good.

AE: Anything crazy or unusual happen?

JS: Man, a word of warning to all of your readers... you know all those border stops going through Arizona, they'll just stop you on the highway, all the cars, looking for, I guess, illegal immigrants. Usually they just wave you through, but now, all of a sudden, they're searching cars right and left, you know? They searched our friend's car, almost arrested him for two joints... At a specific location known only to us we had to leave a half ounce of weed out in the desert, man. Cause they called up ahead, they were like “we just got searched, if you have any weed they're going to fuck you. They have dogs and everything.” We were just driving on the highway, man. It's like a police state, you know? So, yeah, we had to leave it. They were about to search us, actually, except the dog jumped on the hood of the next car, so, they just said “go through, go through” but they were about to be like “pull over, we want to look through your shit.”

AE: Wow, that was a pretty close call.

JS: I know, I know. Luckily they called up ahead, you know? Now there's a nice mason jar time capsule in the desert. It's pretty awesome, I hope someone finds it. I think there was actually a one hitter in there, some rolling papers, everything you need to get stoned if you come across it...

AE: I've been listening to your new CD, I really like it. How was the recording process?

JS: We tracked it all at an old farm in Indiana. Our drummer's grandparents have this house there that was actually built in the 1860's, this cool old house. We went up there and just set up all over the house to track it. It was cool, really spooky. We took all those tracks, all the live stuff to Los Angeles, two different places out there. We did the vocals and mixed it there.

AE: So you guys are with Matador Records now. How is your relationship with them?

JS: They're great, you know? They're getting the records out. They're cool.

AE: Your sound seems to be primarily guitar driven, what's your approach to your song writing?

JS: The songs come up all different ways, you know? Some songs start with chords and a vocal melody, then we'll jam out, and we'll figure out what to play. Or someone will come in with a groove, you know, just develop really organically. We just start with a song idea and through us just playing together it just falls into something where everyone is doing something cool.

AE: So just kind of originates in a jam session really.

JS: Yeah, but no. A lot of times there will be a song there, like I'll have a song with just some chords, but maybe acoustic. A lot of our stuff used to come from straight jamming, but not as much nowadays.

AE: I would describe you guys as a blend between 60's or 70's psychedelic and the current indie scene. What influences do you hear come out in your music?

JS: Like Sabbath, Zeppelin, Hendrix, you know? Then of course some of the more modern bands like My Bloody Valentine, it's all in there. We have pretty eclectic tastes, like reggae and hip-hop, you know? It all comes through. You just have to make it your own.

AE: What song on the new album would you say you're most proud of?

JS: Oh, man. That's like asking what child you love the best, you know? I don't want the others to get jealous. Usually it takes me a good couple years to be even able to listen to the record, you know? Once we do the next one, we'll look back and be like, oh yeah that's what we did on this one, you know? You initiate it in your mind and then it comes and it becomes a national thing. It's always something different than what you expected, which is good, but it also takes a while to adjust to what is actually there.

AE: What's your view of the music scene these days, or the popular music that is being circulated?

JS: It's a pretty gnarly place. I try to think about it as little as possible. I do think there's a lot more cool music going on now than there was five or six years ago. There's a lot of cool bands tuned into something cool, but most of what we listen to is stuff from the past. And with music magazines, I have a hard time reading them a lot these days.

AE: I saw you guys were releasing your early work again with Xemu Records. Why the re-release?

JS: Those are our first two records, which are out of print, and they have been for a while and people keep asking about them. We saw the LP version of our first record selling for like 300 bucks now on Ebay, so we were like, we need to be selling these records. And now with, I think, the resurgence of more heady, psychedelic music of all these new bands, it's kind of nice to put out reissues to get it back out into the consciousness of the people. It was pretty DIY when we started and a pretty low-budget affair, so it was nice to go back and really master them properly and put them out how we always intended them to come out in the first place.

AE: What's your go-to artist right now?

JS: Probably Townes Van Zandt.

AE: Why should people check your new album out and come to see you on the 19th?

JS: Because it's honest and true.

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