Interview by Jason Schreurs
Eyehategod screamer Mike IX Williams talks about the New Orleans sludge metal band’s first album in almost 15 years, a self-titled tribute which marks the final recordings for their recently departed drummer, Joey LaCaze.
How’s your day going?
Fine man, I’m just doing what I do every day when I’m not on tour. Just hanging out and listening to music and writing and stuff like that.
What are you listening to?
I’ve got a shitload of cassettes, man. People have been giving me these old cassettes and I bring them home from tour. I’ve probably got 50 of them that I haven’t really sat down to listen to, so I’m listening to cassettes today.
Nice. I actually collect cassettes. I’ve got an embarrassing amount of them, a huge wall full of them.
Yeah, me too. I mean, I lost a lot of it in Hurricane Katrina, but I’ve been getting it all back, little by little.
Yeah, I don’t know why I have such a strange fascination with them. I guess it’s because they’re so easy to get, and cheap, or people just give them to you.
I think they’re just cool. I remember back in the ‘80s when we used to just trade tapes, you know? Now it’s easier with CDs or whatever, but it was fucking cool to have a cassette; that’s when I first got turned onto all of the Metallica demos before the albums even came out. Slayer demos, Exodus, Possessed, and all of those bands back then, you would get those tapes before the records were even out. I would send them out to other people and we’d trade them.
A lot has happened in the past 15 years since you released an album; a lot of shit has gone down. Is there any way to explain what’s happened in that time, or at least sum it up?
Well, I mean, life happened, you know? Life goes on and sometimes you can’t ignore it. Sometimes things happen when you’re moving around, or you’re separated, or you’re in jail, or somebody’s in the hospital, or somebody’s doing something else with another band… We’re not one of those bands that just sits down and says, “Let’s write a record.” More power to those bands that do that, but we’re not one of them. We don’t lock ourselves in a room and write a record. We’ve never been like that. We let it flow. Some of these songs on the new album are a few years old, and some are a lot newer. It just took a long time because we wanted to do it our way, and do it right. Plus, like I said, life gets in the way.
You seem like you’re still in the same place you were back then, at least stylistically. Do you feel like you’ve changed a lot since Eyehategod started?
No, I don’t think so. To me, I think we’re the same people exactly that we’ve always been. A lot of major things have happened, but as far as personality or the way we look at music, that’s all the same. We love the same music and we’re Eyehategod, that’s all there is to it. If you put these five guys in a room, that’s what it’s going to sound like. That’s basically it.
Well, you’ve put out another of your “feel-good” albums [laughs]. Seriously though, you guys aren’t exactly known for “feel-good” albums, but it’s interesting that you made it a self-titled album.
To me it was an obvious choice. And I’ve actually heard people say that this album has a little glimmer of hope in their somewhere, and it’s probably true because after so much bullshit and misery put on you, some of that hope has to creep in there. It’s human nature and there’s always a slight glimmer somewhere through all of the negativity. But the title of the record was obvious to me, and we had talked about it before Joey died, “Well, should we self-title it?” And we had lists and pages after pages of titles that we would go through. But I like to fuck with people’s expectations; I don’t want to be predictable. Ever. So we could have called it anything, but then when Joey died it was an obvious choice and I don’t even think we discussed it. All of a sudden it was definitely a self-titled album because it’s a new beginning for the band with our new drummer and it’s also a tribute to Joey. It would cheapen it to have a name. This is Joey’s last record and that’s it, you know.
After what happened to Joey, and all you have been through, you must be thankful that you get up every morning and you’re here, right?
Well, I’ve never been one to really care about safety and things like that. I’ve just been reckless in my life. But it’s not so much what’s just happened in the last couple of years, it’s what happened after Hurricane Katrina. When I survived that whole thing, it was like another level of survival. I watch that show The Walking Dead and sometimes I get sad and think it’s just like Katrina. How people are just freaking out, and fighting, and stealing, and it’s every man for himself. So when that was all over and I was put in jail and went through the legal system for years and years, you come through all of that on the other side and you just want to live. You go, “Damn, I kind of like living,” you know? And I’d never really thought about that in my life. I used to think I’d be dead when I was 30 but I’ve managed to outlive that and I’m still around.
Would you say New Orleans has recovered from Katrina, or is it still pretty bleak?
No, it hasn’t recovered. That’s what the government wants you to think. That’s what people want to say. I’d say a good bit of it is definitely recovered. But as far as economically, we still lost like half our population from people either dying in the hurricane or moving away. So it’s not 100% recovered. I don’t know if it ever will be. And of course the people who live here and love the city the way we love our city… I mean, we love New Orleans, this whole band, we love our city, and it’s never going to be recovered because in our minds the things that we saw, and things that are gone now, like some of the buildings, you can’t replace that or forget about it.
Has the cultural scene reestablished itself?
Oh, that’s the first thing that came back. You can’t really kill a city as far as culture goes, or music, or food, or art. That was the first thing to come back: the music, the street performers, clubs started to open up, and all of a sudden all of these new bands were popping up because a lot of bands had split or people had moved. That’s what happened to us. One guy was living in Detroit and another guy was living a couple of hours from here and everybody was separated for a while there. I was in jail. But the first thing that started coming back was the music and people started forming new bands immediately. That’s how Arson Anthem, the band I do with Phil Anselmo, came up. I lost 25 years worth of records and books and cassettes; I lost everything. So when I got out of jail I came to stay up here at Phil’s place and we started listening to old hardcore records and Phil was burning me all of this music, just so I could have a feel for getting my stuff back. At least mentally, it helped. So we talked about doing that hardcore band we’ve been wanting to do for years and that’s how Arson Anthem happened. And so many bands formed out of the ashes of Katrina. And so many places were opening up, whether it was house parties or basements or clubs; that was a great time when all of that started coming back.
I saw you play a big festival in Seattle a couple years back…
Oh god, that Bumbershoot crap?! Ah, that sucked. I hated that show.
Is that why you told the crowd to go home and kill themselves after your set?
Did I say that?! Yeah [laughs]. Probably. I was probably not having the best of times. I love playing, no matter where. But I can’t stand it when there’s a barricade in front of the crowd. That really bothers me, man.
They had signs posted outside the venue that you couldn’t slam dance.
Yeah, it was fucking stupid. I don’t know who’s idea it was to put Eyehategod on that festival. That was weird. But you couldn’t drink on stage, just the whole thing was like a family festival thing, so I don’t know how we got on that thing. We probably won’t be invited back. They paid us a lot of money, so if they ask us we’ll definitely do it again, but I don’t think they’ll ask. It was a weird day, but I actually met some people that day that I’m still friends with. Like I said, we have fun when we play and we like to play, but those barricades piss me off.
What struck me about seeing you that day is that no matter what the situation, you guys always seem so natural with each other, and you can pick it right back up, even after being apart for awhile.
Oh, of course, man. We’ve always been that type of band and everybody in the band will tell you we love this band. And we love each other. We’re all brothers in this band. New Orleans has a big brotherhood/sisterhood thing about it anyway, and after Katrina everyone bonded even tighter. We go out together all the time. We don’t hang out every day or anything, especially after tour when we’re sick of each other, but we’re just like a family. So when we stop playing for awhile and we get back to it, it’s natural.
Is there one song on the new album that sticks out for you?
I love this whole album. Every song’s got different feelings to me. Some of them we’ve been doing live for a few years, some of them we’ve never done live. So they were written in different times. But, to me, they’re all great, man. I’m really excited about this album. “Worthless Rescue” has Joey’s drums trailing at the end of it, but they’re all special because Joey’s on those songs. His drum tracks made it onto the record so I’m definitely glad about that.
Eyehategod‘s self-titled album is out now on Housecore Records.
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