MATT PIKE Has A Simple Philosophy For HIGH ON FIRE: 'This Band Does Not Put Out Crappy Music'

By David E. Gehlke

The intervening years between HIGH ON FIRE's 2018 "Electric Messiah" and recent "Cometh The Storm" opus were not easy on the venerable Oakland, California heavy doom trio. Between frontman and founding member Matt Pike's ongoing health issues, the 2019 departure of longtime drummer Des Kensel and the pandemic, the gestation period for "Cometh The Storm" sometimes reached points where the band wondered whether it would ever be finished. Yet Pike, along with bassist Jeff Matz and new drummer Coady Willis (also of BIG BUSINESS and MELVINS),circled the wagons and emerged with perhaps an even better and more varied album than its Grammy-winning predecessor.

According to Pike, Matz and Willis, there are many reasons behind the burly depth of "Cometh The Storm", beginning with producer Kurt Ballou, as well as their vaunted "riff vault," which is exactly what you think it is: A collection of worthy riffs lying in wait to be used. Whatever the method, HIGH ON FIRE continues to get results. On the eve of their fall touring run in support of the new studio platter, BLABBERMOUTH.NET grabbed Pike, Matz and Willis to learn why quality control remains of highest importance.

Blabbermouth: We're now a few months past the release of "Cometh The Storm". Usually, we do these kinds of chats before an album's release. Now that we're a few months removed from that, has your perspective on the record changed at all?

Matt: "I absolutely love the record. I love the recording and the way Kurt did it. I'm really enjoying touring on it. It's been spectacular. I want to keep that going."

Jeff: "The reception has been great. All the shows on this tour have been amazing. It's been awesome playing the new songs live—that's been my favorite part of the whole thing, getting to take this thing on the road with new material. I'm super happy with the album. As Matt said, I think it sounds amazing. Kurt did a great job on it. It's the first album with Coady, obviously. I loved writing and recording it with him. I'm very happy with the whole thing."

Coady: "The same. Going into it as my first record with these guys, it's a lot to live up to. I was hoping that I didn't shit the bed. [Laughs] Writing with these guys and demoing the songs was really fun. Hearing the songs come to life was really cool. Moving into the studio and working with Kurt for the first time was great. The whole thing was a pleasure. Everybody brought everything to the table that they needed to bring. It felt like a real team effort across the board. I'm super-stoked with how it came out. I think it sounds massive. Everything is there. It really puts the songs across the way I imagined they would come across. I couldn't be happier."

Blabbermouth: Coady, you're going to be excluded from this question. There's a quote from Kurt who said you "reinvigorated" the band. Matt and Jeff, can you talk about what he's brought to HIGH ON FIRE?

Matt: "Coady fucking batters. He killed it from beginning to end. His energy and his drive—it's inspiring to be around. The guy inspires me and he's a fucking great drummer. It's an honor to work with him. I think we made something great. That's how I feel about him. [Laughs] Plus, he's a swell guy."

Jeff: "Coady has been a great friend for years. I've known him since 2000 when we toured together with ZEKE and THE MURDER CITY DEVILS. It's been a while. [Laughs] I've been a fan of his drumming for a long time. Watching him grow and evolve through the years has been amazing. When we found ourselves in need of someone to fill the drum throne, he was at the top of my list. I was very happy when we asked and he accepted. Coady's just really great to write music with. On top of being an amazing drummer, he's got a really strong work ethic, is very disciplined and is very open to trying out all sorts of different ideas. You can keep throwing things at him and he'll try things out in different ways, like a lot of interesting angles on things. I appreciate his creativity and his patience. Obviously, the way that he plays, first and foremost. The way he reacts to the music that you throw at him. That was probably the biggest difference in how this album turned out, which was his take on things."

Matt: "If you don't mind me adding: He has this class and style. He's also left-handed, which I think gives him a distinct advantage in the style department because it's that side of the brain that he's using."

Blabbermouth: Can we talk about your "riff vault"? Is it so deep now that you can do a grab bag with it?

Jeff: "It's not scientific. [Laughs] It's a collection of ideas that we've been compiling throughout the years that we occasionally dig through to try to see if there's anything in there that's relevant to what we're doing now. It usually turns up a few gems per album."

Matt: "A lot of them are ideas from the past. If you bring them up again, yeah, we tend to rehash them or re-write them because we're feeling different about the day and age that we're doing it in. You go back and those ideas are still there. You have a blueprint to work off of. That can be helpful if you're not pulling stuff out of thin air, which we do a lot of, too. It's good to have information and data."

Coady: "Part of the challenge of writing is that it's a game of inertia. It's breaking that ice and getting the ball rolling. It's nice. Even if we didn't have anything from the riff vault, it's nice to have jumping-off points. There's a bunch of stuff we wrote for this record and demoed that didn't go on the record; they may come in some other time. Watching Jeff, he's very meticulous about having his phone with him. He'll be noodling around and go, 'That's cool.' He immediately records it on his phone. I'm like, 'I should do that!' [Laughs] It's better than letting ideas fly off into the ether. There's never a shortage of stuff to jam on. We're not staring at each other, hoping someone throws out a great idea. We can try an idea and if it doesn't work, we can move on to something else. At least we're moving and swimming along and working on stuff."

Blabbermouth: "Electric Messiah" was a strong album, but "Cometh The Storm" has more diversity and layers. Was this done as a reaction to the previous record or a natural happening?

Coady: "One of the things we did and I can't speak for the previous records, on this one, we pulled stuff from the vaults, but we also did different sessions where Matt and I would spend a couple of days or a week writing together. Then Jeff and I would spend a week together writing. And Matt and Jeff would spend a week together. Everyone had a chance to let their flavors be in front. I think it created more of a wide spectrum of different kind of songs with different people in the driver's seat as far as how the songs were being written. I think it came out cool. It was more diverse. It's a little bit more of a roller-coaster ride. Everybody had a chance to put their ideas forward. I remember bringing the demos in the studio and I think it was a week in and we were starting the rough tracking. Kurt was listening to the demos and I remember him muttering under his breath, 'This is a cool collection of songs.' So I was like, 'Oh, cool.' You work so hard to get everything and try to make the songs as cohesive as possible. You don't have a chance to step back and take in the big picture to see what the album looks like. You don't know until it's done, like what the songs are going to be and how they're going to turn out or if anything is going to get thrown out. It was cool to hear him listen to the demos and be like, 'This is going to be cool.'"

Matt: "Sometimes it's hard to tell when you're in the band. If you're not in the band you're listening to someone else's band, but Kurt knows us probably better than anybody else as far as where we're coming from. He gets a chance to have creative input with us, which makes him a producer, not so much an engineer. I think his take on it is very important as to how it turns out and how it's arranged and where things go. He's a big help with that. We're trying to be creative and not do the math problem right away, so when it comes to the math problem, it's nice to have that extra set of ears."

Jeff: "Sometimes, when you're so close to it, it's hard to visualize the thing as a whole. As Coady said, sometimes you don't know what it's going to be until all the pieces are there and it's recorded, what the vibe is going to be like, how's it going to sound, what's going to get used or shelved. It's hard to know. I think the a-ha moment was once we received the actual mastered sequence. That's when I was able to sit back and listen to it and go, 'Okay. Yeah. This is a cool album.'"

Blabbermouth: Do you guys like working with Kurt so much because he's so willing to get his hands dirty with the songs?

Jeff: "Ultimately, at the end of the day, Kurt offers a lot of suggestions. Whether we act on those, it's up to us in the end, but he's full of great ideas. He understands our band like nobody else because he's been working with us for so long. He gets the aesthetic. He understands how we want to be represented on our albums. For my money, he's pretty much the best out there right now in terms of getting the kind of sounds that we're after."

Blabbermouth: You have staked your claim on the road. What keeps you going back out after so long? Are you just that eager to keep doing it?

Matt: "Absolutely. I think it's our duty to show the kids how it's done. [Laughs] That's me being an old miser and curmudgeon. I'm sorry!"

Coady: "I still like getting out there. For me, that's the fun part. It's why I started playing music in the first place. It was getting to be in that space where you're experiencing these songs and playing this music and you're not thinking about anything else besides what's happening right now. You're not thinking about what's going to happen or the past. You're having this collective moment with all these people who came to the show. We're having an experience that will never be duplicated; it will never be exactly like it is tonight. I think that's really special."

Blabbermouth: I recall seeing HIGH ON FIRE just as you were starting out in the early 2000s. Now, here you are, still going strong almost 25 years later. Considering all the band has been through, how do you feel about the word "longevity"?

Matt: "It's something to be proud of. When I started this band, it was a rule that I would not put out bullshit. I will not put out filler. It's what I would tell myself in the mirror: This band does not put out crappy music. It never has. The members have all been picked very wisely. It's something to be proud of. I feel like I'm pretty satisfied with the legacy that I'm leaving with fellow teammates. It's really something to be proud of. I'm very stoked. That's my take on it."

Jeff: "I'd like to think we all have pretty high standards in terms of what we expect from ourselves. I don't really think about how long we've been doing it. Whenever we're setting out to do something, it's more about looking at what's in front of us and trying to do the best as possible."

Photo credit: James Rexroad