STEVE VON TILL Talks NEUROSIS's Surprise Return: Playing With AARON TURNER 'Instantly Felt Right'

In a new interview with The New Scene, NEUROSIS vocalist/guitarist Steve Von Till spoke about the band's recently released first new album in a decade, "An Undying Love For A Burning World". The LP sees the band — Von Till, drummer Jason Roeder, bassist Dave Edwardson and keyboard player Noah Landis — joined by Aaron Turner (SUMAC, ISIS),a musician whose legacy is intertwined with NEUROSIS's own and a true kindred spirit.

Addressing the fact that he and his NEUROSIS bandmates had silently split with co-founder Scott Kelly in 2019, keeping Scott's domestic abuse and emotional manipulation and subsequent dismissal quiet to respect Kelly's family's wish for privacy, before Scott finally copped to the damage three years later, Von Till said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "Well, I don't wanna feed too much oxygen into a certain situation as we're looking forward. But we weren't sure. We had to walk away and put it on ice. We had to get perspective. You can imagine that the entire mixed emotions that we had of having essentially our life's work pulled out from under us… It was heartbreaking and devastating and shameful, seeing what our name was associated with.

"Everything we had to say about that, we said in that statement that we did at that time, and we still stand by exactly those words," he continued. "So when we were finally free to talk about things openly in 2022, when we did speak that, then we finally could at least… I don't even know how to put it.

"So 2019 to 2022 was purgatory. Couldn't talk. Couldn't say," Steve recalled. "Just tend to a rotting corpse. 2022 we were at least able to finally say, and that's when we could emotionally mourn it, move on, process the ego death, process the humiliation and wonder how and what and why. And so, really, it took a while to — for me the 'why'. Ego's not enough. Just because we want it is not enough. And so finally, I think, late 2023 or so — I don't remember the dates exactly — but the four of us got together and started making some noise, not knowing, not having a plan, not having a purpose, not knowing what was happening. And we could instantly feel that everything we've always been is still there. Our desire is still there. Our unique voice will always be what it is, just because of our communal process. But it still wasn't clear. It wasn't clear until we brought Aaron in as the much-needed element and the much-needed kind of new energy and interesting perspectives. 'Cause we had a lot of different ways we perceived maybe reinventing ourselves sonically in different ways and manipulating sound. But Aaron was the missing piece that we needed to bring in to really make it jell and make it clear. And it instantly felt right. And the music started coming and the music that started coming was really inspiring. But it wasn't until this crystallizing moment where we sat down together in Aaron's yard, on the island he lives on, in front of the little shack we were playing in, and, 'Are we doing this? If we're doing this, we're making plans tomorrow.' And that was September [of 2025]. And here we are… We had another rehearsal session or two, and then it was recording the first third. 'Cause we weren't prepared to record and rehearse it all at once. It was just too much material. So we just said, 'Let's break it into bite-sized chunks.' We only have weekends. We're all working class. We all have to go to work like everybody else. And so we just decided we're just going to focus on zooming in on one third and really deconstructing it, putting it back together into its most essential form that we felt right and then two weeks later record it. Two weeks later, rehearse the second third, two weeks later record it. Two weeks later rehearse the last third, two weeks later record it. Two weeks later mix it. Have the mastering engineer on standby, waiting for the files from Scott Evans. And we were approving test pressings weeks ago before the [late March 2026 album] drop."

Regarding how Aaron came to join NEUROSIS, Steve said: "Well, we've been friends for a long time. ISIS toured with NEUROSIS when they were a young new band. And Aaron had done artwork for a NEUROSIS EP, and we had put out some ISIS stuff and some of his side-project stuff on Neurot Recordings. So we'd been in contact over the years. I've paid attention a lot to what he's doing with SUMAC. I was really always impressed by his not falling back on what he had done before, but pushing the envelope and really finding interesting and unique ways to approach heavy music, emotional, heavy music, and art. And at first, we didn't sit down with a bunch of names and think. We were just thinking, 'What's the right energy?' And his name kept coming up, as we were thinking about it. Our only initial hesitation was, it's so frickin' obvious, it can't be right. That's too obvious. And we'll never hear the end of the fucking NEUR-ISIS jokes… And honestly, again, being apprehensive and I guess just lacking confidence in what we were doing and how we were going to come back, if we were going to come back. It was never sure. All we knew is we never declared we were done, and if we had something to say, we'd say it. We weren't gonna say something until it was 100% clear. So, really, we thought maybe he was too busy. He has a lot going on. He's got a young family. He's got his musical projects. And it's a lot. Committing to a band like NEUROSIS is a lot, just energy-wise. We're not a currently working band out there in the world. But once you make plans to, you would imagine it's a lot of work, and it takes a lot of bandwidth. And so, really, I think I was sitting right here with my friend Randall, setting up a vocal sound for my last solo record, and he's, like, 'Man, I think he'd do it. You should just ask him.' And he was threatening to text him himself. I'm, like, 'Dude, do not do that. I need to talk to my brothers first.' And so our next time I said, 'I think Aaron's the guy. What do you guys think?' And they instantly kind of thought about the energy he has, and having seen SUMAC recently, the energy that they brought. And we actually took SUMAC on tour back — I don't know; 2017, '18; I don't know; I'm bad with the years, but one of SUMAC's earliest tours, we took them out. So they knew the energy, and they were, like, 'Yeah, that seems right. And let's ask him.' And so we basically said, 'Hey, you wanna join our dysfunctional old-man band?' And he said, 'I wouldn't even consider this for any other thing in my life right now. I've got too much. But, yeah, let's have a conversation and let's try it.'"

On the topic of the songwriting process for "An Undying Love For A Burning World" and Aaron's musical contributions to the album, Steve said: "I believe that was May 2024, was our first kind of jam together. And 2024, we could only get together, I think it was three times over the year, 'cause people were already busy and scheduled with stuff and had different stuff going on. But basically we just kind of — beforehand we asked him to learn a few old songs, just so we'd have something to jump in and play. I mean, we need to play — just shake the rust off and just dive in on something. And so we relearned the songs. I showed him some of the guitar parts online. We had a couple of Zoom meetings where I showed him some of the fingerings and where things were and which guitar part was which. So we came in and we jumped right in on a few songs, and it just felt really good and natural. I mean, obviously he grew up with our music, and so we didn't have to tell him the deal. We didn't have to explain the vibe. That was all ingrained. We already had some new ideas that we had kind of worked on a little bit, and we showed him some of those and he instantly started contributing. 'Cause we didn't have all the parts written for those; they were just very skeletal ideas. And our communal process is most of the time everybody — unless somebody had a really great brainstorm at home, it's mostly people are contributing their own parts; they're writing their own parts for everything, or at least augmenting them and manipulating them into something that works. And, yeah, he instantly started contributing, instantly had great ideas. I think he went away really inspired, and the second time he was bringing ideas, bringing his own ideas in. And except for the first few ideas that we had before him, which he added greatly to, including adding his own riffs and entire parts… Our process is very meat grinder. We build everything up and completely destroy it and then reform it from the ashes of what the original idea was until we're happy with it. And it's everybody's unique feedback and filters that make it what it is and make it make it stronger than any individual's ideas could have ever been."

"An Undying Love For A Burning World" was recorded by Scott Evans (KOWLOON WALLED CITY, SUMAC, GREAT FALLS) at Studio Litho in Seattle during three weekends this winter, and mixed in three days just six weeks before release at Evans's Antisleep Audio in Oakland.

NEUROSIS will play their first show in seven years on the traditional lands of the Blackfeet Nation in Montana as part of Fire In The Mountains festival by special invitation of Firekeeper Alliance, a non-profit dedicated to reducing youth suicide in Indian Country.

Photo by Bobby Cochran