THE OBSESSED - Interview 1991 (Doom, hard rock)

DOOM/ HARD ROCK
Interview 1991 - Baphomet zine

When I write this introduction. over 2 months have possed since the OBSESSED's small tour in haly; My memories anyway are increcibly neat, I can remember any/ single word or action of the Florence show, the one I've assisted to. There has been z lot of talk about this band and his ldear, Wino. As he left SAINT VITUS, maybe people thought he was finished, he had to return from the "dirt"" he came from.  Too many voices concerning drug problems (as if in SAINT VITUS nobody ever smoked a joint!) to think that this band could have a future. When I first met Wino, it was in 1990, during a SV's show, we did a great interview with him and Mark, because they were great. I think I've never met a person so friendly inside the music business, someone who doesn't have a rockslar attitude, someone who offers you beers and doesn't hesitate to put three guys on the guest list only because they drove to 700 Km to see his band; someone who wants to know what you really think of his music. besides the usual, common words.
About the show, well, OBSESSED it's incredibly heavy live, Greg broke four or five drumsticks while playing! The new bassplayer knows how to play this kind of rnusic and it's clear he's really into what he's doing (sorry pal, I can't remember your name!); And Wino, well Wino is OBSESSED! I won't penalized anyone saying that, but he's the leading force of this band... He's charismatic, has a good voice and plays, oh yes, he plays guitar like a real rock'n roll guitarist! When I told him, that to me the best definition for OBSESSED's music was ROCK, well, I saw his eyes lighten: Yes that's what it is. Pure dirty rock'n roll as nobody plays it anymore! Support the true rockers.

Interview with WINO.

This is the third time you come in Italy, twice with SAINT VITUS and now with OBSESSED. There are not too many bands coming to Italy, it looks like you have a different attitude, that you still have an underground feeling...

I think it's a lot difficult to get in the country, we were refused like three times for nothing, just because the people didn't like the way we look. So every time we go to the man border, they turn us back, we drive a little to another one and then finally we get in.
I think that the distribution of the last record over here has been really poor, I think that peoples wanted the record but they couldn't get it. It's hard to tour....


I believe that no one was expecting a new OBSESSED album after the first one that sounded like a sort of "Best of..."

That's true. I had all those tape recordings and I just wanted to get the stuff out. HELLHOUND, they told me they wanted me to put the band together, I wanted too even if I wasn't sure of what's gonna happen. I didn't like too much the new direction SAINT VITUS was going on, I wanted to play guitars, plays my songs, you know...


So your adventure with SAINT VITUS has come to an end. If you want to answer, what do you think about their last album (C.O.D)?

I don't like it at all.

I think that the new singer, Christian Linderson is a bit out of place...

I think Chris is a good singer but I think that David (Dave Chandler, guitarist of SV... ED) told him "You can't sing high"... If you heard the first COUNT RAVEN album, Chris sings with his own style, to me he sounds a lot like Zeeb of WITCHFINDER GENERAL... Maybe David has became a kind of dictator, you gott sing this way, you gotta do that... And I think the production on the new SAINT VITUS, I mean, it's not the SV sound... I was really disappointed, it's really slick, really overproduced... That's a great band and I love these guys but...


I think you are a rock'n roll band...

That's it!!! That's great because we don't like to be called a metal band, we are a rock band, if you really need to classify us we used to say an "hard rock' band...


The song "Freedom", which is on your first album, when has it been composed? It sounds really in the "Easy rider" style...

It's an old song, I wrote that song when I was... Let's see.... Hum, sixteen years aold, it's all about been locked, spend a lot of time in jail you know, it is like a protest song...


When will the new album be ready?
We just got a major label deal, I don't want to say it right now because we haven't signed yet, we should go to New York for this good nice label, we think that the peoples at the label,
the reason why we decided to go with them is because we got control, they like our music, we like the pople, I think we can trust them. So, what we are gonna do is, we have a new bass player since Scott Joined KYUSS, we want to enter the studio at the end of this tour, we're gonna record three songs from the proper album with the new bass player and put those on "Lunar Womb" because "Lunar womb" is gonna be reissued to the United States by this major label... It didn't get a good distribution until now, it's only an import...

What about GOYA, the artist who you've used for the cover of "Lunar womb"?

I like him a lot. The cover was a sort of compromise becaause HELLHOUND was pretty much rejecting two covers and submitted to them, and we had a mutual apreement with Goya.'s...
For the United States, it will come out with the same front cover and we're gonna use a new back cover since we have a new bass player. Some people could be disappointed we will not put "Back to zero" and "Bardo" on the Us edition because of our old bass player, he has became like kinda fucked up and we are a ltitle bit worried, because if we release these songs he could sue or something like that... He left the band because he didn't want to struggle anymore and it was an easy choice for him to just join this band, gets a salary, I think it's a step down for me. BUT it's good for us because the guy we got now is really ok, he's a french man, he lives in Amsterdam and I met him on the SAINT VITUS tour, he was a really big SV fan, he's a really big OBSESSED fan, he had like everything THE OBSESSED had done, basement tapes... He became the SV roadie, he just wanted to travel with us, he didn't get paid, and at one of those gigs he told us about his band BEAVER, they are really heavy, so on the last OBSESSED tour we met him and we asked him to be our roadie and he came over, we saw BEAVER  supporting us on a couple of shows and I saw him playing and they did a cover of OBSESSED "Blind lightning", so when Scott left it was logical to call him...


What do you think of those new so called Doom bands? The bands that had followed the CATHEDRAL's explosion are mainly Death metal bands going slow, so are they really Doom bands?

NO!!! CATHEDRAL are really good, I mean, I like their music, not too much his singing style. There are good bands coming out, INTERNAL VOID, I organized the deal for HELLHOUND records for them, and also ASYLUM where ly best friend plays.


What do you think about the shit happening in Germany?

It sucks. I'm not into it, it's only bullshit. Politicians are only fucking crooks.

What about money...

Money changes everything EASY... Dollars were in the White house, you know, EASY. Dollasr and NWA was invited to the White house. What kind of bullshit is that? I can't really talk about the rappers because I don't know thel that much, all I know is that they make it for the money. People is singing their songs about killing, raping, shit like that... That's fucked! I've been living, my parents were from... I cansay middle class, when I was growing up, I didn't starve, things like that, but I was held in my beliefs, I believe in freedom of speech and since I choose this rock'n roll path I've been a really poor man, we just struggle. The point is that for me it would be nice, you know, to have a car, but you can't let the money change you, it's only BELIVE IN YOURSELF.

About the rappers, I was wandering where they were during the LA riots...

We live in Hollywood and, it pretty much happened all over LA but... I was living with a couple of bikers because at the time a biker friend of mine was helping me build my motorcycle. When the riots happened we loaded all our guns... I believe in fire-arms. It was pretty scary, it was so close to home.


I've read on your bio that Ian McKaye is one of your closest friends... What is you opinion of all those trendy straight edge followers who misunderstood his message, I think they are nazi too (Or even worse?)
He's not one of my closest friends, but he is a close friend, a good one, in the past we had good time together. He's one of the few peoples that I've met in my life that had always stayed through is beliefs. He's not one kind of a guy that says one thing and does another... He's not narrow minded, he has nothing against people who want to drink a beer or smoke a joint, it's all about CONTROL and it's hard to be such a leader as he is and not be misunderstood... HELLHOUND for example, they dripped in the OBSESSED bio Ian McKaye's name, I didn't authorize them, it wasn't concerning our band. Ah, there is another good band coming out on HELLHOUND too, they are called IRON MAN and they started out as a SABBATH cover band, they can play everything, and it's funny because their drummer is the drummer from ASYLUM, great drummer...


So you've been in Holland and in Asmeterdam too...

Yeah!!!


What do you think about the legalization of light drugs?

I think it should be legal, there is not reason why not, I mean alcohol... I can say from my personal point, I've never been in trouble for smoking pot but I have been turned in jail many times for shut up down while drunk. I'm not putting down alcohol at all, I don't think it has to be illegal, I just think it doesn't make sense that alcohol is legal and pot isn't, I think alcohol is a lot more dangerous. That's funny: Two years ago, while touring italy with sAINT VITUS in Torino, the next day I had an argument with a road manager and I left the café, monday morning at 8:30 and I was walking down the streets kinda pissed off, I kicked a trash can and a cop saw me doing this, oh man! They wanted to turn me in jail, I had on some acid, some switchblades, man I thought I was gone! I was down on my knees, I was like "I'm sorry! I'm sorry!' I was picking up the trash... The reason why we enjoy playing in Italy so much is because of the people, they are so cool. People here need music... We'll always come! Do you know MONSTER MAGNET? They are fucking great, you got to check them out! Their roadie did five months here for three grams of hash...