Metallica - Interview

  by David McNamee

published: 20 / 11 / 2002

intro

Psychedelia act Oneida have just put out their fourth album, 'Each One Teach One' on CD, having initially given it a vinyl release only. David McNamee speaks to frontman, Fat Bobby, about the album

Oneida are the coolest kids on the block, the ones with the authentically ragged drainpipes and a pocketful of meteors. Henry Rollins once suggested that the devastating hurricane El Ninô be renamed either ‘The Motherfucker’ or ‘The First Four Black Sabbath Albums’ as a tribute to its crushing majesty. Well, imagine ‘The First Four Black Sabbath Albums’ hurled through space into the heart of the sun and The Big Bang happening all over again, spewing chunks of Iommi anti-matter all over the galaxy and weightless cascades of Geezer magma enveloping moons and planets and asteroids. And instead of ‘The Motherfucker’, just call it ‘Each One Teach One by Oneida’. But fun, y’know? Like fizzy pop. Orange soda pop. Mix it with Nerds and the whole universe explodes and fizzles out in your mouth. PB : Okay, why was 'Each One Teach One' originally released as a limited edition vinyl-only LP and why have you now decided to honour it with a CD release? Fat Bobby (vocals, guitar, keys… not fat): We really wanted to do a crazy-ass, beautiful, piece of work – we all grew up with LPs as well as cassettes and CDs, and they make by far the juiciest fetish-objects. We felt like a whole, wholly individuated object, devoted to the madness we were feeling, would be incredible. Every time we set out to make recorded music, different streams of thought go into the creation; every process is its own. Part of this one was the art, and we needed the art to be as shattering as possible, which meant big, which meant hand-printed with archival inks that explode out at your face. Reissuing it on CD was not an expected part of our plan, but neither was it a big issue when people started clamoring for a digital version of the music. We made our object, our huge beautiful fucking sound and light invasion, and if more people want to hear it, then yeah we’ll hook them up however we can. The last thing we’ll ever be is elitist, creating something special just for collectibility’s sake, or as some bullshit hipster ID card. But that doesn’t mean we’d restrict ourselves from sticking a few genuine “sheets of Easter” into a couple of the LPs either… PB : The cover art to the album is a beautiful orange and yellow design that looks like a sunflower sun exploding. When I listen to the album I hear it as tones of orange heat and flashes of bright yellow light. It's very colourful and intense and explosive and pretty. What do you think about when you listen to this album? Fat Bobby : I love your take on the sound/light experience. Synesthesia, right – I love that shit. We all love that. You know, the biggest stream of inspiration for this record, as with the last one 'Anthem of the Moon', was paranoia, or maybe dread is a better word. Visceral, trembling acceptance of how fucking insignificant we are, and the frantic searches we make to find answers and meaning, that all end up in the same circular maze of lies and artifice. A lot of this record sounds to me like the times between frantic scrabblings at the walls of existence, when you can just give it up and holler and jump and dance and fight, but there’s always this underpinning of desperation, like you’re about ten manic heartbeats away from crapping yourself in fear. PB : What kind of extremities did you have to expose yourselves to in order to compose this album and capture it in a physical form? Fat Bobby : Just living. That’s as extreme as anyone can get. Really, our music happens in a million different ways. Like Kid Millions (drums, manifestos) might come up to us and say “Holy fuck, listen, we have to play a cut that sounds like ‘gxl gxl gxl gxl gxl hhhk, gxl gxl gxl fffk hhhk jjjk’”, and then we try to make that a reality. And we play ALL THE FUCKING TIME. That’s why it can happen that way. But that’s part of being real – move as fast as you can, do something and then get the fuck out of its way. If you have another idea, do that too, let it fly and duck. Keep going as fast as you can, as long as you got the inspiration. Then sit the fuck down, you’re done. Yeah, I’m talking to you, Steve Malkmus, Oasis, Lou Reed, Damon Albarn, everyone except Neil Young and The Melvins. PB : Does 'Each One Teach One' signal a kind of end of a chapter of Oneida? Fat Bobby : Everything we do is the end of a chapter. Every record should be thought of as a cliffhanger. PB : Thank you

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