Admiral Browning interview

I am always glad where I hear a band from my home state of Maryland. Admiral Browning are an incredible 3 piece instrumental band. I recently had the pleasure of interviewing them.

Hello, please introduce the members of your band and what instrument you play.
Tim Otis - Drums
Matt LeGrow - Guitar
Fezz - Bass and with myself.

MM-Who are your musical influences?
Tim: Slayer, The Melvins, and the Jesus Lizard.
Fezz: Many bands, but off the top of my head Deep Purple, Iron Maiden, Rush.
Matt: Bands: Ozric Tentacles, Rush, King Crimson, Voivod, Fugazi, King's X. Musicians: John McLaughlin, Ed Wynne, Steven Stills, Alex Lifeson, Steven Wilson

MM-Please tell us some about the history of your band.
- Matt: Tim and I started jamming in 2002 with various folks and started writing songs soonthereafter. Once we decided to start a band we found a second guitarist John Marion.We put out a demo (Maiden Voyage) and started gigging out in early 2005, but had some trouble finding a bassist until Fezz found us. We have stuck it out since then, and put out two more albums, though John left the band in 2007.

MM-You have a new EP out called “Magic Elixir”. Tell us about it.
- Tim: While it’s the 3rd disc we've worked on, its a kind of reboot in that its the first disc as a trio.
Fezz: We wanted to do an EP so that we could focus and re-invent ourselves as a three piece.

MM-Did you approach the writing and recording for “Magic Elixir” any differently than with your previous releases? If so then how?
- Matt: When John left, we had to sit down and take stock of what we could and could not play and lost quite a few tunes that had heavy guitar interaction. So we had a situation where we just sort of lost a lot of material, and even though we had some jams with Johnthat we still played out, we felt we had to come up with newer trio stuff. I think we tried to step up the technicality, aggressiveness and interaction. The album production is a lot less ambitious and more bare-bones than Dead Pets was. Plus, with Dead Pets, though Brian Dodds did good work, I think we really wanted to do things at our own pace. We were sorta tired of always being on someone else's schedule. So we did it all, soup to nuts - from the engineering, which was done in Tim's studio, all the way to the mix+mastering, which was done in mine, and we didn't release it until we were pretty much completely happy with it.
- Tim: We did Maiden Voyage by ourselves, and then in the intermediate time trying to put Dead Pets together, we worked with three different producers and soaked up a lot of stuff. There had always been something more I wanted from the recordings, and I felt strongly that we should try it ourselves so we could make it sound better. Sometimes it’s hard forme to convey what I wanted things to sound like with words, so I figured we should take the knobs ourselves this time.
- Fezz: We really tried to strip down and do less of a studio record and more of a live record in a studio. I wanted my bass tracks to be laid down with the drums, rather than what we did with Dead Pets where I just laid scratch tracks knowing they were scratch tracks.

MM-Have you been working on any new material for your next full length release? If so then how is that going?
- Fezz: Yes. I have two submissions for completed tunes which will be opped, sliced,dipped, flipped and tripped by the band, and a plethora of riffs to come.
- Tim: We also have six complete jams that we play out that we could record right now if we wanted to. So even though some of them have been around for a while we're always reworking them. We don't have a shortage of new songs or material, we could put out a full-length right now if we wanted to.
- Matt: I do have some specific conceptual ideas for this next record and some musical ideas tied to that concept. Whatever comes out of this will be pretty fucking epic, but nothing is quite there as a fully-formed song right now.

MM-How would you describe your sound to someone who was not familiar with your music?
- Tim: No rules, just right.
- Matt: Stoner-prog instru-mental alchemy
- Fezz: Every song is its own journey

MM-Your songs have a loose flow to them. Is everything you play worked out or being all instrumentals is there ever some improvisational jamming during the recording that you keep in?
- Matt: one of the things I always wanted for this band was to do a lot of improv jamming from the very beginning, because that’s how I always interacted with other musicians before the Admiral. So one of the best things that came out of reducing to a trio was how natural that experience is now. With John, we had improv parts worked out in a lot of jams that we would do to bridge songs together live, but they always seemed less like jams and more like structured bridges with guitar solos. But now we do more jamming than ever. The whole first part of "Speaking in Tones" and"Vortexer" both came out of improv jamming, in fact other than some atmospheric overdubs later on, the beginning of "Tones" is pretty much exactly how we played it in the studio.

MM-Where did you come up with your band name and what is the significance of it?
- Fezz: An admiral browning is literally a giant, unsinkable shit. You just can't flush it away.
- Tim: Instead of some emo band BS, we took our name from "Viz" (english comic). And it makes me think of Pepto Bismol rather than cutting myself.
- Matt: I always dreamed of answering this very question in interviews. I’ve to admit though we have rolled more with the nautical themes that one naturally tends to associate with a name like Admiral Browning, rather than the fecal themes. An all-instrumental band is a hard enough sell, much less one about poop.


MM-I know where you guys are from because it's not far from where I am from. The mid-Atlantic area has always had perhaps more than it's share of doom/stoner bands. Why do you think that is?
- Fezz: Doom originated in Maryland/DC. Its the capital. You have Trouble from Chicago, but Pentagram was the first real doom band, Obsessed, Internal Void, Spirit Caravan ... Another thing, speaking as a west coast transplant,the people playing out the East Coast are a little more open-armed and friendly. Out west its more like a competition, here its more like a brotherhood.
- Tim: Familiarity feeds back on itself.
- Matt: I can't really explain it, its not like they smoke more weed or are any more depressed than any other part of the country. It just sorta happened here.

MM-What are you guys doing that sets or will set you apart from other bands?
- Fezz: Speaking in Tones, not words. Being not just a heavy band, but a heavy instrumental band, is one of the hardest roads you can take.
- Tim: With or without a vocalist, we have a pretty good amalgam of sound. We haven't really pigeonholed ourselves into anything. If you asked anyone who has seen us what we sound like, you usually get a different answer every time.
- Matt: I think personally, I'm just committed to not having any boundaries on what we do or what we write. We've actually worked with vocalists, we just have always been more comfortable doing our own thing without words.
- Tim: I think we're the kind of band that even if one of us showed up with a bunch of riffs and a PA, we would just go and do it, regardless of what happened before.

MM-In what areas do you think that you need to improve upon?
- Fezz: I'm always working on delivering a 100% professional, on-point, musically proficient performance. After 27 years of performing I am still working for that level of just doing it every night, delivering all we can.
- Tim: I would like to reiterate Fezz's commitment to excellence, because I'm always committed to that. I'm also always personally working to learn new drum techniques myself. And while I think that we have improved our production techniques, and our songwriting is getting better, I still think we have room to grow.
- Matt: This is like a neverending process. Every time I think we're the shit, I see someone out there doing it better. If we ever get complacent we're done.

MM-What are some of the most memorable shows that you have played so far?
- Fezz: The very first show at Jaxx with the Admiral, Happy Jack's Pumpkin Farm, The New Orleans show, and Fanny Fest '08.
- Tim: The first time we played in Nashville at Springwater was the first time I was wowed by a crowd response. The whole Hell and High Water tour was special in so many ways, because we had just lost a band member and we went out and did it anyways. On the Sarsaparilla Roadshow I dug the Chicago show, and also the show at Replay in Lawrence, KN, we had a chick throwing dollar bills at Fezz. I've seen a lot of bands, but I ain't never seen that before!
- Matt: The very first show we ever played as the Admiral was insane. Here we were in front of 70 high-school or younger kids and they were just going apeshit. I was so terrified I couldn't even look at the crowd, but they were hurting each other to our music. Just getting up there was a huge personal obstacle for me to overcome. Iwould also say our hundredth show was really cool for me, it was a personal high point, we had a lot of people come out and I really felt proud of what we played and the level of the performance that we gave.
- Tim: The XS speed Memorial day '08 choppers party was cool too, we had tons of mini choppers racing and doing all kinds of cool stunts while the tunes were going.
- Fezz: Can't forget the Cabin Keggers, I II and III !
- Matt: Cabin Kegger I, was like a spiritual experience for me. I remember Sherman from Earthride was riding the earth at 3 in the morning, doom echoing through the countryside. So loud!


MM-You have played around a lot in the last few years. Where have you not been to that you would go and play?
- Matt: CA and the Pacific NW. We've pretty much been everywhere else in the US. I'd like to get overseas and crack some skulls in places like Germany, or Japan, where there are good, active metal scenes.
- Fezz: Orange County, CA. Hollywood at the Troubador, and Zakk's in downtown Detroit. And the Fillmore West.

MM-Is this the only project for you guys or any of you currently workingon any other projects? - Fezz: None
- Tim: Nope
- Matt: I do have a side project with a cat we were all in a band with for a while (Pat Paul) and its called Last Band on Earth. Its just a fun studio thing where I can dump my 4/4 rock aspirations.



MM-What do you hope to accomplish in the second half of 2009?
- Tim: Continue the promotional cycle on Magic Elixir. The promotional work is immeasurable and really never done. Towards the end of the year we talked about getting back in the studio to record some of the newer stuff in the studio.
- Fezz: Try to get back to recording, SHoD, and some local shows. I would like to get back to songwriting as well.
- Matt: I'm pretty psyched to record some of the newer stuff we're jamming out and get back to writing.

MM-Pick the band from each of the following pairs that you prefer and tell why you picked them.
High on fire or Sleep
- Tim: Like the feeling of Sleep better overall, but Dez from High on Fire is one of my heroes.
- Fezz: Sleep - I'm a pothead
- Matt: Sleep's Holy Mountain was decent enough

Acid King or Earthride>
- All: Earthride
- Matt: We know those guys personally.

Electric Wizard or Witchcraft
- All: Electric Wizard

Pentagram or Sir Lord Baltimore
- All: Pentagram

-What are some of the best albums that you have heard so far this year?
- Matt: Mastodon/Crack the Skye is wicked, and Voivod's latest Infini is ridiculous. There was a really great reissue of a 1975 demo for a punk trio from Detroit called Death/...For the Whole World to See that is incredible.
- Fezz: Amon Amarth/Twilight of the Thunder Gods, Haunted/Versus, our friends Husky/The Sea King,Stinking Lizaveta/Sacrifice and Bliss. 2013 Wolves and Bison BC were two bands I discovered this year that I think everyone should check out.
- Tim: Stinking Lizaveta/Sacrifice and Bliss, Metric/Fantasies, Trans Am/Sex Change(?), Colisseum/No Salvation,the remastered Paul's Boutique and Ill Communication.

MM-Is there anything else that you would like to say about your band or your music?
- Matt: Come out, see us live and say hello!

www.myspace.com/admiralbrowning