PHARAOH

Be Proud or Be Gone!

by Matt Coe

I'm pleased to present to the readers an act I've followed through the Powermad festival years (1997-2001), when guitarist Matt Johnsen would present select journalists demos of songs he and his bandmates in Pharaoh were crafting in hopes of putting out a debut album. Granted it took a few years for After The Fire to hit the streets in 2003, but these guys certainly made the wait worthwhile as they conjure up the glory days of stirring guitar melodies, harmonies abound and a killer set of pipes fronting the band with former Control Denied vocalist Tim Aymar. Following their debut live performance in Germany at the Keep It True festival, I got the chance to email Matt Johnsen a series of questions about their last two albums on Italy's Cruz del Sur Music, 2006's The Longest Night as well as an early contender for my album of the year playlist in the newest Be Gone.

GASP: Be Gone represents the quickest written and recorded Pharaoh album to date. How were you able to pull everything together and deliver such a cohesive collective record especially based on how spread out the members now are in the country?

Matt Johnsen: I don't have any hard stats for comparison, but I would guess this album took no more or less time to write than The Longest Night; we did, however, manage to go from that album to this one very quickly by Pharaoh standards. The first album probably took the least amount of time to write, but it took the longest to record. All of our recording sessions are treading shorter, which is a very good thing! As for the geographical spread, even when we lived rather close to one another (that is to say, in the same state) we didn't rehearse or jam at all. Everyone writes on their own and presents either sketches or fully-arranged songs to the other guys, who, at recording time, put their own stamp on the material. This seems to work well for us, and I think it actually prevents a lot of the petty bickering that seems to plague a lot of other bands. Maybe if we had all lived in the same town, Pharaoh wouldn't have made it past After the Fire!

GASP: The guest appearances in the guitar lead department with Riot's Mark Reale and Mark Flyntz on "Dark New Life" as well as Jim Dofka on "No Remains"- were these pre-planned from your perspective or did the artists listen to the songs for Be Gone and make their choices for the solos accordingly to the ones they felt they could contribute best to?

MJ: At this point, Jim Dofka has a standing invitation to appear on every Pharaoh release. It's more like a mandate than an option, in fact! He doesn't get to choose the song, however, and while I would like to say we pick his spots because we think he is uniquely equipped to do that particularly section justice, we mainly just fit him in where we can. As for Flyntz and Reale, drummer Chris Black got it in his head to invite them for this album, and there were a couple songs that seemed custom-tailored to their strengths as soloists. When we decided to save the other song for a later EP release, it was obvious that those guys would have to play on “Dark New Life”, and I think the results speak for themselves! So, as a generic answer, we do try to match our special guests with songs that compliment their styles, but for our regular guest, Jim, we find room, no matter what.

GASP: How does it feel to have some of your heroes in the music business playing on your record?

MJ: As you'd expect, it's pretty neat. Plus, it adds a lot to the color of the album, since none of our guests, so far, really play like I do (although I will admit to trying very hard sometimes to play like Chris Poland.) It's a fun tradition, and we're already talking about who we want to invite to play on the next one. Chris has someone in mind that might take from now until the next album just to get in touch with, so it pays to plan ahead!

GASP: The playing can be very dense at times- layers upon layers of divergent parts. When you are going to interpret the material in a live setting, how will you go about deciding what gets played for the sake of the song? Will there be backing tracks to fill in the gaps or will you just try to go for the best interpretation of the song?

MJ: No, we'll pare everything down to just two guitars, for better or worse. It has been hard, this simplifying re-arrangement, to find the right balance between the many competing elements, so I've tried to remain flexible in my approach. Whereas a band like Iron Maiden will pretty much always go with the guitar harmonies, sometimes I will arrange a part for one rhythm and one melody guitar. Sometimes I'll drop the melody guitars altogether, if I feel the vocals convey enough melody and if the rhythm riff is adequately interesting. Sometimes I'll just go with the harmonies, although even then it can be tricky, because I write a lot of 3 part and counterpoint harmonies. Occasionally, the guitar parts for the live presentation are amalgams of several distinct parts on the recording. I do what I can to capture the essence of each riff when there are more than two distinct parts in a riff.

GASP: Would it be wrong of me to say that Be Gone outshines anything Iron Maiden has done in the last 24 years of their studio history?

MJ: No. It couldn't be more right, in fact! That said, I don't think Be Gone compares very directly to Iron Maiden in the way After the Fire did and The Longest Night did in places. But, if we must compare our apples to their oranges, I'd say Be Gone wipes the floor with everything Maiden has done since Seventh Son.

GASP: 3 years elapsed between the release of your first album After The Fire and the recording and release of your second effort The Longest Night. Being more of a studio band as well as being spread out in a couple of states as band members, does this account for the longer drawn out creation to finalization of a Pharaoh record? Also, were there any songs/parts that had been in the archives prior to working on this effort, or is The Longest Night 100% new material?

MJ: I think the main reason for the slowness between the two albums is that it just took a long time to write and learn these songs. While we don’t rehearse, per se, each member of the band does have a lot of unfamiliar material to learn before heading into the studio, especially me. No one is shy about piling on layers of guitar riffs! I write pretty slowly, too, so I needed quite a while to compose enough material. As for riffs in the archives, I always have a lot of riffs stashed away that never made it into any songs, but in this case, probably only a handful from before After the Fire made it onto The Longest Night. The first two riffs of “Up the Gates” have been around since ’99 or something like that, but the rest of the song was the last music composed for The Longest Night, so you can say that at least 95% of this album is new since the first album.

GASP: Having half the members of the band also critical journalists on most underground/ independent metal, do you think this puts Pharaoh at an advantage in terms of knowing what you want out of the music without succumbing to the latest fad or trend?

MJ: I think the advantage we have is that we’re thinking about these things at all. Most musicians are almost entirely uncritical of their own output, in a way that they’d never be when listening to other people’s music. When I compose, I’m constantly thinking, “Is this riff fresh? Is this something no one has done before?” This is especially important considering we work in a genre that is pretty well worn. It’s one thing to play the same style of music that Iron Maiden plays. We’re okay with that. It’s another altogether to sound like Iron Maiden. That is not what we want. I don’t much concern myself with the trendiness (or not) of what we do. This is the kind of music I aspired to write even before Pharaoh was formed. It’s what I like to listen to. As long as I can do it well, I don’t think it much matters what’s in or out at the moment. There will always be a market for well written, catchy songs.

GASP: The opening guitar harmonies within “By The Night Sky” remind me of Thin Lizzy and Wuthering Heights in terms of using a cultural thematic approach in building up to the verses. How do you go about recording your guitar parts- and do you try to place yourself into another dimension to achieve a second player part being that you are only an individual guitarist?

MJ: Chris Kerns, who wrote that song, is a massive Thin Lizzy fan, so I am sure that figured into his writing. I doubt he’s even heard Wuthering Heights, though. I do know that he was shooting for a sort of Native American feel in that first riff, although how that relates to Egypt is a bit of a mystery! As for my one man, two axe attack, I don’t make any effort to sound different from one part to the next, although on this album Matt Crooks would frequently suggest that I play a different guitar, or try a different tone from the amp when I started overdubbing, and that definitely brought a new dimension to the Pharaoh sound. The problem with even imagining Pharaoh as a two guitar band is that there are very few parts that only have two guitars! Since we don’t write as a band, we don’t even really function as a band in that sense. No one concerns himself with the feasibility of this riff or that, considering the number of men we have at our disposal to play it. That said, when I am required to play the part of dueling soloists by myself, I try very hard to write two leads that sound very different. I think you can hear this in “By the Night Sky,” and “Up the Gates,” where I have two solos very close to one another.

GASP: Lyrically Pharaoh tackles more of a historical/fantasy laden perspective to match the traditional metal on offer. Does each member have different avenues of preference when it comes to the lyrics and do you think this is the hardest aspect for Pharaoh to keep original/fresh?

MJ: I don’t think “historical/fantasy” is a good way to read the Pharaoh lyrics. We have a couple songs that would fit that description (I’m thinking specifically of “By the Night Sky” and “Solar Flight,” respectively) but most of our lyrics are rather more rooted in the real world than is traditional. Tim’s lyrics in particular tend to be pretty personal, and while you could possibly read my lyrics as fantasy, the intent is merely to present a thin veneer of something vaguely resembling traditional metal fantasy to cover a political statement. Chris Black’s songs tend to be about conflict, be it international, civil, interpersonal, or internal. The difficulty in writing songs with a message is that it’s hard, as men in or around our 30s, to write songs that will speak to listeners the way our favorite songs did 15 or 20 years ago, when metal was newer and new to us. We want to write lyrics in which anyone can find something of meaning. That’s the biggest challenge.

GASP: What were some of the highlights and lowlights in recording this album with Matt Crooks (formerly of Division) at his home studio?

MJ: Matt is an incredibly fun guy, and very easy to work with, so most of the time in the studio was enjoyable. I was the only guy there, besides Matt, for the whole project, so I spent a LOT of time in his basement. Recording in the studio is a lot like work, though. It’s more fun than my day job, but it also feels like a task to be endured sometimes, so like work, the best part of the studio experience usually comes when you’re done recording for the day. Matt lives just outside of Washington DC, and even the suburbs of that city have a great food culture, and as Matt and I are both food enthusiasts, going out to dinner was always a good time. I had the spiciest food of my life at a Thai restaurant down there, I discovered Afghan cuisine in VA, and I was introduced to the world’s greatest cheeseburger, made at Five Guys. I wish I had more hookers-and-blow type stories of studio excess, but for better or for worse, that’s not really the Pharaoh way. As for lowlights, there weren’t many. I got sick as a dog the weekend we tracked the drums, and that was no fun. Matt’s CD burner, an Alesis Masterlink, kept breaking (apparently because those units are inherently shitty) and because Guitar Center’s repair service is so slow, we weren’t able to take home references mixes throughout the recording process, and that was a bit of a drag, going home every weekend with nothing to show for it. But overall, things went pretty smoothly, and I have no complaints.

GASP: How often are you in contact with Enrico, the label head of Cruz Del Sur Music? Have you had the chance to meet him in person and have the sales for Pharaoh albums met your expectations?

MJ: I have met Enrico in person, but it was a long time ago, before After the Fire came out. He came to the US to visit his sister, I think, and he met Chris Black and me at a record convention outside of Philadelphia. He’s a really nice guy, and really passionate about what he does. We talk with him by email very frequently, however. Sales of the first Pharaoh CD certainly met our expectations: we even got paid! It’s a bit too soon to tell how The Longest Night is selling, although we know already that it’s going to blow After the Fire out of the water, numbers-wise. We’re incredibly happy with Cruz del Sur, and I’d like to think that they’re getting their money’s worth out of Pharaoh.

GASP: How would you describe yourself as a person and how do you think you’ve grown as a person through your years listening, writing about and playing metal?

MJ: It’s said that as you grow older, you become more conservative, but the opposite is true for me, in pretty much every aspect of my life. I listen to more kinds of metal, and music in general; I’m more liberal in my politics; I’m more compassionate toward my fellow humans. I try to put everything I encounter into its perspective before I digest it, and this includes the way I create and consume heavy metal. For instance, years ago, I couldn’t stand to listen to NWOBHM for the most part. I thought it was too raw, too primitive, and generally too sloppy to endure. But now, when I think about the music in its historical context and try to listen to it with ears that are unjaded by the 25 subsequent years of musical progress, I can hear the greatness in those sloppy bands.

GASP: How does an American act create such an awesome traditional metal album that probably has more in common with European conventions (especially the abundant harmonies) than the drivel that seems to plague our current scene?

MJ: You are what you eat, in a sense. We don't listen to a lot of, say, metalcore, so that's not reflected in our sound. And at least a couple of us listen to a reasonable amount of European power metal, so that's bound to influence the way we write. I still think that while we may have more in common with Helloween than Killswitch Engage, we're nevertheless a fundamentally American power metal band. Helloween writes vocal melodies. Pharaoh writes riffs.

GASP: The current scene seems to place more of an emphasis on social technology interaction over a band's full final product. Where does Pharaoh place the importance of avenues like Myspace, Facebook, YouTube, blogs and message forums in the push to appeal to more fans? Does it frustrate you that the younger generation would rather download MP3's from torrent/P2P sites over owning the full finished product?

MJ: I don't care at all if someone only knows Pharaoh through mp3s. That's how kids today experience music. While it would be hard for me to go all-digital, having become attached to material things like CD booklets and what not, I don't see how that has to be the universal, right way to consume music. As for all those social sites, well, we do have a Myspace page and it's a nice place to interact with fans, but we're not overly aggressive in promoting our band this way. The work of promoting music is a lot different than the work of making music, and I don't think many of us have the patience for too much of the former. Would we be bigger if we did? Probably. But, I am content with the level of success we've had and the steady growth of our fanbase. Anyway, I think the time when a band could get signed based on the number of Myspace friends they have is thankfully over, now that there are so many easy ways to game the system. Those numbers just don't mean anything anymore.

GASP: What are your views on webzines versus the print medium in spreading the word of metal?

MJ: I like webzines because they’re able to stay really current, so as a mechanism for delivering reviews and news, webzines are the way to go. But I still don’t really like to read long texts online, and my preference for interviews leans toward sprawling, epic conversations. Given that, I think print magazines have the leg up on interviews. But it is very expensive, as you know, to print a fanzine, and very cheap to post a webzine, so I’m just going to have to get used to reading my interviews online. Also, it’s very hard to distribute a print zine, but anyone in the world can easily check out your website. My own zine, Feast of Famine, is going to jump to the internet this year, although it’s my plan to compile the interviews and the best reviews in a yearly printed zine that I’ll give away at a festival like ProgPower. And despite what I’ve said about webzines, some of the best long-form metal writing today is to be found on lotfp.com. I highly recommend it.

GASP: What have been some of your favorite quote from reviews regarding Pharaoh through the years? How do you feel about critics who may be more judgmental of your craft due to your and Chris Black's well known metal journalism lineage?

MJ: Honestly, not that many people pick up on the journalism angle. So many of our fans and so many of the writers covering Pharaoh are from overseas, where maybe they'd not be familiar with Metal Maniacs, let alone the zines Chris and I did back in the day. I don't think I've seen a single review that said, "For guys who are so picky in their reviews, they sure make terrible music," which is about as bad as you could expect from the situation. I would have to go through the archives of reviews and interviews on our website to find a favorite quote, though. I like reading the press about Pharaoh, but I haven't made a point to take any of it too seriously, and I certainly haven't committed to memory any of the praise we've received. My ego is big enough already!

GASP: If you had the opportunity to change anything about the metal scene- be it domestically or on an international scale- what would you change and why?

MJ: I would eliminate most of the bands, and most of the labels that encourage them. There are too many people making music, when very little of it is good. I wouldn’t mind this so much if those shitty bands stuck it out long enough to learn from their mistakes and get better, but they don’t. They release one or two shitty albums, get mad because they don’t set the underground on fire, and bail, leaving the musical equivalent of litter behind. If you want to play in a band because you enjoy it, have at it. Make some flyers, play some shows. But don’t bother committing your hobby to disc unless you have a real conviction that what you’re doing matters. And would be label-moguls: don’t encourage those shitty bands, just because you’re not able to make shitty music of your own.

GASP: What country in your view is delivering the most potent metal scene in the current era? Please explain your choice with band examples…

MJ: I guess I’d have to say Sweden. Freak Kitchen, Evergrey, Pain of Salvation, Meshuggah, etc. Obviously there are too many awesome Swedish bands to list here. At the same time, Sweden has a terrible habit of creating clone bands at breakneck speed, which is to say the signal-to-noise ratio in that country is not good. Still, it’s astounding how a country of so few people could produce so many great metal bands.

GASP: Do any of the members of Pharaoh share any hobbies/interests outside of playing music together?

MJ: I like to cook, and as such I watch an inordinate amount of FoodTV. I actually have too many hobbies—there are too many things that interest me just enough to distract me from becoming really good at any of them, guitar included. At least I don’t collect stamps!

GASP: What type of gear are you playing these days to make your music and do you have plans to add to it when financially feasible- if so what would you like to add?

MJ: I am resolutely not interested in gear, which is good, because that shit is expensive! I have a very nice custom Jackson guitar and a Peavy 5150 amp, and that’s it. If Pharaoh ever got to the point where we played out regularly, I would buy a new amp, because the 5150 is not the most versatile road amp. I really liked playing Matt Crooks’ Mesa Road King, so maybe that would be the one. I also would consider getting a proper backup guitar (besides the two other electric guitars I have, neither of which is very good), but that’s about it. I’d rather spend my money on CDs and concert tickets.

GASP: What would be your dream fantasy band lineup that you would put together and if they did create an album, how do you think it would turn out?

MJ: Hmm. On guitars: Mattias Eklundh and Ron Jarzombek. On bass: Michael Manring. On drums: Virgil Donati. On vocals: Daniel Gildenlow. I would expect that music to be genre-defying and completely fucked up, not to mention utterly impossible for anyone else to play. I should note that Gildenlow is not my favorite singer, but for this project, I can’t think of anyone more suited to the task.