ZOROASTER

Fear and Loathing in Atlanta
by Matt Smith

Zoroaster was an ancient Iranian prophet and religious poet and is the basis of Zoroastrianism, but as i found out, all this has nothing to do with the mind-crushing sounds a band hailing from Atlanta Georgia called Zoroaster make. After their amazing Boston/Allston gig in February, Will Fiore (vocals/guitar), was gracious enough to help me get to the bottom of what makes this extremely psychedelic heavy metal band tick.

(After a few minutes of Barry from Gozu chatting it up with Will and I about the comparisons between Church and O'Briens, where the show got involuntarily moved to, Will and I start our interview.)

GASP: Having been in Death Metal bands before I started playing Doom, I want to know if you had the same start, you know, playing in Death Metal bands before you decided to play something slower but still as heavy?

Will:  Well it did start off with Grindcore Death Metal and actually none of us were in a band, but there were four buddies of ours and they were called Rot and it ended up breaking up and two of them went to prison and the two remaining guys formed Terminal Doom Explosion and it was a revolving cast of all our friends and some shows would be nine people and some would be two. We would never really practice we'd just get drunk and play and every year it kept morphing into different things and finally the end result of that band was me and my brother and our friend Cory and we were pretty much a three-piece at the time and the drummer started working on another project and that's when me and my brother Rod were like "fuck it, let's call up Brent" and we started Zoroaster. The music started out super fast with Rot but it slowly got slower and with Zoroaster. It was mainly me and Brent writing the riffs, loving Godflesh and shit like that, like Bolt Thrower and at the beginning it was like 20 minute songs where we'd have to play the riff like 30 times. That's pretty much where we came from.

GASP: Cool. Now on the development of your sound, I know on the first disc, there's no title for it, it's just self-titled, right?

Will: Yeah, well actually it was just a demo we did with our second drummer after my brother left and we got John Smith in and we just taught him a few songs in the studio and recorded a demo and then his time came and went and then when Dan was getting in was when we were kinda gonna be doing a record and we just got a new drummer so it was like "just give me the recording you've got and we'll put it out instead of having to wait a couple months". So that's how that album happened, it was just a demo that we had that became the self-titled first release. It was pretty much we just went in there in a couple of days and pretty much played live and was like "ok, that's good enough for a demo, so". It's a little different sounding, a little more bare.

GASP: Especially the last track, isn't that live?

Will: Yeah, that was actually a live recording we did with Dan soon after he joined and we were like "that kinda sucks we're putting out a record without our newest drummer on it" so we were like "let's throw this little piece on there" and there's another song, I think it's on the vinyl version of that EP but it hasn't been released on CD. We just wanted to have something with Dan on it.

GASP: Now moving on to Dog Magic, it has so many more elements than the first EP with the moog stuff where you just let it ride out...

Will: Gettin' high helps (laughs)

GASP: (laughs) were you guys jamming and decided to add another element to your sound?

Will: Actually, Brent has always had all those moog pedals and he used to do his one man noise project where he would go out with just his theremin and all his pedals and make fuckin' wacky noise. And it kinda started at the end of our sets where me and Brent would make noise for 20 minutes and the drummer would leave like "fuck you!" (laughs). And when we go in the studio a lot of it is improvised and especially like when I don't want to play a guitar solo we're like "let's just get some noise in there" (laughs). I don't know I just like it man.

GASP: Me too, it adds such a cool element. The first time I heard it I was like "yeah, that's the kinda shit I've been wanting to do!" Just combine those elements.

BEGIN SIDE NOTE: Later, after the interview with Will, I asked a fairly drunken Brent about his moog pedals and this is what he said:

Brent: I've had those pedals since they were still called Big Briar, before moog actually got his name back. I was getting them back like 10-15 years ago. I had them on consignment and I was eating Ramen noodles to afford them. I had them on consignment because nobody knew what they were yet and I said I'm gonna get the good stuff and people were like "you're rich" and I'm like "I'm NOT rich, I ate Ramens and got the good shit" and Big Briar is moog, and Bob (moog) is the shit man. That moog movie made me cry and Bob was asked, "how did you do that?" and he was like, "it wasn't me, it came through me". END SIDE NOTE

Will: And it changed from only being at the end of the sets to actually being in the songs. And Dan's got his shit behind him hitting buttons and stuff. It's just cool, it keeps it interesting for us. Like tonight, playing shit twice as long, freaking out for a minute being high.

GASP: Yeah, that's what I'm trying to go for in my new band. Everybody tries to look for the ultimate band name, with Zoroaster, was that a...

Will: It was a name we stumbled upon, I mean we were playing and we didn't have a name for awhile and Brent was reading some Occult book and came across Zoroaster, and it is this ancient religion and while he was reading these books it popped up like twice and it piqued his interest and it got thrown in the pot like "how about this for a name?" But you know we read up on it and it was like "whatever, I guess it's cool for a name".

GASP: So none of you guys are Zoroastrians?

Will: No, we're not, which I've often worried about.

GASP: (laughs) Are there any groups...

Will: There is! We do get the odd e-mail every now and then with people asking us harshly and yelling at us "what do you know about it?" and I'm like "calm down, we're just a dumb band". There was also a few years ago someone stumbled across a link from a religious Zoroaster site and it actually had our tour dates posted. (laughs) And I was like "that's kinda cool but what if people come and get mad"...

GASP: (laughs) Because you're not Zoroastrian.

Will: No, we don't mean any harm, it's just a cool name.

GASP: Yeah, and Acid King has that album Zoroaster.

Will: Brent had that record and introduced me to the band later, but I love them! There's also some dance band called Zoroaster.

GASP:  Is there? (laughs)

Will: I'm sure it won't be a problem.

GASP: Exactly (laughs) The title track of Dog Magic has that cool tribute at the end  and the first time I heard that I wasn't really paying attention to the lyrics but once I listened to them I thought they were really cool and it leads me to the whole life after death/religion questions, you know like what are you guys beliefs, philosophies?

Will: I don't know, we don't really put much thought into the lyrics and sometimes they come off as meaning something but they really don't. I mean that song was different, it was a really close friend of the band, it was a tribute. We don't practice any religion, I mean, just be nice to people and people will be nice to you.

GASP: The Karmic law

Will: I mean, I don't know if there's any thing after this, I really don't care. If there is cool, if not I'll be six feet, I mean I don't think I'm gonna burn anywhere (laughs).

GASP: Exactly, Peace, Love, and Respect, you don't need to build buildings and create these multi-million dollar organizations. Now the new song, when I first heard it I thought it was kind of a departure for you guys, almost upbeat.

Will: Oh, "The Spirit Molecule". Well, there's always been a little upbeat stuff in our music. Like "Bullwhip", I mean it pretty much came from the same place as "Bullwhip". When we started Zoroaster there's a song I wrote for the last band I was in with my brother and we used to jam on it and then we started Zoroaster and kind of took a part of it and made "Bullwhip" and then later on I took more of it and made "Spirit Molecule" and they're kind of pretty similar. They kind of have the same tempo thing going, just played slightly different. I just can't come up with any new shit, I keep using the old shit.

GASP: (laughs) I've been doing the same thing with my new band, using these old riffs and songs I wrote 12 or more years ago.

Will: That's like a lot of our stuff, on the new record there's shit that we fuckin' wrote when we first started, and even the next record will have shit from then too. I mean we rework them a little, but when you first start a band riffs just start popping out. You're not always prepared to do the right thing with them but a couple years down the line you stumble across them and say "I remember that" and all of a sudden bam, you know exactly where it should go.

GASP: It comes back to you at the right time. But I really like the new song.

Will: And you know once we're in the studio we always fight with the idea we're gonna keep everything simple and we're like we know what this song is gonna sound like every night we play it, it's gonna be loud and it's gonna be heavy so let's throw a piano in there and do some more melodies and whatever. You know, fuck it, it's a record, it's supposed to be kinda different, if you want to hear the stripped down versions just come to the show. There's always a weird line when we're recording like "how are we gonna do this song?"

GASP: I think both versions sound great.

Will: Thanks

GASP: You were mentioning being inspired by drug use and earlier tonight Brent was telling me about the time you and Withered were on tour and you all took mushrooms together. (laughs)

Will: Yeah, we just ended up crashing out at some truck stop and thought it would be fun to take a bunch of mushrooms. But actually I think I was on a bunch of pills, I don't know if I had any mushrooms that night. But we just ran around in Davy Crockett outfits at some truck stop for a couple hours and I'm surprised we weren't arrested. It was awesome. (laughs)

GASP: I always like telling people about my most intense acid experience. What is your most intense drug experience?

Will: I think I was coming back from Lollapalooza or something, this is a long time ago, and we were just taking acid all day and I remember me and my buddy, Matt Smith actually (laughs)

GASP: Ironically (laughs)

Will: We were driving down the highway and I vividly remember this sleepy billboard, it was like some guy on a surfboard and all of a sudden he just starts surfing across the sky and I was like "what the fuck is that?", and I told my friend and he was like "that's weird". But the next thing I know I wake up and I'm like face down and all I can see is yellow and I kind of look up and it's the yellow line of the road and I'm like "where the fuck am I?" and I'm like asleep in the middle of the road and it's bright as fuck out and I'm like out of my mind and I look over and my buddy's there asleep on the road next to me and we just kind of wake up and try to figure out where the fuck we are and we just kept walking down these country roads. Then we finally came across something we recognized and it was like "I know where the fuck we are" so we walk like another mile and we get to his house and his car is like in a ditch with all four doors open and it's still running blaring music and we're like "what's going on?",  so that was a pretty memorable one. (laughs) I don't know what the fuck happened but apparently we decided to go for a long walk and ended up asleep in the road. (laughs)

GASP: (laughs) Wow, how much did you guys take?

Will: Well it was one of those all day shows so you get there and drop like two hits and smoke some weed wait a couple hours drop a couple more.

GASP: (laughs) That's pretty crazy! So you said the tour is going pretty good, and you've played a few shows with A Storm of Light and you're on the full tour with Amenra, so it's been going good?

Will: Yeah, it's been going REALLY well. It's been cold as fuck but...

GASP: You missed the heat wave a week and a half ago, it was in the 50's.

Will: For some dumb reason we always decide to tour up north in the Winter instead of going to the midwest, we're like "let's go to Canada". Other than that it's been great, cramming eight dudes in this 1993 conversion van and we're rolling. All the guys are super nice.

GASP: I noticed Amenra is using your equipment

Will: Yeah, it's kind of like the Nachtmystium tour we did, I mean they came over from Belgium so we said don't worry about gear, just use ours.

GASP: How was the Nachtmystium tour?

Will: It was fucking awesome, yeah, those guys are sick. We're talking about doing it again because we had so much fun on that tour. We were talking about putting out a DVD of that tour.

GASP: Man, I would LOVE to see that!

Will: Yeah, I fucking love those guys. They would come up and play songs with us and I remember on that tour we just started doing this alternative 90's thing (does an imitation of a grunge band vocalist). We had this contest to see who could put that into their set the most on the tour in the most interesting way. So every night they would be up there playing and he'd be like (does another imitation) and we would have to top them. We actually altered a song, we added a break where there never was one, and all the music would stop, and we never do that, and there was total silence and I was like (does imitation), you know, just dumb shit like that (laughs), I fucking miss those guys.

GASP: I can imagine, it must have been a sweet tour.

Will: Them and Sourvein, those two tours, man!

GASP: That tour was supposed to come through Boston but it never did.

Will: Yeah, we've done a few tours with them and it's ALWAYS super cool. They would come up and do some songs with us and I would always go up and sing stuff with T Roy and at the end, it was all just fucking fun, you know. It's like a big family, you know, just get wasted together, run around making a bunch of noise. Hopefully they'll get back out again this year.

GASP: I know I've missed them every time they've played. I know you've got a skate deck modeled after the new album art work. Are you guys involved with skate boarding at all?

Will: We used to fuck around with it when we were younger and we'll pull boards out every once in a while, but it's usually a bad idea (laughs), we're not very good and when we fall we don't get up any more. We're all old and we break when we fall. But that was Ritual, they said "want to do a board?" and we're like "that sounds cool" and literally within a month we had them. That's pretty fucking awesome but it's pretty bad because it makes us want to get one ready to use and that's the LAST thing we should be doing on tour (laughs)

GASP: (laughs) Yeah, you'll end up like James Hetfield did on the Master of Puppets tour.

Will: Yeah, we'll have to get the guitarist from Metal Church to fill in (laughs)

GASP: (laughs) Yeah, Kurt Vanderhoof, I think that's who played with them.

Will: I don't know, I know it was a guy from Metal Church.

GASP: Yeah, whatever. Since this is a half-metal and half-horror site do you have any favorite horror movies or directors?

Will: You know, The Evil Dead movies, they're more comedy that horror, I watch them over and over.

GASP: Cool, those are great timeless movies. Well thanks for taking the time and I look forward to seeing you guys next time you're in town (which will be August 7th at O'Brien's with Gates of Slumber and Serpent Cult)

Will: Cool man, see you then!

Matt with Zoroaster - horns up all around.