All hail the riff. Australian stoner/doom metal veterans Pod People return with their first studio album in 16 years, Oblivion. Guitarist Josh Nixon gives us the lowdown.
Brendan Crabb: We’ll start with the obvious question – it’s been 16 years since Mons Animae Mortuorum was released. You’ve played in other bands such as I Exist since then, there was a hiatus at one point, but why such a lengthy wait between studio albums?
Josh Nixon: We did break up for several years. Then coming back right at the end of 2019 we had intended on doing something pretty quick, and then of course COVID happened. When we got back together, despite our best efforts to get her involved again, Mel (Walker, guitars) decided against re-joining. She is playing in a band call Pilots of Baalbek, with her sister Leah, Adam of Alchemist/Levitation Hex and Lachlan Paine of Looking Glass/Frozen Planet 1969. In the Canberra small town tradition, Roy (Torkington) from Alchemist and the artist for our first full-length joined. So, we had to not only revise our old stuff and teach someone new, but also start writing again with a new member who brought their own style to the table as well.
COVID stopped us playing much, but we did manage to play the first metal gig at Canberra Theatre since Iron Maiden fans trashed the place on the World Slavery tour in 1985, and Dark Mofo, which were great gigs and gave us the confidence to buckle down and finish writing. We actually recorded a first crack at the end of 2022, but the result exposed a few mechanical issues that I just couldn’t live with in terms of intonation and the performances for a couple of us. It was pretty tense as some of the guys had played great but we really wanted to put out something we were happy with.
Not playing many shows meant the coffers were empty and so we were very fortunate to apply for an receive a grant from artsACT and have another crack. The extra cash allowed us to get down to Melbourne and work in Toyland and Goatsound Studios, that have been the source of a shitload of amazing Aussie metal and punk records.
That was last year and it’s taken almost another year to secure a label, a release date and get things moving. So yeah, it’s been a fucking saga but on reflection now, there’s no argument that the decision to re-do it was the right one and we got a superior result.
You wrote plenty of the many riffs on the new record. Where do you derive your riff-writing inspiration from?
It was pretty collaborative. DD (Drynan, bass) and Brad (Nicholson, vocals) are very busy in their two-piece sludge band Lucifungus and their stoner rock band Hydranaut. Dave also has The Vee Bees and Turbo Belco. Roy and Dave bought quite a few riffs to the table and Brad and Maggs (Saunders, drums) had plenty to say in terms of arrangements. I am pretty lucky like that, in that apart from my own ideas, when you have players bringing in good riff ideas, it helps springboard riff ideas in response to what they bring to the table. So having this group of guys to work with is amazing.
My biggest problem isn’t getting inspiration for riff ideas, it’s curtailing them. I have a ridiculous backlog of riffs and ideas as I’ve really spent a lot more time learning my instrument in the last couple of years. My real challenge is whittling things down into more achievable ideas. I was driving Brad a bit mental as some of my shit is just too much. All the usual suspects still drive the new thinking – Iommi, Pike, Jennings, Blackie – but there’s my peers and new players that kinda push me to want to keep the quality control up. Emu from Queensland and Goat Shaman from Melbourne are just monsters lurking and hopefully the world wakes up to them soon.
What’s your favourite riff on the new album?
Mate I need to ask you that question! To be honest, I’ve been playing them and listening to so many mixes and version that I have lost all sense of perception on the record now. I really hope old Pod fans find something to latch onto, and I hope we turn on a few new ears to what we’re doing. As I said above, I’m always thinking about the next thing. I’ve got some new riffs I’m working on at the moment, so hopefully you guys like all the new album riffs enough to give me an excuse to record these new ones.
Tell us about the concept within this LP, and how it’s linked to the group’s previous releases.
Lyrically the themes are more allegorical and Brad is the driver there. Art and musically though there’s a line back through the last two full-lengths. Inspired by The Divine Comedy, we did Inferno (hell) on the first record, Purgatorio (purgatory) on the last one and this one see’s Dante travel to Paradisio (the heavens).
The cover depicts Virgil who has accompanied Dante until now to the top of Mt Purgatory and the swirling maelstrom of an angry god awaits, populated by an increasingly desperate heavenly host who sense that God has just had enough of us. We’ve disappointed them long enough. What’s more doom than the promise of heaven’s eternal light running out?
See what I mean about struggling to put a lid on the ideas?
The band formed more than 30 years ago. Due to families, full-time jobs and the like, is Pod People essentially a passion project these days?
It’s always been a passion project. The metal bands of my generation aren’t living in houses that music built. It’s always been about making music with mates and then playing shows with peers interstate and beyond, and in those terms, we’ve been very successful. We would actually have been a lot more active if the record was done right the first time and then this year our drummer Maggs has had a run of hugely bad luck health wise with a snapped Achilles – not good for drumming – and some other issues. It’s kept us from playing as much as we would have liked to.
That said, we’ve been going a long time. It’s kind of weird how many doom and stoner doom bands there are around these days as we were here when there were only a handful of us around.
So for me I’m happy to get back in line and let this album speak for itself and when people hear this shit live I think that it will quickly become apparent that this isn’t a hobby, it’s at the core of who we are and what we do, and that is big arse riffing doom metal.
The band has supported some major international names in Australia. What have been some of those highlights?
An embarrassment of riches. A while back Reaper – an absolutely killer Melbourne band -came up and I was speaking to their bassist Rebecca. She asked who I played with and she said, ‘it seemed like for a while there Pod People played with every bloody band, how did you get all those supports?’ The answer was usually because we said ‘yes’ and we were cheap. Throw in a bonus that we often bought a full backline with us (so) we were good for a lend of the gear. Cathedral, Electric Wizard, Celtic Frost, Voivod, the list goes on. Honestly though my favourite show to play was always Metal for the Brain (festival). Black Christmas every year and just a special time and show. It was the festival that started the network pre-internet and getting the national touring circuit really moving for metal. Dark Mofo was also super great.
At the time Pod People formed, international metal acts visited Australia far less often than in 2024. The country certainly wasn’t a primary market for many overseas bands, and few if any local metal acts made any headway overseas. How have you watched the Aussie heavy music scene evolve over the past few decades?
Fucking hell, that’s a potentially loaded one. I never thought I would see a band like King Parrot play with Pantera at a US arena tour. I never thought that a band like Psycroptic – quite a niche technical death metal band – consistently tour overseas as much as they do. There was never even a thought of possibility when I went to the first Metal for the Brain in 1991 that an Australian metalcore band would headline a festival like Wacken ala Parkway. For all of the diversity in that time, as we celebrate 40 years of The Hard Ons this year, the heavy music of this country is still under-appreciated. I have held a perception for some time that beyond a core local/Australian music scene that audiences seem to value music from overseas more than they do their local produce. That critical mass, house buying audiences seem to have to wait until a band has broken overseas before they jump on board locally, but the size of the market is the size of the market. It’s a bit hard to quantify that objectively, and I think post-COVID, the venue situation in this country seems to be worse than at any time since I started playing music. Closures, festivals collapsing, the cost of touring, etc. It’s still a long way to the middle if you want to rock and roll.
I definitely have my personal musical preferences in the pre-grid, perfect imperfections side of the fence. The Parkway/Amity/Thy Art/Alpha Wolf, etc thing is an entity of its own and clearly the ascendant musical force that most folks like. That’s fine, but it’s not where my black (old) heart is at.
That said, the creativity and the talent is still abundant, there’s great bands of all genres going, and it’s cool that heavy music is doing so well. Speed’s flute is like the most interesting thing I’ve heard in hardcore music in like 30 years. The previously mentioned Emu and Goat Shaman (are great), but also old and new bands like Potion, Ghostsmoker, Kvll, Religious Observance, Whitehorse, Witchskull, Robot God, Nunchukka Superfly, Extortion, Sumeru/Sonhelm, Mindsnare, Neptune Power Federation, Remains. I’m gonna get into trouble (for) forgetting folks, but there’s a tonne to love about this country.
It’s just the distances are still immense, the cost to do it is brutal and while petrol, flights accommodation and food have all gone through the roof, you know they still wanna pay bands under $200 a show. Fuck me dead mate, if you’re not passionate you’re at home learning how to smoke meat or brew beer (laughs).
On a personal note, what new releases have you been enjoying lately?
Emu’s self-titled album hasn’t been far from my playlist for the past eight weeks. Connor was amazing in Hobo Magic and has somehow levelled up on this record both vocally and on guitar. I just love this record. This year I have loved Religious Observance – 7 years Of Neglect, Kvll – Annihilator, Umbilical – Thou, Dark Superstition – Gatecreeper, God Damned You To Hell – Friends of Hell, Threats – Extortion, Empty – Bongripper, Cometh the Storm – High On Fire, Gilded Sorrow – The Obsessed, Sparagmos – Spectral Voice, By The Seat of our pants – Pilots of Baalnek, House of Solomon – Hekate, and Portal Within – Robot God.
And what’s the best show you’ve seen so far in 2024?
Well, on the same night in the same venue I got to see Orange Goblin in one room, and Gatecreeper and Kruelty in the other room. That was sick. Triumph of Death were awesome too. Australia wise Goat Shaman at Sunburn, Canberra wise check out Voodoo Acid Space Kings, they put on a great show.
Any famous last words?
Bloody hell mate, I hope we can talk about another couple of releases before it comes to last words (laughs).
(interview published August 28, 2024)
