Matt Pike on New Solo Project & More | The Void 333 Podcast Ep #96
The mighty Matt Pike of High On Fire dives deep into his new solo record, life during the COVID-era, his early life experiences, his perspective on the world at large, the next High On Fire album and much more in the latest episode of The Void YouTube series and podcast.
Matt Pike on his new solo album:
Matt Pike: “I started this solo project with his good friend of mine, Jon Reid. He’s played in Lord Dying and various touring bands … and he’s kind of like family to us. And he’s like, the one guy that was coming over here during the COVID thing. I’m like, I don’t care. If I don’t jam soon, I’m gonna fucking jump off a bridge. So you should probably come over here and start hitting things.
People say when they hear it it’s some of it’s heavy and some of it’s just insanity. It’s like a Frank Zappa album. I had this feeling that it was like that, because of our memories. [It has some] Mahavishnu Orchestra [type stuff], it has some kind of Sleep or High On Fire stuff, which is normal. That’s my playing, like drop tuning stuff. It has a wide variety.
Every friend of mine gets together with [has ideas for the] name of the band. And it’s just, it’s just been a barrage of the funniest shit. Oh, like Matt and the Dick Pics. And then, last night last night someone was all, ‘Dude, what have you just named your band? Cumb?’ It could have been a Nineties band. Yeah, like a Burning Man band. Like in the 90s. Cumb?!
I have Brent Hinds [Mastodon] playing on it a little bit. There’s a few other people … I just have random guests people on different songs. And it makes it interesting because it’s just me and Jon who wrote the blueprint of it. And then someone will jump on, like, Jeff Matz is probably going to be playing the electric saws, which is like the Turkish banjo.
And then I’ve been going into the studio, and I’ve had some cool guests, people that have been, you know, doing tracks for me, including my wife. We’re writing music together because we’re the only ones around each other. So she’s on some tracks. I have Billy Anderson on it, because he lives down the street. So it’s all kind of working out for this project. And I’ve gotten together with High on Fire, like a couple times.”
Christina: Did you make any songs like “The Cave” off Luminiferous? That’s my favourite.
Matt Pike: “Yeah, there’s songs on there like kind of like that. A little more acoustic, a little more bluesy oriented. One sounds like you’re by the train tracks around a bonfire … it’s a very different side of me and my writing and you know who I’m playing with and kind of reflect you I’m jamming with at the time too you know, who is ever on the track is really puts their personality into it. So it’s, it’s a lot of different levels and it’s kind of roller coaster that way. It’s not all like High on Fire. You know what to expect: it’s just gonna like come out swinging and just hit you until it’s done. This is very … there’s a lot of different kinds of feel to it and moments which is cool. I needed I needed a little change from like what I normally do, you know.
Yeah. We did a whole lot of percussion. You know? I mean, like, Well, yeah, that’s where we had, we’ll have one one room session. during recording at the very end, I’ll give everybody mushrooms and we’ll go into the big room and start hitting break drums with axes and you got a gong and we’re all hitting the gong and you’re all throwing shit around the room and Thumping this Evil Knievel toy that I had. We just turned it into a lot of fun. It’s like a lot of fun.”
Christina: Would you ever make a rock opera?
Matt Pike: That’s what my solo album is. It’s a rock opera. Like that. It’s fucking weird, dude. It’s not quite that [laughs]. But yeah, I’ve tried to do rock operas before that, really? Yeah. De Vermis Mysteriis is kind of one. It’s all about the same storyline.
“I plan on keeping this solo thing going … I have I have people picked out for the next album. Yeah, cuz I just have these little guest star things. Yeah. Or I’ll play every instrument inside of the drums. You know? Or, you know, my wife playing keyboards with or pipe organ or Hammond organ. And then she’s on a fucking song screaming. And then my longtime roadie chief. He did sound for High On Fire and was my guitar tech forever. And I let him play a bunch of bass on it because I always I always felt bad. Like, he’s such a great player. Yeah, he’s like, jamming the guitars so I let him do a bunch of songs on this and they turned out fucking stellar. I just try to try to do some things for my friends that I never really get a play with, you know?”
Matt Pike on his surprise lyric book:
Matt Pike: “I’m actually putting out a book of all my lyrics. It’s gonna be a surprise. I have a bunch of killer artists working on art [to accompany the lyrics]. And [my artist wife is] doing the layout.”
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