On paper, the thought of a band like Goatsnake presents an impossible situation. Formed by members of Engine Kid, Obsessed, Wool and Burning Witch, you've got disparate styles and influences condensed into one sound. It should come out a total mess. Their debut album 'Goatsnake 1' and recent mLP 'Dog Days' proves otherwise. They're both remarkably consistent records and even have their own identifiable sound which some are quick to label Stoner Rock. What I like most about Goatsnake is that amalgamation of influences. Engine Kid were the epitome of the post hardcore, vast guitar sound; Obsessed went with the same bludgeoning doom flow as St. Vitus; Wool were the thinking person's melodic rock act for those who swore by Alice In Chains and Kyuss; and Burning Witch? No band had a dirtier sludgier sound. And whatever the band's surface qualities, you can hear each of these bands filtering through.
I talked to the band about the sums that made the whole.

Pete Stahl- vocals, Greg Anderson- guitar, G.Stuart Dahlquist- bass, Greg Rodgers- drums.

Stu: "I think we all have our own influences. We all have our own styles so it's definitely an amalgamation of everything."
Pete: "Well, singing with these guys is something new for me. I have a style that's my own thing."
Greg: "You've heard the record so you know what's come out of it."

The band sounded concerned about labels and being directed towards some niche market. After all, if you do want to be just a good, heavy rock band you should want to appeal to everyone. I reminded the band of something I read in the Mordam Distribution catalogue who were then handling Mans Ruin releases. 'Goatsnake 1' was described as-

"this is the record Black Sabbath would have recorded if they were starting today... a doom-laden vision of Satanic wonder."

Greg Rodgers: "I've read that over and over again but 'no!'That's them trying to sell the record."
Greg: "I didn't write the thing personally but I did make sure they didn't mention the words 'stoner rock' and made 'em take out some of the bands they wanted to lump us with. We purposely did not want to be thrown into a stoner rock type of thing. It's a rock band to me."

Bands name dropped were Melvins, Sleep, St. Vitus, Skynyrd.

Greg Rodgers: "Sleep were great."
Greg: "It's just rock Heavy rock. I don't know. The first Black Sabbath album- that's doom to me too just as much as the first Cathedral album. I don't know what a definition of doom is. It's super slow heavy music."
Stu: "Like 'Jerusalem'."
Greg: "That's a doom record too. I think Cathedral just to me ended up turning into a rock band. They started off as an extreme doom band. I don't think they were calling themselves doom after 'Ethereal Mirror'. That's a pretty damn heavy rock album. Each record's got more and more rock. I enjoy all their albums but not as much as their first one."
Stu: "I don't think Goatsnake is doom or stoner rock. It's a weird combination."
Greg: "It's a rock and roll band."

It would have almost been an insult to the band to predictably ask them how much Black Sabbath had influenced them, but I did it anyway. But then again, there's some points about Sabbath wannabe bands I wanted to bring up.

Greg Rodgers: "I don't know. Obviously we love that music a lot, of course it's going to show through our music. That's just the shit that hits me harder than most."
Greg: "I preferred their early years. They were just harder I think, and a little less accessible maybe."
Pete: "I think they got a little affected by trends maybe. Like after Dio left the band it's almost as if they were trying to make what were then heavy metal records."
Greg: "They sounded like a big rock band rather than trying to do their own thing."

It annoyed me that a lot of bands that allowed themselves to become Sabbath clones (mentioning no names- Sheavy) had the talent but not the willingness to push themselves further.

Greg: "There are, but what makes us different is Pete. It's his job to not make us churn out some sub Black Sabbath shit. The vocals are really touching melodies that a lot of other bands don't have. A lot of other bands' singers can't sing."
Stu: "I think also, the newer songs we're doing musically are in a little bit of a different direction. We're not just churning out riffs, we're turning to fine dynamics..."
Greg: "I think the next album is a lot less Sabbath than the other one. You can hear it. It's in the guitar tone really. Tony Iommi's guitar tone is a big part of my influences in Sabbath- it's there, but as far as songwriting goes and the actual riffs, the next one is going to be definitely different."
Pete: "I think we've had a lot of discussions amongst ourselves about stuff like that. We all have ideas about what we want to do but sometimes, you know, they don't always jive with each other's. But that's part of being in a band. The combination of everyone's ideas and influences will hopefully propel us forward to be something a little bit different from what we've done in the past."
Stu: "I don't think anyone wants to write the same song twice."

But that's not to deny them the right to mix with bands in which their friends play in. The whole Los Angeles/Californian rock community has benefited from an environment cloaked in clouds of marijuana and vast sun baked expanses.

Pete: 'There's not too many bands I feel comfortable with playing."
Greg: "Los Angeles is difficult."
Pete: "Yeah. We end up playing with most of our friends."
Greg Rodgers: "We have a kinship with bands like High On Fire and Acid King. Spirit Caravan too who we haven't done any gigs with but we have kind of the same goals. We might have similar record collections, t-shirt collections- all that. We play with Nebula occasionally, which is always nice. Fatson Jetson, Fu Manchu once in a while."
Greg: "All that shit is retro, yeah."
Stu: "We don't want to get stuck into that genre. I think we're different."

Desert Sessions is the stoner rock supergroup project instigated by Josh Hommes and members of Goatsnake have contributed to it. As the name implies, Desert Sessions is partly a response to the mind expanding environment around the sundrenched district of Joshua Tree. Likewise the 'space' music created is unstructured to an extent, with invited players just jamming and seeing what comes up. In theory there is no end to what Desert Sessions could do.

Pete: "I've sang on some Desert Sessions stuff- the first one was before Goatsnake. That was fun to do. I don't know. When I used to be in a hardcore band [Scream] in Washington DC we all played and jammed with each other. Bands broke up and we'd start new bands. It was a small scene so it was bound to happen. It's cool that there is Desert Sessions, where you have this vision for a project of bringing people together. There should be more of that shit."

It's so open even members of the The Dwarves are involved just to make it a little weirder.

Pete: "I agree with ya. If there was a little more money involved it could even be a little more- I know they were trying to get people from Taj Mahal. I don't know if you remember that blues artiste. Some of the guys from his band were going to come out and play. People from the Foo Fighters. It's pretty much unlimited you know. Getting everyone together in one place is hard."

It's pretty incestuous too with the main players all having been represented on Man's Ruin Records. It's inevitable that Goatsnake would release something on that label.

Pete: "I live with one of the girls that runs that label. And it just went from there."
Greg Rodgers: "Man's Ruin puts out that kind of stuff and we play that kind of stuff so..."
Greg: "Our old bass player, Guy Pinhas, actually works at that label now."

For all intents and purposes 'Goatsnake1' is a typical Man's Ruin record, but the band has since released the 'Dog Days' ep and a split with Burning Witch. Both records have a different sound to the debut album. But that, again, is the individual influences of the band members being moulded to respond to a new criteria. Share a disc with Burning Witch, ergo let the crust doom influences come out more. You just can't tie these guys down.

Greg Rodgers: "We had stuff that was a little bit harsher than what we had when we recorded 'Goatsnake 1' but we didn't put it out til now."
Greg: "I think the next recordings are going to be similar to 'Goatsnake 1', but the playing is a bit more progressed, we're playing longer, we're pretty comfortable playing with each other. The harsher stuff on the ep is the stuff we had to get out of ourselves. They'll be elements of that in the next recording but it'll be similar to 'Goatsnake 1'."
Pete: "It's a step forward. The full length is different from the ep. When you put out an album you have to think about the whole thing, but with an ep it was an in between record , so we do some covers, and songs that didn't make it on the full length and a couple of new songs."
Greg: "That's extremely heavy. That's a lot harsher, sort of done on purpose really."
Greg Rodgers: "Burning Witch is an extremely heavy band so just to keep up, so to make a nice package with them we offered up two of our heaviest songs that we had been working on- one heavy song and a St. Vitus cover."
Stu: "Well, I'm the bass player in Burning Witch. But we're on a hiatus."
Pete: "They ran out of witches to burn."
Greg: "I would say that there's going to be elements of that on the next record, but I don't think it isn't anything that wasn't on the first record, like songs like 'What Love Remains' or 'Lord Of Los Feliz'- to put a label on it, the more doomy stuff. It's going to be elements of that but it'll all pull together hopefully."

If any band reading this wanted to rip off the Goatsnake sound what would they have to look for?

Pete: "Well, we're not going to give away that kind of information. Come see us play and figure it out for themselves."
Stu: "We tune to H."
Greg: "Z"
Pete: "First we try to get a tune together then go from there."

To play rock much influenced by the 70s, did the band try to get hold of instruments from that era for that real deal sound or did they just make the most of what they could afford?

Pete: "The one consideration is what we can afford. We don't really have that much stuff. Greg Rodgers has his drum kit which he's had for years. It's an old Ludwig with the old kick drums so it sounds fucking great."
Greg: "I like to use Sunn Amps. Those are pretty cheap though."
Pete: "You know, there's some truth to that. You know what you want and you know what sound you want. If it's from that era then you want to try to get that equipment. They just don't make shit like that anymore."
Stu: "All the stuff Greg and I use is vintage stuff. On this tour I'm using rented Ampeg amplifiers that costs way more than a vintage SVT. But it doesn't work anywhere near as well."

In case you were under the impression Goatsnake have no sense of humour it's worth mentioning the track 'Dog Catcher'. Here they took a deep breath and let Melvins' Buzz Osborne loose on it. To say it stands out on 'Goatsnake 1' would be an understatement.

Greg Rodgers: "He just has a pretty strange take on things so we thought it might be interesting to have him come in and mess with this song, which we really didn't know what to do with, basically. We dropped him off at the studio and picked him up when he was done. I didn't know what to expect really, and I really wasn't all that shocked when I heard it. I thought it was fine but it was an odd little thing to break up the record. Most people in the band hate it. I personally felt it needed to be there to give it some texture. That song we never play live."

If Goatsnake sound too straight laced on record, I think the listener should really dissect each song layer by layer. Then you may find that this band have a richness to them that should really do things for them.