QWe stock the Listenable Records period — In Concert 2007–2014, Abyssinia, and Shadowlands — and all three just got remastered and reissued in January 2024. When you go back into those recordings with fresh ears and sharper tools, what do you actually hear? Is it closer to what you were trying to make at the time, or does the distance reveal something you missed?
AThose records were recorded in my different studio situations and some songs are actually demos, so when I listened back with fresh ears years later, I could hear the frequency spectrum from song to song wasn’t consistent. So my main reason for doing the remasters was to make the songs appear to be recorded at the same place and time frame.
QYou’ve said your actual listening is 70s rock, power pop, soft rock and prog — Nick Drake, Crosby Stills & Nash, Big Star, Joni Mitchell. Mos Generator gets filed under stoner rock. How much of that disconnect bothers you, and how deliberately have you been pulling the sound toward where your listening actually lives — particularly on Shadowlands and Time//Wounds?
AWhen the band formed in 2000, we agreed to be dedicated to heavy rock (not yet heavily referenced to as stoner rock), but over time I have given in to the other types of music I really enjoy, and I find it more satisfying to write music that has a melting pot of influences. That is how I wrote in my twenties, so now that I’m coming back to that, I find I’m more satisfied with the end result.
QYou’ve been direct about the stoner rock movement de-valuing Black Sabbath’s impact. What specifically got lost in that translation — the heaviness, the atmosphere, something else — and is there a band from that world you think actually did understand what Sabbath meant?
AI’ve spent many years trying to understand the Sabbath formula. Of course it’s the individual players and the chemistry they have together. I find that most Sabbath worship is focused on the heavy aspect and not the beauty or the pop sensibility that they had. I think Sabbath are one of a kind and all we can do is borrow from them.
QThe new Mos Generator album is in progress — you were working on it with Jono in Texas before Ripplefest last September. What’s different about the writing process this time compared to how Time//Wounds came together?
AThe strange thing about the next album (Hate Wears Your Halo) is that the demos were all done with original drummer Shawn Johnson, but I had Jono record the final album. His drumming fits the intense nature of the new material.
QYou spent much of 2024 and 2025 deep in Pentagram — writing, producing, and touring behind Lightning in a Bottle with Bobby Liebling. How does that work change how you hear Mos Generator? Do you come back to your own band with different ears after spending that much time inside someone else’s vision?
AIt doesn’t really change anything. My true dedication is to my own music and how to keep it interesting and diverse. I’m in four gigging and recording bands right now, so I’m well versed in compartmentalization.
QYou started recording before you could play an instrument, grew up in a small town with no studio, built the whole thing yourself. At what point did producing other bands stop being something you did on the side and start being as central to your identity as playing?
AAlthough I started recording bands in my teens, I didn’t open my first studio until 1994 when I was 25. It was a quarter-inch 8-track reel-to-reel with a small collection of horrible microphones. It really taught me how to make the most out of the worst.
QThe eight years between the first run of Mos Generator and the 2012 return — you’ve described it as a necessary break rather than a split. Looking at what the band became after Nomads, do you think the break was what made the second phase possible, or would it have happened anyway?
AIt was definitely necessary, but I’m not sure how much it affected the trajectory of the band as far as writing goes. I do think it took a while for us to find our feet again, though.
QThe live album period — In Concert (2013) and In Concert 2007–2014 (2015) — was a specific moment where you captured the energy and then tried to apply it to the studio recordings that followed. That’s not a common approach. How well did it actually work, and is the live dynamic still something you’re consciously chasing in the studio?
AI was very disappointed in Nomads after it came out. I thought it was too perfect, and as a producer, I took the life out of the album by demanding perfection. It really taught me that attitude and energy are much more important than perfection, especially in a rock format. I’ve become happy with my ability to find a nice mix of both — in performance and in how the final mixes are made. Mixing a lot of live albums helps you learn how to harness energy.
QPort Orchard, Washington — Pacific Northwest, naval base town, not the obvious place for a heavy rock band to come from. What did growing up there actually give the music? Is there something geographic in how Mos Generator sounds, or is that too easy a connection to make?
AWe come from the same area as The Sonics, Melvins, and Nirvana. Small logging towns with not a lot to do but hole up and play music. I’m not a fan of the city, so these kinds of remote areas are perfect for me.
QYou have Funeral Suit on one end — acoustic, self-reflective, Bauhaus and Nick Drake — and Mos Generator on the other. Do you see those as two separate projects that happen to share a person, or is there a moment coming where the gap between them finally closes into something new?
AThose processes have crossed over a few times. I also have Hot Spring Water, which is a southern rock/power pop type band, Constance Tomb, which is goth/post-punk music I wrote in the eighties, and Big Scenic Nowhere with members of Fu Manchu and Yawning Man. There’s also Tranquonauts with Isaiah Mitchell and Seedy Jeezus. And of course Pentagram too. I stay very busy.
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