Eyehategod: The Nomads Of New Orleans
EYEHATEGOD are not a political band, but A History Of Nomadic Behavior feels like a political album. Written during the tumultuous Trump administration, and recorded on the precipice of a global pandemic, the chaos of our times is written into each and every bar.
“Some of the lyrics, most of which were written before 2020, ended up fitting into the times,” explains vocalist Mike IX Williams. “It was subliminal and accidental: I used those words and phrases on purpose, but I didn’t want to push my opinions on anyone.” A History Of Nomadic Behavior sketches a political landscape rather than presenting a manifesto; reflecting polarisation, reactionary anger and turmoil without wading into it. “It wasn’t an exact reaction or anything, but the energy of the times went into the album and makes it what it is. It’s chaotic. A lot of our older albums were chaotic, but in a different way; noisier maybe. This is a slightly cleaner sound; still aggressive and still EYEHATEGOD, but it’s not noisy like the others. I grew up in the punk scene, so that’s always been an influence. Since we’re neither punk nor metal, we can fit into both scenes. It’s just rock ‘n’ roll to me! That’s stolen from Lemmy: he’s the best person to steal from.”
The album is an accumulation of material written during years of intensive and widespread touring, which saw EYEHATEGOD bring their blues-and-booze infused sound to fans in Israel, South East Asia and Tasmania for the first time. “It references that, the album name,” explains Williams. “I wrote the title for the album years ago, I don’t know when. Things come around in circles, and I like that. I had a liver transplant in 2016, and four months later we were back on stage and touring. We basically stayed on stage from 2017 to March of 2020, and we’ve toured with everyone from BLACK LABEL SOCIETY and COROSION OF CONFORMITY, to NEGATIVE APPROACH, SHEER TERROR and NAPALM DEATH. I think the most we had off in that time was three weeks.”
“A lot of the songs were written as long as four years ago, maybe even longer,” remembers Williams. “Everyone writes all the songs, but Jimmy writes most of the riffs. Pieces and parts come together, and we change things a lot. I had lyrics written, but they got changed even in the studio.” Writing an album on the road isn’t easy, even for veterans like EYEHATEGOD, but recording one is even harder. “We were on tour constantly, so it wasn’t easy to get into a studio,” Williams explains. “And when we had time off I didn’t want to go and write in a studio! We recorded the vocals in June and July last year. We went to Chicago to work with a friend of mine, Sanford Parker – we’re in CORRECTIONS HOUSE together – he’s worked with YOB and VOIVOD and lots of other things. I knew we would work well together.”
A History Of Nomadic Behavior reprises EYEHATEGOD’s core aesthetic: a central Madonna figure, framed within a collage of textures and other motifs. “We’ve been fascinated with religious imagery, and making it dystopian. There are other things involved of course, but it’s mostly that. It’s the same ideas, and the same people doing it.” The band’s uncompromising DIY approach has created a strong stylistic continuity between albums, and makes each of them instantly recognisable as an EYEHATEGOD album on record shelves. “Century Media once put some artwork on one of our albums that we didn’t ask for, on the back of Confederacy Of Ruined Lives. They put some weird picture on the whole of the back of the album. ‘Wow that’s not really our style, is it some sort of flower?’ We thought it was strange they decided to go ahead and do that. I don’t like it when labels just decide to do that stuff.”
Despite featuring on a major label, EYEHATEGOD have managed to retain their creative autonomy, and proudly produce their own artwork to this day. “I used to do all of the artwork in the very beginning,” remembers Williams. “This was the late 80s and 90s, so it was cut-and-paste with a glue stick and Xerox. Thirty years later it’s Photoshop, but it’s the same idea. Gary [Mader] our bass player did the physical act of putting it all together, but he runs everything by me, and we go back and forth a thousand times: ‘Is this ok here? Is the colour right?’ and so on. We’ve done our own art since the beginning. Now it’s just evolved into modern times.”
Just like his artwork, Williams’ lyrics are also a cut-and-paste collage of imagery which have been reassembled and repurposed to construct new and ambiguous meanings – reminiscent of the cut-up technique developed by William S. Burroughs. “The lyrics aren’t necessarily done exactly like Burroughs, where he’d physically cut things out and then rearrange them,” Williams explains. “It’s mostly just done on paper: my words, rearranged. I just like the way certain words look and sound together.” [Apparently David Bowie used to do something similar?] “I’ve heard that, and I love his lyrics. I love that cryptic, abstract approach; it’s hard to explain it sometimes. Everyone wants a song to be about a certain thing, but for me the lyrics become meaningful later on. After this album comes out, people will tell me what they think a song is about. I don’t know what it means, so neither do you!”
A History of Nomadic Behavior is out now via Century Media Records.
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