Down in Florida, I had a chance to catch up with guitarist/vocalist John Baizley of Georgia-based-shred-fanatics Baroness. John is also the talent behind album artwork and merch designs for the likes of Daughters, Torche, Kylesa and more. The band’s performance at the Fest VI was definitely the highlight of my Friday night. The crowd at Common Grounds swayed in front of the stage with raised fists in the air, as they lost themselves in the music. Pure, raw emotion is what defines Baroness’ music; a feeling that most artists never quite achieve, especially those in the “metal genre.” Definitely expect the band’s profile to continue to rise in the ‘08.

I feel you guys are on a few different genre lines. You’ve got a punk and a metal fan base and you are getting a lot of recognition in the indie world – Pitchfork gave you a great review – how do you feel about that? Are those different fan bases showing up at the shows or is it still a metal crowd?
John: It’s actually never really been specifically a metal crowd. It’s always been sort of a cross-genre crowd coming out to see us ever since we first started. I think most of the typically metal kids coming out now is sort of a new thing for us. The early tours we were doing were almost exclusively with punk and hardcore bands. That’s the world we come from.

Especially playing something like the Fest where it’s predominately punk.
John: This is the third time we’ve played in four or five years. The staple of our touring guide is a crowd like this.

I read that you are doing a music video soon. Do you have any details about that?
John: It’s done. We worked with a good friend of ours in Savannah. We basically assembled a crew of people to work on the video that were friends of ours or one degree of separation removed with people we’ve been friends with for years. Which is sort of the M.O. of our band; working with creative and talented people that were familiar with already. Basically, we had the entire art school in Savannah. Essentially, professional people in the film and TV industry were working on this for basically beer and food. The budget went just for materials and everything else [for] people that were personally invested in it and wanted to be part of the video. It should be out sometime in November.

What song is it for?
John: It’s for the song “Wanderlust.”

The band pushed back a European tour until next year but is the band doing something in December still?
John: Yeah, we are doing a tour in late November-early December; the details of which I can’t really tell because I don’t really know. All I know is that it will be for about two weeks. We’ll be going up to Boston and New York and then out to Texas. Just a real quick tour before we get out to Europe in January.

It seems like you guys have a strong grasp on the presentation of the band, where as a lot of heavier bands have logos that are just unreadable.
John: I’ve been both an musician and artist as long as I can remember. We were able from the very beginning to craft a visual representation of our band that fell very much in line and was integral to the sound as well. We’ve worked very hard since day one to keep that intact. Keep all the art and visual stuff surrounding our band within the band. It comes from the band, it is ideas from the band. It’s all very personal with us.

As an artist, how do you manage it because it seems like you are doing a lot more work these days or at least more high profile stuff, like the Darkest Hour cover. With the touring schedule, are you sitting in the van drawing?
John: Yeah, basically. It’s, to say the least, been a very busy year for me. I basically work seven days a week, as many hours of the day as I’m awake. I’m still typically about a month or two behind schedule. It’s been good but it’s been tough.

All your artwork is drawn by hand, correct?
John: My entire process is entirely traditional. Pens, pencils, watercolors, inks; everything like that. The computer is absolutely the last step.

Most people aren’t like that these days.
John: Yeah because it’s time consuming; leaves much more room for error. It’s sort of a self-imposed thing for me but it’s worked out nicely for me.

Any future plans for the band?
John: We’ve already started writing the second record. I would say it’s close to fifty percent completed. We’re musicians, so when were not out on the road, we still practice. Once we recorded and toured with something so much, it’s not so fun to practice. We get our creative thing happening so we’ve been writing a lot since we finished recording Red Album. Other than pushing that forward, we plan on touring all through the next year, as much as possible.

I read on Second that you guys just went in and recorded it like a live recording.
John: Except for the vocals, the whole thing was done in one take. All three songs lead into each other; we basically recorded [the tracks] as one song. [We] didn’t do any overdubs or layering. It was meant to be what we sound like on stage.

How did the Red Album differ because there’s definitely some overdubs and texturing to it.
John: That was just because we had more studio time booked so we were able to explore any ideas that we had. That meant if we felt like something needed an overdub, we were able to do that. But that said, there’s actually very little overdubbing, very little layering of the vocals or drums. We tried to keep it as natural sounding as possible.

Tags: Baroness, Interview, The Fest, The Fest 6, interview //