Bass players hardly get any recognition in the music world. This is mostly because unless you can do more smack than Nikki Sixx or shred like Geezer Butler, no one is listening and no one cares. It’s a sad fact, but bassists are largely underappreciated because they are largely underwhelming.
Brian Cook is a glaring exception to this rule. His resume includes Botch, These Arms Are Snakes and most recently the way-fucking-awesome Russian Circles. Notice a pattern? Yep, all those bands are wicked and you know that bass sound the second you hear it. I got a chance to fire some questions at Brian for the first-ever SRG.com interview, getting a little peek behind the curtain of Russian Circles and at the roots and influences of one of Seattle’s finest musicians.
Here’s our talk:
Matt Abramson: So how did you end up hooking up with Russian Circles?
Brian Cook: Mike and Dave parted with Colin towards the end of 2007. They had a recording date lined up with Matt Bayles out here in Seattle, but aside from “Harper Lewis”, none of the material was ready when the studio was booked. So Mike and Dave fleshed out the remainder of material and decided to have someone they knew fill in on bass for the album. They initially talked to Rob Lowe of 90 Day Men and Lichens about having him on the record, but there was some scheduling problems. These Arms Are Snakes and Russian Circles had the same manager, and she mentioned the situation to me and I offered to help out. It made sense, I suppose, since they were already going to be in Seattle, and our bands had played a bunch of shows together. I’d even crashed at Mike and Dave’s place the previous summer during a cross country road trip. So the pieces fell in place. They sent me some demos, I flew out and rehearsed with them for a few days, and we recorded Station. It just grew from there. I did a couple of shows with them. They tried out a few bass players, even toured with another guy on bass, but ended up recruiting me for their SXSW trip and their U.S. tour. Somewhere in the latter half of 2008 I wound up officially integrated into the band. Mike and Dave joke about getting me drunk and asking if they could put my name on their MySpace page. I don’t really remember that happening. I just sorta wound up in the band.
Matt: Was it pretty easy to learn the old material and adjust to the band dynamic?
Brian: Learning the old material was a little tricky. Colin did a lot of looping on the album, but he also tended to play pretty high up on the fretboard, so it was hard to distinguish what was going on, particularly since he was in the same tonal region as the guitar. Mike, Dave, and I all uniformly agreed that having both Mike and I running loops at the same time was a bad idea since it’s impossible to match two independent loops. They’re inevitably going to migrate away from each other, and that forces Dave to try and spilt the difference, which basically means everything was going to be a little bit off. So I altered some of Colin’s parts to account for that.
As to adjusting to the band dynamic, I joined on for “Station” feeling like Russian Circles was definitely Mike and Dave’s baby. It was my job to figure out what they wanted and to deliver it. Obviously, I still wanted to leave my mark on it, but I was definitely playing down a little bit. I also didn’t want to fuck over their future bass player by making it difficult to replicate my parts. It’s a pretty straightforward album bass-wise, but it was also an exciting project for me because I was focusing way more on nuance, tone, and rounding out the sound rather than trying to use the bass as a lead instrument, which is what I’d been doing in These Arms Are Snakes.
Matt: “Geneva” is a motherfucker of an album, and one of the most anticipated and critically acclaimed releases of 2009. What was the writing and recording process like? Was it hard to follow an album as ambitious as “Station”?
Brian: It was way easier than “Station”. We didn’t have a deadline. We’d been playing together for a year and a half. It was way more comfortable and there was more opportunity to edit and approach the material from different angles. We wrote most of the album up in Wisconsin at Dave’s house in the woods. We were pretty isolated. I would fly out for a week or so here and there and we would bunker down, practice for 8 hours or so, and listen to records and play cards. It was a pretty idealistic scenario.
Matt: Russian Circles is about as dense as it gets on record, and a big appeal to seeing the band live is the idea that three dudes can actually pull off the material. Any particular tricky aspects of Russian Circles live shows or cool gear you want to dish about?
Brian: Well, there’s the looping. Mike does a lot of layering. For the non-tech heads out there, that means that Mike will play a guitar part, record it onto his delay pedal, which will then play back through the amp while Mike plays a different guitar part. So sometimes it sounds like there are three guitars going but it’s just Mike building a loop. But this means that Dave and I have to follow this fixed, mechanical thing, this loop. So on Mike’s end, he’s gotta set his loop right, which requires good timing, and then Dave and I have to be able to hear the base loop and play along with it. It’s basically like having a metronome on stage, but it’s buried beneath a bunch of really loud guitar. So that’s tricky. There’s a lot of pedal work too; lots of small variation in tone and sound that’s derived from different effects. Getting everything to run seamlessly requires dexterity both on the fretboard and it hitting this sequence of pedals. It’s a bit of a dance.
Matt: Do you have a favorite venue to play, or particular gig (Russian Circles or otherwise) that stands out in your mind?
Brian: I hope Seattle understands that Neumos really is one of the best venues in the country. I enjoy going to shows there, but playing there is even better. The layout and sound of the place is hard to beat. We just played Lincoln Hall in Chicago, which is a new venue. It’s pretty amazing as well. Great staffing, great acoustics, great neighborhood, great food. We played some really amazing shows in Europe too. Le Romandie in Lausanne, Switzerland was incredible. The people were so hospitable and enthusiastic, and the crowd was really appreciative. We played a squat in Leipzig, Germany that was fantastic too. Europe, in general, tends to be very hospitable and enthusiastic. I’m excited to go back in March.
Matt: You have one of most recognizable bass sounds in heavy music, and it has been largely consistent throughout your career. Is there a secret recipe to your tone or can you give us some insight into where all that gnarliness comes from?
Brian: Well, I’m glad to hear that, though the equipment has changed considerably over the years. This record was recorded using a First Act Delgada bass, an old Traynor bass amp that was lying around the studio, and a bunch of different pedals, a lot of which were provided by our friend Brandon Curtis who produced the album. There is no secret recipe. It just takes some patience and a willingness to work with what you have. There are very few pieces of gear that have zero redeeming qualities. Most everything will sound good if you figure out what works appropriately with it. Look at Big Business. Jared built a rig out of all shitty gear, but it sounds amazing. But he’s not trying to sound like Bootsy Collins or Geddy Lee. He plays what sounds appropriate on that stuff.
Matt: Which Seattle band are you most stoked about these days?
Brian: I like Helms Alee. I like the Great Falls demo. I'm curious to see them live. I like AFCGT, but I haven't heard that new record yet. I like Triumph of Lethargy. I like that places like the Josephine and the Black Lodge are filling a crucial void in the local scene and throwing these awesome clandestine shows.
Matt: If you had to pick the album that inspired you to pursue music as a career, which album would it be?
Brian: Hmmmm. It’d be a tie between Dead Kennedy’s “Plastic Surgery Disasters”, Fugazi’s “Repeater”, and Minutemen’s “Double Nickels on the Dime”. Dead Kennedy’s made me feel that anyone could pick up an instrument, be in a band, and stir shit up. Fugazi definitely laid out the template for how bands should conduct themselves. They were the first band I saw live, and everything I feel about music can be traced back to that founding moment. Mike Watt from Minutemen is just an awesome bass player. He was a capable and creative player that had this really untrained and unorthodox style. Playing like that required discipline and dedication, but not necessarily that academic kind of leaning.
Matt: Who would win in a fight: John Pettibone with a colander or Dave Verellen with a rubber chicken?
Brian: Well, Pettibone probably has more experience with fighting, but Dave has the brute force. I’m going with Pettibone but only because I think the colander could inflict more damage.
Matt: Any advice for the young whippersnappers out there?
Brian: First, there's no "right" way of doing anything. Second, you're either driven to do it or you're not. Everyone wants to be in a band, but only a few people actually thrive on creating music. Third, no one owes you anything. You do this shit because you enjoy the process, not because it's gonna make you rich or famous.
Matt: What, if any, are the plans for 2010 forward? More touring, another record?
Brian: Hopefully both.
Awesome guy, awesome bass player! and ONE HELL OF A TONE MASTER!
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