story by Katie Knaub
photo by Mark Owens

There’s road-trip music, walking-down-the-street music, belt-your-heart-out-drunken-sing-a-long music…and then there’s close-your-eyes-and-let-the-music-wash-over-your-soul music. For something to be deemed the latter, the necessity of closing one's eyes is due to the wealth of opportunities within the sounds to drift away with before ending up in a completely separate, supernatural world — to see colors, lights and places behind your eyelids that you never knew existed while your eyes were open.

One fine example of such close-your-eyes psychedelic rock is generously delivered to us by a band that originates from D.C. called Dead Meadow. Absorbing the experimental yet melodic sludge and haze captured in the drone of British shoegaze and '70s rock guitar riffs, one might envision colorful wooded areas riddled with mystical creatures and tall, dewy trees. As bassist Steve Kille puts it, "getting lost in a sea of sound." The versatility of their songs and albums — such as their newest, Old Growth (Matador) — offer a variety of sounds ranging from structured yet dark fuzzed-out jams to dizzying, sitar-polluted drone, readily allowing all listeners to get lost in their own imaginations. So let the fuzz run through your veins, and frolic through the Meadow that lies behind your eyelids. 

Chicago Innerview: Do you think that the genre or term 'psychedelic' applies to Dead Meadow’s sound?
Steve Kille: Yeah, I think that’s the closest thing that I can associate our music with. There are a lot of lame terms slapped on bands like 'stoner rock', which kind of dumbs bands like us down, or the whole 'post-rock' thing. Psychedelic? The term has been around for so long. Whether it fits completely or not, I don’t know, but they called the Beatles psychedelic, so that’s pretty cool.

Chicago Innerview: Who or what influences you?
Steve Kille: Any sort of music that has soul to it is something I think I can get into. Recently it seems like there’s been a real push for rock ‘n’ roll to be kind of soulless — 4/4 beats and things like that. And it’s kind of a shame. I think the lack of soul and just trying to blow things up and make it loud and in-your-face for radio hits has slowly killed music. People are smarter than that, I think it’s turned the world off to making creative music. [Some bands] just spend too much time trying to follow a manual.

CI: Dead Meadow album covers and tour posters really seem to have a prominent role and distinctive style in terms of visual art.
SK: The whole thing was that we wanted to create our own take on the '70s rock experience. When we first started the band, one of the things that was super important was the record cover. When you bought a record, it was like getting a book. It wasn’t like a disposable downloaded thing, it was something you’d want to hold on to and look at. That’s the good thing about old-school records is that you can sit down on the floor of your room and stare at it and think about 'why did they do this?' They take that away from people these days. Cool pictures and things you can read and look at — I’ve always loved that, it’s been like fifty percent of an album for me. Maybe that’s just me being a visual person, but we’ve always consciously tried to get people back into that.

CI: Maybe it’s the album covers putting this in my head, but when I listen to your music, I often visualize woods and trees — the whole vibe and setting of nature. Does this apply to you at all?
SK: [Nature] is definitely an influence to our band. When we first started, it was sort of like walk out in the woods, hang out. There’s a scene where there are a lot of artists that [look at it as] kind of an escape to go trip out in the woods. I think we’re representing that in our record covers and things. I think one thing kind of led to another and people picked up on it, so there is that undercurrent. It’s great to get out of the civilization world and kind of get back to the place of natural man. Creatively too, it’s good to get away from everything. I mean writers, artists, musicians have done it all throughout time. It’s all opposed to the over-stimulation of other people shoving things down your throat.

Dead Meadow :: Abbey Pub :: May 3.