While he has branched out in recent years — releasing his more acoustic-oriented 2012 solo debut Stay Awake for Thrill Jockey in addition to joining Hammers of Misfortune guitarist John Cobbett's blackened metal crew VHÖL as lead singer — Scheidt and the current line-up of YOB featuring bassist Aaron Reisberg and drummer Travis Foster returned last fall with their latest effort, Clearing the Path to Ascend.
The trio's first album for Neurot Recordings, the sprawling, four-song opus clocks in at just over an hour and spotlights some of the band's most cathartic, emotionally charged work yet. Inspired in part by Scheidt's struggles with divorce and depression, songs like the bludgeoning "Nothing to Win" and the album's majestic closer "Marrow" rightfully earned the band universal praise from the mainstream music press and spots on numerous "best of" lists for 2014.
Scheidt recently spoke with SF Weekly about taking a spiritual approach to doom metal and the variety of projects he has in the works ahead of YOB's upcoming show at Slim's Saturday night with tour partners Enslaved and Ecstatic Vision.
To me, Clearing the Path to Ascend feels like the most cohesive set YOB has released. I find I have a difficult time not listening to it as a whole piece. Was your approach different than on previous albums?
No, we didn't. I work hard on every album as far as the nuts and bolts of it and making sure there's no filler; that everything is moment to moment and really flows to the best of my ability. I think, over the years, we've become harder and harder to please. I think I've also become a better listener as I dig more and more into the bands that I love and get turned on to new music that starts to excite me again.
You know, as you get older, it's the classic crotchety old man: "I don't like anything!" But then some things will really blow your brain. Like for me, it's been Swans and deeper cuts on later Neurosis records that are so compositionally amazing. Not to mention digging into older prog records. There's so much music to grab on to.
I think on Clearing, more than any YOB record, I really agonized over it. I had some fun too, but there was a lot of doubt and a lot of crumpled up paper and crumpled up riffs and crumpled up arrangements and starting from scratch again. It took a solid 18 months to two years to get to the point where I felt it was good enough.
The past decade has seen a rise in heavy bands that have a spiritual or transcendent aspect to their music with bands like Neurosis, Om, and Sunn O))). I know you have a significant connection with Neurosis beyond being on their label given your past collaborations with Scott Kelly, but do you feel a certain kinship to those bands?
Yes, I feel a definite kinship to Om and Al Cisneros and Neurosis. You put all the music aside, when we're all hanging out, I think we're family. The music is geared towards trying to work with the stuff of our lives. To be explorers: explorers in ourselves and in our world and in our universe, I guess. And spiritually, but also with our feet on the ground, in the mud. Certainly Neurosis and Sleep are bands that largely paved the way [for us].
For me, I've been really into Eastern mysticism and spent a lot of time reading and sitting and doing practices since my early 20s. As a writer, it's what I'm moved by. And then the music becomes part of that path. It becomes part of a life path. I love to rock and I love to turn up with great gear and great sound systems for maximum impact in the face, but when there's that added depth of somebody on stage who is really reaching — and I'm not even talking about me at this point.
If you watch Steve Von Till or Scott Kelly or watch how Al moves into another world or when Matt Pike starts ripping into a lead and he just takes you into another place. Or seeing Swans, who open up portals into other worlds that you didn't even know existed before you watched them [laughs], that's what gets me really fired up. Where music has the power to take whatever happened in your day and just make it disappear. I'll be watching Neurosis, and every time I see them, I end up contemplating some major thing in my life halfway through their set [laughs].
That's what I want to do. That's what I'm driven to do. That's what I want to write about; to have my own personal, intimate connection that then comes out in the music. That's what drives me. And those guys are the same way, and those are my heroes. They're also my friends. So when we're all hanging out, it's not like I'm really thinking about that, but the truth of the matter is, I still see them on another plane than us. We're lucky that we can collaborate with them and have their respect. The honor that we feel there ... words don't touch it.
In other interviews about this album that I've read, you've mentioned how personal challenges with divorce and depression contributed to the writing the songs, and how both writing and performing the new tunes live is in a way therapeutic. It made me wonder if, conversely, it would be harder to write songs for YOB without those difficulties to inspire you? I guess in a weird way, could a really good patch for YOB make it harder to write the next album?
Well, I don't know, because it's never happened. So I can't say for sure. I guess if I was well adjusted and healthy and, in the words of Bill Hicks, had my third eye squeegeed quite clean, would I be able to write a better YOB record? It would be a different YOB record, no doubt. I'd love to someday be able to write that record. I'm weird. I am a very positive, optimistic full-on skeptic. My feet are definitely on the earth, although I do spend a lot of time reading and studying about things that are not of this earth. But I am very of it.
So if you talk about the album that I'd like to write if I was more awakened or more open, all I know is I'm trying to become better and more well-adjusted and a more positive force to the people who are close to me and the people who I meet in the world. And the music is part of it. And all the ups and downs and minor imperfections and everything in between are all part of it. I don't know. I just throw what is there into it. If it's happy, then you can kind of feel that in the song, and if it's tumultuous, you can feel that in the song too.
I'd like to think YOB is a platform where all of that can exist. There's a voice for that stuff, but the voice is never to wallow in it. The voice is really a process, so if I'm getting really dark, it's leading somewhere [laughs]. It's not just "F—k it! F—k the world! F—k you!" I love music that does that, but that's not my path.
I actually know your collaborator in VHÖL, John Cobbett. I've seen him play in Hammers of Misfortune and some other bands, but haven't caught VHÖL yet. Between YOB, and your solo recordings and other project you have on tap, is difficult it to budget your time?
Man, I have so many different things going on. Ones that are swimming around in my head and some that are actually already happening. We just finished all the tracking for the new VHÖL album. It's currently being mixed. We have to kind of do it in pieces. John and Sigrid [Sheie, also a member of Hammers of Misfortune and Amber Asylum] have a baby, so they're in the thick of being new parents and their baby is utterly beautiful. They're a wonderful family.
So that's going to happen. I don't know how active we're going to be with the family situation, but there's no pressure on that. We're all old friends and we had this opportunity to be able to make this music together. We did that first album and did a handful of shows. And now we'll have a new album and I'm sure the door is open in some form to do some shows for the new album as well.
I'll tell you that John and Sigrid and Aesop [Dekker, drummer in VHÖL, Agalloch] just went ... the new music is just crazy. John is one of the best songwriters I've ever known and is certainly prolific beyond anybody that I know. He just never stops. He has so much music in him and is so thorough and complete as a songwriter. And Sigrid and Aesop are ultra-talented players.
I have some distance from it, because they send me the recordings. They've been working on them down there in the Bay Area and they'll send them up and I'll get my face completely melted! And I have to really come up with something cool, because they've created something that's beyond cool. So being able to collaborate with John and Sigrid and Aesop is amazing.
But I'm also working on new solo music and I have a death metal band that I'm working on with friends. There's no real rush in any of it. I also have a hardcore band that I want to do. In any particular day and moment, I just follow where the inspiration is and things have a way of figuring themselves when the time is right.
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