Isis’ Aaron Turner Calls Golden Gods Awards ‘Demeaning,’ ‘Ridiculous’

One of the smarter metalheads you'll meet also chats with us about why he had to get out of L.A., why walking his dog is meditating and why Isis would tour with Tool all over again.

(Yes, this really is Isis’ press photo.)

Methodical. Serious. Fulfilling.

Those are three words that aptly describe Isis, one of the best things to happen to prog-metal since Maynard James Keenan first shook hands with Adam Jones in 1989. The band’s carefully calibrated, efficient - read: not a single note gone to waste - songwriting and live presentation have, over the course of their dozen-year history, graduated Isis to untouchable status. It’s gotten to the point where fans talk about Isis’ music as if it were a religion: each album an obligatory mass, each song a sermon that feeds both the mind and soul.

Coming off a string of their biggest concerts to date - and with their new album, Wavering Radiant, still sitting pretty on Pitchfork’s “Best New Music” lineup (it’s been months) - the sludge-slingers are at the top of their game. And best of all, as they’ve proven with each subsequent release, they just might find a way to top themselves the next time around too.

The three words above, however, could just as fittingly describe an interview given by the band’s majordomo, Aaron Turner. Years ago, yours truly had the pleasure of speaking with the musician, whose long, aggro goatee belies his much more intimidating IQ. But when we talked before the gig - a poorly attended show at club Spaceland - Turner was, in a word, cagey: His answers were brief and unrevealing, his suspicions seemed to be more plentiful than his words.

He was nothing like the man who IndiePit caught up with last month, a few days prior to Isis’ sold-out show at the 1,300-capacity Music Box @ Fonda. Clear-headed, communicative and polite, Turner marveled with penetrating insights, honest reflections - and even perfect grammar. Chalk it up to getting older, or being in a serious relationship, or simply coming around, but the Isis frontman and Hydra Head Records founder has become a pleasure to engage.

The interview he gave was actually so impressive that, while we consider the Q&A to generally be a lazy form of writing, trying to improve upon his words would do them a tremendous disservice.

So here we present most of the interview to you virtually unadulterated. All that’s missing is what he told us about that humorous Mammifer “garage” incident and a few other selections we’ll be breaking out a little further down the line.

Those omissions aside, here is the conversation in the rest of its glory:

What’s up?

“I’m actually on tour right now, and I’m in Seattle, where I live.”

Seattle? I thought you lived in L.A. after coming out here from Boston earlier in the decade? When did you move up there?

“I guess it was early March.”

Are you enjoying it?

“Yeah, it’s awesome.”

Why did you decide to make the move?

“I think I’d just had enough of L.A. I grew up in a fairly rural area; I think that I just felt like I needed to migrate back to a more rural area - and there’s not a lot of that to be found near L.A., unless you want to move to the desert, which I don’t. So I relocated to Seattle with the intention of eventually getting outside the city a little bit. Somewhere off in the woods, a slightly more secluded spot. L.A. - the pollution, the size of the city and just a lot of the other aspects of it - just started to wear on me. So that was that.”

Do you have a collective space up there? A rehearsal studio?

“Unh-uh. Although we did get another rehearsal space up here with my bandmates from the other band I’m in [Mammifer], one of which is also my girlfriend. We don’t really have a long-term plan other than to get outside the city somewhere and get a rehearsal space where we can practice and record, stuff like that. Everything is in the formative stages at the moment.”

Do you have an art studio wherever you live?

“No, it just sort of happens wherever I am. Whether it’s the Hydra Head space or in the living room in my house. My girlfriend has her own studio space at the moment, but when we move outside of Seattle, we’ve talked about trying to find a place that maybe has a barn or something, so we can convert that into a music/art space. So that’s sort of the long-term, ideal plan.”

What about on a day-to-day basis? Do you have a daily routine?

“I guess I sort of have a routine. When I’m on tour, obviously, there’s a very strict routine. And the last five, six or seven years or whatever, I’ve been on tour a lot. So that’s a very regimental way of living: You go through the same process every day. But when I’m home, yeah, I mean, there’s somewhat of a routine. Because I set my own hours, I don’t get up that early. I try to ease into the day rather than just immediately jumping into work. If I start out in a sort of peaceful, collected frame of mind, then it’s easier to approach the rest of the work day.

“So I start in the morning, eat breakfast, walk my dog and try to begin work. I’ll answer e-mail in the morning, and then in the afternoon and evening, try to spend the rest of the day working on art stuff. And then if there’s music stuff going on, that usually happens later in the day too. It seems that making music, it’s an evening-time activity.”

And do you find space for meditation?

“Umm … I don’t know. Sometimes making drawings or making artwork feels like a meditative process to me. And I think also, going out and walking with my dog and exercising and stuff like that can be really meditative too, ’cause your mind is sort of taken off any practical path and can just really sort of … I don’t know. Work through whatever it is that it isn’t allowed to attend to when you’re having to deal with very practical matters, like answering e-mails or things like that.

“Sometimes music - whether it’s rehearsing or recording or whatever - can be really meditative too. A lot of Isis stuff, there’s a very repetitive or sort of trance-like aspect of it, and that can sort of bring you to that altered state of consciousness, I think. And with some of the other music that I do, it’s very ambient- or drone-oriented in nature, so that can bring you to that meditative headspace as well.”

Yeah, I was kind of surprised that Wavering Radiant didn’t go more in that direction, because of what you’ve been up to with you with your side projects.

“Well, a lot of the side projects, I get involved in them specifically because I can do things within the framework of those projects that I can’t do in Isis. And Isis is very much a product of the collective of individuals that are involved. Everybody’s got different ideas about what they want to do; we have to try to find the common ground between the five of us. And I think there was a time where everybody felt like following that more trance-like, droning path, and maybe that time is just done for us now. Pursuing this more proggy, sort of complex approach to songwriting is more fitting for where we are collectively at this point.”

Along those same lines, the artwork you’ve done for your most recent releases seems to focus more on technical drawing as opposed to the graphic design you were doing in the early days, with SGNL>05 and early Pelican releases. And of course, Oceanic and Panopticon have more painting or photography. Is the technical drawing you’re doing with these new releases reflective of the transition of the band?

“Somewhat, but it’s also just reflective of my evolving approach to making album art. For a period of time, I was really interested in the computer as a tool for making album art. And it was something that I really felt like I had to explore and spend a lot of time with, because it was what I was interested in at the moment. And after a while, I think that approach had run its course with me. And while I don’t look back on that with any sort of regret or anything, I do feel like the drawing approach is more reflective of who I am and has a bit more of my voice in it, the more design-oriented stuff. For me, that’s really crucial, I think. All this stuff - music and visual art - is about trying to express my ideas, my personal aesthetic - or applying it to a group context - and I just feel like drawing is a more direct approach to take, a more direct approach to achieving that.”

What sort of additional artwork is included with the limited-edition vinyl pressings of Wavering Radiant?

“It’s basically the same, in an expanded format. So all the detail and textures are more apparent. And for the different territories in which the record was released - i.e. the States, Japan and Europe - I did alternate versions of the artwork. There were so many ideas I had when working on the artwork and so many different versions that I came up with that I felt like were all appropriate for the subject matter or the musical quality of the record that I used the opportunity of releasing the record to different territories as outlets for those different variations of the artwork.”

I noticed that you put out the vinyl releases before the CD. Are you tempted to just do away altogether with CDs at this point?

“I dunno. I think that CDs are still a viable format for some people. And I still find that I use CDs when I’m in my car or whatever. I know that hooking up your iPhone up to your car stereo is not a difficult thing to do these days, but I’ve always been a fan of the tangible artifact of records. And with the advent of MP3s, I feel like I’m drawn even more strongly to that. So, with that in mind, I’d still rather have CDs than MP3s of something.

“And CDs in some ways are more convenient in certain contexts than vinyl is. So in that sense, I think they still serve a purpose. However, if it comes down to a point where CDs aren’t really a viable thing to make anymore and vinyl is driving them down, that’s fine by me. I’ve always preferred vinyl, so the fact that it’s doing well right know at a time when CD sales are diminishing I think is a positive thing, from my personal perspective.”

“As far as whether the vinyl boom will last, I can’t really say, though, talking about the relatively short history of recorded music, vinyl is the only format which seems to have any longevity to it. Since vinyl was invented, 8-tracks have come and gone, cassettes have come and gone, and now it looks like CDs are on their way out too. And vinyl has just held strong. There have been times where its popularity has waned, but it’s never gone away completely. And it’s always been big on an underground level too, whether it’s the hardcore-metal context or in the realm of hip-hop or with dance DJs or whatever. It’s always had a place of prominence in those more underground circles.”

What about debuting in the top 100? Was that not such a big surprise because music is selling so poorly, or were you nonetheless blown away by that?

“It was surprising, I have to say. I don’t think any of us would have expected or predicted that. So it definitely was a big surprise. But just we try to take all of that stuff in stride. Consumers are probably even more fickle these days then they were 10 or 12 years ago when we started. There’s just a massive amount of stuff available. So we just try to keep our heads down and focus on the task at hand and enjoy good things - such as that - when they happen, but really … the emphasis for us has always been on the music and not all the extraneous stuff that surrounds it.”

In terms of being in the limelight, I was at the Golden Gods Awards in April, where you were named Best Underground Metal Band. When you were onstage, were you just like, “Whatever,” or were you nervous?

“I dunno, we didn’t talk about it all that much except all of us felt like it was sort of a ridiculous event. I mean it’s great that we’re exposed, perhaps, to more people because of something like that, but at the same time, it’s like, the award itself felt kind of meaningless. A lot of the other awards there I was kind of dubious about too. Like, for instance, the Hottest Chick in Metal Award. Like, that has no fucking relevance and, to me, is actually kind of insulting. It has nothing to do with the music really - it doesn’t even seem to have anything to do with metal. And I feel like it was kind of demeaning to the woman as well. Obviously she was a willing participant, but I’m just using that as an example of the preposterousness of the event.

“I dunno, maybe I’m burning a bridge with Revolver here by saying something like that. [He laughs.] Like I said, it’s great for this kind of music to have some kind of outlet, and it’s cool that Revolver wants to expose people to different stuff, but I feel like Isis has nothing in common with the other participants who were there. Like Killswitch Engage or whatever else. That’s not a comment on the quality of their music, it’s just there are no real parallels between us and them except that maybe, you know, a handful of us were all listening to Metallica when we were teenagers or something.”

What about touring with Tool? Would you do that again if you had the opportunity?

“Probably. There was a few bands of that stature that actually, to us, make sense as touring partners. And there were other tours in the past that we were offered that were bands of maybe a similar size - or slightly smaller or bigger or whatever - but they just didn’t make sense. We felt like their audiences wouldn’t get it, or where we had no personal affinity for their music. And those things are really important to us. Context says a lot about your band, and if we were to tour with a band whose music we didn’t like and if we felt like our fanbase wouldn’t get what we were doing, I think it would somehow cheapen or dilute the strength of what we’re doing.

“So I think doing that with a band like Tool is great. Obviously, they have an unorthodox approach to everything they do. They have an audience that is more receptive to unconventional, heavy-oriented music, and they’re people who were cool on a personal level and there was mutual respect for the music that was made on both sides. We couldn’t have asked for a better scenario as far as opening for an arena-rock band.”

Are you guys going to be touring behind Wavering Radiant all year?

“This tour is six weeks, we have a five-day break, and then we go to Europe for three weeks to do some festivals and a few club shows. We’ve got a little bit of time off in the fall, and then we’re going back to Europe for a full headlining tour. So yeah, we’re spending a good portion of this year on the road. And then we’ll start up again in 2010, go to Australia and Japan again, and maybe try to do something else in the States next year. Like many of our records in the past, we’ve done about a year and a half - give or take - to support them.”

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