Interview – Peter Adams, Baroness July 2012

Shane | 26 September 2012 | Reply

By Shane Pinnegar

Hey, how you doing?

I’m fine, how are you man?

Yeah good, good. Where are you guys right now?

We are on the road to Birmingham. Lovely cloudy, grey Britain.

Hah, yeah I don’t remember it as particularly lovely when I was there, but anyway, cool.

That’s right, yeah man.

So, how… what’s the feedback from the new album?

Well, so far so good, man. You know, I’m still waiting for somebody to really come down hard on us. Its funny, I guess I really expected a lot of back lash to us, you know, going on to do what we want to do and how we want to do it.

But so far its been very well received across the board and obviously there’s been a few things here and there, people are going ah well, you know, these guys aren’t as metal as we’d like them to be or they’re doing something different than last [time]. People hate what they don’t understand, but so far so good, its been well received and we’re showing up – the records not even out yet, and we’re playing these gigs and the crowd are out there singing along with some of our new stuff, just from YouTube videos, just from a couple of singles that have been released. It’s pretty awesome. It’s got a great response so far.

Yeah, there seems to be a real buzz saying that this album is going to be a real game changer for you in terms of…

I don’t know, you know, we’ll see. Its kind of hard to take a step in the dark or look into the future and see what may come of it, but you know, its hard, the response already… It definitely leads you to wonder about the near future, you know.

Yeah, that’s great. How do you see the progression from album to album?

Well you know, it’s interesting to sit down and kind of immerse yourself in it and then see where you’re at, you know. One thing about what we do is it’s very natural. When we sit down to write, it’s not like we sit down and have a very cold, calculated way of like, okay, first we’re going to do this and then we’re going to do that. We don’t live by these steps or any kind of rules or timelines. So when we sat down to write this newest record, it’s just what happened, and it was the same as the Blue record, John and I sat down and we lost ourselves…

At this point we get cut off, but after we quickly reconnect, we are back into it…

Yeah, I was going to say you mentioned earlier that there had been some feedback that maybe it wasn’t as down the line metal this time around, but as I say, the buzz really is out there that this could just be a massive cross over big hit for you. I think certainly the songs that I’ve heard are sounding really, really solid.

Yeah, I think it’s interesting. I’m not a music business guy, I’m just a normal guy who plays guitar and we sit down and we write, and what we came up with, I think all we knew when we started writing this thing was that we were taking time off of the road and everything to just be home, and again that’s a lot of time to reflect on what we were doing and how we were doing it, and so the feeling was a reflective one. I think we just started to write accordingly and a bunch of songs came out and we kind of went with it.

I think the biggest thing we really did was we started to focus on vocals, where we never had in the past and vocals have always been an after thought, an absolute after thought, the last thing that were written. So we’re talking about three 40 minute long LPs, a full album’s worth of music that’s getting written without vocals, and that was for five releases, like that. Then this time around you know, it was like, it was up front – let’s focus on vocals. You know, we know how to sing, let’s just see what happens. So we went with it and, you know, you’re taking a stab in the dark, putting yourself on the line and putting what you do out there and you hope it’s well received. But it’s all good, we like what we’re doing.

That’s the main thing, isn’t it? It certainly seems to be being well received, which is great.

As long as I’m happy playing this shit anyway, you know?

You’ve got to look after number one, man. So I have to ask, what exactly is with the colour fixation with your album titles; red, blue, yellow and green?

Well, you know, we thought it was really just a good way to do a series of albums – colours. John [Baizley], having the artistic vision in the band, he really puts his mind into his art work and really throws himself into it, and the idea he came up with for the colours, they were really just ideas we had for records. What do you want to do? We’d like simple, short titles. That’s one thing we do like. Simple, short titles that are straight to the point. And what is the emphasis? Well, I thought a colour and more on the theme that tags along with the music itself. Do you know what I mean?

So if we read into it a little bit deeper and suggest that the album titles are indicative of the mood on those particular releases?

Well you know, it turns out to be that way. It actually ended up turning out to be that way, and it definitely wasn’t up in the front of our minds. You know, this record we should call Yellow and Green because of this mood, it really wasn’t. It’s the same with Blue. We knew what the album was going to be called so maybe subconsciously…

Oh, that’s getting real deep. Lie down on the couch and tell me about your mother…

Yeah maybe we ought to talk about something else! [laughs] But yeah, maybe that’s what it is, but to us really we just thought it would be a cool way to theme these records, with these colours and then have all these albums, physically, you can line them up all side by side and they’d look really nice together.

Hah hah, very good.

Like an aesthetic look.

Yeah, there you go. So we last saw you Down Under in 2010 supporting Metallica I think it was. Are you planning on heading back in support of the new album?

Well if it was up to me we’d tour nothing but Australia. I’m hoping for us to be back there very, very soon. Right now there is nothing lined up but yeah, we’re going to get back real soon. We’ll be back in 2013, absolutely.

Well if you leave it a few months then you get the weather back on your side, it won’t be as grey and miserable as it is now.

That’s alright.

If you could go back in time and be a part of the recording of any song or album throughout history, what would it be?

A part of any song or album… wow, that’s a good one. That’s a really good one. Oh man, you know I talk about that all the time and then you give me the question and I can’t answer. I’ll tell you man, I’m a huge fan of Wishbone Ash personally, and their first three albums. Absolutely, I just adore those albums, and I think if I could be back in time and be a part of those albums, I’d be there.

Very cool and a little bit obscure, I like that.

Yeah man, if I could be a part of a Wishbone Ash album, that’s where I’d be.

Fantastic, okay mate, so finally what, for you, is the meaning of life?

What to me is the meaning of life…? Holy shit.

We’re all about the big questions here, man.

Absolute freedom on the open water, on the open salt water, with a fly rod in hand. That is the meaning of life. To put a fly inside of a fish, a hungry feeding fish. Preferably a King fish, maybe even big water. [Pete is an avid fisherman!]

Very good. Thanks so much for your time and good luck with the album and with the rest of your tour, and we certainly hope to see you down under.

Absolutely, can’t wait to get back. Thank you.