Stevie Chick: How to be a whup-ass metal god

Stevie Chick: High On Fire's hard-living singer Matt Pike has won critical kudos and loyal cult fandom but mainstream acceptance eludes him

It seems fitting that when I meet Matt Pike, singer, guitarist and leader of lauded Bay Area doom metallers High On Fire and uncrowned king of stoner rock, he is wreathed in smoke. "I'll be with you in a minute," he bellows from a fire escape, waving a Marlboro. "Some security dude was just hassling me for being out here ... Little fuckin' fat-ass soccer hooligan. I'll whup his ass and stomp it into the ground."

Pike is not a man to mess with. At 15, he was shipped off to military school, following a spell in juvenile hall. "I used to steal cars," he grins over a beer and a shot a little later, an hour or so before High On Fire headline a sold-out show at London's ULU. "I knew that, as a young kid, they couldn't punish me too bad. So I took the rap for a bunch of dudes who would've gone to prison for years, kept my mouth shut and went off to the detention centre."

He had discovered heavy metal a few years earlier, thanks to the corrupting influence of a couple of babysitters: "These dirty little rock girls who would take great pleasure in depantsing me ... They turned me on to AC/DC, Zeppelin and Sabbath when I was nine years old. They turned me on to sex, too. I soon got myself a guitar." Pike says he didn't get good at guitar until he discovered drugs, a couple of years later. "Smoking endless amounts of weed and taking LSD really helped my guitar-playing," he testifies. "And speed ... I'd be so freaked out, I'd need to put my tweaking fingers to good use. I played guitar, or else I'd be endlessly cleaning my apartment."

After military school, he moved with his mother to San Jose where he hooked up with Asbestos Death, a metal group whose fearsome dedication matched his own. Developing a gloriously doomy sound from the template of their beloved Black Sabbath, they soon renamed themselves Sleep. Following some acclaimed early indie albums, they signed to London Records in 1994; however, their sole recording for the label would remain unreleased for years. An unbroken 64-minute epic of slow, marijuana-sodden riffage, Dopesmoker was a masterpiece that stumped a label looking for a radio hit.

"We were stubborn, man," he reflects. "Our contemporaries, like Soundgarden, were recording their 'radio hits', but we refused to. Out of integrity. It was a ballsy move, but it destroyed the band. It also made us legends."

The frustrations surrounding the album's rejection led to a rift between Pike and vocalist Al Cisneros and drummer Chris Hakius, which would only be healed with Dopesmoker's belated release in 2003. Cisneros and Hakius later formed their own acclaimed experimental metal group, OM, but Pike focused his energies on his new venture, High On Fire. "For a long time, I was resentful," he admits. "I thought, you guys can lay down and die, there's no way I'm doing that. Sleep was about spirituality; High On Fire is more aggressive. It's about getting demons out."

Over four albums, High On Fire's ferocious exorcisms have won Pike more critical kudos and loyal cult fandom, even if mainstream acceptance eludes him. He seems sanguine, however, even when his friends and contemporaries Mastodon win major-label contracts and a worldwide audience for a sound he helped pioneer, while he remains playing the clubs. "I love those guys like brothers," he says. "Things happen the way they're supposed to happen."

Now 35, possessed of the same ageless grizzle as Motörhead's Lemmy, Pike harbours a retirement dream of opening his own bar in Costa Rica. "You can fuck as many women as you like and take as many drugs as you like, but one day you have to hang it up, because there's young kids out there ready to outplay you tenfold," he smiles, knowing deep down he'll never stop. "I can totally see myself still playing at 70, like Roky Erickson, who we played with recently. I guess he's still crazy - he loves High On Fire."

· Death Is This Communion by High On Fire is out now on Relapse

Contributor

Stevie Chick

The GuardianTramp

Related Content

Article image
Why heavy metal and movies were meant for each other

Is it the preening stars? The obsessive fans? Or just the sheer ridiculousness of it all? As a new film shows, heavy metal and movies were meant for each other. By Alexis Petridis.

Alexis Petridis

13, Apr, 2006 @11:45 PM

Article image
Djent, the metal geek's microgenre

Jamie Thomson: Ever since Metallica took on Napster, the metal scene has been wary of the internet – until the heavily digitally processed sound of djent began to coalesce in bedrooms worldwide

Jamie Thomson

03, Mar, 2011 @10:45 PM

Article image
Jamie Thomson joins booze monsters Municipal Waste on tour

If it's luxury all areas for Kiss at Download, it's scuzz all the time for Municipal Waste. Jamie Thomson joins them on tour for booze cruises and beer bongs

Jamie Thomson

30, May, 2008 @8:29 AM

Article image
Voivod and the 1984 demo tape that changed heavy metal
Rob Fitzpatrick: Canada's Voivod are one of heavy metal's most unique, beloved treasures. Now their extraordinary early recordings are getting an official release

Rob Fitzpatrick

12, Jan, 2012 @11:00 PM

Article image
How Neurosis blazed a trail for 'thinking man's metal' and lasted 25 years

As Neurosis make a rare UK appearance, Jamie Thomson hears about their quest for 'somewhere deeper, somewhere more emotional, somewhere elemental'

Jamie Thomson

02, Dec, 2010 @11:39 PM

Monster Magnet: Mastermind – review
Who thought stoner rock titan Dave Wyndorf would end up sounding so safe, wonders Jamie Thomson

Jamie Thomson

04, Nov, 2010 @11:20 PM

Article image
Ozzy Osbourne: 'I had nothing to lose'
Rob Fitzpatrick: Sacked from Sabbath and battling addiction, Ozzy's career should have been dead. Then he met Randy Rhoads

Rob Fitzpatrick

16, Jun, 2011 @9:00 PM

Mastodon: The Hunter – review

Mastodon get spacey on their thrilling fifth album. By Michael Hann

Michael Hann

22, Sep, 2011 @10:00 PM

Article image
The show must go on: when bands replace their dead stars
You'd think the death of a band's figurehead might spell the end, but for Big Country and Thin Lizzy, finding the right stand-in seemed the best way to honour their fallen leaders, they tell Dave Simpson

Dave Simpson

27, Jan, 2011 @10:59 PM

Article image
'We put on capes and the kids went mad'

They sing songs about unicorns, worship Black Sabbath and are very big in Wollongong. Dave Simpson meets Wolfmother, the 'Aussie Osbournes' putting the fun back into metal.

Dave Simpson

27, Apr, 2006 @11:59 PM