Weeed | Interview | “To break down psychic and emotional barriers”
Weeed is an American biocosmic quintet of experimental musicians from Portland, Oregon, formed in 2009.
The band consists of Gabriel Seaver (guitar, bass, vocals, keyboards), Mitchy Fosnaugh (guitar, vocals, flute), John Goodhue (drums), Evan Franz (drums), and Ian Hartley (percussion). They are known for their cathartic, rhythm heavy live shows and for blending progressive compositions with improvisation and trance. They’ve shared the stage with bands such as Kikagaku Moyo, Connan Mockasin, Om, Acid Mothers Temple, Earth, and Dead Meadow.
Over the group’s 13 years of playing together, they continue their desire to explore the boundaries of the members’ abilities to connect with each other; to become, in essence, one mind; to use non-verbal mechanisms of music, cued or not, to break down psychic and emotional barriers of distinction and difference that separate and atomize. Weeed’s dedication to their collectivist mode of creation has been informed by interests in mycology, botany, poetry, astrology, and perhaps most formatively, Buddhist principles and imagery.
“Smoking weed and listening to heavy music allowed us to form deep friendships”
Okay, so my guess is that you like weed and heavy music?
Mitchy Fosnaugh: Yes! Weed and heavy music have a deep place in our hearts. These things are very sacred to us. They have been both an empowering force and a catalyst for freedom. In a world that can feel deeply misguided it can be a compass by which to find truth and love. Smoking weed and listening to heavy music allowed us to form deep friendships where there was none before. It helped us laugh at the absurdity and bang our heads towards freedom.
Would you like to talk a bit about your background?
Friendship is really the start of the band. We grew up together in the Pacific Northwest on an island called Bainbridge next to the city of Seattle. Bainbridge Island, and the communities around it, had a very thriving supportive music scene. Our former bass player Charlie Powers and his parents would throw shows behind his house in a place that we called The Blood Barn. We would often gather there to listen to each other’s creations and the people from the neighboring communities would come and share their sonic offerings. These were very special times, some of us would sneak off into the pasture next to the house to smoke weed from an apple and come back to a scene of wild kids running in circles and screaming into microphones. All of this was very refreshing and enlivening from the boredom of life and school.
How did you get together to form the group?
The band formed when a friend named Evan Bombardier suggested that we start a stoner rock band. We all had fallen in love with heavy music and weed so it was not a hard sell. A time and a date was set to have practice at Charlie’s house. Funnily enough, Evan never showed up, but he had help start Weeed. This was our first practice where we wrote our first song, ‘Haze’. It was a magical experience where we felt like we had stumbled upon gold. We all lit up as the song was coming together. Our friendships deepened and there was a lot of love and connection to be had.
You have a rather large body of work for a band that isn’t older than a decade. What can you tell us about your debut album, ‘Feng Shui Capital Of The World’ from 2014?
I can tell you that it wasn’t really our first album. Our first album is called ‘Garden Of Weeden’. It has pretty low recording quality due to some lost files. It’s kind of charming to me how that one is in all its imperfect glory. That one was recorded in an underground practice space in Seattle called Cry Baby by Andy Crane in one afternoon. A very youthful time drinking beer and rocking out.
‘Feng Shui Capital Of The World’ features a lot of the same songs as the first album. It is a mixture of the old and new evolution of the band. Charlie stopped playing bass and started to learn how to do recording and was doing an internship at Bear Creek Studio. Thanks to his internship we had a chance to record there. It was our first time using a studio so there was a lot of learning to be had in the process. Recording is an art form all to itself and it was all of our first time really having all those tools of a studio. Very exciting and also overwhelming. Bear Creek is a grand space where a lot of legendary music has been recorded like Soundgarden, the Foo Fighters. It was a treat to spend so much time there and feel the vibes of the history.
Around that time psychedelic rock was becoming more popular in the bigger underground circles. What are some of the bands you shared stages with at the time?
We played with Dead Meadow once around that time which was really fun for us because we grew up listening to their music. We played with Kikagaku Moyo for one of their first Seattle shows. More local groups we played with from Seattle were Diminished and MTNS. Both of them are amazing and very unique.
“‘Our Guru Brings Us To the Black Master Sabbath’ is where we really found our voice”
Let’s continue, ‘Our Guru Brings Us To the Black Master Sabbath’ and ‘Meta’ followed.
‘Our Guru Brings Us To the Black Master Sabbath’ is where we really found our voice, strength and authenticity in heavy music. We were learning and absorbing a lot from what we were listening to and taking those lessons and putting them in the context of heavy loud music. Whether it was throat singing, guitar music from Mali or rhythmic elements from Gnawa music. It was amazingly fun to embrace them in the context of heavy music. It was recorded at our home on Bainbridge Island set in the middle of a pasture where sheep munched on grass, dogs roamed freely, and apples fell from the trees. Our communities surrounded and embraced us making food and giving the music space and love.
‘Meta’ was an intention setting ceremony. We were about to go on tour and were trying to find clarity and understanding and deepen our connection to one another. What better way than to record some music. We gathered at a house on Bainbridge that we called the sunset palace, named for how the sun would blaze there in the evenings. Big windows to absorb the heat from our Star. We each brought objects that had significance to our intentions we shared about them and constructed an altar. The altar became the front cover of the album. After finding our way through the ceremony we recorded some musical explorations in the resonance of what we had laid down.
What about ‘This’?
‘This’ is where Evan Franz joined the band. He brought new life and inspiration. It was the first time we recorded with two drummers. John and Evan were childhood best friends and have a deep understanding of each other, so it was really magical watching them learn and grow as drummers. This is where we were pushing musical limits, feeling out new musical territory of timing. We were digging into our improvisation. Skeletons of the songs made in practice were then embodied fully in the recording process.
I first got in touch with your music via ‘You Are The Sky’ and wow, what a fantastic record that is. What’s the story behind it?
The album is a reflection on the joys and trials of the spiritual journey. The songs were written alone by me (Mitch) at first and then brought to the band where they were jammed on and brought into clarity. The seeds of the songs were written in a forested environment where days were spent playing guitar, gardening while listening to Ram Dass, and mushroom hunting.
The album was recorded in Anacortes, Washington in an old church. We had almost finished recording the whole album when most of the files were lost. We ended up recording most everything again, which in a way was a blessing. The songs and our musicianship had matured a bit within this process. I think it turned out better.
Would you like to share some words about your latest album, ‘Do You Fall?’ and how would you compare it to previous releases?
‘Do You Fall?’ is sort of similar to ‘You Are The Sky’ in that it is born of solitude, it highlights Gabe’s song writing and direction. A lot of the songs were written by himself alone first on an acoustic guitar, and then slowly through a process of collaboration everything else was added around it and brought it into an electric context.
It came about in a very trying, changing time for Gabe. The songs were used as a way to heal and explore the process of getting pulled into an emotional / spiritual wave and surrendering to that journey.
Are you working on something new? How has the pandemic influenced your creative process? Did it feel freeing, overwhelming, anxious?
Yes, we are working on new things! Through the pandemic we have been working on a lot of new things. We will have a new EP that we are planning on releasing in Spring. On it will be songs based around the loss of some very close loved ones. Using the creative process helped us heal and share in the collective grief of this time.
I would say the pandemic felt all of the above, freeing and overwhelming. It’s just been so long now. Playing live music is a very special privilege and it would be so nice to return with all the lessons learned.
Are you doing a lot of jamming? How do you usually approach music making?
Currently we are not playing right now. Lots of us find ourselves in different places. Our approach to making music recently has been shorter, very focused times of recording and songwriting. We do jam a lot to create music and get comfortable with each other. It is a pretty organic process that can take a lot of time. We spend full days together jamming out ideas, being goofy and working out whatever we’re going individually at that moment. The byproduct of all that is our music.
How pleased were you with the sound of the album?
Very pleased with the sound of it. It’s an album that really grows on me every time I listen back, finding new things in it and it’s so nice getting to appreciate everyone’s playing. There’s a lot of clarity in each instrument. I find a lot of beauty in it.
What are some future plans?
We plan to tour in Spring and release new music which we are excited about. All through the pandemic we have been recording a lot, so seeing those projects to fruition is part of the plan.
Are any of you involved in any other bands or do you have any active side-projects going on at this point?
Gabe is releasing a primitive guitar album on Halfshell Records with beautiful pretty finger-picking guitar meditations. And I have been working on my own acoustic album, not sure when that will see the light of day, but it’s very fun.
Let’s end this interview with some of your favorite albums. Have you found something new lately you would like to recommend to our readers?
Black Sabbath – ‘Black Sabbath’
Wildildlife – ‘Give In To Live’
Alice Coltrane – ‘Journey in Satchidananda’
Boris – Pink
The Incredible String Band – ‘The Hangman’s Beautiful Daughter’
Can – ‘Future Days’
The Jeff Parker album, ‘Suite for Max Brown’ is a great jazzy thing that I’ve been loving lately. ‘Blue Desert’ by Yossi Fine & Ben Aylon is great as well.
Thank you. Last word is yours.
Love and thanks!
Klemen Breznikar
Weeed Official Website / Facebook / Instagram / Bandcamp / YouTube
Illuminasty Records Facebook / Instagram / Twitter / YouTube
Halfshell Records Facebook / Instagram / Bandcamp
Important Records Official Website / Facebook / Instagram / Twitter / Bandcamp / YouTube / SoundCloud
Six Tonnes De Chair Records Official Website / Facebook / Instagram / Twitter / Bandcamp / YouTube
