How the hell are you guys?
Chris (C): Good. The Vegas experience has been good.
AJ Peters (A): We got in late last night, stayed at Circus Circus, it's a fucking dump, now we're here. I think our room just got ready. We just got the text.
Joe (J): Been hanging out waiting!
C: We were up for 25 hours yesterday so it feels good to be here!
Your label Magnetic Eye has been growing by leaps and bounds – how does it feel to be on that kind of roster?
C: It's amazing. We were there from the early days. We were one of the first bands when Mike started the label. They've been awesome to us.
A: Super accommodating. They make a great product and the roster of bands is great.
J: It's been expanded in the last few years too.
A: Adding Chad on board has been a big part. He's a big part of the PR and stuff. Mike was working his ass off for a long time. Chad has been doing a lot of good work for us.
So you see yourselves as career Magnetic Eye guys?
C: We have no reason to look elsewhere. They have a smart approach as far as limited runs of different colored vinyl. They are never repressing the same thing. It's always something different.
A: When you see people on Facebook saying they have five different copies of your record you know something is going right!
J: That one guy has more copies than I do!
Scott (S): A lot of people have more copies than I do! (Laughter)
C: I still have the old dusty print.
A: The first pressing of Phoenix came out wrong. They got a ton of money back on that! It ended up all working out, that was fun.
Chris (C): Good. The Vegas experience has been good.
AJ Peters (A): We got in late last night, stayed at Circus Circus, it's a fucking dump, now we're here. I think our room just got ready. We just got the text.
Joe (J): Been hanging out waiting!
C: We were up for 25 hours yesterday so it feels good to be here!
Your label Magnetic Eye has been growing by leaps and bounds – how does it feel to be on that kind of roster?
C: It's amazing. We were there from the early days. We were one of the first bands when Mike started the label. They've been awesome to us.
A: Super accommodating. They make a great product and the roster of bands is great.
J: It's been expanded in the last few years too.
A: Adding Chad on board has been a big part. He's a big part of the PR and stuff. Mike was working his ass off for a long time. Chad has been doing a lot of good work for us.
So you see yourselves as career Magnetic Eye guys?
C: We have no reason to look elsewhere. They have a smart approach as far as limited runs of different colored vinyl. They are never repressing the same thing. It's always something different.
A: When you see people on Facebook saying they have five different copies of your record you know something is going right!
J: That one guy has more copies than I do!
Scott (S): A lot of people have more copies than I do! (Laughter)
C: I still have the old dusty print.
A: The first pressing of Phoenix came out wrong. They got a ton of money back on that! It ended up all working out, that was fun.
In the last five years a bunch of stoner rock labels that are really brands like Magnetic Eye, Ripple, Heavy Psych have come up. Why is that?
C: I don't know. To be honest with you I listen to a lot of different styles of labels. It's nice to be able to say “Oh this label is cool!” but that's it.
J: Some labels form a signature sound over time. It's like “That's a Magnetic Eye band” and you can tell by listening to it, the packaging and the tone of it all.
C: For a while Mike wasn't afraid to put out different sounding stuff, it wasn't stoner rock.
A: In the beginning he did a bunch of different shit but he went in the stoner rock direction.
C: The loss of major label support means that labels are a big thing now. You trust the label to curate their artists. You pick something up because it's on a certain label. I know that it will be something I like because it's on that label.
Why do you think the scene has blown up?
C: This style of music if you go back in time you can go back to the 70s before it was really considered stoner rock. It's been going on for a long time. There's something real and organic about stripped down rock and roll.
J: People complain about a lack of rock and roll in the commercial sphere but if they find stoner rock bands in reality all it is is real rock music and metal music that is what people in the big scheme of the world have been missing for a long time or didn't know about. Now that it's getting bigger they are finding it and it grows from there.
C: If you told me 10 years ago that this would happen I wouldn't have believed you. Even bands like Sleep coming back is insane. It was a big thing for me when they reunited.
S: It's a welcoming community. I don't think there's a lot of pretention in the genre. You're loud and heavy and I can bob my head along to it.
You all are from Boston, you've had some cool bands come out in the last few years, obviously Elder but also Kind, White Dynomite, Worshipper all these bands. Why do you think Boston has had so much good stoner rock?
C: Even in the history of Boston there has been stuff that's been happening, like Only Living Witness. There's been a lot of stuff that has happened since then. A few friends of mine were in a band called Blood Horse on Translation Loss. I remember seeing those shows and being young and being like “Holy shit!” I remember seeing Doomriders starting out too!
J: Boston is a tough city. You have to really convince the people that you are cool. It's not superficial or trendy. You have to bring it or people are like “Fuck them!”
C: It's a college town too so there's a lot of in and out. You get people coming from all over convening there. Theirs always a new turnover every semester. It's a huge like New York or whatever.
A: We're definitely friends with a lot of bands from the area but there's always a little bit of a competition going on. It pushes you to grow.
What do you love so much about music?
C: I can honestly say I have met some of the best people in the world through music. I remember playing outfield and not being into it. I was never into sports. I remember finding a snare drum and then me and Joe started playing together in like 5th grade. It's a wild road.
A: It has kept us from being boring pieces of shit. If I took the music out of my life I would be boring, I'd be some drunk somewhere with nothing to show for it!
C: I don't know. To be honest with you I listen to a lot of different styles of labels. It's nice to be able to say “Oh this label is cool!” but that's it.
J: Some labels form a signature sound over time. It's like “That's a Magnetic Eye band” and you can tell by listening to it, the packaging and the tone of it all.
C: For a while Mike wasn't afraid to put out different sounding stuff, it wasn't stoner rock.
A: In the beginning he did a bunch of different shit but he went in the stoner rock direction.
C: The loss of major label support means that labels are a big thing now. You trust the label to curate their artists. You pick something up because it's on a certain label. I know that it will be something I like because it's on that label.
Why do you think the scene has blown up?
C: This style of music if you go back in time you can go back to the 70s before it was really considered stoner rock. It's been going on for a long time. There's something real and organic about stripped down rock and roll.
J: People complain about a lack of rock and roll in the commercial sphere but if they find stoner rock bands in reality all it is is real rock music and metal music that is what people in the big scheme of the world have been missing for a long time or didn't know about. Now that it's getting bigger they are finding it and it grows from there.
C: If you told me 10 years ago that this would happen I wouldn't have believed you. Even bands like Sleep coming back is insane. It was a big thing for me when they reunited.
S: It's a welcoming community. I don't think there's a lot of pretention in the genre. You're loud and heavy and I can bob my head along to it.
You all are from Boston, you've had some cool bands come out in the last few years, obviously Elder but also Kind, White Dynomite, Worshipper all these bands. Why do you think Boston has had so much good stoner rock?
C: Even in the history of Boston there has been stuff that's been happening, like Only Living Witness. There's been a lot of stuff that has happened since then. A few friends of mine were in a band called Blood Horse on Translation Loss. I remember seeing those shows and being young and being like “Holy shit!” I remember seeing Doomriders starting out too!
J: Boston is a tough city. You have to really convince the people that you are cool. It's not superficial or trendy. You have to bring it or people are like “Fuck them!”
C: It's a college town too so there's a lot of in and out. You get people coming from all over convening there. Theirs always a new turnover every semester. It's a huge like New York or whatever.
A: We're definitely friends with a lot of bands from the area but there's always a little bit of a competition going on. It pushes you to grow.
What do you love so much about music?
C: I can honestly say I have met some of the best people in the world through music. I remember playing outfield and not being into it. I was never into sports. I remember finding a snare drum and then me and Joe started playing together in like 5th grade. It's a wild road.
A: It has kept us from being boring pieces of shit. If I took the music out of my life I would be boring, I'd be some drunk somewhere with nothing to show for it!
