Features
Dead Meadow
By Jeff Milo | photo by Aaron Giesel
Apr 29, 2008, 11:56

Through The Sleepy Silver Door
Dead Meadow

Murky, smoky steamroller rock, Dead Meadow hits you hard and fast and then squeezes you with pulsing feedback and thunderous rhythms. They're the perfect marriage of indie rock’s charismatic dream-pop sheen with Led Zeppelin’s boot-cut strut, with distorted bass lines and pedal-overkill dazing, confusing the psyche with full, fuzzy and frighteningly explosive takes on rock, blues and metal. 

The trio (Jason Simon, guitar and vocals; Stephen McCarty, drums; Steve Kille, bass) formed in D.C. ten years ago, when Simon and Kille met at various hardcore shows. Dead Meadow, which debuted in 2000, galvanizes the would-be D.C. punks’ deeper passions for ‘70s psych rock, classic hard rock and various earthy vibes of mystic folk and deep soul-grinding blues. Their latest, Old Growth, churns a bit of the characteristic ominous-toned trounce-rock, but trims their usual epic songs into more digestible presentations. “I wanted to make a Led Zeppelin album,” says Kille, “at least in heavy vibe and tone. We actually purchased similar mics that they used on some of their recordings.”

Speaking to their recent shift toward more single-ready-sounding songs, Kille said, “We have been experimenting a lot with pop elements in our music since the beginning, the only difference is we have become more confident to pull off pop songs than when we started. It is scary to stand only by a melody — even The Flaming Lips started off by making noise first. I think people are initially lured in by noise then hooks — that is the trick of a good indie band.”

Kille (who uses upwards of five pedals, while the singer Simon sometimes uses eight) added that it was pure “confidence” that led to a relatively slight change of presentation. “On Shivering King (2003), it was our sitting-in-the-basement-playing-with-dark-sounds-and-staying-up-all-night record. It was an answer to the fucked up political climate and the most escapist record we ever made.” With Old Growth, which was recorded in a haunted barn in Indiana, “We were looking for a way to escape the everyday and get into our own heads.”

Concluding that music has changed since their early days when, “people looked at us as if we were from outer space. I think the world gets it now.”  | RDW

Dead Meadow • 5/2 • Magic Stick


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