EyeHateGod

Dopesick (Century Media)
An interview with guitarist Brian Patton
by Tim Morse

The bloodletting began in 1988 when EyeHateGod formed in New Orleans. Their previous two releases, In The Name of Suffering (’92) and Take As Needed For Pain (’93) brought them to the forefront. Guitarist Jimmy Bower’s involvement with Down and Crowbar, and Brian Patton’s with Soilent Green, has not stopped their commitment to EyeHateGod. The pummeling new release dopesick (Century Media) captures their confrontational animosity in all its ear-shattering sound.

How do you feel about this new, wonderful record you’ve put out?
Well, I feel pretty good about the recording, but not really too good about how it’s coming out with the record label.

You’re having problems with Century Media?
We’ve always had problems with them, and it seems to be getting worse. It’s to the point where they’ve disowned us as a band. All they want is the record. They got what they wanted and now they’re fuckin’ blowing us off. They didn’t even want to send us copies of it.

What’s the album cover supposed to mean? Is it just a picture?
The actual cover, I hear, looks a little different, man. It doesn’t have that cheesy border around it and shit like that. Joey and Mike came up with all the work, but Century Media took the artwork and arranged it themselves. They didn’t follow the guidelines we gave them, but that’s expected.

You’ve always have extremely grotesque album covers. I didn’t know if there was any real point to this thing or not.
Well, it’s just kind of grotesque music with grotesque covers and that’s where it’s at. It is a big grotesque package.

But who am I to talk, coming from a band called Anal Cunt!? It seems you guys have shortened the songs and sped them up a bit.
Yeah, some of them. Some of them are a little longer and drawn out. We kind of took the extremes and went in both directions.

From the first album to this album, I see you guys growing.
There’re so many other bands that have come out doing the same thing we did on the first record, so it’s kinda pointless to do it. I mean, we kinda went back to the first record in some ways because we do a couple of hardcore parts that we didn’t really do that much of on the second record. But yeah, I mean, you gotta do something different.

Have you guys been having any problems having side projects? You have Soilent Green, and Jimmy’s got other stuff going on [Crowbar and Down], and I know that Mike lives up in New York.
He’s trying to move back down now, but there’s no money.

Is EyeHateGod considered the main band, with all you guys?
It’s definitely something we dedicate ourselves to 100%. I mean, Jimmy does his things, I do whatever. I’ll jam with anybody. I’ve been doing Soilent Green since 1988, you know? I go with both of them full force. You just gotta work schedules out. Same with Jimmy. We work the touring and recording around it, and know what everyone else is doing.

Any chance you’re gonna get on tours with any of the big bands?
You never know. Believe it or not, we were actually talking about touring with Pantera, but we’ve talked about that plenty of times before.

Have you ever played with them? I thought you did.
No. We toured with C.O.C.; with White Zombie and Obituary. In Seattle, we stole the show from C.O.C. It was a fuckin’ killer crowd. It varies here and there. We tend to get lumped in with bands that we never musically agree with, usually a punk band or a metal band.

Who would you like to be on the road with?
We were talking about doing shows with Neurosis. Man, we’d be totally into that. Neurosis or Sleep.

Is Sleep still around?
Yeah! Billy [of Sleep] produced our records. They’re on hiatus because they’re trying to get off Earache. They vowed never to put out anything else until they get off that label. They have a whole album written already It’s supposedly one long fucking song about dope smoking.

Dope smoking?
Yeah. But those bands would be killer to tour with… We’ve never toured with anybody that sounds anything like us. We get along with just about anybody. But we didn’t get along with Pitchshifter.

What happened with Pitchshifter?
Them dudes and us, we had totally different senses of humor and it was just people of totally different cultures slammed together on a bus that didn’t wanna get along with each other. We were totally broke and in bad moods anyway.

Mike left the tour, didn’t he?
Well, yeah, but it didn’t have to do with Pitchshifter. The tour was totally crap. The shows were good, but we were opening up for Pitchshifter and Obituary, and I mean, that’s not the crowd that’s gonna come see us. The prices were like, 40 Marks in Germany and we weren’t making anything off the shows. All the money was going towards the tour bus and shit. Our money came from merchandising, and nobody’s gonna pay 40 Marks for a fucking T-shirt of us, an opening band… especially one that irritates the hell out of them.

It seems like the label’s not helping you.
That’s just the whole point. They usually support bands in the US, but that last one, the tour with you guys [A.C.], they didn’t fuckin’ give us shit. That was out of our own pockets. But yeah, we wanna go back. It all depends on what Century Media’s doing right now. As far as I know, after this album comes out, we plan on blowing them off. We just may take a little break and try to get off of the label. There’s no point in doing it. It’s like we’re doing it for somebody else. We’re not even putting these records out for us, which we should be. I mean, fuck, everybody’s makin’ bank off of our shit and we’re the ones who are coming up with it.

Are you touring the country?
We’re hitting the East Coast and the Midwest. We’re gonna hit a lot of areas we never hit before, like Indianapolis, Columbus, Milwaukee and Chicago. Basically hitting the East Coast and that’s it.

You’re not going to the West Coast at all?
No. There’s too much driving on the West Coast, and not enough shows. Everything in between Texas and there kinda sucks.

How was Mardi Gras this year?
It was… fuck! Chaotic! It was fucking wild, man. More packed than usual. It was drunk.

That should be the next EyeHateGod album: Dude, I don’t know, it was just drunk! You guys just flip the shit off the dick.
Dig this. This promo guy from Century Media came up with this idea: We’ve got EyeHateGod sewing kits for the next album.

Sewing kits!!
Sewing kits… and pens!

EyeHateGod pens?!!!
Hee hee! Yeah, writing pens.

I can see the pens, but sewing kits? Well, the sewing kits sound fucking awesome. Dude, I could fix my shirt with that.
Man, that shit’s punk rock. You could sew patches everywhere.

Dude, I could, like, sew a Discharge patch on my dick or something.
Ha ha. Fuckin’ right!

Do you have any last words for Lollipop and the rest of the world?
Lollipop? Is that who this is for?

So, are you guys like a grindcore band?
We’re deathcrust.

You’re deathcrust? So do you dudes, like, shower?
Ha ha ha, no. Fuck no, bro.