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From rewriting the hard rock rulebook with his Grammy
award-winning trio High on Fire, to reverse
engineering doom metal with his genre-defining trio Sleep,
Matt Pike has channelled his natural
talents and chiselled a steely path straight to the heart of
modern-day metal’s molten core.
On 18th February, Pike will release his
debut solo LP, Pike vs The Automaton,
via MNRK Heavy.
Pre-orders are live at PikeVstheAutomaton.com
Today, 10th February, Pike releases a video for
the new song 'Land' which he describes as, "totally
different, like an old blues song". The track and clip each
feature Mastodon guitarist Brent
Hinds.
Watch the video for 'Land' here: https://youtu.be/h-6yNmOo6SY
Of the single, Pike comments: "'Land' was
written after I had just come home from a tour. It's like an old
blues song. I was thinking of it as like a bunch of old dudes in a
subway doing a doo-wop thing. It has the feel of a two-step like my
Mom used to dance to, like Country Western. It’s totally about
depression and leading a hard life. Later, I was playing the song for
Brent Hinds
from Mastodon who
had come out to Portland to jam with me and he laid down this
smokin’-ass Billy Gibbons kind of solo! I did one solo and then he
did his solo and I’m like, “You’re a dick,” (laughs). The bass player
from Brent’s other band West
End Motel, Steve
McPeeks, played some stand-up bass – both
plucking and with a bow – and it really brought out this depth to the
song. I’ve never written a song like that and recorded it and made it
as cool as it is. It’s totally different."
Born out of the challenges brought on by a worldwide pandemic,
birthed under hellish red-orange skies bred from rampaging west
coast wildfires, and built amidst the yearlong political riots
and rallies in Portland, OR, Pike’s
solo debut, Pike vs The Automaton,
is both a musical and emotional release.
The record was written by Pike with drummer Jon
Reid, features contributions from a slew of
family and friends, and was recorded with longtime conspirator Billy
Anderson, the producer who brought the best out
of Pike previously on
touchstone titles such as Surrounded by Thieves and
Sleep’s Holy Mountain.
“I was just going bonkers during the pandemic. It was like
really, truly miserable. And then all the riots here in Portland
and all the political sh*t. I was trapped in my garage, which was the
only place I could go and jam and do anything,”
confesses Pike. “I
was trapped in there ‘cause I couldn’t go jam with High
on Fire, I couldn’t do this, I couldn’t do that,
no one could fly. I was going crazy. My friend Jon
Reid, who was the original drummer for Lord
Dying, had moved to Portland and was
babysitting my dog, Crom, and he was drumming for my wife’s
band, so he had his drums already set up at my place. I finally
said, “Dude, do you want to come over and just start jamming? So, I
just started this thing with my friend Jon. I was like, “Dude,
f*ck it. Let’s start a side band and we’ll just demo this
and act like we’re starting it as teenagers, you know?”
Pike vs The Automaton is advanced by the
bizarrely titled track 'Alien Slut Mum'. When asked for comment
on the clip, Pike cryptically replies,
"Four friends enter the woods, for a getaway,
little did they know they would never return! Dogmen, Sasquach,
Reptilians, or alien slut mum?!?! Where have they gone??"
"Necessity is the mother of invention" is a well-known
proverb that has proven itself true time and time again. When
the need for something becomes imperative, you are forced to find
ways of getting or achieving it. In this true story, the need
for Pike was to create and
play music with others at a time when that lifelong love was
seemingly out of reach. Guest musicians on Pike
vs The Automaton include Alyssa
Maucere-Pike (Lord Dying / Grigax), Chad
"Chief" Hartgrave, Brent Hinds
(Mastodon), Steve McPeeks
(West End Motel), Josh
Greene (El Cerdo), Todd
Burdette (Tragedy), and High
on Fire's Jeff Matz, who lays down
Turkish electric saz on the album's towering closing track
'Leaving the Wars of Woe'.
"The album title, Pike vs The Automaton,
wasn’t an ego thing for me. Billy
and Jon said,
“Dude, you should use your name in this. This is your solo project.”
I said, “I don’t want to do that”. The Automaton, in Greek
mythology, is the big robot that’s the guardian of the Gods,
basically. It’s a soulless, big machine named Talos. The big machine
that’s working against mankind at this moment. In ‘Jason and the
Argonauts’, Jason and the Argonauts have to battle this big
machine guy that protects the island. Basically, what the album
title is saying, metaphorically, is ‘Pike against the World.’”
“I made a psychedelic rock record that Sleep
and High
on Fire fans would like,” Pike
continues when asked for a CliffsNotes description of
Pike vs The Automaton. “And
maybe if you’re not a Sleep or
High on Fire fan,
you might like it too. I definitely think it’s interesting; it
has D-Beat punk, two-step. It’s got everything and it
still works together, it doesn’t sound odd. It’s just an
off-the-wall psychedelic rock record.”
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