Baroness Relies on Intuition for Latest Album

Earlier this year, the hard rock act Baroness returned with its sixth album, Stone. For it, the group retreated to the border town of Barryville, NY and holed up in a vacation rental that became an impromptu recording space. Its vaulted ceilings, hardwood floors and brick/glass walls suited the band’s expansive sound. After the group finished tracking drums, guitars, and bass, it went back to singer John Baizley’s basement studio to record vocals before handing the album off to mix master Joe Barresi (Kyuss, Tool) and mastering guru Bob Ludwig (Led Zeppelin, Nirvana). In this recent phone call from a Santa Ana, CA tour stop, Baizley talks about the new album and the band’s 20-year career.

When did the songwriting process begin for Stone?

It really started in the spring of 2020. As an interesting aside, there is a track called “Magnolia.” When I started writing the song, the tree in my front yard was blooming. Nearly a year later, when the tree was blooming again, we recorded the guitars for that song. And then a year beyond that is when we were rolling out the album. It ties into the amount of time it took to make the record.

Did you have a goal in mind or did you just let the songs take you in the direction they were going to take you?

For some bands, it’s fine to have a clear goal and sound and intent. For us, the more rewarding experience tends to be that we have a very loose idea of where the songs will go. It’s the ultimate musician answer, but I think it’s valid. I think that’s what we do. That’s kind of the gold standard. We didn’t really try to write anything in particular. What you hear is what we did write.

What do you see as the differences between this album and others?

I think in reality, from my standpoint there is one thing that is different. It enabled us to do everything that we did from the familiar to the unfamiliar to our listeners. Simply put, in between [2019’s] Gold & Grey and Stone, no members left the band. As a result, Stone is from my perspective the sound of Baroness writing an entire record based on our interpersonal bandmate chemistry. It’s something I always wanted to do but for better or worse has not been the reality. There has always been the absence of an old member or addition of a new member. In fairness, even though I’ve been the only constant for 20 years, we all contribute to the songwriting. It’s not the John Baizley Show. The power of the music intensifies, the more we cooperate. Stone is the most cooperative and intuitive and reactive record. We spent very little time in between takes talking about what we were doing. The music itself was intuitively felt and directed using the chemistry that’s accrued from hundreds of shows.

What’s the key to that chemistry?

It’s primarily because we know how to listen to one another. It’s a very valuable thing bands have and don’t know or don’t know and don’t understand. For me, it’s always been something I’ve been working toward. When we found ourselves somewhere stable, we noticed it and we were very excited to see that we have learned to become good listeners to one another. It allows us to write in a sincere way. I hear my bandmates doing x, y and z, and I give them the space to do that. When they finish, I have space to do what I do. It’s very much the case that the organism of music is a healthy one when the ecosystem is healthy. That lends us to a new sound on the record. Our fans have interpreted it as some kind of change. I don’t see it as a change. I see it as highlighting something that was always there.

Talk about what it was like to record out in the woods.

It was great for us because we didn’t have any burdens or distractions. There was nothing going on out there. To be intensely isolated as a group in a remote facility and depending only on our own creativity and work ethic and ambition and drive was a nice opportunity for us to see what we are capable of without the typical distractions and influences. It requires a great amount of trust. It was a very rewarding experience.

You went back to your basement studio to finish things off. What was that like?

That’s kind of standard for us. My home studio is not the greatest sounding facility for recording. It was important for us to at least record drums someplace else. Recording guitars and vocals in the space is great. That part is fun. The challenge in a record like this is given that we have unlimited time at the home studio, we don’t get lost in the tracking. It does happen. There was a pronounced writer’s block that I got as a lyricist. It took a year longer than anticipated. Ultimately, the only thing that matters is the result. That’s what it took to make this thing happen. We’re very happy with how things turned out. Through this process, we discovered how we want to proceed for the future. It was not only freeing and unburdening but also allowed for a different type of creativity and attitude, which is one we really enjoyed.  

Talk about the music video for Nick Jost-directed “Last Word,” which is very well crafted. How involved were you with it?

We edited and did the filming. We feel that a band like us in this era where we have the know-how to a degree but can bullshit our way far enough — we are at a stage where we advocate for ourselves. Even if it potentially sacrifices some fidelity, the loss in hi-fi won’t be noticeable when contrasted against the improvement we’re making. The process is rewarding. It’s different from having just been a composer or performer. When you’ve been the engineer and producer, you stand behind it in a different way that I think offers a greater sense of accomplishment to the artist.

So what was it like to make the music video?

We wanted to establish how to do it. Nick really pulled through there. He had an idea involving using really basic stop-motion. We used the digital cameras we had. They’re not specifically video cameras. We used what we had. It’s an appropriate tool. We spent a couple of nights at my home experimenting and not overthinking anything and using a freeform set of images based on what was nearby and available. It married into the making of the record itself and became a very florid place for us to engage.

And what about the making of the “Beneath the Rose.” Can you also talk about that?

With each one of the videos, we were referencing cinema and everything from Conan the Barbarian and the Dino De Laurentiis movies and classic horror. “Beneath the Rose” is a nod to Children of the Corn. If you watch the beginning, which is about 45 seconds, it’s as close as Nick could make as a shot-by-shot remake of Children of the Corn. He was in St. Louis at the time and he remembered that I had mentioned that film once or twice. Sometimes, your brain fires and synapses connect different bits of information, and that becomes the springboard. All you just have to continue to work. The song is angular lyrically and the inspiration for some of the initial lyrics come from the George Eliot poem, “The Choir Invisible,” which is mentioned in the first lines of the song. The rest of the song becomes a stream-of-consciousness thing that I was going through. We had the music for a long time, and I was trying to wrestle it into shape. I didn’t know what kind of vocal identity the song would have. I just remember that we had been on this Monster Metal tour with Lamb of God, and Baroness was the odd band out on that tour. I had adopted this voice in between our songs to address the audience, which was this hyped voice you hear in that song. I thought it was instantly a natural voice for me. There was one night after the tour, and I was at home and fired up about something. I went down to the basement and cued up the track and just for cathartic release sang it. What you hear is that first or second take that’s coming out of my head in real time. I then spent some time trying to tweak the chorus. A lot of it is just what happened one night when I was fired up. It’s a cool song that just sort of happened. On a granular level, it has something to do with all these songs. They all came into being accidentally or intuitively. I believe that’s what this record is about for us.

Are you celebrating the band’s 20th anniversary in any way?

I’m not one of those people who needs to celebrate all the mini anniversaries. If a record turns ten, that’s good, but I’m not going to throw a party. If it were still the same lineup, maybe we would make note of it in a different way. For me, it’s just nice to ruminate on the fact that I’m as excited now about music as I was 20 years ago. Let the metal blogs mark all the anniversaries. I know that’s a little crass.

What is the production like for this tour?

We are going out lean and mean. I’m a fairly active concert-goer and I get a worn out by the overproduction. Sometimes, I think it’s great, and it’s an important part of the show. Nine Inch Nails has a great visual performance and the same with Ghost. We don’t dress up. We have always tried to be anti-gimmick. Do yourself a favor. Go watch the Clash play the US festival and watch them level the place without a fucking light show. It’s amazing what can be done, and I’m not equating us to the Clash. From a production standup, bands should do what comes naturally. If you’re the Flaming Lips, it should be a psychedelic overload, and I want that. For Baroness, it’s a little more rootsy and sweatier and attached to reality. We don’t operate in a fantastic world but one that is super-real. Given the emotional thrust and weight, when we put too much into production, it takes away from the impact of the music. I wish bigger productions came more naturally to us, but it feels disingenuous.