Mark Johnson of SNAIL!!
Mark Johnson, guitar player and lead-vocalist from stoner rock heavyweights SNAIL, was kind enough to put quality time into answering some questions for me this week, and here's how it went down:
Ultra: Mark, the first thing that jumps out at me when I look at
Snail’s history is the fifteen-year gap between albums, from 1994 until
2009. What were you guys doing in that
time: were you still jamming together off and on, playing in other bands, or doing
something else?
Mark: When the band broke up we each essentially went our own way.
Matt played in a band called Plugusher and continued with his dream of becoming
a producer and Marty played in numerous bands, touring all over the world as a
professional drummer. I stopped playing music altogether and honestly thought
it was all over. During our downtime I became a Web Developer and that is my
day-job to this day.
Matt and I stayed in contact over the years and in 2005 I
started feeling drawn back to music so he helped me get set up with a basic
digital recording studio. I started making demos with him (including early
versions of ‘A Mustard Seed’, ‘Come Home’ and ‘Ritual’) by sending tracks back
and forth over the internet. Over time we developed a handful of new demos. I
also became interested in producing drum and bass music (of all things) in
about 2006. Learning how to produce electronic music in Reason (recording
software) taught me how to arrange songs better and build synths from scratch,
which I carried over into Snail. So around 2008 I was talking to Matt about
programming some drums and finishing the ‘Lost Snail Album’ (Blood). He suggested that we just get Snail back
together and do the album properly, which was a great idea, so we did.
Ultra: When I listen to your 1990’s stuff, I hear that well-known
Seattle grunge sound influence, mixed in with the beginnings of the unique
Snail sound that we enjoy today. How
influential were those other nineties Seattle-based bands in your development,
and how much interaction did you have with the more famous grunge bands from
that time?
Mark: At the beginning of Snail – which was originally called
‘Splinter’ – I was very much obsessed with Nirvana’s ‘Bleach’ album, Monster
Magnet’s ‘Spine of God,’ and The Melvins. I had also recently discovered the
Black Sabbath back-catalog and spent a lot of time smoking weed in my apartment
and really absorbing that music. I was also deeply into Pink Floyd.
When I first began creating demos for Snail they sounded a
lot like Nirvana to be honest. At first I was very proud of this but over time
it became something I hated and wanted to bury. So the self-titled album was an
expression of trying to leave behind our grunge roots. I personally tried to
focus on the 70’s hard-rock aspects of our sound when we recorded it.
We never got to play Seattle back then so we never met any
of the big grunge guys. We lived in the California central valley…we played
with Sleep back then though.
Ultra: In my opinion, Feral is your third consecutive truly classic
album. Blood, Terminus and Feral have
carved out a niche in rock music that is truly your own. When somebody asks me who Snail sounds like,
there really is no band I can mention that would accurately hint at your
sound. What were your favorite albums
growing up, and which bands first made you want to play guitar?
Mark: Ah man what a great question thank you. The first album I
remember being obsessed with was Led Zeppelin 4. My dad used to come home after
work, puff a joint, and put on albums. We’d sit together and he would explain
lyrics while we looked at album covers. He explained Cat Steven’s ‘Tea for the
Tillerman,’ Donovan albums, etc. My dad was a bona-fide California hippie in
the 60’s, so that was my early experience with music…later he became a
fundamentalist Christian and ‘secular’ music was forbidden so all I could
listen to was Christian artists. During that horrible time I was into Petra,
Daniel Amos, Undercover, Steve Taylor etc. But I was secretly listening to
non-christian bands. In about 1983 my cousin loaned me Motley Crue’s ‘Shout at
the Devil’ and Quiet Riot’s ‘Metal Health’ and that changed everything. I found
I was a born metalhead. There was something about that early metal that just
felt like FREEDOM. At that time I felt very alienated, like an outcast. Lost.
And I was listening to Metal Health one day, performing air-band in the
mirror…and I decided, “I am going to be a rock star.” It was a heavy moment for
a kid, but I believed it with everything I had. I come from a family that has
deep musical roots so by my birthday I had acquired an electric guitar from my
Grandfather.
Around this time (1985-86) I also discovered punk rock and
hardcore via KPFA’s Maximum Rock n’ Roll radio show on Sunday nights. I would
record those shows secretly and listen to them away from home. Punk rock seemed
absurd and absolutely brutal in its honesty and that very much appealed to me.
It was like FUCK YOU put to music. By the time I had formed my first band at
age 16 all I wanted to play was punk/hardcore/metal. And if you listen to Snail
closely, you’ll see that we’re essentially a punk band doing hard rock, like
many of our contemporaries.
Ultra: What bands have you been listening to recently, and are
there any recently released albums you’d like to recommend to us?
Mark: I’m currently deeply obsessed with David Bowie’s ‘Blackstar’
album. I’ve always been a huge Bowie fan and he has influenced my songwriting
greatly. I also love Beck’s ‘Morning Phase’ which was released not too long
ago.
As far as heavy stuff I really love Akris’ latest album and
EP.
I mostly listen to classical Indian vocal music, Philip
Glass, old Appalachian folk music, Mississippi Fred McDowell, African folk
music, Liliput, Throbbing Gristle….Syd Barrett….The Beatles…Dio
Ultra: What was the first concert you ever went to, and what’s the
best concert you’ve ever been to?
Mark: When I was very little I saw The Doors with my parents. I
remember the blanket we sat on and the stage.
Damn I’ve been to a TON of good concerts…mostly punk bands
honestly. The latest GREAT show I went to was to see KLAW play in Seattle. Holy
fuck they just brought the house down. One of those small bar shows where your
voice is gone afterwards. You gotta see a band in a small venue…that’s the
whole game.
Ultra: I appreciate all three of your recent album covers, but the
artwork on “Feral” is particularly cool.
There is such a cool connection between great artwork and great rock
albums over the long history of rock music.
What are a few of your favorite rock album covers of all time?
Mark: The world that was created on Cat Steven’s ‘Tea for the
Tillerman’ cover always haunted me as a little kid. The cover of ‘Sabbath
Bloody Sabbath’ also really impacted me when I was little. In the 90’s I really
like the aesthetic of the Sub Pop album covers…black and white negatives…looked
really raw. Earlier I liked the cover of ‘Ride the Lightning’…early Iron Maiden
album covers….Dio albums. The early proto-metal covers were always
thought-provoking if a little bonehead. I also LOVED the Slayer covers…so evil
in a strange otherworldly way…
But I love it when a band puts ‘hidden’ messages and ideas
that tie-in with the music on their covers…that’s why we did it.
Ultra: I grew up in a time when you would browse albums in a record
store and occasionally be influenced to try a record just because of its cool
cover. Have you ever tried out an album
just based on the cover art?
Mark: Many times. I think the only time it didn’t work out was
when I bought Danzig’s first album…I actually became angry when I first heard
it because it was so horrible and I felt the cover had deceived me. But I also
remember being drawn to Sleep’s Holy Mountain by the amazing cover art, and
that was a big payoff, I loved it.
Ultra: How do you feel about Snail getting labeled as “Stoner
Rock”: Do you dislike the term, welcome it
or are you indifferent?
Mark: I’ve never had a problem being labeled Stoner Rock, but I
think I may think of the term differently than people who got into it later.
When I was a kid and started smoking weed I found that certain music sounded
better. This was typically slow, heavy rock. Heavy slow shit just sounded sooooo
HEAVY when I was stoned. That was my definition of Stoner Rock and included all
the old hard rock bands and even Pink Floyd. So after discovering that slow,
heavy music was enhanced by weed, I wanted to create music that enhanced the
drug experience. This was the core philosophy behind Snail: make slow, heavy
tunes that sound great when you’re stoned. It has nothing to do with a cultural
style or identity; it has to do with enhancing the drug experience. Not only
the weed experience, but also the LSD experience. Obviously over the years that
definition has expanded greatly, but I still perform the ‘stoner test’ when we
make a new demo. The songs are crafted to interact with you on a deeper level
than just listening pleasure. And the lyrics speak directly to your unconscious
self.
Ultra: Finally, how
often do you guys tour: is there any chance of me seeing Snail in Boston or
Providence?
Mark: We try to
tour every 1-2 years. We plan to play the East Coast in Summer 2016 for the
first time. I think we’re playing a Boston show…
Ultra: I want to thank you Mark, for taking the time to do an
interview for Heavy Metal Textbooks. I
plan to do my best to spread the word about Feral. “Derail” was my pick for the number one
stoner rock tune of 2015, and Feral is my favorite Snail album so far. I selfishly hope to see you get the
recognition you deserve, so that I can enjoy plenty more Snail albums in the
years to come. Best of luck in 2016!
Mark: Thank you for a great interview and I hope we get to meet
soon!
I am stoked on getting such quality answers from Mark. I got some awesome insight into one of my favorite bands. If you have been out of the loop and are unfamiliar with SNAIL, make sure you go check them out here: https://snailhq.bandcamp.com/. It will open up a whole new world for you. Hope you enjoyed reading as much as I enjoyed doing this! Until next time -ULTRA
#17: "Stoners Rule" by Stöner 
