HIMSA Interview

Interview
Johnny Pettibone
HIMSA

Johnny Pettibone of HIMSA (Photo: Erika Kristen Watt)

Lineup:
Johnny Pettibone – Vocals
Derek Harn – Bass
Chad Davis – Drums
Sammi Curr – Guitar
Kirby Charles Johnson – Guitar

1/16/06
Interviewer: Karma E. Omowale

Photos: Erika Kristen Watt & KEO

“It’s the HIMSA way, something beats us down, we come back stronger!”

Spoken like a true survivor. Left to pick up the pieces again, HIMSA has probably had more hardships than most, well almost as much as their ill-fated friends in Bleeding Through. Perhaps a reversal of misfortune will occur with release of HIMSA's third album, Hail Horror, which finally hits the shelves on February 7^th. In this personal portrayal, vocalist Johnny Pettibone phoned in to discuss the band's latest masterpiece and the reason why the release date got pushed back for six and a half months, how his worse fears had come to pass, being able to tour with one of his idols Danzig and more…

Karma: Much has happened since our last interview like tours: Headbangers Ball, Dirty Black Summer Tour, Blackest of the Black…

Karma: …yes you have indeed, including a new CD, which totally rocks by the way!

Karma: It’s nice to see that you were able to rise above past issues with litigation, etc remaining a forceful unit despite it all. However, I think I am still in shock after I heard about the whole "Metal Matt" saga. Would you care to touch on that more?

Johnny: Well someone was unhappy with the band and didn’t really like the way we do things and didn’t like where we were going. He comes from a kind of different scene and whatnot. He chose to leave the band but with that, we got Sammi Curr back in the band.

Johnny: We never wanted him to leave in the first place and out of that, it’s awesome that he’s back. Going down the road and trying to get this record out, it just kept getting pushed back, and pushed back because an ex-member wanted more than he thought he deserved. We offered him an equal percentage of what all of us gets in the band, that’s pretty much, and that’s always what the decision has been. In fact, the percentage of what he’s getting is actually more than he should be for what he really did for the band.

Johnny: Well as far as I’m concerned and going on with that, lawyers got involved and whatnot and lead us to postponing the record for about six-months of it’s release date because it was supposed to be out last October. It now comes out February on the 7^th, you know.

Johnny: Since then, we got to go on tour in which that was amazing! Did a headline tour with ourselves and we just got back from Europe with 3 Inches of Blood. We’re still going on strong, it’s kind of the HIMSA way, something kind of beats us down and we come back stronger! So as far as I look at it, it’s kind of a blessing. The way the events turned out, it actually made it more of a positive for us, that’s all I can say.

Karma: Which is always a good thing to be able to turn around a negative situation and make it work to your advantage.

Johnny: Personal reasons, he became a father and he had to go do that thing and we all supported him. He gave us enough time to find another guitar player and make the transition easier than when Matt decided to leave. I work at a local club/bar in Seattle with Sammi. When we knew Matt wasn’t happy, I went to him…and actually Sammi said to me, “Well if you ever need guitar player, call me first because I want back in the band”! So it was on!

Karma: It must have been a dream come true for you to tour with Mr. Danzig and Doyle on the Blackest of the Black tour. What did you learn? Tell me about your experience with that.

Johnny: Yeah, there’s no words that can describe it. Every night I watched from the side of the stage, sang along to every word and one night he asked me which song I wanted to hear for an encore, which was amazing.

Johnny: “Soul on Fire”, I thought it would be a good ender and he agreed. [Laughs] That was cool, I mean I’ve always been a fan not just Misfits but anything that Danzig does pretty much there are two vocalist that are influential icons in my life as far as vocals are concerned and Danzig’s one of them and Morrissey’s the other one. Not a chance in hell that I would ever get the chance to do anything with Morrissey. [We both laugh]. Danzig is perfect; I can die a happy man.

Johnny: He actually chose all the bands himself. A letter went out that said he was doing the Blackest of the Black this time it was going to be a half Danzig set and half Misfits set with special guest Doyle coming on to play. They just started taking submissions but you had to send it straight to Danzig because he wanted to hear the bands and get a background feel and he chose the lineup. It was rad that he took the time to even listen to us. And that’s what great about him, is that he’s still really connected to the underground. He has a big name for himself and his name sells a lot but he’s still connected. He calls his own shots, he still has that DIY ethic to him, which pretty much the Misfits started going on with the Fiend Club and just the way they treated their fanbase.

Johnny: HIMSA’s always kind of looked at it the same way and it’s kind of blueprint on how we like doing things. For him to come out…I mean he could have chosen bands that sell a ton of records right now and made the tour bigger than ever. But he was like, “No, I’m gonna help out small bands and bands in the underground, give them a start!” It was rad because we got to hang out with our friends The Agony Scene again and made new friends with the guys in Mortiis, Chimaira, and Behemoth. It was rad, every day was awesome, a new adventure. We went into it with it with pretty much a negative thought thinking pretty much it was going to be a big professional tour. ‘We’ve never really done anything this size, we’re probably gonna get treated like shit!’ We went in and I was proven wrong because everyone there took care of each other. Danzig’s techs were making sure we were on time, that we were okay, if we needed anything, always hanging out. Danzig would even come out and be like, “You guys having fun? You okay? If you need anything let me know”! He had a PR guy with him, Scum; he would always make sure things went smoothly.

Johnny: Yeah, it was great! Seriously, [stammers] no matter what the future holds, that’s definitely a highpoint in my life.

Johnny: Yeah, we’re all big fans but it just fit. Summer tours are always hot and sticky, the heat and whatnot… [Laughs] I think that kinda helped too because it wasn’t just me being the Danzig look-alike dude, because of how I look with a Devilock. But it showed that the band does have a big taste for what Danzig does and it shows in the background of the band like with the we handle things with special merch, for special fans and whatnot. Like I said, it’s like a blueprint on how the Misfits did things, you know. I’m hoping we do a Dirty Black Summer tour every Summer, it being HIMSA’s tour and going out with our friends and helping small bands like kinda how we got our start with bands helping us out. I’d like to make this an annual, yearly thing.

Johnny: Right now in mid February through mid April, we do the [Undoing Ruin Tour which starts on February 17^th] with Darkest Hour, A Life Once Lost, The Acacia Strain, and Dead To Fall with some dates with Ringworm and The Banner and some dates on the way home with Full Blown Chaos.

Johnny: Yeah, it should be cool; it’s with a bunch of old friends and whatnot. We always wanted to tour with Darkest Hour because we always felt like they have a lot in common with how we do things and there aren’t any gimmicks to what that band does!

Johnny: Plus it’s rad that they asked us to go out with them plus I’m a huge A Life Once Lost fan and I love the new record so I’m psyched to be seeing them every night. Ringworm being a band that wanted me to be a vocalist in their band so I’m psyched to be doing shows with them again. And then after that we go to back to Europe with Death By Stereo then we come back. As far as the summer goes, there’s some stuff that’s been brought up so we’ll see what happens. There’s some tours and you know the fests are going on again. If nothing comes to us or if we don’t like it, then we’ll probably jump back into the Dirty Black Summer tour if not then we’ll push it back to August or something. We’ll be on tour for about a year again, so you’ll be seeing us a lot.

Karma: Very cool indeed! Well let's talk about your new album, Hail Horror…

Johnny: Awesome! Well actually, it got leaked out to the internet a while ago and we’ve been getting nothing but great praise.

Johnny: Kids are like, “I already downloaded it, but I’m still buying it”! “Awesome”! What’s really rad is we got this artist, Stephen Kasner. He’s an amazing artist, he does this really creepy, apocalyptic kind of style of art and paintings. We asked him if he could do something for us and he jumped on it really quick and I was psyched because I’m a big fan of him. And he did artwork for one of my all time favorite bands, Integrity; he did artwork for a record called, Season in the Size of Days. It’s just…he creates some of the most beautiful, dark imagery and I was just so excited that he took us on and was able to do some stuff with us. Not only with that with the record but the layout’s really nice too.

But going back to Hail Horror, it’s the record that I've always wanted to do! I'm really happy with it. I feel like there's nothing I want to critique about it with myself. I’m like my own worse critic; I’m really happy with what I did on it. Every body’s pretty excited; even the kids, like my friends that grew up in the hardcore scene that don’t listen to metal at all, heard it and are like, “Fuck dude, this is awesome! I’m really into this!” So that kind of proves that we did something awesome, you know!

Karma: …#2, the tongues look like they are forming a caduceus minus the staff.

Karma: It’s quite cool because it’s like the album is medicine for the soul.

Karma: What's the one thing you wished people would ask you about the album that no one has yet? Pretend I asked you the question and please answer it.

Johnny: Well you know you always get the ones of the, “What was the inspiration behind the record” and for me that’s the question that I like because for me, the way I write, hopefully people can get what I’m talking about but there’s always a hidden meaning behind it too. And this record, there’s so much saturation going on with music today of like there’s a blueprint with the way things are to be done: verse, chorus, singy part, breakdown, and stuff like that. I mean I think we move away from that.

Johnny: We wanted to write a brutal record, a heavy record and still had that punk ethic to it that we all come from and push it in a way that’s going in the opposite direction from the way music is going, you know. We wanted it to be an angrier record; I don’t sing so there’s not going to be any singing parts in. It’s like I need to do something else vocally too and progress with the band with the way the guys are going.

The whole inspiration for this record, I already wrote… Courting Tragedy was all about the healing process of torment in the past couple of years in my life and this one is about the inspiration of what made me who I am today. And kind of like a thank you, an homage to the people and the fans and the artists that I love that’s kind of made me the man who I am today. And that’s basically what Hail Horror is about.

Johnny: …I mean all of the torment that comes around me whether it be from my friends, family, or anything that’s inspiring to me because I am inspired by more of a dark/negative kind of lifestyle. There’s a positivity to it, it makes me use that inspiration and that passion to kind of…just to do the band but also to kids who feel the same way I do. Like get some inspiration from it too because yeah, you can have all of this negative energy in it but you can use it to make your life better.

Karma: Having said all of that, it sounds like you are more than satisfied with the album and from the sounds of it you probably wouldn’t change a thing either.

Johnny: Yeah, I'm really happy with the way it turned out. The guy, Tue, that produced it, was just on [snaps finger], he knew exactly what we were looking for and we got it.

Johnny: It was great! The thing about it was it was all thrown together at the last minute cos we were intentionally going with a different producer and we were suppose to go to LA to do it and at the last minute, he came up with an illness and wasn’t able to do it. His doctor was like, “You can’t work for the next year!” So we were like scrambling, we were like, “Shit, what are we going to do? We’re gonna have to record at home and we’re not gonna be happy! What’s gonna happen?” So then all of a sudden Tue, who was on the list of people that we wanted to work with anyways, he was just like, “I’ll clear my schedule around, if you guys can make it to Denmark in three weeks, we’ll pound this out and get it done!” And so we went over there, actually Kirby and I stayed for the entire month. The other guys recorded their parts and left. We stayed there started the mixing and whatnot. It was rather rad to do the hands on thing with all of the mixing that was something new that I had never experienced before and actually watch a record come to life. It was comfortable; he has a little apartment for the bands to stay in. The family takes you in, yeah it was great!

Johnny: I don’t know! With every band I’ve every done, we’ve only put out one record, did some tours, and it kind of stopped, so this is a big achievement for me because I never got to that second record before, you know. It’s rad because it’s like all of this hard work we’ve been doing in the past five years is paying off. I mean there’s still a lot of work ahead, but now there’s a little more comfort in it you know. The sacrifice isn’t so extreme, like when I come home and I’m scrambling to pay for rent and stuff like that, everything is padded a little more but there’s still a lot of work ahead.

Karma: Because Courting Tragedy & Disaster and Hail Horror are radically different works, it's almost to the point where comparison is not fair...

Karma: However as you stated earlier, a lot of it has to deal with experiences and the other factors that have transpired in your life since then which have brought you to where you are. It’s a wonderful progression as you have definitely come into your own, congrats!

Johnny: Thank you, thank you very much! And a lot of it has to deal with Sammi; he was a big part on Courting Tragedy and Disaster, he wrote a majority of that. Where this time, it was Kirby and you can definitely tell their two influences from each record. Kirby pretty much wrote this entire record minus the lyrics. I’ve known Kirby the longest within the band, I’ve known him for about twelve years or something, and if you knew him, you know it’s Kirb’s album! It’s like, wow, it’s all of his influences in one and it’s AWESOME! There’s just parts in there that bands that I’ve always loved that I ca

n see similarities too like I’m a big Neurosis fan, and there’s a song on there in the intro where it kind of fits the Neurosis sound. I’m just like, “Man, how did you come up with that?” and he was like, “Oh, I was listening to some Neurosis and it just came out of me!” [Laughs] I was like, “Wow [hear the awe in his voice] that was just awesome!” So it's rad because there are some slight similarities to what Courting is and there are a lot of differences.

I think like you said is that progression from where we've come from. We're finally capturing a HIMSA sound and that's what makes me happy. I want to stand out. I don't want to be just another band on the roster; I definitely want to stick out! If I can’t do that, then what’s the point if you can't keep pushing the envelope. Staying who you are but doing something a little more of yourself, then I'm not happy doing it.

Karma: Understood! Especially with Courting, you could notice the influences almost immediately as opposed to Hail Horror, they are blended in to your own.

Johnny: Yeah, for sure. And I think a lot of that has a lot to do with us being trapped in the van for three years and we reek so much. We've all known each other for so long but we're just really now getting to know each other and being comfortable. Writing this record, there wasn't much that was scrapped away and re-written it was pretty much, "Oh, that song sounds awesome!" "Oh Shit, this song's even more awesome!" It was an ongoing process. It was like everything we were doing was everything we liked given that we had such a short amount of time to really write the record.

Johnny: Uhhh, I really like "Sleezevil" kinda the single that's being pushed on it. It's fast and it kinda has kind of a dischargy feel to it. It's kind of like an angry punk kind of vibe and it's really fast and whatnot. It's to the point and has a down tuned strum to it; I really like that one.

I really like "Wither" and that one kind of hits me the most because that whole song is about being away from my family so much like touring. [Pauses, as his voice drops] I mean I'm really close to my family so with touring all the time, I never get to see them and whatnot. It's like the two loves of my life: my family and the band. It's like they can't coincide because of me touring all of the time and me being away and just being scared that something's gonna happen to someone when I'm not there and I'm not gonna have those last days. And then last summer it did happen to me, my grandfather passed away and he was my first real dominant male in my life. He took care of me at an early age and whatnot and with me loosing him being in the same city he was in and not being able to see him and say goodbye. It really hit home; I was like, "Wow, I wrote a song about something that hopefully wouldn't happen, and it did." It happened even before the record was released; it kind of wrecked me for a couple of months. We had to postpone a couple of dates on the tour at the time and that was during the Dirty Black Summer Tour when that happened, so it was just kind of weird that that happened.

Johnny: Well thank you, he's in a better place; he was suffering for a long time. You know that's what happens in life. [Sounding somber]

Karma: Unfortunately this is true. [In attempts to lighten spirits] Well if I can hurry up and tell you which ones are my favorites?

Karma: It kind of has that "Kiss or Kill" feel to it but I think it also has that classic HIMSA feel to it.

Johnny: Cool, thank you! In fact, I remember when Kirby brought that main riff in he said it was reminiscent of "Kiss or Kill", so yeah, I dig that. And that's what I like too, the guys write riffs that are really memorable. I hum them to myself all the time and not even knowing that I'm doing it. Like the "Kiss or Kill" one, that first riff… and that's why it is so popular off Courting because the kids know that opening riff; it gets stuck in your head. That's what I like, that's what I want songs that kids remember.

Karma: Well on another note, what do you think of Mr. Schiepatti’s new CD, [The Truth]?

Johnny: Oh, the new Bleeding Through? You know I haven't even heard the whole thing, I've heard a couple of songs but, wow, he can really sing now!

Johnny: I couldn't believe it! [We both laugh] There's one song, kill… it's the new song they're pushing.

Johnny: It's so awesome, and then the next part is so down strum and I'm like wow, it's so fucking awesome…and then it breaks into that melody. I'm like, "Whoa, what is this?" I mean he's really come a long way with his voice. I mean I'm really proud of him, he's one of my best friends, you know. I'm really psyched… I mean that's one of the bands that gave us a chance when no one else would. I'm so fucking excited with the success they're getting and where they're headed and it’s awesome. I'm happy he's actually able to break away from the hardcore vocalist thing and actually become a real singer.

Karma: Well of course I know he's one of your best friends, this is why I asked you.

Karma: And speaking of questions, I am interviewing Brandan next month; do you have any questions for him?

Johnny: Ask him to describe his perfect girl, he'll get the gist of it. [Laughs]

Karma: Okay, shall do. Now I know you said you'd commission Slayer to cover "Kiss or Kill"...

Karma: ...whom would you commission to cover any of the new tunes and which song would they cover?

Johnny: Uuuoooh! I'm gonna go with Neurosis and we'll give them "Sleezevil" because it's so fast and Neurosis hasn't done anything fast in a lot of years. Yeah, let's see what they can do with that.

Karma: Hmm, now that would be interesting. Are you still carded without your scruff since you have such a baby face and all?

Johnny: Yeah, I do all the time. The beard doesn't help, I mean I still have the beard whatever…I mean there's nothing I can do. [We both laugh] Oh, what's great is that the other night, like I said I work at this club. It was bar show, it was like a rockabilly show or something and there was this guy and I asked him for his ID and he kind of laughed as I noticed he wasn't doing anything. So I said, "No, I need to see your ID!" and he was like, "Why"? "Well because you need to have a valid ID if you're in a bar in Washington State!" He was like, "Well okay! You know I could be your father, son!" I was like, "Well I doubt that!" He's like, "I think so!" So I look at his card and I think he was like maybe eight years older than me. [We both laugh] He was like old enough to be my older brother. He was like, "How old are you?" I was like, "34"! He's like, "I thought you were 24!" I was like, "Yeah, I get that a lot!" [Laughter ensues]

Karma: …if you interview a band or an artist, who would you interview and what would be the one thing that you would like to know about them.

Johnny: I would have liked to interview Morrissey when the Smiths were still together. Oh, there's so much I want to know about him but I would like to ask him where he gets his haircut at. I used to have a Morrissey quiff for about ten years in the 90's. Then I moved on to the Devilock once 2000 hit. I was always fascinated with his hair. I'm sure all of the readers are gonna love that one! [We both laugh] "Oh, the singer of HIMSA listens to the Smiths!"

Karma: Technically they should know that already, especially if anyone read your first interview.

Johnny: Uuuuooh, yeah, what record are you looking forward to coming out in the new year?

Karma: Wow! That's almost hard because I get so many these days but I will tell you what I have been blown away by in past couple of weeks.

Johnny: Yeah! The new album's coming out in March and it's entitled Ringleader of the Tormentors.

Johnny: I even have the track listing in my room! [We both laugh] See what a nerd I am! The records not out already know all of the songs. I am such a retard!

Karma: That's okay! It shows you are a fan and there's nothing wrong with that!

Johnny: That's true and there are very few things I love in life so hey, if I'm going to nerd out about something, it may as well be about music!

Johnny: Final words, thank you very much for everybody that's supported us so far. We can't do this without you guys and you're the reason why we do this. And for new people checking us out, thanks for looking and hopefully you'll stick around and take a ride with us.

I'd like to thank Johnny for speaking to FourteenG again and to the PR department at Prosthetic for making it possible.