How many of you fine-assed, long-legged gentlemen and ladies remember that Rhode Island-based unit Snake Apartment? That 12” they released way back there in 2007, Paint the Walls, really made the curlys stand up on my end; a legitimate barn burner that rose from the bowl in that infamous year when ‘weird punk’ done broke. Since the band is on a break due to prison commitments on the drummer's part, guitarist Ry Wharton has found the time to raise a ruckus with a solo dealy project named King Blood. (Ew! Look at me! I read books!) The LP he self-released back in 2010 entitled Eyewash Silver was the finest example of dense psychedelia to come down the stretch since the heydays of Sternklang, Natisuta Hetekata, The Smashchords, and maybe even Vulcan. If the above sentence made any lick of sense to you, then please leave the record alphabetization chore for another day and try to find a date. And then after inevitably striking out, score the brand new King Blood 12” on Richie Records entitled Vengeance, Man. You’ll be glad ya did.VICE: So when did the concept of King Blood come to be? Was it something you were working on when you were in Snake Apartment?
Ry Wharton: I moved from Rhode Island to California about five or six years ago, and that really slowed down Snake Apartment activity. I started recording some tapes of the riffs and ideas that ended up becoming King Blood shortly after moving out west. It was a way of adjusting to an environment I had been looking for.Over the course of a couple of years, I had recorded a ton of tracks. I had always imagined them on vinyl, so when a friend asked me to contribute some art/sound stuff for a show he was doing it seemed like the right time to press up an LP with some of those tracks. I had just moved again, so it felt like a nice way to close a chapter.So what is the deal with Snake Apartment?
Snake Apartment is still on hiatus since the drummer is in debtor’s prison and the singer had to move back in with his folks. We had some songs that we never got into the studio to record. Someday that might get recorded.Debtor’s prison? What the hell is that?
All I know is at the moment he's forever doomed to sell third-tier youth crew gear to kids. But hopefully he'll get things straightened out soon.O.K. Uh…so, what was the catalyst for recording under the King Blood moniker?
King Blood came out of a fascination with the riff. I was interested in distilling a song to its base element, seeing if it could be whittled down to a nugget that would then expand to fill the field of vision. For a while I had been making my own edits of hard rock/blues/boogie songs; just to listen to them. King Blood was a natural progression. I had reached a point where I just wanted to make the type of jams that I wanted to listen to.What were some riffs from songs you were editing down?
I remember editing and looping the beginning of an Iron Claw song. I know I did a few Black Oak Arkansas jams in there too. I've been trying to find time to collect some of these and make a mixtape or something. I have some that I played over as well, and just did some straight covers of one riff from a song that end up sounding just like a King Blood jam.What is the normal procedure for recording King Blood jams?
Usually I have a riff that won’t get out of my head, and I end up recording it. Many songs are done in one session, but I’ve also come back to a bass line or riff a year later. I’ll also take older songs/riffs and write new jams on top of them. Grimhaven/Grimhaven (a slight return) are an example of that. I was listening to it and heard a melody that I hadn’t thought of before. I just grabbed the guitar and recorded over it. In that instance it’s pretty obvious, but there are other tracks that come from the same root riff that turn out completely different. I don’t see the songs as really beginning or ending, but that you’ve happened to pass through a room in the middle of jam session. I record and play all the time, but I’m pretty picky about what gets released. I sat on the recordings for quite a long time before putting out Eyewash Silver.Has King Blood performed out live at all?
No shows yet. There’s been some talk of putting together a band, and I have some ideas for how to do it solo with the help of a stack of VCRs and tape decks. It’s a bit harder for me to get out and tour these days, but I am interested in how to translate the recorded sound to a live setting.VCRs?
Similar to the looping and editing of tracks, I've done this for some videos in a primitive fashion. I'd like to expand on that idea and use various parts for some of the King Blood as loops that would have visual components. I can imagine a couple of amps with TVs and VCRs stacked on top to create a slightly more interesting experience. I like the idea of setting something like this up to push me into doing something different.What can you tell us about this new 12” you just released on Richie Records?
The new 12” is similar to “Eyewash Silver” in that it focuses on the riff. But I’ve expanded it a bit, the jams here look at how a single riff can appear to warp and mutate through the melodies and sounds around it. There are some more rocking tunes on it, and then some murkier, melancholy boogie jams as well.It seems when people write about the LP, they mention Les Rallizes Denudes.
Everyone needs some LRD on the shelf, and I certainly have my share. But not everyone needs three box sets and fifteen versions of The Last One. While I love the sound of the records and the mysterious nature surrounding them, I was probably listening to more Willie Dixon, Howlin’ Wolf, Agitation Free, Cactus, UFO, Toxodeth, and Diamond Head.The only artists in that list that I don’t hear in your music is Agitation Free.
I always loved the way Malesch feels like you are wandering through a crowded Egyptian street, stumbling upon some out-of-place West Coast house band, or you turn a corner and hear the strains of a Pink Floyd cover band starting up. That sort of suggestion of endless music appeals to me; a record becomes a snapshot of an idea. To get back to Japan, I'm a big fan of Taj Mahal Travellers and the infinite textures and possibility within simple, single tones. Their records also serve as documents of a specific place and time. In fact, I think the single LP OZ Days Live boot from years back was probably one of my earliest exposures to LRD. I originally bought it for the Travellers though. Not sure if any of this comes through in King Blood, but my love of Nocturnus and Toxodeth probably doesn't come through that clearly either. Influences and references are funny like that: they get ingested, garbled up, and only sometimes does something resembling the original get spit out.Too true. So, if you had the chance to have a beer with anyone alive or dead in musical history, which would it be?
Is it too much to ask for a roundtable with 1969 Edgar Broughton, 1980 Steve Harris, 1969 Don Van Vliet, and 1970 Vangelis Papathanassiou, and a couple of six packs?
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Ry Wharton: I moved from Rhode Island to California about five or six years ago, and that really slowed down Snake Apartment activity. I started recording some tapes of the riffs and ideas that ended up becoming King Blood shortly after moving out west. It was a way of adjusting to an environment I had been looking for.Over the course of a couple of years, I had recorded a ton of tracks. I had always imagined them on vinyl, so when a friend asked me to contribute some art/sound stuff for a show he was doing it seemed like the right time to press up an LP with some of those tracks. I had just moved again, so it felt like a nice way to close a chapter.So what is the deal with Snake Apartment?
Snake Apartment is still on hiatus since the drummer is in debtor’s prison and the singer had to move back in with his folks. We had some songs that we never got into the studio to record. Someday that might get recorded.Debtor’s prison? What the hell is that?
All I know is at the moment he's forever doomed to sell third-tier youth crew gear to kids. But hopefully he'll get things straightened out soon.O.K. Uh…so, what was the catalyst for recording under the King Blood moniker?
King Blood came out of a fascination with the riff. I was interested in distilling a song to its base element, seeing if it could be whittled down to a nugget that would then expand to fill the field of vision. For a while I had been making my own edits of hard rock/blues/boogie songs; just to listen to them. King Blood was a natural progression. I had reached a point where I just wanted to make the type of jams that I wanted to listen to.
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I remember editing and looping the beginning of an Iron Claw song. I know I did a few Black Oak Arkansas jams in there too. I've been trying to find time to collect some of these and make a mixtape or something. I have some that I played over as well, and just did some straight covers of one riff from a song that end up sounding just like a King Blood jam.What is the normal procedure for recording King Blood jams?
Usually I have a riff that won’t get out of my head, and I end up recording it. Many songs are done in one session, but I’ve also come back to a bass line or riff a year later. I’ll also take older songs/riffs and write new jams on top of them. Grimhaven/Grimhaven (a slight return) are an example of that. I was listening to it and heard a melody that I hadn’t thought of before. I just grabbed the guitar and recorded over it. In that instance it’s pretty obvious, but there are other tracks that come from the same root riff that turn out completely different. I don’t see the songs as really beginning or ending, but that you’ve happened to pass through a room in the middle of jam session. I record and play all the time, but I’m pretty picky about what gets released. I sat on the recordings for quite a long time before putting out Eyewash Silver.Has King Blood performed out live at all?
No shows yet. There’s been some talk of putting together a band, and I have some ideas for how to do it solo with the help of a stack of VCRs and tape decks. It’s a bit harder for me to get out and tour these days, but I am interested in how to translate the recorded sound to a live setting.
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Similar to the looping and editing of tracks, I've done this for some videos in a primitive fashion. I'd like to expand on that idea and use various parts for some of the King Blood as loops that would have visual components. I can imagine a couple of amps with TVs and VCRs stacked on top to create a slightly more interesting experience. I like the idea of setting something like this up to push me into doing something different.What can you tell us about this new 12” you just released on Richie Records?
The new 12” is similar to “Eyewash Silver” in that it focuses on the riff. But I’ve expanded it a bit, the jams here look at how a single riff can appear to warp and mutate through the melodies and sounds around it. There are some more rocking tunes on it, and then some murkier, melancholy boogie jams as well.It seems when people write about the LP, they mention Les Rallizes Denudes.
Everyone needs some LRD on the shelf, and I certainly have my share. But not everyone needs three box sets and fifteen versions of The Last One. While I love the sound of the records and the mysterious nature surrounding them, I was probably listening to more Willie Dixon, Howlin’ Wolf, Agitation Free, Cactus, UFO, Toxodeth, and Diamond Head.The only artists in that list that I don’t hear in your music is Agitation Free.
I always loved the way Malesch feels like you are wandering through a crowded Egyptian street, stumbling upon some out-of-place West Coast house band, or you turn a corner and hear the strains of a Pink Floyd cover band starting up. That sort of suggestion of endless music appeals to me; a record becomes a snapshot of an idea. To get back to Japan, I'm a big fan of Taj Mahal Travellers and the infinite textures and possibility within simple, single tones. Their records also serve as documents of a specific place and time. In fact, I think the single LP OZ Days Live boot from years back was probably one of my earliest exposures to LRD. I originally bought it for the Travellers though. Not sure if any of this comes through in King Blood, but my love of Nocturnus and Toxodeth probably doesn't come through that clearly either. Influences and references are funny like that: they get ingested, garbled up, and only sometimes does something resembling the original get spit out.Too true. So, if you had the chance to have a beer with anyone alive or dead in musical history, which would it be?
Is it too much to ask for a roundtable with 1969 Edgar Broughton, 1980 Steve Harris, 1969 Don Van Vliet, and 1970 Vangelis Papathanassiou, and a couple of six packs?