By Andrew Bansal
San Francisco-based doom-infused rock ‘n roll trio Castle have been consistent, relentless and prolific in the six years of their existence thus far, with three full-length albums and countless tours already under their belt. Their latest album ‘Under Siege’ was released in May 2014 via Prosthetic Records. It was on one of their West Coast runs as part of the touring cycle for this album that I got to experience Castle as a live band for the very first time, at Complex in Glendale in March 2015. The band made an indelible impact and has been on my radar ever since. I attended their headline show at Loaded last August, which also happened to be their first ever gig at that venue, and had a candid chat with guitarist Mat Davis. Enjoy the conversation below, and catch them on their next US tour in November (dates included).
Mat, it’s great to have you on Metal Assault. So, this year you guys have been doing quite a bit. You did a US tour with Demon Lung which I saw you on, and after that you went to Europe. How’s everything been going with the band?
Things have been going great, man. We actually toured a little less this year than last year, but it’s been consistent. We just took a little time off in between tours this year. We started writing pretty heavily in June-July. It’s kind of hard actually to tear ourselves away from that and go back on the road, but we have this short little tour now and another one in November, so looking forward to that.
So you’re breaking it up in different legs instead of doing a long tour.
Yeah, exactly. We thought we’d try that instead of doing back-to-back-to-back tours, because by the third one you’re pretty much toast. This way it’s cool, we bounce back and we have time in between to write as well.
How far along are you in the writing process for the next set of tunes?
It’s hard to gauge. I would say may be it’s a quarter done. We’ve had our heels dug in for three of four songs. There are lots of ideas. I’m always working on ideas, whether it’s a scrap of paper I’m writing on, or recording a piece of music, or something that Liz and I have jammed out. So we’re always working on it but when we sit down and start putting it together, that’s when we start to see the progress, taking all the scraps and putting it together. We’re planning on recording right before the end of the year, may be first thing next year.
During tours, do ideas come to you that you end up recording? Depending on where you are, something always triggers in your mind, I’m sure.
That’s exactly what happens, man. We were just talking about being on tour and you know what it’s like. Sometimes you just don’t have the energy, and then sometimes, like on our European tour, just having some books along and a lot of time staring out the window (laughs), things start happening. I think there are two songs that started to come together when we were in Europe a few months ago. It was cool to come back home and start working those out in the studio. We’re still working on some of it now.
The basic idea has to be the hardest part, right? Once you have that, you can build the rest of the song around it.
Totally. It can sit in your mind forever, but as soon as it gets to a point where you feel that clarity, or some stroke of whatever you want to call it, and you have the time, it can come pretty quick. For us, I started writing in 2006 for what essentially became the first record in 2011. So, I have hours and hours of music recorded that we never put out, and there’s some stuff that I get back into. So there’s little parts of that, and then as I write songs I axe entire parts and don’t even use them. So I go back and sometimes get a fresh outlook on something old. When I mix it with something that’s brand new, all of a sudden it’s like, that’s what it needed. So I never try to rush anything, I just file it away for a later day. So, it’s a combination of new ideas and old stuff.
That’s interesting. So, any given song could have old parts and new parts, which probably makes it more dynamic too, because obviously you would write something totally different now than what you did in 2006.
It’s very true. In a way, I see exactly how it’s a little different, because we’ve become primarily a live band. Back then it was more of just the concept of writing. It was just me in a studio, theoretically writing. I never cared whether it would work live, I never thought of playing live! But now that we’re a live band, I think like that when I write. I can stack the guitars to the moon on a record, with layers and harmonies and everything, but what’s it going to be like live? So, I think about that too. It’s kind of like two writing processes. One to write, and one to make it a live song. I used to do that after the fact, but now I do it during. It’s cool because it lets the song stand a little bit more on its own strengths rather than utilizing studio tricks and all that kind of stuff.
Do you sometimes also jam together as a band and write out material that way, or do you just work individually for the most part?
Liz and I jam constantly, but we don’t have the luxury of a full-time drummer. The guy that records on our albums actually lives in Canada. So, I write with him in mind and I’ve become really adept at using a drum machine. I demo all of our stuff with a drum machine and then the drummer on our record learns from that and then embelishes it to something a human would play (laughs). So, that happens, but for me that’s part of the writing process. Coming up with the durm parts is sometimes the catalyst for a song. I’d fuck around with drum beats and play guitar around it. It’s almost like my writing partner. But then also, Liz and I sit on acoustics and we’ll take really basic ideas and start to sing along with it. I never had that before either, back in the early days. So, trying to use the different things that we have around now, and the process has definitely changed.
Talking of the stoner/doom genre, these days it’s so huge, it’s like the new pop music within the metal community. Did you ever think that it would come to this point, and have you seen any benefit from it for your band?
I never saw that coming at all. When the first record came out, there was a good handful of bands in that genre. I never really thought we were a traditional doom band by any means but we definitely have the elements. But there really good bands like Blood Ceremony, Jex Thoth and Witch Mountain were around back then. I didn’t really think that we particularly fit in with that group, but we also didn’t fit too well anywhere else. So, I think when people wrote about our record, they definitely put us in that category. So, I’m cool with that but we were never really a part of it. We were just doing our thing. But yeah, obviously you see on the internet and every day there’s a new band. It’s great if everybody is writing all this music and starting to play shows. I think it’s healthy for everything. I don’t know if we notice it so much other than on tour. We play with really good bands all over. We can play in the smallest town in the middle of nowhere and there’s usually a band that fits well enough with us to make for a good show. So, may be it has helped us to tour, as more and more people getting into it. Without even me realizing it, it’s like the trickle-down effect for us. We’re able to tour and bring people out in places that we wouldn’t have been able to before.
But with there being so many bands that play a similar style, do you think about trying to stand out from the lot or trying to keep it interesting in your own way?
Yeah, for sure, but I had that mind from the very beginning of the band. I didn’t want to do it if I wasn’t absolutely a 100 per cent into doing something different. I never wanted to do anything that was already being done. So, I don’t need the competition to push me. I kind of just do that on my own, as a bit of a workaholic. Even if we’ve done something, I never want to do it again, let alone anybody else. I think we stand apart because we have influences that are not so much prevalent in a lot of the other bands you see coming up. So, I don’t worry about it too much. I think Castle is pretty unique, and that might just be the way that we approach things, not just the writing but also the instrumentation when we record, and how we do it live as a power trio. The bass is really involved, the guitar is complicated but we make it sound not complicated. There’s all these little layers to it. In the end, it’s hard to sound like somebody else when your’re doing all that anyways, you know.
Was the power trio setup always the idea for the live band or did you ever think of making it a four-piece or even a two-piece?
I don’t think we ever put too much thought into it. Sometimes you do things the way they are handed to you. The first record was instrumental and I never thought about vocals, but when Liz came into the picture, she became the singer. I was never like, “Let’s go get a girl singer!” It’s just how it happened. The chemistry was there, and then a friend of ours who still plays on our records started playing full-time. That’s just the way we wanted to keep it. Of course, in the early days I thought about getting a second guitar player because there’s a lot going on, but the more we had to work at it as a trio, we made the bass like the second guitar and learnt to combine guitar parts into one. It’s like rewriting a record, but we did it. I love the power trio. Some of my favorite bands are like that. Yeah, we’re always tempted to get another guitar player but the dynamic in the band is a sensitive thing. Three people on the road is cool, it’s easy. I’ve been on the road, with four, five, six people. Every guy that you add could exponentially be potential for anything, you know. But we’re happy where we are in that sense.
When you’re talking about how you already had the idea from the beginning of standing out from the other bands, I think the most important thing is to keep it interesting for yourself in what you’re doing, and that automatically shows to the audiences.
I hope so. You can’t go wrong with that kind of concept. I think I might just hang it up if I find myself trying to write something particular. Sometimes I’ll push myself to try something, try to write in a certain style of guitar playing. But to try and do something with an end result in mind is may be not what I can picture myself doing. So yeah, I agree with that.
It’s really not possible to serve the audience with a certain style that may be popular.
Yeah, the fans that we’ve brought together with this music, I don’t think that they would be up for that. I think they like Castle pushing the envelope, and that’s probably the attraction in the first place. To be so individualistic about something might not be the best way to some kind of pop stardom, obviously, but for us there’s no limit, and that’s cool. There’s no exact sound, it’s always changing. Even with this record, it’s really exciting to get into for us because of its limitless possibilities, and we haven’t pigeonholed ourselves. We’ve actually gone the opposite way where our modus operandi is to be as different as possible. So then, you can really do whatever you want.
Related: Review: Castle Holds Hollywood Under Siege
Castle links: website | facebook | twitter | instagram
Upcoming tour dates:
11/5 Denver, CO @ Three Kings
11/6 Milwaukee, WI @ Quarters
11/7 Chicago, IL @ Reggies
11/8 St. Paul, MN @ Turf Club
11/9 Madison, WI @ The Wisco
11/10 Detroit, MI @ Corktown
11/11 Rochester, NY @ Bugjar
11/12 Boston, MA @ O’Briens
11/13 Portland, ME @ Geno’s
11/14 Montpelier, VT @ Charlie O’s
11/15 Providence, RI @ Dusk
11/16 Brooklyn, NY @ Acheron
11/17 Philadelphia, PA @ Millcreek Tavern
11/18 Baltimore, MD @ Sidebar
11/19 Washington, DC @ The Pinch
11/20 Richmond, VA @ Strange Matter
11/21 Raleigh, NC @ The Maywood
11/22 Knoxville, TN @ Open Chord
11/23 Louisville, KY @ Highlands Taproom
11/25 Little Rock, AR @ Vino’s
11/26 Oklahoma City, OK @ Blue Note
11/27 Dallas TX @ Double Wide
11/28 Austin TX @ The Lost Well
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