Kylesa frontman Phillip Cope interviewed October 13, 2010, while in Kentucky.

You guys down in Kentucky today?

Yeah.

Right on. I’m up in Montana which is a really nice place to be right now.

Oh yeah, is it beautiful right now?

Yeah.

Awesome.

It’s so warm, we’re still using air conditioners up here and hunting season starts a week from Saturday. It should be interesting.

That’s crazy. I wouldn’t have guessed that. You’d think it’d be starting to get cold.

Well, congrats on the new record.

Thank you.

This is a really quick turnaround following ‘Static Tensions.’ What’s with the sudden surge in production?

Well, in all honesty, it’s not all soon as it appears. It’s soon in its release dates. Actually the time between writing was a little longer ‘cause we sat on ‘Static Tensions’ awhile before it was released. For us it doesn’t seem quite that super fast. A lot of it, we’ve been working really hard. We’ve all pretty much dedicated our lives to this band and have been working non stop. We’ve managed to keep our energy up.

You’ve managed to capture this magic with Laura. Talk about how you two play off each other while you’re writing.

A lot of it is just giving each other space. Just letting each other do what they wanna do and supporting each other in that. If she wants to do a solo, I’ll take a backseat in guitar and try and find something appropriate for her to play over. If I wanna try some weird, noisy thing out, she’ll just kind of have my back on that. We’ve given each other space to do the things we wanna do as guitarists and songwriters. I guess maybe that makes the magic (laughs). I don’t know.

Of course it does.

Thanks, man.

Sharing vocal duties, does that help keep everyone interested in what’s going on?

I guess so. With the band, whoever’s in the band at the time, Laura and I are longstanding members but they’re allowed to have their say too. They’re allowed, if they have ideas, to put ‘em in. Now, Laura and I are a little picky on other people’s ideas but we certainly do listen to everybody and everybody has a shot to do whatever they want. Laura and I just give each other space and write whatever we wanna write.

This new album has a very hypnotic vibe to it and after listening to it a few times, you’re sucked into a rhythm and journey. How stoked were you when you heard this final version and saw it come to life?

I honestly didn’t finally get stoked on it till maybe a few weeks after we got back from our tour in Europe. I was still sending mixes back and forth to the engineers while we were on tour. We were supposed to be done before tour but I wasn’t quite happy with it yet so we were sending it back and forth. It was really hard but I didn’t want to let anything go until we got it as good as I thought we could. I had to take a little break from it and the workload of it all. I finally had some time to sit back and listen to the whole thing, removed from it and I was pretty stoked. I was pretty happy. I’m actually really happy with it. It’s something that Laura and I had really wanted to do for a long time was to make a tripier, more textured kind of record. A lot of it was knowledge and time keeping us from doing it in the past. We only had the same amount of time we had with ‘Static Tensions,’ but it was like twice the workload in the same amount of time. We were luckily able to pull it off.

When I heard ‘Static Tensions,’ it was instant love. With the new album, it’s one of those ones that takes a couple listens for it to really kick in for me. Everybody knows that all the great albums are like that. You listen to it a few times to get the vibe.

Yeah. It’s a different kind of record than ‘Static Tensions.’ This one’s a little more kind of chilled back and zone out to record. A little bit more stoner than the last one, you know (laughs). It kind of bummed me out the way we had to send out copies for people to review and how it got leaked in an inferior way ‘cause it’s not a record that you can sit on your computer and do something while you casually listen to it and actually get what’s going on. It’s definitely different than ‘Static Tensions,’ in that way.

In the business I’m in, you get a lot of albums sent to you from the labels through mp3, which is how I got this one …

For the record, we’re not stoked about that. We’d much prefer for you to get real copies.

I don’t always really get off on what I’m hearing, but with an album like this, I definitely wanna go out and buy myself a copy when it comes out. I’m an old school guy who likes buying LPs and having physical copies. You guys are very proactive in coming up with great covers and t-shirt designs. You think of bands like Maiden, High On Fire, Megadeth, Slayer that really put a lot into the art. How important is it for you to have that identity?

I think now it’s more important than ever. Art has always been important to music. It’s always been its face. Music needs a face sometimes. Now, with more and more people not even bothering to buy records and just downloading them, I really hope people do take the time to buy an LP or buy the CD will get something very special with the art. This time, the limited CD is one of the coolest CDs we’ve ever done. I can’t wait for people to see it. It’s crazy. When it comes out, I think people that pre-order it are gonna be very stoked. It’s pretty out there for a CD cover. It’s not something you see very much.

Some people, especially in the younger generation, kind of scoff at that. They don’t care about the liner art, they just want the music. For me, when I was a kid listening to Maiden, you get into a zone, almost like watching a movie. You’re looking at the ‘Powerslave’ cover and you’re flipping through everything and listening to the album and it becomes all encompassing together. Tool’s the same way, you have ’10,000 Days’ from Tool and you have the cover and it all goes together.

Exactly.

I wish more bands would be that way.

We definitely remember that era. We try to keep it going despite the harder climate for it.

In many ways, this band is still a secret, which is cool. I play stuff off of ‘Static Tensions,’ on a radio show that I do up here but I’m sure it’s not in regular rotation on mainstream radio around the country. Do you expect ‘Spiral Shadows’ to kick it to another dimension or are you happy with the level this band is at right now?

That kind of stuff is hard to tell. It had very little to do with how we wrote the album or what our intentions were with the album. We certainly don’t turn away new fans and we’ve always pretty much have been down with whoever wants to listen to our music. We’re happy with what we’ve done but we always strive for better too. A little bit of both.

When I listen to this new album, I can’t help but think that two years ago this might have become a legendary fucking record. With the death of the major labels in the rear view, do you find that it’s extremely difficult to break into the mainstream without that major push? Back in the day, if a major had gotten ahold of this and released it, all of a sudden you’re on TV, ‘Headbangers Ball,’ and you’re launched basically.

Yeah. I don’t worry about that too much. I’ve always been a fan mainly of underground music and over the years there’s been very little mainstream music I’ve liked. At this point, there’s almost none that I dig. We don’t turn away any attention that comes to our band. I think that’d be stupid to do, but it’s not something we worry about too much. Things might have been different in a different world for us but we’ve survived for 10 years and have had some great expansion doing it. I think we’re lucky that we’re still energized and we’re still stoked to be doing what we’re doing. We might be lucky in that sense. We all feel like we’re just starting to hit our creative stride like 10 years down the line. In a lot of cases, a lot of bands in the past were maybe fizzling out after 10 years. Maybe we’re lucky in that sense. Maybe because things have different, it’s given us a longer road, if that makes any sense.

Yeah, that’s a good answer. It’s a double edged sword because if the label finds you and makes you a big star, the next album, they’re essentially writing it and creativity is taken away which inevitably leads to infighting and getting tired of the industry.

Right. We’ve been lucky in that. No label we’ve really ever worked with has ever gotten into the creative process other than what we’ve asked them too. They’ve never forced anything, they’ve never told us what we should do. We’ve always been left to do what we want and we’ve always had that freedom. There’s nothing behind the music on our new album other than what we felt like doing. As far as label concerns, we’re very lucky that we’ve had a label to support us and let us do what we wanna do. They listen to our ideas and what we wanted for art and they offered us some cool packaging ideas. I try to look on the bright side of things and on the positive side of things and not worry about what could be or what should be and just be happy about what we’ve been able to do.

It’s pretty much always been the same for bands as far as making enough money to keep being a band and that’s touring and being on the road. What’s the climate like for you guys out there?

It’s hard. It always has been. Trying to financially keep this band together has been a struggle since day one and it will probably always be a struggle. It seems like it’s been getting a little harder out on the road, but we’re really lucky. We’re on a good tour with good bands and the turnout’s been good and we’ve gotten a good response. I’m grateful for what we have.

The cool thing about this genre of stoner metal, doom metal, southern metal, sludge, whatever you wanna call it, is that with other genres that take off, like grunge or hair metal, it’s so easy for copy cats to pop up and wear certain outfits and play certain notes and pull it off. You don’t see that too much in this genre which is cool.

There doesn’t seem to be any genre or style of music that’s completely taking over this whole planet right now. It seems there’s a lot of room for all different kinds of music. It gives bands a lot more freedom to do what the hell they like to do and find an audience for that.

It seems to me like this genre has been building momentum for years and gets stronger and stronger, but it’s not like back in the day when a sound would become popular and the labels would jump all over it and artificially create an explosion and then force feed everyone until the whole genre is exhausted and then move on to the next thing.

I think there’s people out there that are trying to say that’s happening and there are people trying to put a backlash on it still. We’ve certainly had people try to put a backlash on us. Unexpectedly. That was weird. Why mess with us? (laughs) We’ve always been the underdog. It’s not like we’re dominating the music scene right now.

I’m surprised to hear that.

It was surprising to us too. That’s part of the game, I guess.

The thing to me that separates this genre all across the board from the other ones is the musicianship and attention to melody but also you kind of have to live it. You have to believe it.

Yeah. I guess so.

You guys live this genre. It’s not like you popped up in Wisconsin somewhere and said ‘We’re gonna be southern metal.’

I’ve been doing this for 17 years (laughs). I’m stoked in general. Laura and I are huge music fans in general. We listen to a lot of different kinds of music. We’re one of those bands that constantly get stoked by new bands and constantly get stoked about old bands we’ve never heard before. There’s a general excitement about music in this band. I think because we have pretty broad tastes, everything we do comes out a little bit different because of that.

If you could share the stage with any bands past or present, which ones would you choose?

I can honestly say playing with Elitist was unbelievable. That happened. That was almost too unreal to be true. I never thought I’d meet ‘em much less share the stage with ‘em. I’ve been listening to them for a very long time. I’m a huge fan and Laura as well. I remember seeing them in soundcheck and getting goosebumps and thinking ‘I can’t believe this.’ As far as who we haven’t played with yet. That’s a good question. We’d love to play with Black Sabbath, original lineup. That would be unreal. Or Pink Floyd or something like that. We actually get to play with a lot of bands that we like. I would like to play a show with Sonic Youth. One of my all-time favs. Playing in festivals have been great even though we technically aren’t sharing the stage with a particular band. We played a show not too long ago and we’re sitting on a bench and Kerry King is walking by and Bruce Dickinson is walking by. You’re just like ‘Holy shit, I can’t believe this. This is crazy.’

Right on, Philip. I appreciate you visiting with me. You definitely have fans up here in Montana.

Right on. Thank you man. I appreciate your time.

Take care.

Take it easy.