My Name is God (I Hate You)…
Mike IX Williams Interview
Part 2

Happy EYEHATEGOD week. Remembering that time I was in high school and my dad saw the Confederacy of Ruined Lives CD on the front seat of my car. The good times. Anyway, in the continuation of EYEHATEGOD week, I interviewed Mike IX Williams about a variety of things and am very glad I got this opportunity to speak with him! Check it out!

Q – Fans are definitely anticipating a new Eyehategod album. Is there a release date yet? Have you guys gotten a chance to begin recording?

A – No, we haven’t. Right now Jimmy is out on tour with Down again. So it’s just one of these things that keeps getting pushed back. It’s like we’ve been trying to do this for years. We wanna get a new album out. We’ve got songs written, but it’s just been taking forever. Now that Jimmy’s out with Down, it’s another thing ’til he gets back. Hopefully when he gets back we can start doing some demos and getting stuff done. I’m not blaming it on him, it’s just been a lot of things over the years. There’s just been a lot of things that set us back with this new record. But hopefully soon we’ll get that thing finished.

Q – A newer song you’ve been performing, “New Orleans is the New Vietnam” sounds like it would be personal to you. In the past, your lyrics haven’t necessarily been personal, is this any different?

A – No, no, it’s all been the same. I mean, the lyrics have been personal in this kind of cryptic, kind of vague way. We don’t ever set out to focus on any one sort of subject as far as lyrics go. But I think the whole concept of that song is kind of like after Katrina, after the hurricane. It’s getting a lot better now but a lot of the city is pretty screwed up. The whole area, that’s another setback for the new record, the whole hurricane thing. That may be our little tribute to that time back in 2005.

Q – I know you don’t necessarily refer to yourself as a metal band, but what do you think of the current popularity of the sludge scene and the newer bands influenced by Eyehategod?

A – I’ll be honest, I don’t even really know who is influenced by us. I never really paid attention to that. We don’t call ourselves a metal band, or a punk band, or an anything band. We just kind of like to be there. It’s sort of like existing in this certain state. We don’t like to label ourselves, I guess. It seems like sludge is just another one of those labels like grunge, or even punk, but it just keeps getting used and used. I’m a journalist too, I’ve written for magazines and stuff, so I’ve used those terms also. But it feels weird when you put it on your own band. But as far as new bands, I don’t even really know who’s out there, and I mean not in that genre. So I couldn’t even answer that really.

Photo Samantha marble (Courtesy of BrooklynVegan)

Q – Are you still off of heroin? Has it made any difference in your writing?

A – Oh yeah, yeah. I’ve been clean now since 2006. And no, when you’re doing drugs, you think that maybe, maybe that’s part of it. And I’m sure in the beginning, and I’m talking about the beginning like when I first maybe smoked pot or something. You think like “Wow! Wow! This is great, I can write different”, or something, but that’s not true, it’s not even true. So when you finally get through it all, it’s like you’ve been there the whole time. It had nothing to do with what substances were in you at the time.

Q – Your book Cancer as a Social Activity has recently been rereleased for a third time and you’re also working on an autobiography. How is it having fans so interested in your writing and also, is there anymore information on the autobiography as of now?

A – It’s great man, it’s great. I love to write. Ever since I was a kid. That’s what I started off doing first, was writing. And I mean of course when I was a kid it was like the most horrible punk rock lyrics you could ever imagine, just like stupidity. But I mean at least I wasn’t afraid for people to read it. It’s always been like that. And as far as the autobiography thing, it’s up in the air. There’s supposed to be two things going on. I’m writing my own story as we go along. I don’t know if it’ll be like an autobiography of my youth or anything, or it’ll just be around the hurricane. And there’s also supposed to be an Eyehategod story that someone’s supposed to collaborate with us on, but that’s been kind of an off and of kind of thing right there. We’re kind of waiting for this person to really buckle down and write this thing. As far as Cancer as a Social Activity, I finally own the rights to it now. So this third edition, I put it out myself. So that’s really cool to actually own it again, like it’s my book now. It’s not that I didn’t own it before, it’s just that I had a publisher doing it and he had the right to put it out when he wanted to and all that. So that’s cool.

Q – You have been doing a lot of spoken word work. How is that different than writing lyrics? Have you thought about doing any spoken word performances?

A – Yeah, I’ve actually done some, I’ve done a few. That’s a lot different because there’s no band behind you. It’s kind of strange just to get up and talk in front of a bunch of people. I can’t look over at Jimmy, like if I mess up or say something wrong, there’s nobody to back me up. But yeah, I actually have one of those coming up in October, I’m pretty sure, a spoken word type thing. I think it’s great, it’s a way to expand the whole thing. It’s like the same kind of concept and lyrics as Eyehategod, and ideas and all that, but I can do it by myself. That’s something I can do when I’m like 80 years old, I can still do that. I don’t know if I can see myself on stage when I’m 80, as far as the band, but writing and reading, that’s something I can do forever.

Photo Niki Ronneberg

Q – The Eyehategod DVD came out earlier this year, how did you decide which performances you would include on it and how have fans reacted to the DVD?

A – Well it’s not the first one we’ve done. We did one back in 2003 or 2004, but it was just called Live in Tokyo. It was when we did the Japanese shows over there. This new one is cool because it’s got the fan videos on it. There’s a couple of homemade fan videos some kids did and we thought they looked good enough to put on there, so we did that. And as far as the shows we picked, we picked the ones where we sounded the best and just with the best film quality. We actually kind of planned a couple of times for these guys to come out and do some multi-camera shots and film the whole thing. So we just kind of picked out of those and got the best stuff.

Q – What’s going on right now with Arson Anthem, Outlaw Order, and The Guilt Øf…?

A – Arson Anthem is kind of, just waiting right now because Hank’s really busy, he’s on tour actually. Phil’s on tour right now. So that’s one of those things that’s basically just me and Phil now. I mean Hank’s in it whenever he wants to, whenever he can. But he’s so busy and plus he lives in Nashville, and we’re over here. We want to do as much as we can. We’ve got a couple of songs written, I know I’ve written some stuff. We want to keep doing it whenever. Outlaw Order, we’ve been talking lately. We just got an offer to go to Europe, so hopefully we can get that back together. Well like right now, Jimmy’s on tour with Down, so I’m sitting here doing nothing basically, just writing and whatever. I wish I was out on tour. But with Outlaw Order, that’s what we’re going to try to do, to get that rolling again. I know Down has another record coming out, so they’re going to be touring, so we want to get that back out. The Guilt Øf…, we’re constantly doing stuff. We record all the time. And there’s probably like four different records about to come out. There’s a cassette coming out, somebody’s doing it, like a professional thing. I love doing The Guilt Øf… because it’s experimental. I can do anything I want with that. We’ve got gothic songs, we’ve got electro kind of punk stuff, some of it’s total noise. So that something that’s ever expanding and we can be totally creative with it. So yeah, that’s constantly going on.

Q – Have you seen yourself develop as an artist being in several bands and doing a lot of other work on the side?

A – Well, I guess “a lot” would be the answer. Because with Arson Anthem, yeah it’s a hardcore punk band, but doing the vocals for that second record, Insecurity Notoriety, that really just helped me. Phil helped me a lot with that, because you can hear what I am saying on that record. It was a different experience for me as far as doing vocals on that. That was like a learning kind of thing. I don’t think I would do that on the next Eyehategod record, I’ll use the same style I always have with that band, but it was just helpful. And like I said, with The Guilt Øf…, that’s another thing that you can expand as an artist by just being creative and just doing different stuff.

Q – Like I said, you have a lot going on, so is there anything else you want to say?

A – Well, no, but thanks for the interview. And thanks to CVLT Nation. And you, Megan, and Sean, and his wife Meghan for doing this. It’s a cool thing, this whole Eyehategod week. Yeah, and go to my website too, it’s www.mikeix.com and also, www.eyehategod.ee, but besides that, that’s pretty much it.

Photo Samantha Marble (Courtesy of BrooklynVegan)

Header image Sean Reveron/CVLT Nation