Atlanta’s Withered were on hand to deliver a setlist loaded with their signature brand of “blackened tortured doom” upon an eager crowd. Despite a late arrival, the quartet gave an explosive performance and, after catching momentous sets from both Panopticon and Vastum, caught up with Decibel to discuss recent lineup changes and eventual new music.
You just played the indoor stage at Shadow Woods. How was it?
Mike Thompson: It was awesome. We had a crazy drive today, we were running late and stuff, got a little gnarly but it was fun to kind of take it out on the crowd a little bit.
You guys have had lineup changes recently. Ethan’s [McCarthy, Primitive Man] not in the band anymore?
MT: Yeah, we were trying to get that working for so many years. Neither of wanted to quit on it. We’re good friends and we love each other, we have so much mutual respect.
We were both in the same place. Sometimes it just doesn’t work out.
The YouTube ID of HnMg8XWrTLs?feature=oembed is invalid.It seemed like it was pretty clean.
MT: Oh yeah.
Beau Brandon: Take a step back and realize that yeah, it might be a better situation. We can just play shows together and have fun, hang out.
MT: The long distance thing was a challenge. Him and us both drive a lot on the regular live interaction and on the rehearsal, so not having him is weird.
Is the lineup that you’re playing with now set in stone?
MT: For now, doing live stuff. We haven’t really given a whole lot of thought to where we’re going with the creative stuff.
The YouTube ID of YH8mzNSsDtg?feature=oembed is invalid.So there’s nothing in the pipeline for a new album or anything like that right now?
MT: We actually wrote a song or framed one in that we tracked earlier in the year. Ethan did some scratch stuff for it, guitar-wise and we have Colin’s (Marston) basslines already too so we’re probably gonna see that through, but we need to write another one. We got a couple of splits and things on the horizon that we’re going to try and do.
We put a lot of pressure on ourselves when we’re writing records.
BB: Just to do some stuff we’ve been wanting to do for years. Might do some more atmospheric stuff since Grief Relic we had a very focused vision. We want a certain thing and-
MT: We’re over that, so we want to figure out what’s next.
The YouTube ID of MSxiRYWFHjI?feature=oembed is invalid.Grief Relic is available now via Season of Mist.
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