Interview: The Owl PART TWO

Welcome to Part Two of my epic interview with Paul Priest AKA The Owl.

In this half we talk about the composition and creation of his music, live music ambitions and running an indie record label.

You can find Part One of the interview here.

Does your creative process as The Owl have a consistent structure to it or does it vary depending on the project? And do you use a lot of the same tools and instruments each time?

For a large part I use mainly a combination of bass and effects pedals, piano and voice. For the gear heads out there, pedals wise I use a POG Octave, Digitech Delay X and Death Metal pedals, and a Boss ODB3 pedal. I've occasionally used Monotron and drums, or just random objects and found sounds out in the world. Most of the work is in the manipulation and layering afterwards, or creating sounds on laptop.

I use one of, or a combination of Reaper and Wavepad for processing, structure, layout and layering of everything. I am still relatively new to Reaper (something that has come during lockdown), and I still need to do more work on the 'full band' style stuff with the literally hundreds of black metal, grind, crust, tech metal and doom songs in folders (there's a full noise rock album in there too!), but that takes a totally different mindset, and I have phases of struggling to get into that, but I will!

Since there is a lot of experimental / noise / glitch stuff happening now, quite a lot is made on the laptop from nothing, or nearly nothing; as in I create noise or feedback from just a few seconds of sound, the electronic buzz of my laptop being picked up, or a tap on the space bar or whatever, then it's a case of increasing the volume and EQ until it is something. Then the process of looping, stretching, effecting, structuring and EQing from that. It's a pretty exciting challenge really, because literally anything could happen from that point. It's possible to make an hour of wild and crazy fast paced glitch noise, or immersive dark ambient journey music from one second of sound, and this is incredibly interesting to me. I feel that after all the bands I've been in, whilst there are still infinite riffs floating around in my head, I don't really have anything to prove, as it were, about that side of music, and I am more into exploring these other avenues at the moment (whilst striving to combine this with all the riffs, just in a different way than before!).

You mention glitch music, and it's a genre which seems to have been receiving wider attention in recent years, but I have yet to hear many artists from the heavy music world embrace it yet. What inspired you to start using these sounds in your music?

Recently I listened back through a lot of the Incandescence stuff, from the mid 2000s, and realised that I'd started using it a fair amount back then in the later stuff, so I guess it's always been in my brain somewhere. It's definitely a lot more prevalent in what's happening now though, and even in the grind/metal EP that I did there was some glitch, so I think as time goes on the more 'metal' things I do, I will incorporate more of the non-metal, glitch, noise, ambient layers and sections too.

I always like looking for really odd loops in sound, in the same way that I always would strive to play really odd riffs in the bands I was in. If you're going to play something thousands of times, or if you're going to listen to something for the rest of your life (because I do like to listen to my own music), then you have to make it interesting. Making simple, straight forward music just isn't for me. I'm not saying I can't listen to it, because I would have lost all my marbles years ago if I only listened to intricate, challenging, off the wall music all the time. But, when it comes to playing it I just can't do it! And I've tried! Having said that, there's always been a temptation at the back of my mind to do a pop album, or mainstream rock/punk/metal record, but I feel like it would be some sort of betrayal to myself if I did.

For sure though, I am definitely using glitch a lot more now, again because of feeling like I can musically do whatever the hell I want to do at any point, and because my exploration inside sounds is getting deeper. I generally also like to make these sorts of songs shorter, partly because I want to make more song titles! I like naming things, I like word play, so there's usually some sort of alliteration or puns or references to films or cartoons or odd characters in history, but also I have things I want to say, some of them are silly, but there are serious topics I want to approach, and I'll do much more of that in the coming years as well. The glitch noise stuff lends itself really well to this because it can be made as heavy or as not as I want it to be.

Whatever I do though, because of my love of playing and listening to extreme music, I still like there to be riffs, even in some of the more minimal dark ambient stuff I've done there's still usually a riff somewhere. There are some ridiculous heavy riffs in the glitch stuff I've been doing, and yeah, it is a bit of a shame that more people from the heavy music world haven't quite got their heads around it, because there's lots of it that would appeal once they get into the sound. When I'm listening back to works in progress of mine to figure out what else needs doing or if it's done, I often pull out the air guitar and if it sounds like something that could work for a full band then I will definitely keep it.

Oh, and also, music with riffs, those big riffs, just makes me smile and laugh, and again the glitch stuff or oddball loops lend well to that also. The aim is to come up with ideas that make me laugh. It's all just entertainment for myself, but I do hope that when it goes out there others will join in with the fun of the silliness of things.

The Owl live by Harriet Denton

You've released one live album so far, but obviously with the pandemic ongoing live shows are impossible at the moment. When it's allowed again, do you intend to play more gigs as The Owl? (Ed. This was written before the recent UK announcements about lockdown ending)

I was never intending it to be a big live thing, but it was quite unfortunate that the last Owl gig was three weeks before the first lockdown here in the UK, and I had spent almost a year cultivating the set that I played (two big songs 35 minutes, one song was NGC4889 from the Further Into The Vastness album, one is still unreleased but will eventually see the light of day when I can make a production it deserves), and I used the backdrop of Akira on a projector.

I was starting to ask around about jumping on some bills with a view to doing that set more, but now a year later the momentum from that has been taken away, so I am only a 'maybe' about doing it live again, and with the prospect of there being no gigs for a long time yet the motivation to keep up with that set specifically isn't there, especially whilst I now have the chance to do lots of other things. I would love to though, because I felt that was a really strong set, and of course I do miss playing live too, so I guess I am on the strong side of maybe, certainly if there are some improv nights going on as well. I'm very much into that because of the Sloth Hammer history.

You also run a label, Owlripper, which has released several records as well as a recent set of compilations. How did this start, and do you have an ambition for the label long-term?

It initially just started as a home to release my own stuff, pure and simply, but in the initial list of ideas having compilations was on there as well, and I'm glad I managed to get that first run of four up there and circulating. It was a great experience and I ended up chatting with some wonderful characters and talented people, so that will become a constant thing I feel.

I've been involved in band and gig promo, releasing records and compilations (online and physical) since the end of the 90s. I used to run a big music promo site/ gig promo/club night in Leeds called Raw Nerve, and that ventured into the world of being a record label initially to release the first EP of my band at the time, Tangaroa. We didn't know anyone who would put out harsh extreme technical metal, so I did it. The same as the gigs, we didn't know anyone really that was putting on that sort of stuff in 1999, so I did it myself.

This has always felt like a logical progression at various times of my life. I have music I want to release and push a little further than simply saying 'here is a new release' on one post on the internet, so I have a label running at the side of it, and if I can help some other awesome bands and nice people spread their music a little further, then absolutely great.

I'm not looking to do anything massive with Owlripper, compilations every few months, push things via the YouTube page a little more, put a few of my own things out from time to time. I'm not ruling out making it a 'full-time' thing in the future, but focusing on making much more Owl music and improving my video making skills are my main creative priorities right now.

Contrary to what one might think in the age of Bandcamp and Distrokid where artists can easily release and promote their music themselves, it seems to me that, particularly in the heavy music scene, smaller labels like yours are being valued more than ever. Why do you think that may be?

I guess it's the grassroots and community aspect of it maybe. It's the same as being able to support a band direct, especially if it's one from your own town, own circle of people, or just a band who hung out for longer after a show and were really cool people, the same can be said with labels.

Even though there is a hell of a lot going on, say, in the UK alone, the six degrees of separation theory amongst the general 'alternative/underground/metal/extreme/experimental/noise' or whatever you want to call the various crowds, is very much only one or two degrees at most worldwide, so people feel really connected to the small bands, the small label that is just one guy cutting up paper and burning CDs, dubbing tapes and making lathe cut vinyl in his living room.

Since a lot of the people doing labels are people who also make music, on their own or in bands, then people finding the labels through that direction trust the judgement as well, and word soon spreads about which are the nice genuine people to support, that are doing this for all the right reasons.

Any final words from yourself at all?

Endless thanks for inviting me to have this ramble, the general support and for the most excellent astute review of Odyssey One as well. The site is great, and there can never be too many supporters and members of the underground community being active and spreading the word of great riffs and noises, so, genuine big respect to you for doing this.

To anyone reading it and getting this far, my usual sign off is 'Thank you for joining me on this journey'! I appreciate anyone having a read or a listen to anything I put out there, and if you happen across this and we've not spoken before, say hello on any of the various places linked at below.

You can find all of The Owl's links here and you can find his ever increasing discography on Bandcamp as well the Owlripper Recordings Bandcamp