Moss é um leviatã de doom cavernoso e apocalíptico constituído por três membros de nome Olly Pearson, Dominic Finbow e Chris Chantler, que são vocalista, guitarrista e baterista respectivamente (não contam com baixo na sua formação e na verdade não é necessário de todo).

Pertencem actualmente à conceituada doom label Rise Above Records e até hoje lançaram dois álbuns apenas, mas contam também com variadíssimos splits (com Nadja e Monarch por exemplo) e demos.

Recentemente o programa de rádio Ritualis Metallum Infernalium teve a oportunidade de entrevistar Olly Pearson, vocalista da banda. O resultado dessa entrevista fica aqui na sua íntegra:

1 – First of all, thanks for accepting this interview, it is such an honor to have the opportunity to interview the sludge/drone monster named Moss. Please tell the readers when was Moss created and with what aim.

Cheers for asking us. We originally started sometime in 2000, just Dom and myself doing noisy improv stuff in his shed with me screaming over it. That was getting boring, so we asked Chris if he'd like to be our drummer, and here we are. We never really had any aims to begin with, just to get together and make noise we like, we definitley didn't think about putting out demos, or playing gigs...it just kind of happened!


2 – You belong to that group of bands which contains only 3 members, dealing with the vocals, guitar and drums only, no bass, although you had a session member on 2001 for the bass playing. What lead you to refuse the use of a bass in your music?

The guy we did have playing bass for us for that brief time was pretty useless, just couldn't lock into what the three of us have going on.. we were getting a lot heavier and more minimalistic, and to get rid of the bass and keep it to the raw, primal elements and spontneity that you get from just the three of us really solidified what we wanted to do and what we wanted to sound like. It's definitley something telepathic or supernatural between us when we're playing, to bring someone else in fucks it all up.


3 –Your first full-length, “Cthonic Rites” is composed of two massive, heavy and ugly monoliths. Like two rusty and blunt razors, the tracks penetrate in a slow and difficult process, on the listener’s flesh.

I’m not sure if all the people noticed the unique duration of your debut album: 66 minutes and 6 seconds. Now, that’s a very creepy barrier. I wonder if you actually recorded the songs and in the end they came out completing the 66:6 mark. Or have you manually altered the duration in order to get that?

Yeah, the songs aren't really that long.. the second track has some silence then a "hidden" bit at the end is all. Had to do it, it's the first album so you've got to do something like that. We like to piss around. It was either that or have one of us doing a bong on it.


4 – “Cthonic Rites” was produced by Jus Oborn, from the now almost legendary stoner doom act, Electric Wizard. How far did the contribution of Jus, helped to evidence the grim atmosphere on the album? Have you enjoyed working with him?

Jus was into our demos and other shit and really wanted to work with us.. cos he was familiar with our demos and into the same stuff as us, the same bands, books, films..he knows what vibes and what sounds we want. It's always been pretty much ideal working with Jus, cos he connects with our stuff like we can, but he's an outsider too so that's where it works well for us.


5 – You currently belong to the label Rise Above, a label that has nothing to prove, thanks to the huge quality of the bands they signed as years passed by. Actually, Orange Goblin, Unearthly Trance, Grand Magus and Electric Wizard, just to name a few, belong to this label. I suppose it must be really great to be in the same label as the above mentioned bands, so I wanted to ask you if you ever imagined, in the beginning of your career, you were going to be signed to a huge label like this, one day?

It's not something we ever really thought about in the beginnings, signing with a label.. but we've known Rise Above for a while, they've always had an interest in us someway or another so once we had a few releases out we knew we'd cross paths at some point. I've always been into the label since the early 90's, they've always put out good music, and it's cool to be keeping company with a lot of great bands.


6 – Along your career, you’ve produced a lot of works, throughout the years, especially from 2003 to 2005. But the almost constant flow of releases dropped a lot between “Cthonic Rites” and “Sub-Templum”. What happened during that time that made you slow down a little, compared to what you used to be?

Everything we did previous to Cthonic Rites we treat as demos, including the small limited split releases. Cthonic Rites was the first time we recorded in a proper studio as opposed to recording at home, and to us was a defining statement of everything we were up to that point. We felt with that album there was no more to be said until the next one, simple as that.


7 – “Sub-Templum” is your newest record, the second full-length and another astonishing slab of cathartic “macrocosmic caveman crust doom”, as you like to call it. Once again, the producer was Jus Oborn and this time, you apparently recorded it at night, in the valleys of Wales and were “inspired by the macabre, masonry, marijuana, Doris "ZORA" Norton and a diet of fucked up horror ala 'Deathline' and 'Last House on Dead End Street'.

Can you tell us a bit of the composition and recording process of “Sub-Templum”?

Writing took a few months, just getting together in the rehearsal space and seeing what sticks and what doesn't. Recording was suprisingly smoooth this time compared to Cthonic Rites..we recorded and mixed CR in 2 days, but we gave ourselves a few more days this time, as we really didn't want to rush things so much. There was a lot with CR that we couldn't do due to time constraints. I really enjoyed working at Foel Studios in Wales, perfect location and atmosphere for our music - it really is in the middle of nowhere. And in the heart of winter, it's the bleakest place on Earth. Fucking awesome place.


8 – It seems that “Sub-Templum” has received a relatively considerable exposition and praise, something that I find quite deserved, given the quality of your most recent output. I’m guessing you’ve received a lot of feedback from it. How are the impressions from the people who talked with you, so far? And most importantly, are you 100% satisfied with the result?

I'd say we're pretty satisfied..there's always things you'd like to go back and change, but that can't be helped. I think it's as good as we could get it at the time.

Impressions are good as far as people I've talked to. I've actually seen quite a lot of bad reviews though, something I didn't see for Cthonic Rites. Being on a bigger label means that a lot of people in the more "mainstream" music press who we didn't reach before are now getting to hear us for the first time, and don't like it. Or are completley bewildered by it. But that's cool I think.


9 – You’ve done some pretty good collaborations with other great bands, such as Nadja and Monarch, also big names on the drone/doom scene. What lead you to choose for example these two bands, among dozens of others, forgetting for a moment their unquestionable quality?

I can't remember the reasons for Nadja, I think that was purely down to the label. I had never heard or heard of them up to that point! Monarch are a good bunch of people, I've known them for several years. We always wanted to share a record together...the 7" we did was cool cos we usually sound quite similar, but you wouldn't know it from listening to that 7".


10 – Yet about the Moss/Monarch split, I’ve noticed you chosen to cover a song from the harcore/punk british legend, Discharge. Monarch, on the other hand, opted to cover a song from the Norwegian punk band, Turbonegro. From where came the idea for both of you to cover punk bands for this split and why have you chosen specifically “Maimed and Slaughtered” from Discharge (which, personally, I think it came out very good, even having to stretch a 1 minute-long-song to 6 minutes)?

We didn't know each others choices for songs, just happened to be that way fortunately! I was listening to 'Why' by Discharge, and started to imagine the riffs slowed down, and they didn't sound very far from what we were doing already. So I yelled the slowed down 'Maimed and Slaughtered' riff at Dom, and we worked on it from there... we did add our own dirgey intro to it, but the rest of the song is pretty faithful to the original, just real slowed down..


11 – This may be a kind of dumb question, considering you released a full-length only 6 months ago, but it wouldn’t be the first nor the last time a band would release two albums on the same year. My question would be, if you have already enough material for a new release, not necessarily an album and what should people expect from the future releases form Moss?

Well we're actually going back to the studio in a couple of weeks to record an EP, which will probably turn out album-length anyway. We've talked about getting dirtier... Sub Templum, whilst by no means "polished", does have this very ceremonial grandness to it... but I think it's time for us to get back into the sewers.

12 – Thank you once again for accepting this interview! Do you have something else to share with the readers?

Not really... just cheers for the interview and keep getting high. Cheers!