Interview: Electric Wizard’s Jus Oborn on weed, satan, and the band’s first North American tour in a decade

Electric Wizard have always existed on the periphery, a highly-influential stoner doom band relegated to cult status. That all seems poised to change, however, as the UK band are about to embark on a sold-out North American tour for the first time in nearly a decade.

With songs centered around massively sludgy down-tuned riffs, expounding on themes of horror, weird fantasy, the occult, and weed, Electric Wizard have remained consistent over the course of eight albums, including fan favourites like 1998’s Come My Fanatics… and 2000’s landmark Dopethrone.

Despite early critical success, the band struggled with constant line-up changes over the years and became embroiled in a complicated legal morass with their former label Rise Above Records, with the label threatening to prohibit the band from releasing any further music. That still-simmering situation resulted in the band forming their own imprint, Witchfinder Records, distributed through the UK’s Spinefarm Records, to release 2014’s Time To Die album. Written and recorded while the band’s future was in doubt from their ongoing legal situation, the album is the band’s angriest yet, with vocalist / guitarist Jus Oborn describing it as “negative and horrible” (in the best way possible).

We caught up with Jus to chat about weed, record collector nerds, and the band’s plans for the upcoming tour, which includes a long sold-out Montreal stop at Virgin Mobile Corona Theatre on April 4th. For all upcoming tour dates, visit http://www.electricfuckinwizard.com/.

You’re about to start your first North American tour in almost a decade, what’s taken you so long to get back here?

Quite a few reasons, but one of the main ones is I’ve had a few visa problems over the years, so I’ve had to go through quite a few hoops to do it, it’s always been a pain in the ass. It’s always been hard getting into the States, it’s a big operation, and every time we go to do it, we get too lazy and never finish it, you know?

It must be vindicating that the shows have been selling out so fast, was that surprising to you guys?

It’s awesome. I guess we were holding on and hoping that it would at least work. We’re definitely pleased about it.

Do you have weed hookups in each city already?

Uh, well like 90% of them. We kind of tried to stay in cities where I know we could hook up. And so, we should be OK. Unfortunately, that’s why we’re not playing too many in the South.

That dirt weed wrecks my balls man! I have that shit.

I heard you had a good story about crossing into Canada a few years back, what happened there?

Ha! It was a bit difficult last time, we were refused our visas, so we had to kind of say we were going to see the House of Frankenstein up in Niagara Falls, which they kind of believed because we looked like a bunch of freaks. And then we just hopped on the tour bus like a mile down the road and just started crossing our fingers.

Did you get to see the House Of Frankenstein?

Yeah, it was with Enslaved actually, the early black metal band that are still going. And to be honest, it was the most terrifying thing we ever did, we came out screaming like schoolgirls!

Getting on to the new record, Time To Die, what was it like recording this record with all the legal troubles surrounding the band at the time?

Um, I mean, it was a fucking pain. All you want to do is record music, and when you try to record it, you can’t. You can’t fucking hold on for fucking assholes to get their shit together. It was a real nightmare, you know? The important thing was to get the music recorded. All that other stuff is torture. I don’t want to have to deal with any of that crap, but I don’t want to get shafted up my ass the rest of my life. So you’ve got to deal and decide when you’re going to at least start a battle to like regain your rights and shit, you know?

Did all that negative energy find its way onto the album?

Oh yeah, definitely. It’s hard for me to listen to now.

It’s spewing with like, hatred and negativity. It’s a really negative and horrible record, but in many ways that’s cool.

We moved up to a bigger label and I think there was a fear from people that we were going to become commercial. I’m proud of it.

Were you going for that raw production this time around?

In many ways it was a circumstance of the recording. You can’t beat those kinds of idiosyncrasies of raw recording, you know?

Are you satisfied with the way everything resolved itself with Rise Records?

Um, things haven’t played themselves out legally yet, so to speak. We’ll let the crucifixions be done publicly.

The band has gone through a number of lineup changes, how long does it take you to settle in with a new member?

It’s never an easy thing. I hope we can pick the right people and keep things running as smoothly as possible, you know? I mean, you do know what you’re looking for, as you’ve been doing it for quite a while. You hope the transitions aren’t too painful for anyone, ha! I mean, you’re trying to keep the spirit of the band very true, so you don’t need too many wildcards coming into the band, everyone has to stick to the plan. People come in and they want to bring in their own stamp and identity, but then on one level, it’s still Electric Wizard, you know?

You’ve said that Electric Wizard could still continue if you weren’t in the band, do you still feel that way?

Ha well, I was just joking, but you don’t necessarily have to have me be a part of it, I think its become its own fucking beast sometimes. I’d say that to try and escape.

Do you feel that style you pioneered is living on outside the band now?

It’s hard to say, you know? I think the style has become quite, um, emulateable, right now, ha. I think there’s certain bands who really define their own styles that almost become like parodies of themselves eventually. It’s not easy, you know? We’ve done quite a few albums, and I hope we can still offer someone good quality music and still move forward in some way, but without changing that much.

There’s something to be said for having a consistent style though.

Yeah, I mean it’s hard, how many people want their favourite band to change? Slayer, Sabbath, Iron Maiden, people are like fucking furious when they try and move on.

People don’t want to hear a band like Motörhead change their style.

Yeah, exactly. I don’t!

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