Sleep guitarist and High on Fire frontman Matt Pike recently joined an interview with Full Metal Jackie’s radio program and discussed his current works. Pike detailed the recording process of the song he created with Mastodon’s Brent Hinds and called it a ‘weird’ one.
Matt Pike has also focused on solo works besides his contributions to High on Fire and Sleep. In February, the rocker released his first solo album, self-titled ‘Pike vs. The Automaton.’ His friend Jon Reid, Tragedy guitarist Todd Burdette, and wife Alyssa contributed to this album.
Mastodon’s Brent Hinds was among these names who became a part of Pike’s album. Hinds has participated in other musicians’ works as a guest. His most recent contribution became Pike’s new album. The duo created the piece named ‘Land’ for the album.
In a recent conversation, Matt Pike detailed the creation process of ‘Land’ when the interviewer pointed out his inspiration from his mother and his connection with the song. Pike stated that he remembered his mother’s country-western dancing and took inspiration from this scene’s sound while writing the track with his wife. As Pike explained, when he went to the garage where they recorded, Brent learned the tunes; however, they could not continue for a while because of COVID-19.
Pike explained his connection with the song:
“My mom used to do country-western dancing, line dancing, and two-step, and I guess I just remembered it for my kid, but then I was picturing it, and I wrote the tune with my wife on the couch. I went out in the garage to like record vocals on it started coming out well.
Brent was out here, and he learned a bunch of tunes that I had, but then COVID really hit and the shutdowns, so we couldn’t continue that adventure until recently. So the two-step thing was something my mother used to do, and I kept picturing Motown sounding vocals with a lot of reverb like you’re at the bottom of a subway with a bunch of soul guys.”
As the rocker added, he created the tune and sent Brent telling him to put lap steel guitar. Pike himself did the solos; Brent also put Gibbons-style, using Leslie Hammond’s organ on the piece. As the musician mentioned, his wife Alyssa put screams and played the bass for the song. Pike said that this became a weird collaboration he ever made with all that.
The rocker continued:
“I got the tune together, and then I ended up sending it to Brent. I said to put some lap steel guitar, I’ll do the first solo, and you take it to the end. He put a ripping Billy Gibbons-style thing on it. I’m proud of that song. It’s one of the weirder ones that I’ve co-written with other people. We put a Leslie Hammond organ on it. My wife Alyssa plays that, and she plays on another track on the album where she screams and plays bass. That girl’s got some lungs.”
You can listen to the song below.
