When John Baizley and Peter Adams of Baroness were preteens, they played together in a band called Jab.
“We would build stages from two-by-fours and plywood,” guitarist/vocalist Baizley says. “At that point, we hadn’t even seen shows except for on television.”
Chatting on a busy Sunset Blvd in Hollywood, Baizley and Adams have long surpassed the preadolescent days when they would play barn shows to drunken rednecks in rural Virginia. A couple years ago Baroness toured Australia extensively with Metallica and Lamb of God in support of 2009’s Blue Record, an album that also earned them travel miles with Deftones, Mastodon, and Between the Buried and Me. Currently on tour with Meshuggah, Baroness’ current focus has shifted across the color spectrum to Yellow & Green (out July 17th through Relapse), the group’s forthcoming record that feels natural and organic.
Says Baizley, “[Organic] is the base of this band. Organic songwriting. Organic playing. Organic performance.”
Adams chimes in, “We recorded this [album] as straight up as you can record [an album]…there wasn’t anything complicated about it. We just plugged in and hit record.”
We continue our conversation on Yellow & Green, Fugazi, and what it means to stay relevant in the face of change.
Left to right: Peter Adams, John Baizley.
Photos by Dorothy Gilbert