Think you work hard? Try talking to Phillip Cope, guitarist and vocalist with psychedelic sludge titans Kylesa. Since the release of last year’s ‘Static Tensions’ catapulted them into the wider metal consciousness, they’ve done nothing but tour. When asked about the plans after their European trek with Converge, Phillip admits, “We’re gonna go home, and we’re gonna take a couple weeks off, and in that time I’m going to produce some records for some other bands. And then, we’re going to go back on tour.” And somehow among that, they’re going to write, record, and release the follow up to ‘Static Tensions’ as well. Not that Phillip isn’t relishing the extra activity, adding; “I love playing live. I wouldn’t say it’s an easy way [to survive], it’s actually an incredibly hard way. But we like doing it.”

Kylesa’s stirring and monolithically heavy muscle is built around the ultra-down -tuned, psychedelic stoner riffing that’s been propelled into heart-beating double-time territory by the use of two drummers. An innovation, Phillip says, that was planned from the start. “We had really wanted to do that from the beginning” he continues, “but we were a young band starting out, we could barely fit in a van as it was, and fit in a lot of spaces we were playing. It wasn’t feasible. When we decided we might be able to pull it off, a few years down the line, we started trying it”. Trying it. That’s the key phrase when you talk about Kylesa. When you might talk to other artists, who could talk for weeks about their latest concept, Phillip won’t chew your ear off about that latest theme Kylesa have, because this is a band who thrive on instinct and innovation. “When we started at the very beginning, we told each other we wouldn’t put a limit on what we could write or do” Phillip reveals, as doors backstage slam and one of the Kylesa drummers warms up on his own thighs with a few mild thumps. “Ideas are always open, we listen to each other’s ideas, even if it’s something new we haven’t done before. That may seem a little weird, but if that’s what you personally want to do, then the band should be your outlet.”
 
As you might expect, this is a band who live on jamming. They even used to jam live, which must have been a mouth-watering sight, as well as a suitable hot bed for experimentation; a process Phillip describes as “a pain in the ass”, but which yields interesting results right from their self-titled debut, right through to their upcoming newie. Unsurprisingly, given their style of working, Phillip can only say the album has a loose theme of distance, and as for the writing process, when Soundshock asked if it was a case of letting the music take the lead, and take them where it will, Phillip emphatically agrees. “That’s exactly what happened. ‘Static Tensions’ did really well, so it’d be a smart bet to keep up writing something along those lines, but you know, we just had to write what we felt, and it definitely came out being a bit different.”

And different is certainly what they are. The only real comparison is Baroness, a connection Phillip is quick to clarify. “What a lot of people have to understand is that we’ve been around a lot longer than Baroness. It was a Kylesa show that influenced John to form Baroness. I don’t know why more people don’t know that, but we’re not influenced by Baroness. It’s the other way round [chuckles]. They’ve taken their whole thing, and I don’t think now we’re much of an influence, but when they started out, we were.” This, by the way, is said in a modest quiet voice. As you might expect, Kylesa prefer to let the music do the talking.

‘Static Tensions’ is out now on Prosthetic