Inspired by Nirvana and Alice in Chains, Andy Gibbs and Matthew Thudium started playing in their teens on a humble thrift-store Squier and an Ibanez GAX series through a Rage 158.
Since forming Thou in 2005 they’ve released six studio albums, countless collaborations, two cover albums – one purely of Nirvana songs – and a video game soundtrack, while pushing the limits of sludge, doom, punk, drone and dark folk.
You’ve said that sixth album Umbilical is grappling with your legacy and DIY punk ideals. What songs would you be proud to show your idealistic younger selves?
Matthew Thudium: “I don’t know their real names – just the funny names we call them. What’s the fast one?”
Andy Gibbs: “I Feel Nothing When You Cry.”
Thudium: “We call it Hedgehog! That one stands up. It’s different because it’s fast but still heavy. Younger us would be, ‘What the hell!?’ But they’d like it, probably.”
Gibbs: “I can picture us sitting around in 2005, super stoned, hearing the first riff from Narcissist’s Prayer and being like, ‘That’s so heavy!’
“When we were younger, and maybe dumber, stripped-down cavemanish riffs were a new concept to us. We were into the most obvious punch-you-in-the-face Dopethrone or High on Fire stuff – big dumb sick awesome huge! We’ve spent so long trying to get away from stoner and doom 101; you can turn it on its head.”
What’s your current set-up?
Gibbs: “I have two Les Pauls: a 2014/15 Gibson and a 1977 Ibanez copy from just before the lawsuit era. The pickups are stock – fuck it, everything we use is stock stuff.”
Thudium: “We don’t modify anything or do anything cool.”
Gibbs: “No fun allowed!”
Thudium: “I’ve played a Flying V forever, but I got a BC Rich Mockingbird Exotic series five years ago. It’s light, plays well and it’s easier to travel with. I wouldn’t mind getting a new one actually…”
Gibbs: “I play a Music Man HD-130 through a Peavey cab. I have an Earthquaker delay/reverb, an extra reverb, a RAT and a tuner. When we travel, we both use a Quilter Overdrive 202.”
Thudium: “I had two 5150s for my whole serious guitar career. They’re amazing – but they kept dying on stage.”
Gibbs: “I had one too, and had the same issue; it would suddenly cut down to half-volume.”
Thudium: “We’ve had to clean them out so many times. But the Quilter is light and easy.”
Gibbs: “Tubes are overrated anyways. And you never know what you’re going to get overseas. Someone will send you a festival amp list and it’ll be a bunch of stuff I don’t want to play. I can’t play through a Marshall JCM – they sound like crap.”
What do you think of bands who play heavy nasty music on boutique brands like Dunable or Electric Guitar Company?
Gibbs: “They’re awesome, but we play stock shit – we couldn’t afford any of that stuff. And what I have is what our band sounds like. If I turned up to practice with an aluminium-necked guitar, it would change the whole thing.”
Thudium: “We would make fun of you too!”
Gibbs: “There was a weird fetishistic gear culture in the 2010s. Bands were getting Model Ts before writing any riffs; they figured if they got the right stuff then the rest would follow. We did the opposite – we had songs and wished we had good equipment.
“Everyone made fun of us for turning up to shows with half-stacks. We opened for Sleep one time and someone took a picture of their huge wall of six 4x12s, and then our little half-stacks set up in front!”
If money was no object, is there any gear you’d love to own?
Thudium: “Every time I think about getting a new guitar, I look in the corner of my apartment and there’s five guitars that each have something wrong with them. I’m like, ‘I could just get that one fixed.’”
Gibbs: “I’d buy a pedal steel, or a harp. Even a Jazzmaster. But not for Thou – it’s all going through a RAT, so if we played nice stuff I don’t think you’d even notice.”
You’ve used extreme drop tunings across the band’s career. How do you keep track?
Gibbs: “Early on, Matthew had the idea for a new tuning for every record.”
Thudium: “Because it’ll make you play differently.”
Gibbs: “We did that for three or four records, but the problem came when it was time to play stuff live. I got sick of having to explain the tunings; I foolishly thought that making a big spreadsheet with all the information would remedy the problem.
“There are five or six different tunings. We started out in drop B like every doom band on earth, but that wasn’t heavy enough. So Matthew dropped the bottom B down to F#. But then we thought, ‘What if we go lower?’
“For Rendon we dropped the three bottom strings to F# and kept the top three in drop B. There was a Heathen tuning where the G and B strings were tuned to the same note. Magus went all the way down to drop E. Matthew was playing a seven-string at the time and I was playing my regular six-string, so we had to do some weird shit there.”
Thudium: “It was a mess!”
What’s the main challenge of continuing to play smaller DIY venues as well as festival stages?
Gibbs: “Sounding halfway good! When we started, sound quality didn’t really matter – we were playing basement shows because we had to. But when we did Heathen, it sucked that no one could hear the choices we’d spent time deliberating on. All I ask is people can hear the choices we’ve made.”
Do songs begin with the riffs first, then get hashed out in practice?
Gibbs: “A hundred percent. We’re awful at writing on the spot. Everything is written at home and brought to practice, and we see if anyone cares.”
Thudium: “Then everyone changes every part of it.”
Gibbs: “But that’s nowadays; back when we had absolute power, it was like, ‘Here’s the song as you will be performing it!’”
Has a year of touring with different bands inspired any new directions or collaborations?
Thudium: “Whenever we play with bands who aren’t necessarily in our genre – like our Midwife set at Roadburn – instead of influencing us it’s like, ‘Well, we’re going to steal that person and collaborate with them!’”
Gibbs: “Whatever conceptual thing or influences are going on in your head, at the end of the day, you sit down with your guitar and write. That’s how Umbilical happened – I played every day until I had stuff that was good enough to bring to practice.”
- Umbilical is on sale via Sacred Bones Records.
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