Interviews    Volume
by Chris Barnes

Right smack in the middle of the suburban Orange County bedroom community of Fountain Valley, CA., there is a psychedelic revolution going on. Volume have upped the ante on Blue Cheer and MC5 in the frenzied wah-n'-hearing damage department. With their latest EP, Requesting Permission to Land due to be released soon, Volume find themselves in the position of bringing supercharged fuzz to a new generation of heads. Hellride Music talks with Volume vocalist/guitarist Patrick Brink about the new album, their eternally missing bass player and why they won't play my wedding.


Hellride Music: Well, I have the latest from Volume blaring from my stereo right now on a sunny Friday afternoon. The neighbors hate me... this is damn good. Harkens back to a more unpretentious time in rock n' roll when everything wasn't so marketing driven. Just three dudes and their instruments and a hell of a lot of noise. Where do you guys derive your sound and who in the annals of rock history would you call an influence?

Patrick Brink: See you got us all wrong we are all about the marketing man, but don't tell anyone..I mean we teamed up with Britney Spear's and Creed's marketing department and they told us heavy Rock was coming back so we are trying our best to get on this bandwagon. For reference points they sent us to a few stoner sites Hellride was one of them of course. But we decided we would go further and in searching we found out about a band name Sabbath and others, like Blue Cheer, MC5 and the Stooges. The ones that seemed like people would think were hip are the ones we studied, which hopefully will make us look cool by being able to name drop. It's starting to work I think. You even mentioned one of them in your review..... Seriously though the noise and edge all comes from our backgrounds. We all grew up listening to punk at sometime and still do. Black Flag is a huge influence as well as stuff like early Sonic Youth. All of us draw inspirations from the greats like the ones I mentioned above; Sabbath, MC5, Cheer but personally without the early SST bands I don't think I would be writing the way I write today they were all so good and so different- DC3, Wurm, SWA, Vitus that shit kicked ass.

Hellride Music: Does your drummer take speed? It kinda sounds like it or it's that and he channels the ghost of Keith Moon. Aside from the drummer who else is in the band? Whose the guy that's laying down the organ chords on the 3rd and 4th tracks? That's a nice touch.. and "Make Believe" was recorded and mixed on acid. True or false?

Patrick: The drummer we have now does. Just fucking with you Tom. The drummer on the record is actually Scott Reeder from Fu/Smile. VOLUME's history is sorta plagued like Slow Horse, but everything seems to be really the right combination of people now minus the bass player. We haven't had a Bass player in 5
years. All our shows are two guitars and drums but it still works. But back to the question I know I ramble just be glad this was done with email-haha.. anyways, the band is Tom Owsley- drums, Jayson Christensen- Lead guitar, and me - vocals/guitar. Brent Brandon who I met through a mutual friend laid down the organ and keys. And false to the last question....it's just residual flashbacks that I call upon from time to time. It's really a unique gift I have.

Hellride Music: Tell us a bit about the CD that will be released on High Beam records in June of this year (God willing). Where was it recorded and how long did it take? How did you hook up with Jeb from High Beam and how much coke and how many hookers did it take for you guys to get signed?

Patrick: The record was recorded over a period of 6 days between June and Nov. 2001 It was supposed to be back to back weekends, but shit happened. First off we jammed w/ Scott a few times before we went in, and actually make believe we only jammed it the night before. The basic tracks went fairly smooth but when I
went to do vocals my voice bit it hard. Mike's studio, The Distillery in Costa Mesa, is usually booked all the time so we had to wait two months before we could get back in there. When we finally got around to mixing shit happened again. I got a call from my wife who said that the ambulance was on their way to my house because my youngest daughter was having massive seizures. So I hung up the phone and left with barely an
explanation to the guys. I floored it and met the ambulance arriving to my house. She had to be hospitalized a few days and we've since been learning about Epilepsy which is what she has been diagnosed as having. After everything somewhat settled down we got back in the studio and finished mixing the following week. The CD EP is part of a Trilogy it started w/ our 7" Check This Planet I'm Gone... and will end with our full length. For the most part The songs are about really personal stuff - "Headswim" is about dealing with my fathers death -, but the way I write people are always thinking I'm talking about different stuff. I usually try to write lyrics that have multiple meanings so that the song isn't so literal. That way people can interpret the lyrics however they want.

We hooked up with Jeb on the strength of our 7" Check This Planet I'm Gone that came out in October of '98. It got a bunch of good reviews and helped us get fans from places like Japan, and Germany which never would have happened without the internet. I can't give you a total on the coke because he has a running tab.
The guy needs it though, he runs a label, booking agent, website, management, and a flower shop. Its just a bitch getting it through customs, so we ship it in Limp Bisquick CDs since they are such crap, and that way the dogs can't sniff out the coke.

Hellride Music: What's it like playing this kind of furious fuzz in the rock wasteland of Southern California? It looks like the scene is picking up a bit, but it's nothing like it appears to be on the
East Coast of the U.S. and in certain Northern European countries. Your thoughts please.

Patrick: Yeah I would say that the East Coast scene is definitely healthier, but its not too bad playing this breed of rock in SoCal. It can always be better. The majority of people are into pop/nu metal so it makes it hard to get a huge crowd at shows, but it is picking up. We've been trying to bring together a sense of community around here by putting on free shows w/ other bands that are on a similar trip....

Hellride Music: Will Volume be playing any of the fuzz-related fests this year? Will you be touring at all to support the album once it's released?

Patrick: We are already confirmed to do SHOD IV and in the process of trying to put together some shows up the West Coast all the way to Washington. We can't be the roadhogs we would like to be due to commitments like Family, school and work, but we are gonna try and do as many weekend and 4 day jaunts as possible.

Hellride Music: I live roughly 45 minutes from you guys yet have never seen you live, mostly because I'm busy as shit. If I asked you guys to play at my wedding, would you?

Patrick: No because you probably wouldn't show and we wouldn't want to be responsible for that......

Hellride Music: What are you guys listening to currently?

Patrick: Besides the ringing in my ears lately I have been digging 500 FT Of Pipe, The Jayhawks and Black Flag. Tom's been listening to the new O. Goblin and ATP. Jason is listening to MC5 as usual and he had my 500 ft of Pipe for a long time....

Hellride Music: Have any members of Volume seen or taken part in eel porn?

Patrick: I've heard about it but thought it was urban legend. What I've heard though is that Morrey is the Ron Jeremy of the industry with big fat, ugly and fucked up teeth. So what's it like? Is that why you never make it to our shows too addicted to eels or what?...

Hellride Music: What's next for the band?

Patrick: We are making a video to send off to specialty shows and it will be on the US release in October on
Horns Up Records!!! We are also hammering out the songs for our full length album which we plan on recording fairly soon.

Hellride Music: Thanks for the interview...much appreciated. Any last thoughts to leave us with?

Patrick: Thanks for the killer review and interview just let me know how many Limp Bisquick CDs we have to send. All we can do is write what we write and hopefully people will dig what we are doing. And don't be shy go to our website and sign the damn guestbook. SUPPORT THE HEAVY ROCK!!!!!!!!

Read the Hellride Music review of Requesting Permission to Land

Visit the Volume website at http://members.tripod.com/~VOLUME4/

Copyright 2002 HellrideMusic.com
Interview by Chris Barnes