Legendary Oregon Doomsters YOB have carved their niche in the overcrowded Metal scene and earned their place as one of the greatest Doom bands of all time. Unique vocals and crushingly heavy riffs are their trademark. After their original run, releasing four albums, YOB hung it up and mainman Mike Sheidt formed MIDDIAN. After signing with Metal Blade and releasing one album, there was some controversy and MIDDIAN was dropped from their label, forced to change their name to AGE ETERNAL and ultimately disbanded. However, as the spirit of a truly passionate musician cannot be crushed, Mike reformed YOB at the end of 2008 and in 2009, YOB made their triumphant return to the stage and released their fifth album, "The Great Cessation", on Profound Lore.

Tell us about the circumstances behind the YOB reunion.

"Well, at the end of the lawsuit for the band name that cannot be named, I'd been thinking in the back of my mind about doing a YOB record and we tossed around becoming YOB from, let's say, AGE ETERNAL. We considered, 'okay, we have to come up with a new name; maybe we'll be YOB', but we'd already been through so much that it seemed like we'd it seemed like we deserved our own history and so we changed our name from the band name that shall not be named to AGE ETERNAL and I was considering doing a YOB record on the side, which in my mind are different approaches and as it worked out, Travis (drums) had been thinking, he had contacted me and said 'man, it'd be fun if we did a YOB reunion show' and I say 'you know, I've been thinking about doing a record' and he's like, 'yeah, let's do it!' And so, it was going to be just me and him, but then Will (MIDDIAN/AGE ETERNAL's bass guitarist) moved away and joined WOLVES IN THE THRONE ROOM and Scott moved to Idaho to pursue a career and all of a sudden what was going to be my priority, AGE ETERNAL, became YOB again."

Tell us how Aaron (bass) came to join the band.

"We had tried out one bass player and it didn't work out. Travis had mentioned Aaron might be a really good choice and he'd been playing with Aaron in a couple of bands for many years and so they already had a really good connection. I thought, 'all right, that's a good thing' and I've known Aaron for a lot of years, too. Both Aaron and Dustin are brothers and really good friends of ours. We've been friends with them for many, many years, so we asked him if he wanted to try out, he said yea, he came into practice and played four songs from beginning to end. And we said 'well, okay - that's pretty much all we need to know.'"

How much of the new record ("The Great Cessation") was written by yourself and how much was written with Travis and Aaron?

"I had two songs completely written by myself and then other songs… I mean, our process pretty much involves me being away from the band and writing material and then I bring the material that I've written to the band and it's pretty much almost always arranged in kind of a semi-final format and then we play it. Then we figure out whether it works and pretty much, for me, if something doesn't click within one jam, within one practice, then we bag it. It has to be immediate, it has to be something that just hits us immediately and if it does and we're jamming and immediately rockin' and you can just feel it, then okay, this is something we can work. And then I'll take it back to the drawing board and we'll jam it out and figure out how we're going to play it, but that's pretty much how it is."

Was there any awkward transition getting back in the YOB groove from the AGE ETERNAL vibe?

"No. No. In fact, if anything, AGE ETERNAL felt awkward. There were lots of things that were really fun about that band, but it was a lot of work and YOB is not work - YOB is easy. It's easy for me, so it felt just like slipping back into old, comfortable shoes."

How was it getting back into the studio?

"Easy once again. Travis and I just have a really great chemistry and we're better players and years have gone by and we rehearsed really hard getting ready for the studio. For once I wasn't in a producer role - I was in a player role. We had Sanford Parker with us to be more in the producer role and so we were able to really step up and do our thing and it was the most effortless studio recording I've ever done."

Tell us about any new elements you may have brought into the music.

"I think we got darker and I think we have a new level of cohesiveness as a band that definitely had an effect on everything that we do. It's a lot of fun; there's no pressure. As far as new song elements - I'm not very good with that. I mean, I kind of know in my mind what we're shooting for, but it's almost like it's up to other people in a way what the new elements are and whether it's as good or whatever. I don't even think about that too much. I think that we did what I wanted to do, which was come up with five new songs that stood on their own in our catalog and that had a new vibe compared to past vibes, so it's a different record with a different vibe and a different sound, even though it's still recognizably us and that's what I wanted, so we did it."

I remember you posting a blog on your previous band's MySpace page saying something about how you couldn't do the harsh vocals anymore.

"Yeah, it's become harder. And it's not that I can't do them, it's rather that I want the quality of all the vocals to be strong and what I find is that if I just did clean vocals or I just did harsh, screaming roars, I could build both of those to be very, very strong, but because I have to do both at the same time, they kind of tear each other down and particularly when we're doing shows where there could be multiple successions of shows and in the past, I've always had to kind of stumble through that stuff with the clean vocals in particular because I just harshed out my throat. So we're exploring having another vocalist potentially or having it be done within the band so that I can really build the clean vocals because it's a very strong part of who we are and for me not to be able to hit certain things live because I've destroyed my voice the night before… it's just not right. It's not right to what we do and I know that if I just focused on clean and had somebody else doing roars, as long as they do them at least as good as I do or better and I'm sure that's very possible, undeniably probable, then it should just make us a stronger band."

I'm glad you'd be concentrating on the clean vocals, especially given how unique your vocal style is.

"Yeah. I mean, that's the idea. A lot of the arrangements we'll still do together, but undeniably it's one thing that sets us apart and for me to destroy it for our live sets doesn't make any sense."

How have the shows been since YOB's comeback?

"Overwhelmingly amazing to where it's just weird. There's so much support for the band and on average, we're getting very regular offers to be flown around, which is what's going to happen when we do the Scion fest and when we did Planet Caravan and when we go do Roadburn and that was not available to us four years ago, so now we're getting just shit tons of offers from all over the world practically every day. And we just really don't want to do it . (laughter) Honestly. We don't want to be a product - we want to be a band that plays music and writes albums. We don't want to harsh our families anymore, we don't want to harsh the ability to make a living anymore, which is what we've done and is what many bands do and I understand why bands do it and respect it. For us, it's we have kids and families and responsibilities that… I mean, a tour is three months, but your family is the rest of your life and a tour also is three months and an album is forever. So our focus is writing the best record that we can and then we'll do what we can. And we're trying to get to places - we'll to Atlanta for this, we'll get to San Francisco, we'll get to Seattle, okay we'll go and play in Holland and at some point, maybe we'll fly to London and maybe we'll do these things here and there, so that people who really want to see us, okay, the Atlantic doesn't separate us anymore. It's this, but we're not going to be some band that's trying to become the next Guitar Hero song, you know? We're going to stay cult. For lack of a better description"

And it will also help, like with AGALLOCH, their shows - it's not just a show; it's an event.

"Right."

And that will really help you there.

"We'll see. We don't have any pretense to that - we just know what we can do and we know what's going to make us happy. In a perfect world, every musician's art would support them, but that's not the reality. How many studio engineers are there that are totally hand to mouth, you know? That's it - people don't do it because they're getting rich, (both at the same time) they do it because they love it. And I think if a person forgets that, then what burns people out isn't what they love, it's all the other bullshit that goes with trying to make it a career. That's what burns people out."

How are things going with Profound Lore so far?

"They're amazing. Chris Bruni's amazing, Profound Lore is amazing - it is an artist's label. His collection of bands is astounding and we feel very fortunate to even be associated. Undeniably."

Now deviating a little bit, recommend a book for our readers and tell them why.

"I have to recommend two. I'll do it quickly - one, for the darker side of me, is Edward Lee's 'Infernal Angel', but it's really 'City Infernal' and 'Infernal Angel'. Both just incredibly over the top horror novels based on descents into hell."

I'm going to have to check those out.

"Edward Lee. He is a mean, mean, mean writer - he is one of my all-time favorites. On the other side of it, Gangaji, 'The Diamond in Your Pocket', which is one of the most down to earth… I hate to use the word spiritual, but let's go ahead and use it, book about how to untangle your mind and it is refreshingly modern. She's Western, her teachers were Eastern, it's from the lineage of Ramana Maharshi, which is one of the most celebrated, not even spiritual beings, but somebody who was just uncluttered with mind and mind stuff and was present. She is that. She is from that lineage, but she's one of us - she's not an Easterner, so she understands our brains and how we work and as far as just reading for somebody who wants to get in and figure out how not to suffer as much on this planet, that's a good one to read."

What are the plans for the immediate future of YOB?

"Rehearsal. Rehearsal, rehearsal, And we have a show on January 29 in Portland with BLOODY PANDA and ATRIARCH and that's going to be a pretty awesome night of Doom. It's going to be awesomew. Then it's Scion fest and Roadburn and we're just going to focus on writing. Write new material and that's pretty much it. Like I said, we're not ambitious, we don't have ambition - we just wanna write some good records and we appreciate the underground from within the crowd as opposed to on the stage. You know, we're going to shows rather than playing the shows. Aaron and Travis and I are going to shows pretty frequently - them more than me, but my kids and everything is kind of a limit, but we're really very much always cut from the same cloth as the people that are in our crowd and there's no seperation."

Speaking of a future record, when can we expect a new YOB record and are there any songs actually written for it already?

"Tons of riffs. Right now, it's more about nailing a vibe. A new vibe for a new record and then everything else will take care of itself. If the vibe and the vision and the atmosphere is there, then everything else will be there and so, I'm just trying to figure that out, but yeah, we have stuff we're working on for sure. End of next year, realistically. Next year for sure."

Beyond the short term plans, what are the long term plans for YOB?

"None. Zero. Zilch. No long term plans. Moment to moment, you know - we truly have no idea what is going to happen. The next record could be our last record, there could be four after it. We've had lots of really weird offers, like very large, grandiose offers that didn't materialize, but may still. And things that are too grandiose to even mention in an interview other than to say (that) if it happens, it'll blow people away. Us foremostly."

You're opening for TOOL, aren't you? (laughs)

"I cannot say what's happening or not happening, 'cause either way, it could go. But at the end of the day, we are just trying to keep ourselves grinning and content and staying true to what we do."

Is there any possibility that at a future time you could secure the rights for the "Age Eternal" record and reprinting it under that band name on your own?

"Very doubtful. Very doubtful. I wish I could go into that more, but I don't know. You know, I understand what they (Metal Blade) did and why they did it and they could've held us accountable for their legal fees and didn't. I mean, by law, they could have indemnified us and they didn't. They cut us loose as a business decision and I understand that from the business side and yeah, we wish they'd have gone to bat for us."

Yeah, but at the same time, I would say it's their legal mistake in the first place because they should have made sure that that name (MIDDIAN) was not trademarked and obviously, they didn't.

"No and the thing is, the other band was so under the radar when we did our searches, we never found them. So it was a learning experience for everybody. Learn from our lessons, (laughs) our hard lessons. You know, as far as labels go, they treated us very well. Up until the end. And even then, like I said, they could have been slimy, they could have been L.A. They could've and they didn't. So, as much as I'm disappointed with how things went and how they didn't fight for us, at the same time, they within themselves made a separation of what they were gonna do and what they weren't gonna do. And they still, in the end, were friendly to us. And that is me taking the half-full perspective. It is. Our bassist from AGE ETERNAL would very much take the half-empty perspective with some gusto, but both are true."

Is there anything else you'd like to add?

"Just thanks to everybody who's still supporting us - we're incredibly fortunate and lucky." [FIN]