I feel that progressive metal, like a lot of sub-genres, gets brushed under the contextual carpet far too often. Especially living in a country like South Africa, where it seems there isn't even room for sub-genres; let alone independent classification. Few bands these days push these boundaries, adding an array of musical influences into one exotic, uncharted sound, So is The Tongue was an experimental progressive metal band from New Jersey, formed in the fall of 2005.
Ron Varod was essentially the glue that held So Is The Tongue together, along with help from friends Matt Nolan, Justin Thouret, Alex Levey and Greg Meisenberg along the way. Releasing 2 full-length records; 'Torpid & Blight' in 2007 (with a vinyl reissue in 2009), and 'A Child Of Divorce' in 2012, -just before proceeding onto an "indefinite hiatus", So Is The Tongue got to tour their home country a handful of times before potentially calling it quits.
I was fortunate enough to speak with Ron about the interesting history behind So Is The Tongue, and his recent venture into the epic avant-metal world of Kayo Dot.
1) Crafted with great artistry and wrath, So is the Tongue's music is as intense as it is ardent. How did So Is The Tongue get together? And what is the meaning behind it's puzzling name?
Ron Varod: Post high-school, I spent about 2 years jamming with lots of random people from the internet around New Jersey. I actually had the basis of the first 2 tracks off of our first record brewing in my brain, and my goal was to find a band to help me flesh those ideas out.
The first line-up on these 2 songs consisted of our original bassist Matt Nolan, and a drummer named Phil. We jammed with Phil for a summer before he got too busy and I found our original drummer Justin Thouret on a new jersey musician message board.
When the band started I was really into These Arms Are Snakes, and did a lot of googling to find an equally long obnoxious artsy band name. “So is the Tongue” is from a passage from the new testament, I was more into the way it looked on paper and the way it sounded then what it meant. I still have people that make fun of it and say we’re a Christian band.
2) Would it be safe to assume that you are So is the Tongue's primary song writer? How does writing usually play out during a typical rehearsal?
RV: Yes, the band started with me coming in with 2 song skeletons with some meat on them. There were a few times in the early days where Matt or Justin had an idea for a riff or something that we would jam on. Most of those didn’t really have a direction, just a cool melodic Idea. I was inspired and writing all the time so it was just more productive for me to bring song skeletons into rehearsal, everyone mostly wrote their own parts and we all worked on the fine details together.
3) Your debut LP titled 'Torpid & Blight' was released in 2007, flourishing a fine blend of avant-garde, progressive rock and even metal influence. Thinking back, can you tell me about the recording process? How long did it all take to polish?
RV: Torpid & Blight was tinkered with for about 2 years taking a lot of breaks. We did all the drums at the jam room in Howell, New Jersey, then did everything else with our friend “Asian” Steve Ryan mostly at his house. None of us had ever recorded a record before, Steve included.
We spent a lot of time detailing the mix, and adding weird effects before a lot of instruments and vocals were even tracked. Lots of re-tracking guitars and vocals during the mixing process as well. We would spend hours on mixing something, then come back and decide we wanted to do some other weird overdub and put it an octave down and reverse it, and it would change the whole mix!
Steve got the gig of assistant engineer on The Dillinger Escape Plan’s Ire Works, so we decided we needed to finish Torpid & Blight before he left to do their record, otherwise we probably would have tweaked it for another 2 years.
4) When writing lyrics, did you find that there were frequently visited subjects or did you tend to branch out in topic more often? What did those subjects typically deal with?
RV: I don’t consider myself a very good lyricist and it’s always been a struggle for me, even ever since my first band when I was 13. It could be seen as the lazy path, but I usually come up with a vocal melody (or a rhythm for yelling stuff) first and then fit words into that.
I intend most of the songs to be about something from my personal life but the vocal melodies usually call for other consonants and vowels that don’t have to do with the subject matter, so each song will have a couple of lines that don’t usually make sense to me but I think fit really well musically.
5) As a guitarist and song writer, would you care to list some of your early influences on So is the Tongue, compared to what influences you today?
RV: I think one band that really made me shift gears was Cleric. Their old band 3rd Rail was more of a really typical heavy band but when they shedded one of their guitarists, they changed their name to Cleric and started to go off into the deep end. I thought that only certain musicians were allowed to make music like that, so it was super inspiring to see my friends make really mind bending creative music.
At the time, I was still really into Glassjaw and a lot of other music from high school. Lots of Khanate too. I was obsessed with Kayo Dot after seeing them open for The Dillinger Escape Plan and Colin Marston’s old band, Infidel ? / Castro! (which Keith, now of Kayo Dot, played drums for).
I still love most of that music, but I might have become an old man since then, and listen to less and less aggressive music in my off time, like Anna Calvi and Telefon Tel Aviv and as I have my whole music listening life - massive amounts of Pink Floyd.
6) Top 5 favourite albums of 2012?
- Fiona Apple – The Idler Wheel
- Dysrhythmia – Test of Submission
- Scott Walker – Bish Bosch
- Converge – All We Love We Leave Behind
- Emily Peal - Fine Fur Coat
RV: I found ‘Torpid & Blight’ to be a little bit too eclectic. Each song was jam packed with 100 different ideas that never really got the chance to breathe. Also, most of that album was first conceived with a much larger grandiose ensemble in mind. I thought I was going have a band with keys and electronics, but instead I ended up with a standard rock trio. There was supposed to be a B-Side alternate version of “After the Peel” that was more like my original idea for the band, lots of weird sampling and effects.
With 'A Child of Divorce', I became comfortable with having a rock trio setup and wrote specifically for that, and especially with Justin’s drumming style in mind. Alex Levey, our 2nd bassist came in with a very different and more aggressive, yet clean and technical approach, and then things really started to come together like they were sounding in my head.
Again the lyrics for this album were about vague personal things, but musically I put a lot of effort into the flow and arc of the record, whereas the first album was just a collection of songs we had at the time. The 3 instrumental-interlude tracks also have similar motifs that I think helped tie everything together as well.
8) As a new addition to the Kayo Dot sect, could you tell me about how that began? And how did you feel about the transition in song writing from So Is The Tongue to Kayo Dot?
RV: Kayo Dot had been by far my favorite band for years before joining, I’m pretty much like Marky Mark right now in that movie where he joins that band with Zakk Wylde. Anyway.
I subbed for a Kayo Dot show back in 2006, then another in 2010, and then a winter tour in 2011. I always thought I was just a sub, and I was happy to do so cause I love the guys and the music. After that winter tour, the show/tour offers kept rolling in, and I don’t think it clicked in my head that I was a member of Kayo Dot until fall 2012 when we started talking about making a new record.
Toby Driver is the main song writer in the band but I was surprised how democratic it was, not too much unlike So is the Tongue where we all worked on the arrangements together. Terran, Dan, Tim and Toby are assigned horn arrangements on a per song basis. I mostly learned and interpreted guitar parts that Toby wrote, and I helped arrange rhythm section stuff with Keith and Toby. I actually wrote all of the guitar parts for this long piano ballad off the new record that I'm super proud of.
9) On your facebook page, the latest status update reads as follows: "Right now we're on a little bit of a hiatus until further notice or until Coachella offers us fat stacks of money to re-unite". What initiated the hiatus? Was it partially due to your recent input to Kayo Dot, or was it due to a drifting apart in differences within members?
RV: In 2012 alone, the lineup for So Is The Tongue changed twice. After Justin was fired from the band I was left as the only original member and the only person who wrote the songs to any extent. The vibe of rehearsals and shows was not a positive one. We had an extremely unsuccessful (financially and otherwise) week-long southern tour in August that I think really killed it for me personally.
Nobody seemed to have the same excitement and commitment for the project, or the same goals. I think if I didn’t have Kayo Dot to fall back onto I might’ve pushed So Is The Tongue for a little longer, to try and keep the band together. But between Kayo Dot, and the solo gigs I was doing as Zvi, I realized I didn’t really need to have So is the Tongue to stay musically active, so I decided to put it to rest for now.
10) As for the last question, and besides the aforementioned Coachella proposal, would you ever consider reuniting So Is The Tongue? Or, what are the possibilities of a new release at some stage?
RV: I actually had a lot of ideas for a high energy So Is The Tongue EP that I wanted to work on, but the vibe with the last line-up just wasn’t there, so I never tried to work on those songs with them. I think if I found people that would be into working on that, and if there was funding for a recording somehow - I’d be really into revisiting those ideas again.
For now, I’m pretty content with the amazing Kayo Dot record we've just recorded, and I'm also working on a solo record of stuff I’ve been playing around town since I moved to Brooklyn last September. But actually, doing this interview has made me wanna futz around with some of those raw ideas I never got to finish, so maybe you sparked something there, and I'll bring So Is The Tongue back from the dead - just with new organs.
Thanks to Ron for answering my questions, and thanks to anyone reading!
Catch up with So is the Tongue here, and stream or purchase their albums here.
Ron has also just recorded a new 3xLP with Kayo Dot, which is planned to drop in autumn 2013. You can preview the album here, and pre-order "HUBARDO" here.
