One thing that can be said about metal fans is that they don't tend to sell short the objects of their affections. Dax Riggs once helmed the cult metal heroics of Acid Bath, a band that sold over 100,000 copies of their records before succumbing to "poor communication, drug addiction, and ultimately the death of Audie Pitre, the bass player" (from the band's new bio). The real breaking point, though, was that Riggs changed directions. Metal wasn't his bag anymore. This surely came as a blow to the aforementioned fans, the hardest-core of whom had already fit Riggs for iconic status.
Reinvention takes time. Metal hit some new peaks, dropped into some new valleys, and lost a few more heroes to tragic ends. Riggs, at least to the outside world, had gone silent. But the silence ends with We Are Night Sky. After four years of playing solo, Riggs finally found the right partner [Tessie Brunet] and is ready to show his old fans just what sort of music seduced him away from metal. In some portions, the result is something like Josh Homme gone Fat Possum; imagine the QOTSA frontman weaned on the bayou instead of the desert.
RA: Is there a lot of fan crossover from your previous bands?
Dax: Yeah. Yeah, there is.
RA: Is there a certain amount of expectation that comes with that?
Dax: No, they've been pretty open with it.
RA: For those fans who may want to explore more of the themes that you write about-the morbid elements, the fantastical elements-where would you recommend they start? Let's say outside of music.
Dax: Ron Rash. He writes typically Southern Gothic novels. There's a book of his called One Foot in Eden.
RA: Your bio mentions that you were pretty strongly affected by David Lynch's film The Elephant Man. Have you gone back and watched that movie through the years, or have you left alone so it still keeps that same punch that it had the first time?
Dax: Oh, I've definitely watched it since then, yeah. I have more interest in John Merrick than in the movie, but it's pretty heartbreaking.
RA: So you found that at an early age, and you started writing songs at an early age, too. Do you remember what those first songs were about? Did they draw from similar inspirations?
Dax: Well, they've evolved, and they might have been a little more lighthearted at one point (laughs).
RA: Did you know even back then that this was something you wanted to do as a profession?
Dax: Yeah, I knew I'd be doing it.
RA: I read that you felt that you'd grown beyond the style of music that you played in Acid Bath. Has that been true for your taste as a fan, too? Do you listen to the hard stuff?
Dax: No. More like Richard Thompson and Van Morrison and Mott the Hoople.
RA: Was that an age thing, or was it a burnout thing from playing all the shows and writing all the songs?
Dax: Pretty much near the end of Acid Bath, I really got into David Bowie and Ziggy Stardust - and I got into Brian Eno and I got into Van Morrison and Astral Weeks very heavily. That changed my ideas. Before that, when we were doing the heavy stuff, I was mainly into The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. It's kind of weird. The heavy metal thing was really just kind of a hangover from my very early days with thrash. There was a lot of music in there that was interesting to me.
RA: Was there someone who coaxed that change, someone who said, "You have to sit down with these Bowie albums?"
Dax: I'd kind of lost interest and faith in music at one point. Then I was like, "Well, I'll just try this," and kind of gamble on some albums, bargain bin records, you know.
RA: You spent four years auditioning people for this band. During that time, what were people coming in and getting wrong?
Dax: The problem was that a lot of those people just. played too much. (chuckles)
RA: How important is it to have an audience? Could you be happy just set up on your porch or holed up in a home studio making music?
Dax: There were four or five years where I was in a situation where I couldn't really get out the music that I was making, but I could sell it on the Internet. That's kind of how I lived.
RA: A couple of years ago, you'd said that you wanted to get back to a place where the music was more about the magic and less about the commerce. Do you feel like you're gotten closer?
Dax: Yeah, I think so. I think it's really about getting the emotion of the songs across, and I think we're doing a better job than I've ever done with that.
RA: On a more somber note, how has the music scene down there been affected by Katrina? Is it making a comeback?
Dax: All of the places in New Orleans were affected-most of them were closed. But some of them are opening again. One Eyed Jacks and The Howlin' Wolf are open again. I'm not exactly sure how it's going, but I know that some people are going on. The population is definitely not what it was. We'll find out soon because we'll be playing some shows there. I'm really looking forward to it. Some of my friends are playing there now and I wish I could, but we're already on the tour. I'm really looking forward to getting back there and trying it and seeing what happens.