John: Ok, explain the genesis of Planet Gemini. What are you all about?
H: Josh and I knew each other back in junior high. We never really spoke until I started a band in high school. Josh would come to our rehearsals and watch us play. He knew the songs and became a close friend of the band. Finally, we had just lost our fourth bass player and I spoke with Aaron (our drummer at the time) about just taking the year off to teach Josh how to play bass for us. I approached Josh with the proposition and from that point on we have been working together. I would say we are going on the 15-year mark of making music together. We lost the drummer �he had other things going on in his life and it just wasn�t a good situation between us anymore.
Josh and I stayed together and just started writing songs. I figured that we could find a drummer that would work under our situation. But it was hard to find someone who fit into our style of playing. I have no problem with the drug and alcohol thing, but for me it�s all about the music. Do that extra curricular stuff on your own time. It�s hard to find a musician with that mindset. I was also very afraid that I would be a control freak and just make our drummer a glorified drum machine.
In 1997 we started writing material for a project called �Planet Gemini.� We actually noticed how easy it was to put music out on the internet. The dream kind of faded, to be honest, as we didn�t really have great equipment to record with. Around 1998, we recorded a demo, which was known as Phantom Figures. It had five songs on it and was really rough, to a point where it sounded terrible. But the songs were there. We went out and bought a cheap sound card and tried the DIY approach to recording, but we were just two slackers with no real recording knowledge. It was all trial by error. We shopped it around to some drummers to try to get a live show going but again we fell flat. Our concept was always to give away the music. I always wanted people to know that we are fans of doom metal first and musicians second.
In February of 2002, I had a dream that we had our own studio. I remember the dream so clearly I walked into the studio and just picked up a guitar and started playing a riff. I spoke to Josh about the dream later and that day and he just said, �Let�s make it happen.� We decided that we would build our own recording studio. We had a mutual friend who also wanted to record and he helped us with a lot of the costs of equipment. We really had to drop about $15,000 - $20,000 on equipment. Tons of guitars, drums, amps, computer, monitors, mixers, mics, etc - it was huge to see the whole thing take place. We didn�t have any micing technique so we decided to go with a Roland V-Club Electronic Drum Kit. We used MIDI interface to record the drums; this way if I made a mistake we could go back and correct it. A lot of people think that we used a drum machine on our first albums and that wasn�t the case. That is really me playing the drums. It�s just that I wasn�t a good player at all and using the electric kit made punching in and out a lot easier. We didn�t know anything about MIDI or mixing or mastering. We just went into the studio and recorded. We made our first album 13 in the first 2 weeks in the studio. I knew that mixing the tracks was going to be tough. 13 was nothing more than a glorified demo. SuperGod was supposed to be our first release but we were so unconfident with the recording techniques we were using we just started jamming out songs and recording the jams. 13 shaped up really fast and I thought it was good enough to let people check out. It got a good response from a lot of people. One thing that I can say about Planet Gemini is that our purity has never been compromised. Everything we�ve ever released is a labor or love, pride, integrity. It�s kind of crazy that we�ve only been a writing band for four years and we�re working on our eighth release.
John: Wizards Blood, the last release, was recorded all analogue and wound up getting delayed. What sort of otherworldly troubles did you run into while recording that?
H: Before Wizards Blood we used electronic drums. That was the biggest nightmare. I am not a drummer nor do I claim to be. We went out and bought a TAMA Rockstar kit and basically put it together and said, �Now what?� It was such a nightmare getting that kit to sound right. I tried to pay drummers to come in to help us get the sound we wanted and it seemed like there were very few people that wanted to help us out. I offered one guy $75 an hour just to get our kit sounding good on tape. He wanted nothing to do with it. We tried tons of different mics in tons of different positions, in different room environments.
It sounds completely stupid to say but Wizards Blood was our last attempt before going back to square one and starting again. We scrapped about three albums in the process of making Wizards Blood. We had an album called Diabolic and [one called] Oblivion, that were for the most part written but we couldn�t get the songs to flow together because of the drum sound. Josh and worked our asses off to get the drums to sound as decent as they do in Wizards Blood. Once we got to the point where they sounded all right, the songwriting was the easy part. Josh and I have been working together so long that we just jam. It was so refreshing when we wrote �Church of Madness� I remember looking up at Josh and saying, �That�s the first song.� We were going to call the album Reflections of the Possessed until �Church of Madness� was written. Josh then came up with the name Wizards Blood - it was a direct reference to our song �Wizard of Void� from the album 13. We truly believe that was the song that defined our sound and we�ve always gone out of our way to give the nod to that song. Songs like �Shining Wizard,� �Hand of God,� �Twist the Knife,� and many more all have little references that tie in with that song. To me the arrow symbol that we use and the title SuperGod[t]DevilMan all spawned from the �Wizard of Void� song. All of our lyrics are very grey area �Without hell there would be no heaven� if you notice we actually re-recorded �Wizard of Void� for the Wizards Blood album. We called the song �Wizards� because it ended up with the intro to SuperGod[t]DevilMan�s �Shining Wizard.�
Of course the week I decided to record vocals I ended up catching a case of strep throat. So I�m in the studio singing and coughing up blood and screaming so loud that anyone in listening distance is ready to call the police. I actually had to send Josh home while recording the vocals. It wasn�t pretty. In the end the album came out better than I ever could of expected. It wasn�t recycled Planet Gemini. I�m so proud to say that we don�t make albums that all sound the same. Wizards Blood is an entity of it�s own and Wicked sounds nothing like Wizards Blood. In the end we are so blessed that we have such creative freedom.
John: And how�s Wicked, the latest album, coming along?
H: Wicked is going to be a strange album for us. The writing of the album is pretty much finished. We just need to start recording the final version of the tracks. It�s very jazz/doom. It feels very free and much more musical. Lots of riffs, but the riffs aren�t exactly the same as they have been in the past. The guitar is there to accent a lot of the drums now. Sometimes it�s tribal, sometimes it drones. The concept of Wicked is that it�s going to be one long song. We are going to separate it into chapters for everyone, but the album is made to be ingested as a whole. We�re shooting for 40 - 50 minutes. We want this to be something that people can just sit back, close your eyes and enjoy. Musically we always use abrupt stops and very �operatic� style transitions. We try to evoke emotion in our listeners by doing unexpected changes. This album has a lot of them. The songs that we have already are fantastic and I really believe it is our best work to date. It�s different than Wizards Blood but there is a lot of Wizards Blood in there as well as SuperGod. In the end, we are Planet Gemini - we never change that; we just expand on it. It�s a freedom that we would never have with a label. You have to be an extremely established band to get experimental. I have friends in band who are signed to a major label, and they are always complaining to me about how the label treats their new material.
John: And how�s the drummer working out? Is it a rough transition going from a two-man band to a three-piece?
H: You know it�s funny we went ten years without a drummer and now that I�m finally getting somewhat decent at drums we end up running into all of these fantastic musicians that want to play with us. We�ve had the honor of jamming with Oly Olson from Trouble. Just hanging with Oly is fantastic. We�ve been spending a lot of time in the studio with him and he has even agreed to work with Planet Gemini on a future EP that we�ll be putting out. The fact that we are hanging out with the drummer from Trouble is just awe-inspiring. I grew up loving their material, and as a fan I can�t wait for the new Trouble album, Simple Mind Condition, to hit in June. I heard the new stuff and doom fans should know that Trouble is back and they mean serious business.
The drummer that we�ve been working with the most is a guy named Dan Jagoda. Like I said before - ten years without a drummer, and one day I get an e-mail from this guy saying, �If you need a drummer for live shows, I�d love to play with you guys.� We met up, jammed for a bit, had a few beers, and just hung out. To me the most important thing is that we are all friends first. Playing with Dan has made both Josh and I much better at our instruments. Most importantly he is great guy and someone that we love to hang out with.
The transition of working with another person is always difficult. Especially when you have two musicians like Josh and I who have worked together for seemingly forever. One of the first things that Dan said was �You two kind of have a psychic thing going on. You don�t even look at each other - you just jam and you know where to change and what key you�re going to change to.� It�s really like that - Josh and I are so in sync that bringing another person into the fold is hard. The style clash alone was quite interesting. Dan is great and every time we play with him he is becoming more and more adapt to our music style. We�re from different backgrounds. He�s more of a metal drummer. We�re more of a doom band with bluesy/jazz overtones. I can tell you that we jammed last weekend with him, and he�s grown as a musician leaps and bounds since we started. I�m not saying we had anything to do with that, as much as I think we�ve exposed him to another way to play.
John: From what I understand, Planet Gemini has historically been a studio-only group. But according to your latest news blurb on your site, there was talk of a tour. Spill thine beans of doom, please.
H: Still in talks right now we have so much on our plate. We have two or three Planet Gemini projects on the fire. Really if the right circumstances come up we�ll be on the road. We going to be working with Oly from Trouble on a small EP release and above all else. We�ve got Wicked that we are looking to release this year. 2006 is a huge year for us.
John: Now if you could tour, who would you want to go on tour with?
H: Candlemass and Trouble. That our tour let us open up for the two best doom bands out there today and we�ll fuckin� tear the place down. Never say never� I�ll leave it at that.
John: Another interesting change is that you�ve had your albums available for free download, but it seems like for the time being your catalogue has to be purchased and the downloads are unavailable. Details, please. In all their gory detail.
H: Again, with my busy schedule it�s been crazy. As far as future releases go, I want to offer future material in full quality .wav format for our listeners. There�s so much to be done and Josh isn�t really the net savvy one. So I�m the person doing all of the web-authoring and uploading.
One thing I have noticed is that the interest in Planet Gemini has skyrocketed since taking down the other six albums. I think that we were giving people too much material. Normally people would check out the band listen to one song and then download the whole catalog. Not really giving full attention to one album. When we released Wizards Blood, we released it online first. We also took down everything but our latest release and it was our most successful release to date from a downloading standpoint and from sales. We�ll have more �internet only� releases. I don�t want people to think we don�t want to �give� away our music because I really love the fact that we give away this stuff. More people are likely to spent 15 minutes downloading an album than $10 buying a CD. If they like it, then great - they can choose to buy it, if not then by all means delete it. We offer our CD for purchase now largely in part because of Dan Beland from this webpage. He really talked me into selling the CDs, and he was a great supporter in our material and for that we will always be thankful. It�s so amazing when you�re in the stoner/doom genre to see all of these people devoting their lives to this music. It�s people like them that keep it alive and thriving.
John: You said in your news that �2005 also brought us one step closer to being a legitimate label.� How so? Does this mean that Gemini Records is branching out and will be releasing other artists� material?
H: When I look back at our meager starts in music I really am in awe at how far we�ve come. In 2006, we become a legitimate label. We will be recording/releasing another band�s album. We haven�t worked out all of the details yet. But we�re going to bring them into our studio. Record, mix, master, and press their album. I can�t really go into much more but they are an amazing band and they�ve been looking to get signed for a while. No one else wants to give them a shot? We will. Fuck it. We�re the band that wouldn�t sign to a label because they wanted to change us. We don�t want anything from these guys. This is going to be their album. There will be no �guest� guitars from H of Planet Gemini. I know that we�re not changing the face of music, but in my opinion, maybe we can help make a little piece of their dream come true.
We�ve grown to a point where we are finally breaking even from a money standpoint. Now the money that we make goes to fuel the label. Every CD we sell, every t-shirt we sell goes to help these artists be heard. If you put soul into your music like we have it�s an honor for it to be heard. It�s an honor that people have taken time out of their lives to make artwork for us. To write us e-mails and sing our songs while the album is playing. I hear about people throwing parties and just playing Planet Gemini albums. That stuff means more to us than we ever describe. We are living our dream and now we hopefully can give that to other bands. On the re-launch of planetgemini.net, we are going to put a submissions address, and we will be looking for a small handful of bands to help out. It�s going to happen. It�ll be nice to see if I can get the �metal community� to support it. The publications, the web pages, the people that have always supported us in the past because of our integrity about our music. This is really the time to get the ball rolling and try to create something new, a new way to let bands record and put out their material. I really hope that by 2007 we�ll have two to three solid bands working with us.
John: What�s the story behind the Cauldron of Fuzz series?
H: Our Cauldron of Fuzz series is all about experimentation. Testing the waters, so to speak. Our first Fuzz album was recorded in 48 hours. We locked ourselves in the studio and came out with a whole album. No sleep just music. The second Cauldron of Fuzz was 72 hours, and it turned out to be a double CD. The third was a totally different, more aggressive Planet Gemini. I was borderline homicidal when I was screaming those words. I put myself in another place, a very unhealthy place to be. The fourth� well.. we�ll just have to see about that.
John: If you could pick three songs that define Planet Gemini, which ones would they be?
H: �Wizards,� �Church of Madness,� and �Handful of Annihilation.� Oddly enough, they are all on our newest album. �Church of Madness� is the quintessential opener. You�re going to know if you like us or hate us in the first ten seconds of the song. �Handful of Annihilation� is just epic and is really a trip through despair and betrayal. �Wizards� (formerly �Wizard of Void� from 13) is just a wonderful trip back to our first outing. The song means even more to me now than it did then. I really feel that Wizards Blood was a re-birth for Planet Gemini.
John: Name five criminally underrated doom bands/albums.
H: I�d rather name extremely overrated bands (laughs). There are too many underrated bands to list. Terra Firma always comes to mind. That band was amazing and they are no longer around. I know Harms Way is coming out but I just can�t get into the vocals on that stuff. Lord Chritus (Christian Lindersson) sang with such passion and his lyrics were phenomenal. Amazing band that blended a swing/jazz approach to doom metal. If I could reunite one band it would be them. But you never know the reasons why bands break-up. They just might not be able to work together anymore. I also love Never The Sunshine and Sir Hedgehog, to name a few.
John: Is it possible to have a doom song about love? How about a doom song that speaks fondly of puppies?
H: Everything is about love. It�s the one thing in life we all would die to attain. Most misery laden music is about love gone bad. The confusion, the pain, the betrayal and distrust. Doom is love inverted I suppose. Now a doom song that speaks fondly of puppies? I suppose it could be done. Hell, it probably has been done. Some of these bands couldn�t give a rat�s ass about their lyrics. It bothers me that the lyrical integrity of music is somewhat dead. It�s almost like �as long as we riff like Fu Manchu we�re all set.�
John: What�s an unobvious Planet Gemini influence?
H: I would have to say Deep Purple. They are one of our favorite bands. When I say Deep Purple I don�t mean the old Machine Head band. Although I love that album, I actually prefer their Purpendicular, Abandon and newest Rapture of the Deep albums. I love the way Morse has brought new life into that band.
John: What were your top five albums of 2005?
H: Were there five good doom albums in 2005? I�m going to assume you mean music in general. Let�s see in no particular order� Bruce Dickinson�s Tyranny of Souls, Candlemass� self titled, Clutch�s Robot Hive/Exodus, Kayser�s Kaiserhof, and some band called Planet Gemini�s Wizards Blood. If I had to take us out I would probably say Spiritual Beggars� Demons. But I have to be honest, I listen to Wizards Blood more than anything else I have. As Josh has said in the past, �I have a reason to be happy. I�m in my favorite band� And that�s a perfect way to end the interview. Thanks for your time, John.
