THE BLOGRONAUT DISCUSSES WEED’S EFFECT ON MUSIC

Quite often, in interviews or just in conversation with random people, I am asked about my marijuana consumption. Imagine some nerdy Canadian metal journalist dude over the phone, going (read with accent) “DUDE, how much WEED did you smoke during the writing process for that record?” I get seriously annoyed by this, as I think it’s really immature to assume that pot has some magical power that actually writes the music for you. It reminds me of being 16 or 17, getting together at band practice, and someone coming up with the idea to “get really high and just jam” with the tape recorder running. 100% of the time, the result was a droney mess consisting of boring, meterless drum beats, monotonous “singing”, and one guitar playing an open E with a flange pedal left on at full blast. I just want to grab these people, throw them against a wall, hold them by their throats, and scornfully inform them that drugs are stupid, they themselves are stupid, and that it takes actual skill and thought to write interesting music.

I’ve had the idea to write about this for a while now, but something happened last week that totally threw me off. My roommate came home with some awesome weed and got me high. We bullshitted for a bit, and then I went outside and smoked a cigarette. Then I came inside and wrote LIKE TWENTY AWESOME RIFFS. Normally I sit at home playing guitar and rarely come up with more than one or two ideas in a sitting, if that. I was totally blown away at how awesome I was. I then realized that practically every riff I’ve written for Intronaut was done so while high. And I am not embellishing for the sake of an interesting story here. I mean every riff.

Last thing I’m going to do is turn this into some “I heart weed” kind of thing, but I will say, especially to small children, that you should smoke it if you want to write good music. And to that Canadian writer guy, I apologize, and to answer your question, “probably a shitload.”

-SD