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Glaswegian Doom Crew The Rhubarb Pick Six Smokin‘ Stoner Anthems

Glaswegian stoner-riff crew The Rhubarb delve into their influences to pick six of the most smokin’ stoner anthems. Read more here.

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Glaswegian stoner-doom crew The Rhubarb have just dropped their sludgy-as-hell new single “Drag Me To Hell” last month. The song is taken from their new EP, Black Sun, which is out now. Recently, we spoke to the Glaswegian riff merchants to run down some of the most significant stoner and doom anthems that have helped shape their smoke-drenched sound.

1. Black Sabbath – “Black Sabbath” (Black Sabbath, 1969, Vertigo Records)

“This song is hugely influential to us and pretty much any heavy metal band as Black Sabbath are widely believed to have created the genre of heavy metal. To us, the spooky aura the song creates really made us want to try and recreate that vibe in our songs in our own way.”

2. Electric Wizard – “Funeralopolis” (Dopethrone, 2000, Rise Above Records)

“Listening to Electric Wizard really impacted our songwriting and structural ideas because most Electric Wizard songs really build-up to this huge seven to nine-minute crescendo. Applying some of these ideas and techniques in our songs really gave us what we wanted in the way a song builds and comes down.”

3. Hawkwind – “Silver Machine” (Single Release, 1972, United Artists)

“‘Silver Machine’ and pretty much the rest of the In Search of Space album really made us want to experiment with a lot of different trippier sounds, textures and ambience in our songwriting, recording and in live shows. The cascading ‘whooshing’ during ‘Silver Machine’ directly inspired the 12+ pedal chain pad sounds at the beginning of our song ‘Part-Time Suicide.’”

4. Sleep – “Holy Mountain” (Holy Mountain, 1992, Earache Records)

“Much like Hawkwind inspired us to experiment more with trippier and ambient sounds, listening to ‘Holy Mountain’ by Sleep especially made us want to experiment with heavier sounds. Particularly wanting to run fuzz pedals into amps that are already extremely saturated with gain. Musically, the drones and the riffs on the song ‘Holy Mountain’ and the album Holy Mountain was a real fresh wave for us in terms of riff writing for guitar and Hannah playing bass.”

5. The Doors – “Queen of the Highway” (Morrison Hotel, 1970, Elektra Records)

“I feel that The Doors and their 1970 cut ‘Queen of the Highway’ is a huge inspiration to us, particularly in Seán’s vocals. Jim Morrison and Seán sing in roughly the same range and when we’re writing, rehearsing and recording, we always hear a sure-fire resemblance to Jim Morrison’s vocal lines and melodies when Seán is singing his parts! I often think The Rhubarb is what Jim Morrison would sound like if he was in a stoner doom band.”

6. Mastodon – “Aqua Dementia” (Leviathan, 2004, Relapse Records)

“‘Aqua Dementia’ by Mastodon is extremely influential to The Rhubarb mostly to the guitar and drums. For the influence on the guitar, Mastodon’s use of open strings in their riffs, and particularly in ‘Aqua Dementia’ really pushed me to try and twist and bend this into some riffs in some newer songs we’ve written, making it slower and a little more dissonant to fit perfectly into our style. For the drums, the same kind of style of time changes in ‘Aqua Dementia’ definitely came into the mix when we’re rehearsing and writing new songs. Much the same as the guitar, Jack has bent and twisted it to fit our style.”

Artwork for “Drag Me To Hell” by The Rhubarb

I have an unhealthy obsession with bad horror movies, the song Wanted Dead Or Alive and crap British game shows. I do this not because of the sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll lifestyle it affords me but more because it gives me an excuse to listen to bands that sound like hippos mating.

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