Mark Morton: “I was starting to break out of the clouds. I could tell that was happening and it felt really free to be creative.”

Mark Morton has never shied away from confronting the heavier parts of life whether through the unrelenting aggression of Lamb of God or his songwriting. But with Without The Pain, his new solo album, Morton has taken a giant step outside the boundaries of metal to create a body of work that blends southern rock grit, bluesy soul, and the raw emotion of Americana. The result is a record that feels as much like a confession as it does a musical reinvention as Morton’s brutal honesty and collaborations make this an album that feels like the natural next chapter following his brutally honest memoir, Desolation.

Leading the charge is “Brother,” a heartfelt track that sees Morton teaming up with outlaw country heavyweight Cody Jinks and co-writer Travis Denning. The song delves into painful family estrangement while the rich southern textures and introspective lyrics mark a clear departure from the pulverizing riffs fans might expect.

Make no mistake as well, with an all-star cast of friends joining Morton, including Jason Isbell, and Charlie Starr, Without The Pain is far from being something Morton just does to fill time away from his main gig.

In our latest Cover Story, V13 spoke to Mark about the making of Without The Pain, his lifelong love for bluesy country rock, and the journey he took to reach this point in his career.

I finished reading the book a couple of weeks ago. It feels like the album starts where the book ends in terms of you getting clean and going through that period of your life, followed by the solo record following on from that. Is that the case and when did the ideas for the record start to come together?

“It probably does. There’s some truth to that but it’s not intentional. I think what you’re picking up is probably accurate but it wasn’t necessarily deliberate other than the sense that it’s my creative trajectory.

I think there are parts of the album that are personal, so you will hear things that are part of my life. Not all of it’s personal though. Some of it’s just stories that aren’t directly related to me or aren’t autobiographical in that sense.

When did the album start? I don’t really know. The album and the book were happening simultaneously, but both of them took years to do. The book I was writing for two and a half years. Not every day, I sit at my desk and write more a bit at a time. The same with the record.

Then, of course, I have this Lamb of God monster that I’m always a part of. So it’s not as organized as it may seem like, where I’m going to sit down and write a book, now I’m gonna sit down and do a solo record. It’s all swirling around and happening all at once. I never stop working if I’m being honest.”

Creatively, you’ve got so much going on. You said you were writing the book and the album side by side. Did one inspire the other or did you sit there and think do you know what that would make a good theme for a song?

“I think they all just come from a lot of the same lived experience. So, in that sense, there is certainly overlap but, again, none of it was conceptual. I wasn’t writing a companion piece to the book or anything like that.”

Given that some of the themes on the record are personal – ‘Hell and Back,’ ‘Brother’, the title track of the record, it feels like a quite an honest and reflective record regardless of whether the themes are personal or not. When you took yourself out of it and listened to the record how did you feel?

“It’s easily one of my favourite pieces of music that I’ve ever been a part of. Even if it’s not always personal, lyrically the spirit and sound and style of this record is more personal than anything, that I’ve done because this is the music that I’ve had with me all my life, Southern Rock and Americana and country. I was in tune with that stuff before I was ever even into heavy metal.

It’s always been with me and it’s culturally a part of who I am in my upbringing. None of this is a slight against heavy metal. I’m so proud of what we do with Lamb of God and so challenged, this music is the music that I come home and listen to when I play guitar at home. It sounds like what you hear on this record.”

V13 Cover Story – Issue 90 – Mark Morton

The Black Crowes was one of your bands growing up, wasn’t it?

“Since the first time I ever heard them, they’ve been one of my favourite bands.”

Have you worked with any of the band?

“I worked with Marc Ford and Steve Gorman on the last record. I did a song with Mark Lanegan called ‘Access’ and Steve Gorman played drums on that. Marc Ford did some of the lead work on that.”

Some of the songs, particularly ‘Brother,’ and ‘Hell and Back’ feel personal. You went through quite a dark time leading into the book and the album, what was it like digging back into those memories and bearing your soul on the record? Was that something you found easy to do?

“Very natural. To juxtapose and go back to the Lamb of God catalogue, I write a lot of lyrics for Lamb of God. A lot of the Lamb of God songs have lyrical contributions from me, you can go back and follow along the book. If you go back to the albums, I even cite reference some of it in the book. I’ve always been bearing my soul so if you wanna know where I’m at take a look at the last few songs I put out.”

“I think there are parts of the album that are personal, so you will hear things that are part of my life. Not all of it’s personal though…”

Your last solo album Anesthetic was quite heavy. This one pays tribute to your love of classic American Rock. Other than that what would you say the main differences are between the two records?

“Stylistically, I think that is the primary difference. I mean it’s pretty stark that difference between the two records stylistically. I think they’re formatted very much the same in that it’s me as the primary songwriter and then pairing with guest artists and almost entirely guest singers. That’s a similarity I think for me as the artist creator of the projects.

The biggest difference for me in a practical sense was on the first album I went into the process with very clear, defined ideas of what each song was going to be in terms of the writing, I had the parts locked down, and as much as possible the lyrics locked down. There are some cases where the singer wrote the lyrics on those records, but in a lot of them I wrote all the lyrics and on this record, I went in, I would say intentionally and based on experience with much more open-ended approaches to these songs.

On ‘Brother,’ for example, I had the three-chord progression and I had the verses written. I didn’t have a chorus but I went in not stressing about the fact that it wasn’t a complete song. I knew it was a great idea so Travis and Cody sat down and took those ideas and left the room four hours later with a completed song.

That’s indicative of how I approached a lot of the material in this record. Much more open-ended, much less defined, and with a much less rigid vision for what I thought the song would be when it was done. I really enjoy that. I enjoy being open to interpretation, being open to other perspectives, being open to collaboration. I find that in this stage of my life and my career, it is a much more enjoyable approach to songwriting and to making music.”

The last album was written during quite a dark period in your life. Was this record easier to write or more enjoyable?

“I think Anesthetic was a real joy. It was very much the beginning of a new kind of movement for me. I wasn’t quite there yet, but, I was cresting this hill of real dark times for me. I was starting to break out of the clouds there and I could tell that was happening and it felt free to be creative and to have a place to put all that energy and that was joyful.

Josh Wilber is one of my best friends in the world. I worked with him on both projects. He and I always joke that we find excuses and find reasons to work together because he lives in LA and I live in Virginia. We’re across the continent, but we find reasons to work together.

Anesthetic was all those things. It was a reason to just dig in and work on music with my friends. Without The Pain was the same just in a different place, different time.”

Mark Morton ‘Without The Pain’ Album Artwork

On the last album you had people like Chuck Billy, Myles Kennedy, Mark Lanegan, Chester Bennington. There’s a huge spectrum of genres there. On this new record, it feels more focused on the style of the record. When you were writing the songs, did you have an idea of who you wanted to work with?

“In some cases but what I knew was the genre of people I wanted to work with. I think, on Anesthetic, I wanted to do things a little more hard rock melodic, a little radio rock but it didn’t wind up being that way. There were influences and voices involved in the project that felt like there should be some metal on there. You have to think of things from a lot of different angles and that was my first step out as a solo artist. I didn’t know if anyone was gonna bother to listen or take it seriously.

So there were influences and voices involved and I think correctly so that was suggesting that there should be some more metal stuff on here to make sure people open it up, like Lamb of God fans, and take a listen. I did not feel compelled to do that on this record because I had the experience of Anesthetic. Anesthetic gave me the confidence and independence to make a record like Without The Pain which, as you point out correctly, was much more focused stylistically.”

“I was starting to break out of the clouds there and I could tell that was happening and it felt free to be creative…”

Do you think it made it easier for them to buy into what you wanted to do with this record and get onboard straight away?

“Sure. I think for my part I sought those people out, right? I wouldn’t have wanted to make a metal record with Charlie Starr from Blackberry Smoke, right? Charlie and I have been friends for a very long time. We met at Download our buses were parked next to each other. Download was ten maybe fifteen years ago. We struck up a friendship and kept in touch and, hung out when we could here and there.

So I asked Charlie to sing a song on Anesthetic. It was the song that I sang ‘Imaginary Days’. I asked Charlie to sing that and when I sent it to him, I sent him a demo of me singing it and he said to me that I sing that one.

When I sent him ‘Come December,’ I’m glad I waited because it’s one of my favourite songs on the record, and Charlie is just spectacular on it.”

Working with some long-time friends must have made the whole thing think a lot more of an enjoyable experience…

“It was. There were friends on the last record too, some friends and some people that I just struck up friendships with on Anesthetic. I got to work with Mark Lanegan and had never corresponded with him before I just cold-called him. He heard the song and agreed to do it. Mark and I became real friends after that and worked together on his last record.

I wrote and recorded two songs with him on that. I miss him a lot. It’s one of the great takeaways of doing things like this is the friendships that you make and, also as you point out, it’s always great to work creatively with friendships you already have.”

What was it like working with Troy from Mastodon on this record?

“We have been friends for 20 years plus. Mastodon and Lamb of God have been peers all along. We came up through the ranks together. We just toured with them not long ago around North America with those guys. That was one of the easier calls to make because Troy is a good friend.”

Going back to the song ‘Brother’ on the album, it feels like a hugely personal song but it also feels like anybody who is in that situation or a similar situation could probably relate to it. Do you think that could be said about the rest of the record that it’s a record lyrically that somebody could put on and relate to?

“I think so. I think, in a way, it’s very different from what I do with Lamb of God. These types of songs are a little more directly narrative even if it’s not autobiographical, it still can be very narrative. For ‘Brother,’ I just looked around me, we characterized it as ‘Brother,’ but there’s this universal experience I see of people with estranged family members. It can be parents and children, it can be siblings, it can be any version of these things where you see these unexplainable and very tragic disconnects in families and I see that all around me and you talk to people and most people have their version of that.

I think the best songs take something that’s a personal type of phenomenon, but it presents them in a way where a listener can relate to it and make it into their own story. I think whether the songs are autobiographical or not, in this style of music you can make a narrative, lyrical composition that people can relate to. In heavy metal, I find things tend to be a little more abstract and a little bit more about setting a mood or a tone and invoking some very primitive emotional thing that often not always is less directly narrative.”

“I think the best songs take something that’s a personal type of phenomenon, but it presents them in a way where a listener can relate to it and make it into their own story.”

You mentioned the book, some of the lyrics that you’ve written have been very, very personal. Even in Lamb of God, some of them have been very personal. It feels like reading the book that your relationship with Randy was quite a rollercoaster relationship. He got himself clean and sober before you did in the book. Did that relationship change then and has it changed since you got yourself clean?

“Randy and I have always been close. Close to the point where you hear people say we’re like brothers. We are. There’s a deep, deep respect and love and connection. We argue and have at times fought, in some cases, very famously. It’s just that kind of relationship. We’re very close. We text. He moved a couple of years or so ago to North Carolina, but I see him very frequently because of the band and we were texting yesterday or the day before. We stay very much in touch and we’re very close.”

Do you have any regrets?

“Probably but it was all worth it to get to where I am now. Would I do some things differently? I think so.”

I think there’s a comment that this is a record you wanted to write all your life. It’s a genre of music that’s been hugely important to you and it’s shaped your life. What does it feel like to have that record out and be part of that genre?

“I’m just so proud of this record. I love it. It doesn’t matter whether it is commercially successful or not. It was a personal passion project for me. The thing I’m most stunned by still, I have learned, or at least relearned, it’s been underscored for me what it means when people say they’re humbled by working with people because the team, the roster, the community of people that showed up to help me with this project and participate in this project top to bottom, I continued every step of the way to be stunned at the people who were signing on to help.

Not just the artists, but including the artists, but also the people who worked on it behind the scenes. The people that helped put it out, the Record Store Day people that have made it a vinyl exclusive for that. It’s such a great thing to be a part of there. The label Snakefarm Records for coming on and taking on this project and everyone in my management team who I worked to death with Lamb of God.

For them to get involved in this project, knowing that it wasn’t gonna be near as big commercially as a Lamb of God thing, but they still took it on and they still believed in it, the huge community of people to make something like this happen that most people don’t see and don’t need to see for me that is one of the big takeaways how everyone just jumped on board and has been really supportive and really believed in what I was doing creatively.

That’s very humbling. It doesn’t so much feel like they’re behind the record as much as they are behind me as a person. I catch myself saying this a lot and it’s true, I tell my management guys all the time and the people at the label, and even folks that were recording this with me, ‘Thanks for believing in me. Thank you for believing in me because you didn’t have to.’ There were so many people that were so generous with their time and their expertise and their energy and their spirit and their creativity their work and their advice and their insight and their perspective, just real generous with this thing.

This project isn’t gonna make anybody rich. It’s very much about the spirit and the creativity behind it. A lot of generosity, a lot of love was involved in this thing to allow me to be a hippie and I think you can hear it in the songs.”

What have you learned from the experience?

“I have learned the joy in music. I have known this at times in my life, but I have been reminded that the joy in music is making the music. Everything that comes after that is cool but once I’ve made the music, it’s no longer mine. It becomes yours and anyone who’s listened to it, and that’s great. I’m onto the next thing, but I’m proud of this one.”

“I’m just so proud of this record. I love it. It doesn’t matter whether it is commercially successful or not. It was a personal passion project for me…”

What is the next thing? You said Anesthetic felt like the crest of a part of a journey for you. What about this record?

“I don’t know. I’m excited to get this record out into the world. I will be making music and hopefully, people will listen and when they don’t, I’ll still be making music.”

In your book during downtime from Lamb of God, you’d turn up at bars and play country gigs. Do you see yourself doing that as a more serious thing?

“I just play guitar. It’s just gonna happen. Music is life for me. It really is. I don’t ever aspire to a time where I don’t play music. I was playing music and writing songs before anyone was ever paying attention and I will continue to be doing that long after people have stopped paying attention.”

Just to wrap up then, if you had to sum up Without The Pain in a couple of sentences, what does it mean to you?

“It’s coming home.”