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Rock
and Soul
An interview with Justin Marler of The
Sabians
By Bob
Ignizio |
“I was in a situation where I wanted to die and I
needed to figure stuff out for myself,” says Sabians guitarist/vocalist
Justin Marler. At the time, Justin was playing guitar for legendary
doom/stoner rock band Sleep and appeared on their first self released album
'Volume 1'. Although things were happening for the band and Sleep would
eventually sign to Earache Records, Justin says, “Being in Sleep and living
in Oakland and the whole thing was just making everything worse. So I left
and happened to run into a monk. He invited me to live at a monastery and
that just cleared out my mind and my heart and helped me figure stuff out.
I was there for seven years and experienced quite a lot of stuff.” So why
return to music? Justin says, “I wanted to apply the things I’d learned to
a real life instead of being secluded on an Island. And I wanted to play
music, too.”
It’s perhaps only natural that Justin’s spiritual
beliefs would influence his music and lyrics, but he isn’t trying to preach
to anyone. Justin says, “What I learned in the monastery isn’t
about making someone believe what I believe. It’s really about being a
centered person. Most people can identify with human plight and internal
struggle. Most of the songs are coming from my point of view and what I’m
going through. They’re not telling people what they should do or feel.
It’s more like find yourself.” The same holds true for political subject
matter. Although Justin is not without his opinions on the state of the
world, he says, “Monks are all about peace and living a simple life and
showing compassion for others. Politicians are doing their thing and I
don’t feel it’s my job to go out and stop them.”
When Justin went to put together his new band, he
turned to his former Sleep bandmate Chris Hakius to play drums. Patrick
Huerta was recruited to play guitar, and after running through a few bass
players the band settled on Rachael Fisher, the wife of drummer Hakius.
Despite Justin and Chris’ history with Sleep, though, The Sabians are
definitely not “stoner rock”. Justin says, “We draw from all kinds of
things; Pink Floyd, Johnny Cash, all over the map. A lot of Sleep fans just
aren’t into us, and there are some other Sleep fans who like what we’re
doing because it’s refreshing and different. When Chris and I got together
we didn’t want to go that route at all.” One listen to ‘Shiver’ should
dispel any lingering doubts.
Actually, saying what The Sabians aren’t is easier than
saying what they are. Justin says, “When you’re booking your show or
talking to press everybody wants to know what kind of music you play. It’s
been really hard so we’ve given up trying to match ourselves to a genre.
As long as they don’t call us pop. We believe in hooks, but we believe in
tweaking them just enough so they’re uncomfortable.” Not surprisingly it
has been somewhat difficult for The Sabians to find compatible bands to tour
with. For their current tour, Justin says, “The way we set it up with the
booking agent is we are doing support slots for different headliners. For
the last four years we’ve been struggling to find bands to play with. It’s
been a real source of pain for us.”
Just getting to the point where they were happy with
their sound wasn’t easy for The Sabians. Justin says, “In all honesty, up
until this new CD, we were grappling with a few things. We’re trying to
produce music that is completely our own, not trying to coattail on anything
or anybody. Also, trying to find a definite sound for ourselves. With the
first record we were struggling to find our own sound. In writing the
second one we nailed it hard. We knew exactly who we were and how we wanted
to do it.” In the time between their first album and their second, Justin
feels he and the rest of the band have grown significantly as songwriters.
So how does a band that defies easy categorization
reach potential fans? The old fashioned way. Justin says, “Word of mouth
and through playing live. It’s pretty grass roots. We will keep day jobs
so we can do things 100% on our own and do things the way we want to.” As
for radio, Justin says, “Frankly it’s not on our schedule. It’s so narrow
and run by conglomerates so it’s really hard to break into. We’d like to
circumvent it. We just want to play the music that we want to play for
people that want to hear it. It’s not about monetary success.” Justin
says the band plans to play as often as possible and spend about a year on
the road in support of ‘Shiver’. Fans on the east coast, including
Cleveland, can expect The Sabians to roll into their neck of the woods some
time in the late spring or early summer of 2004.
But I wondered, considering the amount of time Justin
spent studying spiritual matters, does he ever feel like he should be doing
something else? Justin says, “That’s something I struggle with all the
time. It always comes back to the same thing. You can go off and be Bono
and travel through Africa, but at the same time there’s another approach
that’s simpler. From your own way you live and working on yourself to be a
good person, that’s good enough. If everybody did that there would be no
need for Bono to travel around the world.” Besides, the world needs good
music, too. If ‘Shiver’ is any indication, The Sabians will be providing
just that for some time to come.
Visit The Sabians
website.
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