In a brand new interview with Consequence of Sound, Sleep guitarist and High on Fire frontman Matt Pike discussed some of his main influences. About the writing process for High on Fire’s new record “Electric Messiah” that’s about to drop on October 5, he said:
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“The big influence here was Lemmy. I had this dream where he came to me and he was pissed off at me. He was saying, ‘You’re trying to take my throne, boy!? You can’t do that!’ But it was really cool. I wrote that tune ‘Electric Messiah’ shortly thereafter.
“I don’t think that song or the album sound like Motörhead other than a little bassline here or there. It’s closer to a hardcore punk record with a little bit of metal for me. Just something about it reminds me of Lemmy. People have told me even before he died that I’m the next Lemmy or the American Lemmy. I always tell them, ‘No way man. I don’t touch that guy.’ I guess it’s the similar rough voice.”
He also added:
“In terms of starting out [the writing process], I always start out with [Tony] Iommi. The church of the riff is the church of Iommi. He’s the blueprint and when you’re starting from scratch what’s the first thing you do? You look at the blueprint.
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“I also love a guy like [late Slayer guitarist Jeff] Hanneman, who could make something so ridiculous and make it sound beautiful and dark. The Slayer guys and the Judas Priest guys are really inspiring to me because they never have gotten dated. They’re always on the cutting edge of what metal is doing. No matter what’s going on with a new record, this is where I start.