KHEMMIS // Rainbow In The Doom

You’ll dig the fantastic Dio cover on the new EP, but you’ll be even more impressed when you learn that the live tracks are true, unaltered renditions of what they do on stage.

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Try for a moment to put yourself in the shoes of Ben Hutcherson, guitarist and vocalist for Colorado’s melodic doom maestros Khemmis.

You’ve played in bands for more than 20 years ago, starting at age 13. About eight years ago, your band puts out a three-track EP. Your expectations at the time are modest. You’re not out for world domination, you just want to make music that you love.

Nonetheless, your work gains the attention of an independent label. Two years later they release your debut. It’s well-received and the placing of your band’s logo on flyers improves significantly.

Your second album comes out just over a year later. It’s a progression on its predecessor and people think it sounds darn good. Decibel Magazine award it Album Of The Year. You get serious about touring. You hear from fans from unlikely places around the world. Even Rolling Stone like it.

Two years later, your third album comes out. It’s co-released with a new label, a major name in metal with substantial international reach and distribution. More acclaim follows and you tour Germany.

The other week you released a six-track EP. It contains a cover of a catchy metal classic as well as some rarities and live tracks.

Your band was critically lauded over three albums and now your latest release is an EP (ok, more of a mini album) with no fresh material. What will the fans and critics say?

Fandango! Friday

If you want to know where the inspiration for Khemmis’ new Doomed Heavy Metal EP came from, check out ZZ Top’s 1975 Fandango! album. A classic in its genre, Fandango! is a little unusual in that one half consists of new material and the other half of live recordings.

It holds a rather special place for the band members. Drummer Zach Coleman would do a weekly ritual which he called Fandango Friday where, each Friday, he’d spin the album in full. He got his bandmates to do the same, and this influenced all of them. Doomed Heavy Metal can almost be seen as a tribute to Fandango!, especially when it comes to the three live cuts.

“I understand that there is a compulsion to want to put out something perfect, but I think that that’s disingenuous,” says Ben. “If you listen to our playing on those songs, if you listen to the singing, it ain’t perfect. And, I think, that’s fine, I wouldn’t want it to be. If you want to hear the idealised version, you go to the studio album. But the potential power of live recordings is showing you what a band is capable of. I think any band worth their salt should be better live than in the studio, no matter how good they are in the studio.”

I knew I didn’t want to play Vivian Campbell’s solo. It’s an awesome solo, but he already did it. So, I sat down and I learned his solo and then I pulled it apart, section by section, and rewrote it.
[ Ben Hutcherson ]

The live tracks, one from every studio album, were recorded at a two-night show called Doomed Heavy Metal in their home-town of Denver. The intention was to record a performance that was a true representation of what Khemmis are like on stage. A tremendous effort therefore went into capturing the best live imaginable.

“The amount of sound checking beforehand to get the levels set was insane. I think we spent like an hour or more, maybe 90 minutes the first day, just sound checking,” says Ben. “That doesn’t even count the amount of time Dave Otero [producer] spent setting up the microphones himself and just getting levels. Because, the man is a sonic wizard. He’s very, very good at what he does. And I think this may have been the first live set recordings he’d ever mixed and mastered.”

But here’s the incredible bit. Many live albums enjoy a certain degree of post-production ‘love’ (*cough* Unleashed In The East *cough*). When asked how much post-show doctoring went into Doomed Heavy Metal Ben assures us that what you hear is what transpired on stage.

“That’s us baby!” he says. “Every bummed note, every less than perfect moment. I think it’s what makes those live tracks important and what I think makes them compelling.”

 Toying with a Classic

A cover track can be a proverbial double-edged sword, especially on an EP where there is no room for filler. Make it too much like the original and it may feel like a soulless replica; make it too radically different and fans of the original may hate you for ruining a classic.

But give it just enough of your own identity while remaining faithful to the original, and you might not only please your current fans but also get the attention of new ones.

And that is precisely what Khemmis have achieved on Doomed Heavy Metal.

The lead track is a doomed up (or a doomed down?) version of Dio’s Rainbow In The Dark. It’s a readily recognisable classic, notable for Dio’s vocal performance and Vivian Campbell’s incredible solo. This track is a veritable textbook example of a metal classic, so how on earth do you do justice to something like that when you play doom metal?

If you’re brave, you rework it, including the solo. “I knew I didn’t want to play Vivian Campbell’s solo,” explains Ben. “It’s an awesome solo, but he already did it. So, I sat down and I learned his solo and then I pulled it apart, section by section, and rewrote it. He plays this lick, so how would I have played that? How would I try to convey that feeling if I’d written it?”

Yeah. Rearranging the solo on one of the best-known metal songs of all time. Talk about inviting the critics. And while you’re at it, why not rearrange some of the other bits. “Phil [guitar, vocals] was like, ‘you know, I don’t want to just play the same thing that I’ve been playing while you’re playing a solo’,” says Ben. “And I said, ‘well, it’s got to stay in the same key, you can’t do something too wacky’. So, we started jamming around with variations of the main riff and added a punk drumbeat to it. Suddenly, it’s got this almost Motörheady kind of feel, a little grimy, a little street punk kind of vibe to it.”

The result is a cover that is infused with the Khemmis identity but which is wonderfully faithful to the original.

New Album …

The remaining two tracks on Doomed Heavy Metal are rarities. Empty Throne featured on a single-sided Decibel Magazine flexi-disc and A Conversation With Death is a cover of Lloyd Chandler’s Apallachian folk song, originally on a split release with Spirit Adrift.

They complete a release that is in every sense a genuine, strong EP, where every track is a legitimate inclusion. Nothing here feels like filler, and yet, while there’s much to love about Doomed Heavy Metal, it’s always nice to have something… oh, you know… a bit more substantial… a little longer… you get our drift Ben?

“We started writing our next full length back in November, maybe a little bit earlier,” he says. “Suddenly the COVID-19 pandemic hit. The four of us haven’t even seen each other physically in six or seven weeks, which is frustrating because we really had dialled in to that kind of feeling that we were after for this record. But if everything goes back to some kind of normal in the next couple of months, we will be entering the studio at the end of the year. Again, it’ll be at Flatline Audio with Dave Otero, to record our Nuclear Blast debut. It will see a release probably early summer next year.” He adds that they have “three songs, more or less together” and a fourth being worked on during their last rehearsal.

It will presumably be one of next year’s more anticipated doom records.

In the meantime, we’ll have to content ourselves with Doomed Heavy Metal–and after hearing those exceptional live tracks, pray that they come to a nearby venue some time.

Doomed Heavy Metal is out now on Nuclear Blast.