They’d gone from “lazy young dudes, getting fucked up or whatever” to spending a year composing intense music, day in and day out. Max Payne 3 didn’t just raise Health’s profile, it set them on a new sonic trajectory. “We lived in this underground music, Pitchfork world, where the question still seemed really pertinent to people: is this selling out? Is it not cool to do this?” explains Jacob. They ended up scoring the whole thing – much to the disappointment of some of their fans. Health released follow-up album Get Color in 2009, and then the music department at Rockstar Games got wind of them, inviting them to score the tense bits of multimillion-dollar videogame Max Payne 3. “To let an unknown fucking noise band that’s pissing off your fans use these multi-million dollar things that you’re having to employ people to build and calibrate… it’s just unheard of,” Jacob marvels, still bowled over by the generosity.īut there was more excitement to come. Luckily, Trent had figured out the problem from their vantage point below the nine-foot arena stages, people couldn’t clearly see what was going on with the zoothorns, so he offered Health the opportunity to use Nine Inch Nails’ state-of-the-art LED screens. Health were incredulous and nervous – especially once the run began, and the crowds booed them every night. Nevertheless, it caught the ear of Trent Reznor, who invited them on tour. With little money in their pockets, they recorded their abrasive, echoey, self-titled debut album at grungy LA club The Smell during daylight hours, rats emerging from under the stage. We were trying to figure out: how do we integrate something from that perspective into the traditional band set-up, but use it in songs that are composed, not improvisational?” Like circuit bent instruments, or something that they would make for one show and then break,” recalls Jacob. “You’d see people do all kinds of crazy shit. It was weird noise, for sure, but created in a more controlled manner. They would mic up their instruments and run the microphone through a pedal chain, creating cacophonous feedback and loops. Teaming up with Jacob’s housemate, Jupiter Keyes, on guitars/synths (who would leave the band in 2015) and drummer BJ Miller (recruited via Craigslist), they set to work making music that sounded like it belonged in the gnarly venues and warehouses of downtown LA.ĭriven by one-upping the experimentalism and incendiary performances of their peers, they devised something called the ‘zoothorn’, named after Captain Beefheart guitarist Zoot Horn Rollo. Health began as the brainchild of Seattle transplant Jacob and bassist John Famiglietti, his colleague at Hollywood’s uncool, touristy and “garish and gaudy” Guitar Center. “Dudes at Hellfest can headbang to Perturbator just playing this heavy-ass synth music, and it doesn’t feel out of place.” “What’s so exciting is that there are these overlapping areas of music – that’s what’s so freeing about the internet, because people’s niches have become less tribalistic, and so there’s this cross-pollination now,” enthuses Jacob. At France’s Hellfest next summer, they’re on the same stage as Trent Reznor and co, plus Ministry, Skinny Puppy and Killing Joke. This year, they’ve released songs with Deftones’ Chino Moreno ( Anti-Life, for DC’s Dark Nights: Death Metal Soundtrack), and Nine Inch Nails ( Isn’t Everyone). More recently, metal’s ears pricked up with 2019’s atmospheric, industrial Vol 4: Slaves Of Fear (title inspired by Sabbath’s fourth album), and 2020’s Disco4: Part 1, a collaborations album featuring some of their most respected peers.
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