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By: Keith Joshua Ham
Desert Storm is a hard-hitting modern doom/stoner/blues rock band out of Oxford. Having toured with a multitude of modern international heavyweights such as Karma To Burn, Red Fang, Orange Goblin, and American Head Charge – they are about to drop their newest album Omniscient on via Blindsight Records on January 26th, 2015. Describing their sound – it’d be something along the lines of getting wasted at a bar in the middle of a warzone. Keith Joshua Ham asked guitarist Ryan Cole some questions to find out more.
(((o))): Firstly, I’d seriously like to thank you for taking the time for this interview and I have to say Omniscient is shaping up to be one of my favorite albums so far this year. Omniscient’ is heavier and more doom-laden than almost any other Desert Storm album, and that’s saying something seeing Horizontal Life was heavy as hell. Do you think this reflects what we’ll see on any future albums?
Ryan: Thanks! We are certainly going to continue writing heavy doomy tracks, but like Omniscient, Horizontal Life and Forked Tongues they all feature a variety of styles…we love playing different stuff and it keeps things interesting. All albums have elements of sludge/doom, blues rock and folky tracks….seems to work, so I’m sure it will continue.
(((o))): The track ’Home’ was a rare departure on Omniscient, were there any difficulties going from the general heavy-hitting nature of Desert Storm to such a calm sort of interlude?
Ryan: Not really, as we have tried things like this before with ‘Gaia’ on Horizontal Life and ‘Connected’ on Forked Tongues. This is a track Chris [White; guitar] and Matt [Ryan; vocals] wrote not long before we went into the studio…It seemed to work well and we all liked it so it kept its place on the record.
(((o))): Desert Storm seems to have an extremely rigorous touring history. Has it been a challenge keeping up with all the shows and touring or would you say it’s been a labor of love for the band to play so often?
Ryan: Yeah it’s certainly tough at times…the tours we did with Honky and Nashville Pussy were the hardest as we didn’t have the annual leave to take from our jobs…so we were playing around the country, getting home at 2 or 3am…up at 6am working 8 hours and then doing it all again! But worth it for the rock n roll! We all really love it and would like to tour more often and for longer!
(((o))): It looks as if Desert Storm already has some insane tour plans this year, what are some of the other bands you’ll be playing with and which shows are you most excited to play?
Ryan: Actually this year we only have one short tour announced which is just after the release of the record in February…3 shows in Europe, Antwerp in Belgium, Zaandam in Netherlands and a cool show supporting Samsara Blues Experiment in Berlin, Germany. We have some good festivals coming up though, DesertFest (London), Mammothfest (Brighton) and Red Sun Festival (Cardiff), which all have great line ups! There are some plans to tour longer later in the year…hopefully will come to fruition.
(((o))): I stated in my review you guys were ‘A Band to Drink To’, do you think that’s true? Does Desert Storm know how to have a good time?
Ryan: Ha yes! We liked that one, definitely a band that likes to party, so we’ll take that!
(((o))): If you could play alongside any other band, even if that band doesn’t exist anymore, what would it be?
Ryan: Black Sabbath original line up!
(((o))): If you guys could collaborate with any other artist or band in the future, who/which other band would it be and why?
Ryan: HONKY! Because they’re all great dudes and an excellent band! A lot of fun to tour with!
(((o))): Again, I’d like to thank you for taking the time to do this interview and I’m sure all current and future fans are excited to snag a copy of Omniscient on vinyl (I am).
Ryan: Thank you!
