Comets on Fire visit our shores this March to play two must-see gigs: Wellington at the San Francisco Bathhouse on Wednesday 14th (alongside highly underrated New Zealander Birchville Cat Motel, and Ginger Brown), and Auckland at the King’s Arms on Thursday 15th. BRANNAVAN GANALINGAM queried band member Noel von Harmonson via email before their two New Zealand dates.


COMETS ON FIRE is one of those bands for whom the name fits their style perfectly. Their live show is the stuff of legend – fast, loud riffs, extended jams, huge crescendos, and some of the most furious drumwork around. In fact, Utrillo Kushner’s drumming was described by Julian Cope (The Teardrop Explodes) no less, as two drummers thinking they were Keith Moon.

Formed in Santa Cruz, California in 1999, Comets on Fire released their self-titled first album two years later. Immediately comparisons were made to the blues tradition of the 1960s with bands such as the MC5 and the Sonics frequently mentioned alongside them, in addition to the psychedelic tradition of the 60s. Doing a crazy cover of the Beatles’ ‘Back in the USSR’ may have assisted. Their second album Field Recordings From the Sun solidified their reputation for gloriously organised chaos. Blue Cathedral was their big break, having signed to indie record label heavyweights Sub Pop. Their heavy style was merged in with strong textures and sounds, and led to considerable indie media attention and hype. Their 2006 album Avatar continued their musical development. It was a more low-key affair (only in relation to their previous output), featuring a lot more musical ideas and flourishes, but also maintaining the distinctive Comets on Fire raw sound. Their recordings are certainly recommendable.

But it is live, where the Comets of Fire have garnered their biggest props. Taking time out from their busy tour, Noel von Harmonson answers a few questions about the Comets, discussing where the echoplex (an instrument they are renowned for using) came from, their live show, and what their big dirty riffs attempt to capture.


B: How’s the tour been going?

N: Tour thus far has been amazing. We dueled it out with intense jetlag on the day of our arrival… it seemed like we were winning but we fell passed out by 10pm or so. Anyhow, we were in great shape for the first show at the Corner Hotel in Melbourne last night. Everyone we’ve met thus far is brilliant and gracious….in a word so far tour = awesome!

B: How was the echoplex found? Did you guys use the echoplex right from when you guys first played together?

N: Long before comets had started, I had been fascinated with the mysterious machine that was the echoplex. It’s simply a guitar effect by design and anyone who has ambitions to use it for anything else are a bit screwy simply due to its beastly nature. It’s not a trick of the trade by any means, it was simply a consequence of available (limited) materials that later transitioned or was rationalized as a device of an aspect of the performance. There are many other machines available that can supply echo to a signal and even make feedback on top of it, however, the echoplex is perhaps the most savage (and archaic) device capable of such theatrics. It’s really nothing more than a delay box.

The echoplex came as a kind of afterthought before I was officially in the band. Ethan and Flashman had been getting together to jam some songs on the weekends to get away from the predictability of their current band. They went into these sweaty summer sessions with a totally destructive mentality, trying to write a simple rock riff, amplify it by twenty and shatter it into a thousand pieces by playing it at breakneck tempo. Comets began as an outlet rather than a dedicated project. After Ethan and Flash (and Chris G) made instant recordings on cassettes of the jams that they’d been working on, everything seemed to be coming together surprisingly nicely. It was at this point that they wanted to finish off the project by recording some vocals over the songs. I, being a good acquaintance of all involved, recommended against using a shit box digital delay pedal to achieve the “spaced-out” vocal sound they were looking for as being inspired by Mainliner and High Rise and such. I happened to have an echoplex and Ethan and I recorded vocals to these recordings in my bedroom over the course of a few afternoons in Santa Cruz. I still wonder what the neighbors must have been thinking with screaming lyrics like “...we came to kill you!!!” as were such our early days/imageries.

Soon afterwards comets was ready to play gigs. At this point I certainly did not consider myself a member of the band but rather an advisor or assistant or what not. Nevertheless, when the first gig came up the dudes insisted that I perform live with them manipulating the vocals and to challenge me to rationalize being on stage to perform such a task. Initially I had no idea how to act in front of a crowd, simply twiddling knobs whilst a rock band is raging on. My first instincts led me to toss the box onto the floor and roll around with it and cause as much trouble as possible... however, I soon learned that treatment of such vintage equipment was entirely irresponsible and totally unaffordable.

B: Is it difficult to maintain the structures and the bands tightness given the intensity of the sound?

N: Sure. During the live shows there is a constant balancing act that oscillates between the two. However, on stage, intensity takes priority over structure more often than not. This happens for many reasons, some more admirable than others. Just like any band we try to keep gigs exciting for us which includes introducing unexpected variables that we are forced to deal with on spot with no notice. This kind of conundrum is exciting for us and we have no real interest in playing identical renditions of our songs.

B: How improvised are your albums?

N: Each album’s construction has been drastically different. The first record wasn’t even initially intended to be released given the format we were recording with. The second album wasn’t even written by the time we had booked (our first) studio time for five days. The two records following that have been somewhat more prepared by the time we go in to lay things to tape but there is always deliberate space left open for improvisation when we record. Often times, the things that happen while we are recording become the definitive versions of our songs for us for years. These are just versions for us to work from, versions for us to be like “well that’s what’s it’s like on the record…” and then we go from there. We either adhere to these documented versions or not. And night to night, tour to tour, we try to leave ourselves open to letting these variables play a role in the performance and keeping the songs alive and never “finished”.

B: Feel pressured to capture your live sound on record?

N: It’s a different bag entirely, gigs and records are made and executed from very different perspectives for comets... this question and answer is probably (hopefully) absorbed in the above question...

B: Do big dirty riffs excite you?

N: It’s not big dirty riffs exactly. I think it boils down to all of us being record collectors of all kinds of music from the obvious psych shit to international jams to free jazz to straight jazz to dumb classic rock to whatever. The thing that unites all of these kinds of music (and all music to a degree) is “transcendental moments”. These occur everywhere, and when you hear one you know it. It can be on a fucking Black Sabbath record or it can be on an Ennio Morricone record or it can be in a Mozart piece. So for us, big dirty riffs aren’t that so much as us attempting to ensnare the excitement of the moment... that precise moment when the floor of your room falls out and your are choking back a vom’ because everything in a song magically comes together to totally fuck your shit up.