Portland, Oregon-based drone-psych-rock band Supplemental Pills recently released sophomore full-length album, ‘No Easy Way Out’ via In Music We Trust Records.

What started out as friends getting together and jamming at a recording studio during quarantine turned into one of the Northwest’s heavier, unrestrained, psychedelic offerings. At the start of the pandemic, Deer Lodge Studios’ owner/engineer/producer Ezra Meredith’s longtime project, the psych-folk act Hearts of Oak, decided to put the brakes on the band in the name of quarantining. But, with music in his veins and a studio at his disposal, he eventually brought together a new quartet featuring his brother, guitarist/pedal steel player Joel Meredith, Hearts of Oak’s bassist/synth player Aron Christensen, and drummer/backing vocalist Mark Folkrod.

“We recorded the songs mostly live with the four of us”

You have a brand new album out. Would you like to discuss how much time and effort went into recording ‘No Easy Way Out’?

Ezra Meredith: More effort was put into this album than our first one, ‘Volume One’. We all worked on developing the songs together and after several months we felt they were in a good place to begin recording. It was a very collaborative process, the four of us produced this album: Aron Christensen, Mark Folkrod, Joel Meredith and myself. We’ve each said it’s the best thing any of us had ever done, so it was nice to bring that out as a real band and friends working together.

Would you say there’s a new chapter in your band with the release of your latest album? How would you compare it to your previous releases and what would you say are some key differences?

On the new one, Joel and I recorded a lot of demos – which I’ve never done before. I’m used to just getting started and developing songs as I go. This time around, Joel would come over with demo ideas, and I’d record him (usually his guitar just directly into the mixer) along with a drum machine to keep time. Then I’d add vocal ideas the next day or so later. Mostly just making up stuff, and when it sounded good phonetically and rhythm wise, I’d try and figure out what I was singing and make actual lyrics off of those. A lot of weird shit was going on in my life at the time, so it was easy to come up with the words. After that I’d get a rough mix of the demo’s and email them to Mark and Aron. It was pretty much the middle of the pandemic at that point and we weren’t getting together to jam, so we basically built up an album’s work of material. When it was cool to hang with friends again, we started getting together at Aron’s basement studio in Sellwood. We assembled the basic elements of the songs there and then went back to my place (Deer Lodge) and began recording them.

<a href="https://supplementalpills.bandcamp.com/album/no-easy-way-out">No Easy Way Out by Supplemental Pills</a>

Tell us about the recording and production process.

We recorded the songs mostly live with the four of us (Aron, Mark, Joel and myself) in the same room at my studio, bass, guitars and drums and I’d do a scratch vocal take (sung pretty low so we didn’t get a lot of bleed on the scratch vocal). Then I’d start doing the overdubs, like lead guitars or vocal stuff. Aron added a lot of the synth parts later on too. Mark did a lot of his vocals and percussion overdubs at his place in St. Johns, and he’d email me his parts. By that point we were playing with RonJon Datta on organ, so he added his parts to all the songs after that too. We basically finished tracking the album in April or May of 2022. I spent the rest of the year mixing it.

Let’s get back to the early days of the band, how did you originally meet and what led you to form Supplemental Pills?

At first we called the band “Recording Project” because we just wanted to record and not bother with shows. We also were going to be mostly an instrumental band. Plans like that never really work out because I spend so much time in my studio working on sounds and eventually that led to me doing vocals, et cetera and us thinking, what the hell, let’s take this show out of the basement and into a dark barroom.

I’ve known Joel since he was born, I remember visiting him in the hospital – he was so cute! Him and I have a real love for the type of music the Spacemen 3 and Velvet Underground play. He’s also extremely into the blues, as I am. When we were forming the band, I asked him if he wanted to be involved and he jumped in.

Mark Folkrod and I met while doing another project together in 2015 I think. He was living in San Luis Obispo, CA at the time, but talked about moving up here eventually. We talked for years about starting a psychedelic rock band together. So when he moved up here, we did just that.

I met Aron Christensen several years ago too, he had a band that needed to get some songs recorded and asked me. We became friends extremely fast, our taste in music was basically the same…heavy psych / country / blues / punk / drone – I mean, it was like looking into a mirror sometimes in terms of the cosmic connection we had. I miss him fiercely. He basically taught me how to play guitar, how to do solo’s – stuff like that. He’d point out where I was fucking up but in the nicest way possible. When we first started, Aron and I were playing in Hearts of Oak and Reno together. I told him that I needed him in one more band, and he obliged. After Aron was murdered we were obviously in shock and didn’t really know what to do. I eventually asked another friend of mine, and Aron’s roommate – Andy Foster to play bass with us. He agreed and has been super steady since.

RonJon Datta is an old friend of mine, he joined the band after he sent me a text saying that an organ would sound good in the band…he happened to own that organ and we couldn’t be happier to have him around to fill in the sound.

Ezra, you’re an owner/engineer/producer of Deer Lodge Studios. Tell us how you originally got interested in the production side of things and what can you say about the beginning of Deer Lodge and how much work are you currently working on?

I got my interest and started recording music because I mostly didn’t want to pay someone else to do it. I like to methodically work on songs and tracks and spending all day in the studio on my own music is something I do all the time. I can’t afford to pay that. I also like to take a year sometimes to really mix batches of songs, so paying someone to do that is also out of the question.

The Deer Lodge started in around 2003 when a friend of mine gave me a stuffed, mounted deer head. It was a small deer his family made for him because they were proud he got his first one. So I named it Deer Lodge because of that. Originally it was built to record and house my band at the time, the Meredith Brothers – but my friend Morgan Geer (Drunken Prayer) begged me to record their first album, so I got back into the recording hustle because of him. A few years before that I was an intern and eventually was getting gigs engineering at Larry Crane’s Jackpot Studio here in Portland. Larry and Luther Russell really taught me how to record and produce albums early on. I got kinda tired of recording other people after a few years so I was just doing my own thing for a while before meeting Morgan.

Currently I’m mixing four albums and about to start another project with a local band in the next few weeks. Also recording the new Supplemental Pills album. I’m pretty busy.

As Hearts of Oak were a big part of your life, I would be delighted to hear how that came to be and what led you to stop.

Hearts of Oak isn’t over, we just paused the band for a while during the pandemic. Nate Wallace and I are actually working on what will be a double album’s worth of material that we recorded before the world shut down and we couldn’t hang out anymore. We tracked a lot of stuff onto my 16 track reel-to-reel, it’s great stuff and it really showcases what Aron Christensen was doing in that band too. It’s more of a rock record than any of the previous Hearts of Oak stuff and is all over the place as well, has a nice ‘Double Nickels on the Dime’ esoteric vibe to it so far. Definitely our best effort.

Nate Wallace started Hearts of Oak in around 2006 I think. I’ve recorded and produced all the albums, but I kinda joined the band around the New England album in 2014 that Joel and I produced together.

If I understand currently Supplemental Pills was born from necessity to jam together during the difficult period the whole world was facing?

Nah, it was formed before the pandemic. But we did jam together during that difficult time.

But you had more projects including The Meredith Brothers Band, Drugstore Cowboy, T-Bone & Little Buck. What else did I miss?

Yeah, I’ve recorded and been in or part of those bands in some capacity or another. Rakes (Andy Foster’s band), Reno, Radio Receiver, Forest Grove Outlaws…and a whole lot I’m not remembering now.

Was Drunken Prayer your first band? Tell us about it.

No, I was never in Drunken Prayer, I just recorded their first album. But, I know Morgan Geer well, he’s one of my best friends. I have known him since 2003 or so I think.

How do you usually approach songwriting? What kind of process is it for you? Does it change according to the project you’re involved with?

‘For No Easy Way Out’ I improvised with sounds and words and made lyrics off of those. That approach seemed to work well for me, so I’ll likely keep doing it that way.

Do you often play live? Who are some of your personal favorite bands that you’ve had a chance to play with over the past few years?

We play out in spurts, sometimes we’ll have a bunch on the schedule and sometimes – like now, we aren’t playing out as often. We like playing with all sorts of bands, but lately the Pills have had some good shows with our friends, Epic Strange. We also had a good show recently with Descending Pharaohs and Breath.

What are some future plans?

We’re about to start recording again, stuff for our eventual third album. It’s pretty bluesy so far.

How important is improvisation for you?

Very important, although this recent album doesn’t have a ton of that. But improvisation has always been part of my bag.

Let’s end this interview with some of your favourite albums. Have you found something new lately you would like to recommend to our readers?

My favorite album of all time is ‘Bubblegum’ by Mark Lanegan (RIP). Anything by the band Endless Boogie is great, including the album they put out a year or so ago, ‘Admonitions’. Though, I mostly listen to older blues stuff or projects I’m mixing. Lately I’ve heard some stuff from the new Hey Colossus album that sounds great!

Thank you. Last word is yours.

Listen to Mark Lanegan’s albums.

Klemen Breznikar

Supplemental Pills Facebook / Instagram / Bandcamp
Hearts of Oak Facebook / Instagram
Deer Lodge Instagram / Bandcamp