Patrick Brink began Volume in 1993 and released a stoner classic in 2003. ‘Requesting Permission To Land’ is now being finally released on vinyl via Weird Beard (UK) We Here & Now (CA) Echodelick (US) Worst Bassist (EU) Ramble Records (AU).

This heavy fuzzed out psychedelic rock from the desert of Twentynine Palms, CA, are back following a hiatus to finish what they started and celebrate a career milestone. The 20th Anniversary edition vinyl pressing of ‘Requesting Permission To Land’ will be released on October 27th. “I’m super stoked that Requesting Permission To Land will finally be out on vinyl like it was always supposed to be. Get ready to get cosmically freaked out!,” says Patrick Brink.

From the riff-fueled percussive-frenzy sound of the EP’s opener ‘Habit’ to the rhythmic and progressive conclusion ‘Headswim,’ ‘Requesting Permission To Land’ is a thrilling collection of heavy acid rock tracks. The EP features a number of talented musicians with drums recorded by Scott Reeder (Fu Manchu), and bass played by James Scoggins (Final Conflict).

Having performed with a number of acts including doing vocals for Fu Manchu in their early days, Volume offered Patrick a new creative outlet. Over their career the band has shared stages with Queens of the Stone Age, Fu Manchu, Mastodon and Goatsnake, and performed at festivals including Emmisions of the Monolith and Stoner Hands of Doom (SHoD). Volume draws musical influences from bands such as The Stooges, MC5 and Black Flag to name a few, while also crafting their own distinctive heavy psychedelic identity.

“Everything was recorded on vintage, analog equipment”

Would you like to share about your upbringing? Where did you all grow up? Tell us about daily life back in your teenage years.

Patrick Brink: I was born in 29 Palms in the middle of nowhere at the time. It’s now somewhat of a hotbed of people moving to it. But that’s cool. I can’t keep it to myself, although I would like to at times. It’s peaceful in many ways out here. When we were younger we could walk to the store by ourselves, and didn’t have to worry about crime for the most part. But growing up in the desert was also insulating. Yeah we did the usual; eat, sleep, go to school, and on and on. But it was far removed from any scene or what the cities had to offer. We didn’t have malls, record shops, places to see concerts – none of that. For better or worse, that’s the reality of it. What we had was top 40 radio and Network TV. My family couldn’t afford the emerging pay channels at that time; HBO and Showtime. In my teenage years we would party in the desert, the National Park (it was only considered a monument back then) or find a house whose parents were gone for the weekend. It drove some of us to start bands out of boredom. If it wasn’t for a few friends that moved out there from the city I would probably have been stuck listening to Madonna and Bryan Adams. I discovered punk rock in 1984 and with it fanzines like Flipside and Maximum Rocknroll. They were instrumental in turning me on to what lay beyond the cactus and desert skies. My friends and I eventually started a band, and soon after started playing desert shows and parties at houses.

Was there a certain scene you were part of, maybe you had some favourite hangout places? Did you attend a lot of gigs back then?

In the late 80s there wasn’t any one sound that bands played- it was very eclectic, and it still is out here. We played parties that were usually in various musical styles. My band was a punk band and we played with thrash, metal, and rock bands. As far as places we hung out, those are what I mentioned above. Someone’s house which usually depended on whose parents were gone, or spots in the desert. We had our go to spots; Vietnam, Gold’s Park, Indian Cove. There weren’t any gigs to attend unless we threw a party. I didn’t make shows until I got my license and could drive to the city 2 1/2 hours away. I occasionally made it to some desert parties down in the Coachella valley.

If we would step into your teenage room, what kind of records, fanzines, posters et cetera would we find there?

My early teens would have been Scorpions, Elvis Presley, Men at Work, and stuff like that with lots of carnival type posters- blacklight, tv shows, et cetera. About midway through 10th grade in 1984 is when things changed. I got into punk so you would have seen a lot of that. Favs were Black Flag and Sonic Youth which led me to the SST stuff; like Würm, SWA, Saint Vitus. I already mentioned Flipside and Maximum Rocknroll, I also had a Toxic Shock mail-order catalog. I really looked forward to each time they updated it with new releases.

“I was in a lot of punk bands as a vocalist”

Were you in any other bands before forming Volume?

I was in a lot of punk bands as a vocalist up until 1991. That’s when I moved to Orange County and met Mark Abshire (Fu Manchu/Nebula). He had a band called Stupidhead and they were looking for a singer. He dug my voice and I was going to join them. But he also had some friends in another band that needed a bass player and a singer for a slow heavy band called Fu Manchu. He asked me to try out and I did. The jam with them went well and I ended up joining the band. The music sounded kinda like the Melvins (who I didn’t know of at the time) but with laid back surfer lyrics. I dug the sound, but was just okay singing someone else’s lyrics. We played some shows over the year but there were differences in ideas and I was the odd man out in that deal. I was more aggressive and they wanted a singer more laid back. So one day I got the call and that was that. I played in a few more bands but nothing was really gelling so that is when I started Volume.

Can you elaborate on how the band got originally together?

I was in college around 93/94 and was focusing on writing songs and one of my classmates, Scott Key, who was a guitarist and bassist was into the songs I was writing. He played lead in another band so he wanted to play bass for the material I was coming up with. We started jamming together and I eventually found Eric Avdeef who played drums. I met him at the Orange County Courthouse. I had to appear in Traffic Court and he was the parking attendant. He saw that I had a recycler (it was equivalent to a print version of Craigslist back then)and asked what I was looking for. I told him about a drummer and he whipped out of his back pocket a pair of drum sticks. We ended up jamming and he was really good so he joined the band. We didn’t play shows for a couple of years but around 1995 we started gigging. We didn’t have a lead guitarist yet but we started getting out there anyways. By 1997 we found Jason Christensen- lead guitarist- but soon after Scott quit. Again we kept playing live shows this time without a bassist really until Cas (Sasquatch) joined in 2002, I believe.

You record several demos before ‘Requesting Permission to Land’. Stuff like ‘Heavy as Fuck!’ and ‘Love Is a Mountain and Heavy as Fuck!’… What about ‘The Voyage Continues…’?

‘The Voyage Continues’ was a CD-R self release that only a few were made. Probably less than 10. We had released our 7″ ‘Check This Planet – I’m Gone’… in 1998 which had ‘Spiritualized’ and ‘Drag ‘on it. It sold out quickly. So the purpose was to make available more songs in between official releases.

Can you share some further details how ‘Requesting Permission to Land’ was recorded?

Everything was recorded on vintage, analog equipment straight to 2″ tape. The record was recorded over a period of six days between June and November 2001. It was supposed to be back to back weekends, but craziness happens. First off we jammed with Scott a few times before we went in, and actually make believe, we only jammed it the night before. The Bass player on the EP, James Scoggins (Final Conflict), only practiced with us one time, the night before. The basic tracks went fairly smooth, we did them in one or two takes. That was a conscious decision going into the recording. We wanted to make sure we didn’t lose the heart, the energy and the vibe. If you just do it over and over, driving it into the ground, you end up losing any type of feeling by the 10th take. Recording the vocals was a different story, though and when I went to do vocals my voice bit it hard. So we had to reschedule those. Mike’s studio, The Distillery in Costa Mesa (RIP), was usually booked all the time, so we had to wait two months before we could get back in there. When we finally got around to mixing, things hit the wall again. I got a call from my wife who said that the ambulance was on their way to my house because my youngest daughter was having massive seizures. So I hung up the phone and left with barely an explanation to the guys. I floored it and met the ambulance arriving at my house. Very crazy time. After everything somewhat settled down we got back in the studio and finished mixing the following week.

Are you excited to have it available again thanks to Weird Beard (UK) We Here & Now (CA) Echodelick (US) Worst Bassist (EU) Ramble Records (AU)?

I’m totally stoked to have our EP available again. Especially, since this time it’s coming out on vinyl worldwide through their collaboration. It was always supposed to be on vinyl, but the original label kept pushing the vinyl release back until they folded. ‘Requesting Permission to Land’ has also been remastered by Jack Endino (Mudhoney, Nirvana, Soundgarden). He did a killer job. You can actually hear the bass which got buried in some of the muddiness of the drums on the original mix.

<a href="https://volume-rocks.bandcamp.com/album/requesting-permission-to-land">Requesting Permission To Land by VOLUME</a>

You played with some of the big bands back then.

We got lucky and got to play on a lot of cool shows. We did SHoD IV, and the Emissions Festival in 2003. We have opened up for Fu Manchu, Queens of the Stone Age, Atomic Bitchwax, Nebula, Weedeater, et cetera. We also opened up for Zebrahead who were getting pretty big at the time. That was a weird show for us because they are a poppy/punk/rap type band. But there were some people who were digging our sound.

What kind of gear, amps, pedals did you use?

Jason used: Univibe, Fuzzface, Big Muff, crybaby wah, Ibanez delay, and Marshal amp. I used (and still do, except for the cabinet): Big Muff, Crybaby, Ibanez flange, Smallstone, and Fender Showman head w/ homemade speaker cabinet.

The bass player used an Ampeg, but I can’t recall what model.

What are some bands/musicians that have a big influence on you?

There are so many bands that influence me. The biggest ones though are the ones I mentioned above and a few others…Black Flag, Love and Rockets (pre house stuff), Blue Cheer, The Stooges, MC5, early Monster Magnet, Mudhoney, SST bands, Loop, Thee Hypnotics, and Union Carbide Productions (we are doing a cover of theirs’ on our next EP).

How important is improvisation for you?

Improvisation is definitely cool, especially when you have killer musicians. We do some improv on a couple of different songs (‘Mercury Pull,’ ‘Spacebaby,’ and ‘Headswim’) but most of our songs don’t lend themselves to improvement.

Are any of you involved in any other bands or do you have any active side-projects going on at this point?

Not really, the focus is on Volume right now and getting back out there. After nearly a 20 year hiatus, I recently started Volume back up. Unfortunately, Jason isn’t involved. He lives in Texas, but I have found musicians who dig the vision- which was and still is to conquer the Universe! Soon we will be playing live starting with our Record Release Show on October 28. We plan on getting back into the studio in January and record another EP at Rancho De La Luna with Dave Catching (QOTSA, Desert Sessions, Iggy Pop, et cetera). Then the plan is to play out as much as possible with a short tour next Summer. Then the plan is to go back in the studio to record a full length. I already have enough songs for three albums and am writing all the time.

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 albums would be:
‘Spine of God’ (Monster Magnet)
‘High Time’/’Kick out The Jams’ (MC5)
‘Fun House’ (The Stooges)
‘The First Four Years’ (Black Flag)
‘Express’ (Love and Rockets)
‘Come Down Heavy’ (Thee Hypnotics)
‘Paranoid’ (Black Sabbath )
‘Vincebus Eruptum’ (Blue Cheer)
‘Superfuzz Bigmuff’ (Mudhoney)

Lately, I’ve been listening to Halo Noose. A killer band out of Scotland. They remind me of early Monster Magnet (before ‘Spine Of God’), and Loop/Spaceman 3, psych garage. Really cool stuff.

Klemen Breznikar

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