Cough has had a busy year. After the fantastic _Ritual Abuse_ in 2010 and an equally stellar split with The Wounded Kings, the band gears up for a tour with seminal sludge pioneers Buzzov*en. Before their extended tour, Jonathan Carbon and bassist Parker Chandler discussed a variety of topics including the occult, imaginary documentaries and the band's less than optimistic view of the world in general.
CoC: I was reading you are preparing a southern tour with Buzzov*en. Has it gotten to the point where you are sharing the stage with your idols, or at least deeply respected bands?
Parker Chandler: I'm a fan of Buzzov*en, so it's cool to be hitting the road with them. I'm more interested to see if they live up to their reputation on and off the stage. Our buddy Sleepy's playing guitar for them now, so hanging out with him for a couple weeks should be a good time. As far as future opportunities, I'm excited to see where all this takes us.
CoC: How was making _Ritual Abuse_ compared to _Sigillum Lucerferi_? Would there be any external factors to contribute to the seething hopeless despair?
PC: We moved into a warehouse in the hood so we could 'focus' on writing the next record. That was a fucking disaster. We barely wrote a single song in the time we spent there, but it provided a lot of ammo for everything after that.
CoC: Your lyrics, song titles and album art have consistently veered off the path taken by the majority of psychedelic doom bands. Do you find the occult more interesting than writing about drugs? Are conversion vans and astronomy not dark enough for you?
PC: We're not a happy bunch of stoners with sunglasses and hot rods. We're a group of dudes, living paycheck to paycheck, with shitty part-time jobs that force us to deal with worthless fucks who think they're better than us. It's a bullshit existence, so that's what we write about mostly.
CoC: Where do you see yourselves in terms of stoner doom, and more specifically the Southern US sludge scene?
PC: I guess we're gaining relevance. We're gonna do this regardless of whether or not anyone else gives a shit, so I don't really pay attention to our 'role' in the genre too much.
CoC: In early reports you were supposed to be in the documentary "Slow Southern Steel". Do you have a part in the film, and if so, will it be out any time in the next decade?
PC: I honestly have no clue. It started off small and kinda snowballed into this much bigger deal. They recorded a live set of ours over two years ago, but I can't say whether or not we made the cut. They've released a couple trailers over the past year or so. I'm hoping to see the film in the next year or two.
CoC: The majority of vocals on _Ritual Abuse_ sound like they have a strong black metal influence. Is there any truth to that, or are the vocals neutral in terms of style?
PC: We got black metal comparisons on _Sigillum Luciferi_ too, so maybe it's just something inherent in dark music.
CoC: What is your relation to the occult? Is it a harmless flirtation, or have you already summoned one or more demons during this interview?
PC: We don't follow any religion. Occult imagery comes with the territory of being a real metal band. If it pisses somebody off, then I guess we're doing our job.
CoC: I want you to recommend an album, but the rules are it has to be emotionally uplifting.
PC: Valkyrie - _Valkyrie_ (2006). Our Virginia brothers. We've all listened to this record countless times. It's still awesome and they just fucking kill it live.
CoC: What's on the horizon for Cough? Any more releases or tours being planned?
PC: We've got the Buzzov*en tour, another short one after that, then seven weeks in Europe. After all that's out of the way, we'll probably write more songs. We're just piecing things together between tours right now, with no solid plans to release anything anytime soon.
CoC: Do you have any parting words?
PC: Buy Cough stuff? Thanks.