NOVEMBER 2008 - It was the album that wouldn't die. So many stoner and sludge bands are showered with kudos by other sites, and then I can't find anything great about 'em at all. But MOHO's 2008 release "Chotacabra" was something special. The stormy jams and evil, noisy intervals are built on a groove-crazy, Sabbathy framework that just begs for repeat listens. Bass player / vocalist Iñaki Chunchurreta was excited to share some details about what makes MOHO so dark, powerful, and consistent.

Marchman: So, is MOHO a metal band that digs sludge, or a sludge band that digs death metal?

Iñaki : MOHO is a rock heavy band with not-so-metal influences (in my opinion) and not really death metal. We like some old school death metal bands but for sure they are not a big influence on us.

Marchman: Your drummer Edu seems to have a major impact on the power of the songs. Does he invent a lot of that stuff in a jam environment, or does it come out more when you're laying tracks down to record?

Iñaki: We come to the rehearsal place with some riffs and sometimes with a finished song, start to play and the drummer does his job. Normally he’s doing whatever he wants, and sometimes we come with some ideas for him, and he'll try to play them. For sure Edu has a big impact on the band, as well as the monolithic riffs we do. It's a three piece band, if one of us failed it would be shit!

Marchman: You seem to use vocals only when space permits - not a lot of up-front vocals in the recording. What's your process?

Iñaki: I hate to sing, I mean, really sing. So we use the voice only in certain moments of the songs and not for very long. It's always the music and riffs first, and when we have all that finished, I start with the voice. In 50% of the recorded stuff, I'll sing for the first time when we're just recording the song and normally in one track! So, as you can imagine, the voice is not very important for us.

Marchman: Tell me about the metal scene in Madrid. Is it difficult getting gigs around Europe playing this type of extreme music?

Iñaki: The underground metal scene (for every metal, punk, thrash, grind...whatever you want) in Spain is now growing, but lots of trendies are on the air. Over the last two years you can see lots of different bands cropping up, but 90% of the Spanish bands don’t take this so seriously. Maybe they make a record, some gigs and split up…always the same history. Spain sucks, believe me. Europe is ok for the underground stuff, especially Germany, which has some really good places to play, nice people doing stuff in good ways and is generally an easier country to find a gig than in Spain. Also Holland is nice to tour. I mean, I love to tour everywhere but these two countries are ace. Lots of American bands tour Europe every year and I think they go back to USA with some money in their pockets for sure. Here you have money, food, sleeping place and breakfast every fucking day. Some band friends like BRAINOIL told us about the USA way to make gigs and normally they don’t get much money or even food. They just go to play and then need to find a place to sleep and stuff like that.

Marchman: Yup, that's the American way. On the whole, how many times a year does MOHO get to play out?

Iñaki: It depends on the moment. Now we have like three gigs in Madrid in the next two months, one with the mighty GRIEF! This year we only played one time here in Madrid (the release party for the new album). Anyway we try to play as much as we can or at least, as much as they call us.

Marchman: How important is punk / crust / hardcore to the type of music you play, influence-wise? It seems like there are traces of 80s hardcore in the MOHO sound from time to time.

Iñaki: We play a kind of slow rock with totally punk influences I think, we love good punk hardcore bands, man! JERRY'S KIDS, BLACK FLAG, SIEGE, POISON IDEA, RIPCORD, DEEP WOUND, MELVINS, GERMS, NECROS, the first GANG GREEN, lots of Japanese stuff, and more recently bands like CROSSED OUT and NO COMMENT, just talking about punk!

Marchman: Is the current lineup the original MOHO lineup?

Iñaki: Sure, we formed the band six years ago and we always have the same line-up. I think if one of us leave the band or something, it would be senseless to continue playing with MOHO. We should start another shit band.

Marchman: From the latest album, let's take a cut like "Anciago" - does a long track like that evolve from putting two or three songs together, or is it just a jam that goes on until you feel it is finished?

Iñaki: We never write songs thinking on the running time; we just start to play and when we think it’s done, it's done. “Anciago” was the last song written for the new album. We finished it in the studio while making sound checks and stuff. We don’t care if a song is 1 or 18 minutes - if we like it, it's ok.

Marchman: It sounds like jamming and off-the-cuff material is a big part of the band's focus. Do you ever listen back to a song and decide it's too long later? Do you have a lot of recorded material that is unreleased from jam sessions?

Iñaki: Never! All the stuff we recorded is released thru the three albums, no unreleased material exists. Really, we never pay that much attention to the running time.

Marchman: Do you think it's easy enough for metal fans to find your records?

Iñaki: People who like music know the ways to buy our records through the different labels and distributors. If you are looking for some original records I think is easy to buy it. I never download music as I only buy vinyls, but for sure it is to me people downloading music. I hope they download our records millions of times, man! Thanks to you, Mark!

Marchman: Thanks Iñaki. Good luck to you guys.

MOHO are Iñaki Chunchurreta: bass and vocals, Raúl Del Pozo: guitar, and Edu Rodriguez: drums. Their latest album "Chotacabra" is available through Alone Records. Find out more about the band at myspace.com/moho666.