"When I got offered the chance to produce I Shall Die Here for The Body, it was a surprise even to me really. I’d been aware of their stuff for a while and when Christs, Redeemers, their album for Thrill Jockey, came out, it seemed to ruffle a few feathers. Then Matt Werth who runs RVNG Intl. got in touch and said they’d been discussing collaborators for the new record and my name came up. I just jumped at it. They paid for me to go over to the Mexican Summer studios in Brooklyn. It was a bit of a whirlwind experience for me because it was the first time I’d ever been to America, and I’d always wanted to go ever since I was a kid. But I spent my entire time in the studio working on the album. It was really exciting and a good experience but really hectic as well. I’ve never actually met them in person. It was the first record I’d ever produced for someone else, so I said, ‘If it’s cool with you, my production style is that I’d like to get a vibe for the songs and be left on my own.’ A lot of the work I was going to be doing was inside a computer and there’s nothing worse than someone looking over your shoulder when you’re tweaking shit for hours on end. Luckily they just said, ‘Here’s the stems, just get on with it.’
"I also did a Latitudes Session called The Men Parted The Sea To Devour The Water – for Southern Records. And this is 100% the background I’m from. I’ve always been into a wide breadth of music but ever since I was eight or nine, metal and punk have informed everything I do. I was in bands making punk music maybe up until a few years ago. And I find it a bit frustrating really that some people think that I am a fucking DJ… really it’s the complete polar opposite of what I do. And if you listen closely I think you can hear the heavy metal influences in the two albums I’ve put out. Aesthetically heavy metal plays a big role in The Haxan Cloak, and I think the fact that I put my first album out on Aurora Borealis says something. That was a really conscious decision. I targeted them with demos more than anything else. Well, them and Southern. Southern were and still are a really important label, and instrumental in putting out the music that I grew up listening to, so it was kind of a dream come true to do anything associated with them.
"There are a couple of reasons why I plumped for these particular albums which I was mainly listening to when I was a teenager. I do read a lot of these lists of people’s favourite records and they can be a bit like when you go round to someone’s house and they have a load of classic books on display which they’ve clearly never read. That sort of thing really pisses me off because I don’t think it’s genuine. If you ask me what my 13 favourite metal records are this is what I have to say, because metal’s been so instrumental to me and my growth. Metal has shaped me musically and this list reflects the importance of that period between the age of 10 and 17 when you’re just soaking everything up and I just wanted to be really honest about that.
"I got into the metal look when I was younger and I guess there were two sides to that. When I was a teenager it was skate shirts and massive baggy shorts and chains and shit like that. But then after a couple of years you realise you look like a complete tit so you try and reign it in a bit, and that was when I started to raid all of my brother’s old clothes, so I’d nick his denim jackets and old Metallica T-shirts and stuff like that and go skating. I had this 1980s thrash metal skater thing going on."
To find out what Bobby’s favourite heavy metal albums are click on the picture below…
