“I just flew back from LA yesterday – I was out there to master the record with John Golden,” he says. “A lot of musicians don’t attend their [mastering] sessions but I always do because I’m an engineer myself. I’m kind of a geek when it comes to sound and tech stuff. We’ve worked with [Golden] on every album – I really trust him and his input. He’s worked with just about everyone. Right now he’s re-mastering every Sonic Youth record, and he also just finished up a job for Soundgarden. He’s definitely got some stories to tell.”
The forthcoming album was produced by Jon-Tore Dombu, formerly of Norwegian nu-metal band Torch. “We went to Florida to record it with Jon, and it was done in ten days,” Martinez says. “This is our first release on Season of Mist Records – we signed with them earlier this year. As soon as everything is packaged and ready to go, it’ll be released. We’ll be playing it live at these Australian shows and we can’t wait for people to hear it.”
Kicking off this week, Black Cobra’s Australian tour also includes fellow US sludge duo Jucifer. Coined the Twins of Evil tour, Black Cobra’s performances are certain to justify that title. “We love to play live and loud,” Martinez says. “Jason [Landrian, guitar/vocals] and I like to mix our set-lists up and choose songs from all our albums. We now have 49 songs in our repertoire. We play so many different styles – slow southern sludge, mid-tempo and creepy psychedelic metal – that we mix with our thrashier-sounding songs.”
Black Cobra officially formed in 2001, but the pair’s friendship goes back almost 20 years. “Jason and I met each other in Miami growing up,” Martinez says. “We had a band called Point Blank – we both played guitar. This was in ‘96 or ‘97. We met through a mutual friend Sonya – she played drums. We had so much fun back then. Sonya ended up working with Norah Jones.
“Anyway, I moved to California and Jason was living in New York when we started thinking about starting another band. I called him and said, ‘Hey, let’s do something long distance’. We never thought anything would come of it. Black Cobra was really just an experiment. A progressive metal two-piece? We’d never seen anything like this, we didn’t know how it would work live and if anybody would like it. We had no idea.”
Black Cobra are proud representatives of San Francisco’s Bay Area. It has a long history of producing world-class rock, metal and punk bands; Faith No More, The Brian Jonestown Massacre, Creedence Clearwater Revival and Primus all call the area home. “As far as metal bands from around the area, there’s Exodus and Testament,” Martinez says. “Metallica and Slayer come here all the time. I mean, it’s not like it was in the ‘80s – I didn’t live here then but from what I understand it was absolutely insane. But I still love San Fran. There’s a lot of amazing independent music here and there’s a strong underground culture.”
In fact, Black Cobra met Jucifer when they were sharing the bill at an underground club. “They were one of the first two-piece bands that we’d ever heard of,” Martinez says, “and it’ll be their first time ever in Australia. Jason and I are going to take them to see the Bon Scott statue in Fremantle. We can’t wait.”
BY NATALIE ROGERS
