High on Fire's Matt Pike confronts global conspiracies
Sleep and High on Fire guitarist Matt Pike shares his thoughts on Reptilians and other political cover-ups.
- Jimmy Hubbard
- High On Fire
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Less than a year after stoner metal legends Sleep disbanded in 1998, guitarist Matt Pike filled a creative void in his life by forming High on Fire. Nearly two decades and one Sleep reunion later, Pike finds himself in two active bands that, in different ways, shaped the face of modern sludge and doom metal. While Sleep has been known for lengthy, trudging jams since the early ‘90s, High on Fire has consistently given Pike an outlet to play lightning quick riffs and write lyrics chock full of allegories inspired by the works of H.P. Lovecraft, ancient religions, and even a few conspiracy theories.
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The latter sometimes pops up in High on Fire songs via references to Reptilian shape shifters in positions of power. The most recent example is “The Black Hole,” the opening track from the band’s seventh album, Luminiferous, issued June 16 by Entertainment One. The song's lyrics warn that “Reptilian eyes trick the arcane from under.” “They could just be bankers,” Pike admits. “They’d be doing the same thing whether they are Reptilian or not — they are fucking up the world. You can trace their bloodline back to King David and even ancient Sumer. They are all part of various secret societies that are all connected with the one pyramid, which is the all-seeing eye.”
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Pike is dead serious about these beliefs. “I like to speak my mind about it,” he says. “People think I should put a tin foil hat on my head, but I don’t really fucking care.”
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According to Pike, criticizers of such opinions are duped by a separate yet interconnected plot. “They’ve been conditioned since they were little kids to believe everything the news tells them, that journalists have integrity on the Fox network,” he says. “No dude, they are told what to do. Half of them are Reptilian anyway. You’ve got a bunch of lizards telling you what the fuck happened yesterday.”
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Some of these conspiracies may be hard for fans to swallow, but using personal beliefs to construct lyrical allegories is not uncommon in modern metal. “I use what I read like that metaphorically, just like I use parallelism or religion — all the stuff that came from either fantasy or came from truth and became part of mythology,” Pike says.
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Pike spends most nights working up a sweat playing full-volume heavy metal, so the logic behind his shirtless on-stage look makes sense—even to conspiracy theory cynics. “That’s the way I feel comfortable playing,” he says. “It’s not really a macho thing. If I wear a shirt every night then I have all this fucking laundry to do, and I want to keep that at a bare minimum. Plus it’s more comfortable for the strap to slide across my naked torso than it is for me to wear a shirt and it get all jammed up.”
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Even listeners a little jaded by Pike’s personal beliefs agree that like Sleep, High on Fire is a metal powerhouse with a seemingly bottomless well of creativity and imagination.
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High on Fire plays the Masquerade on Sat., Aug. 22, with Pallbearer, Lucifer, and Venomous Maximus. $17. 7 p.m. 695 North Ave. 404-577-8178. www.masq.com.