With Hella on hiatus,

the unconventional percussionist makes an unholy racket.

BY DAVID DOWNS

“I got to be honest,” Zach Hill says, exhaling a puff of

Natural American Spirit Light into the searing sun. “Me and Spencer just don’t

get along.”

Tall and thin and blond, the 29 year-old Hella drummer wears

Nikes, tight jeans and a stained T. He squats in the shade of an alley just off

Commercial St.

in Nevada City, CA, sipping Cafe Mekka coffee and squinting

toward wakefulness this Saturday noon. Highly regarded in the weirdo prog metal

world, Hill is on the verge of recognition far beyond this hometown hippie

retreat; population 3,001. His longtime metal prog collaboration with Spencer

Seim imploded last year, culminating in a panic attack during Hella’s expanded,

five-man 2007 tour for There’s No 666 In Outer Space.

“Basically I didn’t imagine what it would be like to

play with all those guys. It just didn’t work,” Hill says. “I hadn’t

gotten a panic attack like that since I was, like, 14.”

After four albums and fifteen years of accumulated baggage,

Hella is on indefinite hiatus, yet the future is light indeed. Both Seim and

Hill have new solo albums: Seim’s sBACH which goes in a more pop direction and

Hill’s Astrological Straits, which is something else entirely.

The self-taught drummer’s debut (issued in August on Mike

Patton’s label Ipecac) is a wild, cryptologic ride – part jazz, metal and

electronic music. It is absolutely pummeling, uncompromising and authentic.

Thirteen bizarre, percussive trips both alienating and exhilarating include

contributions from Les Claypool, No Age, The Deftones, Tyler Pope of LCD

Soundsystem and !!! and others. Future Hill collaborators include Prefuse 73

and the Mars Volta. “I didn’t set out with a list of artists I wanted to

have on it. Things just sort of happened along the way,” he says.

“I’m not interested in making anything middling. I want to draw a

line.”

Indeed, the quiet, young man does. Straits speaks

dead languages via percussive braille. It’s music for listeners in the year

2100 – when ear drums are thicker and classic structure obsolete. If you buy

one difficult record this year, buy this one. Your grandkids will respect you

more.

Unseen forces dictated the recording of the album, says

Hill, who was a delayed speaker as a child but an avid illustrator. His

blue-collar family didn’t play instruments, and he wanted to be Walt Disney.

“I liked making my own world,” he says. However, an older neighbor

was a basher and, as Hill puts it, “I don’t want to say I heard voices,

but the drums spoke to me.” Hill’s

a strong believer in UFOs, astrology (born December 28), and other aspects of

the occult. He won’t vote this Fall, thinking either way we’re trending toward

a New World Order. Hill doesn’t drive, never got his license, and was horrified

by the randomness and personal nature of the recent Greyhound bus beheading in Canada. (“Police

say the guy hasn’t spoke since. They have no idea why he did it. Do you know

how many buses I’ve passed out on?”)

At age 15, Hill dropped out of a violent, gang-ridden Sacramento high school

after a pregnant girl got stabbed. His parents split, and he became the Huck

Finn of inland California – pretending to be

homeless and sleeping on the streets of downtown Sacramento for days. He and a friend got

their first drum kit for $150 in yard sale money. Solo training gave him a

bashing, dense, asymmetric style all his own.

Hella’s four albums between ’02 and ’08 took him all over

the world and introduced him to many who would collaborate on Straits.

Patton and Hill met backstage at a Queens of

the Stone Age show and played some shows together, agreeing to a future Hill

release. Hundreds of Bay Area drummers lost to Hill in an open audition to play

with Primus’ bassist in 2001. The two saw eye to eye and have jammed

intermittently ever since, culminating in Claypool’s appearance on the title

track – a near-summation of the album. Pope is a neighbor who was home on a

holiday. No Age proved philosophical kin and the evidence is the beautiful “Stoic

Logic”, comparable only to the 8-bit insanity of “Dead Art.” All the pieces

fell into place by March of 2008, when the record was finished.

In the early afternoon, Hill heads into the Sierra

Foothills. We’re in gold country, following switchbacks to the South Yuba

River. Down below,

swimming holes line the bottom of the wooded canyon, along with families, dogs

and girls in Volcom bikinis. Ironically, the basher feels at peace in this

wooded silence. His feet shuffle into the cool green pool just one shoe size

smaller than Michael Phelps. Their arms look similar – lean and tan with veins

like cabling and tendons etched in concrete. Hill surfaces in the middle of the

deep end without a sound but a smile. The most thundering, chaotic drummer in a

300-mile radius is a recovering stoic.

“I’ve never been good at small talk,” he says and

disappears back into the river.

[Photo Credit: David B. Torch]