Culture
Scott Hedrick gets meditative on first solo release, ambient album ‘Devotional Drift Vol. 1’
By: Emily Votaw
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ATHENS, Ohio (WOUB) – Skeletonwitch’s sound is so ferocious it has soundtracked intense workouts and harrowing military combat alike.
However, founding member and longtime Skeletonwitch guitarist Scott Hedrick has long been interested in equally powerful music that doesn’t present as aggressively. In fact, last month Hedrick released his first solo record, marking his “official” foray into that territory.
Devotional Drift Vol. 1 is an ambient album, and to describe it as ‘meditative, expansive, introspective’ wouldn’t be inaccurate—but it would be a disservice. Leaning on this overworked set of adjectives, so often used to characterize ambient music by those who rarely engage with it deeply, risks overlooking the album’s true strength: the deceptively difficult-to-articulate quality of its sheer “listenability.”
Devotional Drift Vol. 1 is impressively, immediately, and strikingly listenable—as in ‘Hans-Joachim Roedelius’ early ambient works’-listenable. In particular, it brings to mind Roedelius’ Selbstportrait series, aptly subtitled ‘Freundliche Musik,’ German for ‘friendly music.’ Devotional Drift Vol. 1 also nods to Roedelius’ contributions to ‘kosmische’/Krautrock alongside collaborator Dieter Moebius in groups like Cluster and Harmonia.
In the interview below, Hedrick discusses “Devotional Drift Vol. 1”: its creation, personal significance, and the reactions it has been generating, even among Skeletonwitch fans. The transcript has been edited for length and clarity.
EMILY VOTAW:
Krautrock and free jazz influenced the sound of Devotional Drift Vol. 1. How did you personally first encounter those genres?
SCOTT HEDRICK:
It would’ve been when I was working at the now defunct to record store in there in Athens – Haffa’s Records. The owners, Eric Gunn and Andrew Lampela, turned me on to all sorts of music. I have to give a lot of credit to Andrew specifically for turning me on to those two genres. One of my favorite bands of all time is this German band called Popol Voh. And Andrew turned me onto that band, and that was sort of my first introduction to “Krautrock,” if you will.
Popol Vuh and their record Einsjäger und Siebenjäger really opened my eyes and opened my ears. And I think as music fans, all of us have those records that once you hear it, you can’t unhear it, it sort of changes the way you think about music or how you respond to music and what it can do for you. And that was definitely one of those records. When I first heard that it was like it flipped a switch inside of me.
Ambient music made me realize that music could function, not just necessarily as, ‘look at me, I’m trying to grab your attention’. It could also be an addition to your setting, not just the primary focus of it.
Popol Vuh and their record Einsjäger und Siebenjäger really opened my eyes and opened my ears. And I think as music fans, all of us have those records that once you hear it, you can’t unhear it, it sort of changes the way you think about music or how you respond to music and what it can do for you. And that was definitely one of those records. – Scott Hedrick
Are you talking about music having utility?
HEDRICK:
That’s part of it, that’s one utility of it, enhancing a mood. But yes, the more time goes on, the more I become interested in the utility of music. I’ve always been music obsessed, but I had never really paused and thought about why. It’s interesting that sometimes music soundtracks what’s happening in your life, but sometimes you use it to cope with what’s happening. And when you’re the generator of the music it’s very interesting when you actually get feedback from people.
There are plenty of curses to social media, but one of the blessings is I get instant feedback from people. Not everyone sees it because it’s in the form of direct messages, but random people reach out to me and give me feedback even if I don’t ask for it. And it’s very interesting to hear not only how they feel about what I’ve written, but what they’ve done with it. With Skeletonwitch, for example – this is kind of intense, but over the years we’ve received a lot of messages from people who served in the military – and I have mixed feelings about this – but part of their soundtrack to their combat experience was our music.
And the same thing with this new material. Whether it’s people messaging me and saying ,’ oh, I listened to your new album when I study,’ or someone told me they put it on the other day around the Thanksgiving holiday while they were putting together a puzzle with their family, and it was the perfect soundtrack. So you never know. So it’s super interesting to me how people are going to process what you do and what potential benefit it may provide to them.
How have the Skeletonwitch fans responded to Devotional Drift Vol. 1?
HEDRICK:
It’s been surprisingly positive. I honestly expected a little more blowback. I think maybe that the folks who don’t like it are just realizing it’s not for them and just keeping to themselves, which is much preferred by me. But in general, those who are open-minded seem to be taking to it reasonably well. And you can tell too, because when someone’s name on Instagram is like, TrueBlackDeathCult666 and ‘they’re like, man, I really like your record.’ It’s really beautiful. I’m like, ‘oh, cool. It’s actually a true metal fan that’s responding positively to this music.’
But, at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what people think. It’s nice to hear positive feedback from folks when you put time into something and put it out into the world. But ultimately, that’s not why I do it, to generate feedback or get a pat on the back. And what I’m doing is relatively niche anyway. So I’m acutely aware that there’s only a low ceiling for stuff like this that’s pretty specific and not necessarily going to generate two million listens on Spotify, and I’m not going to be playing arenas anytime soon.
Could you talk more about that? Why you made this record?
HEDRICK:
The first reason is just that I enjoy it. This is music that I would be playing on my own anyway. I enjoy this sort of creative output and for me, it’s like meditation. I have a hard time sitting still. But when I play music, ambient guitar or piano or saxophone or whatever, or I’m working on one of these songs, I get completely engrossed and time just flies by.
Secondly, it was just a way to help process things that happened in my life. This music was written over or a handful of years off and on. So through all that time period I had a lot happen in my life. I moved from Ohio to New York, and I moved from New York to L.A., I went back to school, I got married. Major life changes. We sort of put the Skeletonwitch thing on ice, which is sort of where it still rests right now.
And as a fan of so many genres of music over the years, I was growing a little bit annoyed with myself for not participating in any other genre besides heavy metal. I was such a fan and such a listener, and I’d also been writing so much music. It seemed sort of ridiculous to me that I was just solely a bystander in all these other areas of music when I was so interested in them.