Hailing from Eugene, Oregon, YOB plays stoner doom of crushing, epic proportions. Having released their third album, The Illusion of Motion, in October on Metal Blade, they stand prepared to Doom-inate the world of metal as soon as the opportunity presents itself.

Mike - I started the band in 1996 with Gabe Morley on drums (the drummer for our first two full length albums) and a guy named Roddy on bass. This fell apart in about six months. I kept writing songs and started playing in HC Minds with Isamu Sato and Mike Brown from Aldebaran. Eventually in 1999 I recorded a demo with a studio drummer that was YOB's first recorded output. I sent it to Stonerrock.com as well as handing a few out and the band kind of started a life of it's own. All of a sudden I had players who wanted to be in the band and gigs available. Since then we have recorded three full length CD's with a fourth in the works and have played more shows than I can count. It has been a great experience.

Mike - It's not an acronym. I got the name from a 50's space cartoon where Martians called an earth child "YOB" or boy backwards. Essentially we wanted a name that wouldn't paint us in a corner...something that we could give meaning to ourselves. But a "YOB" is also a thug or unsavory fellow in the UK and YOB also means "fucked" in Russian.

Mike - Honestly, no longer or more involved than a shorter song. For some reason most of our long epic tunes have come together pretty quickly. We have always written long tunes so it is what is natural for us. It doesn't feel like an kind of big deal or accomplishment to us. We write tunes until they feel complete from beginning to the end. For some tunes that's 8 minutes and for others it's the 20+ minute mark.

Mike - Many times!

Mike - The album title is inspired by equal parts eastern mysticism and quantum mechanics. Everything we see with our eyes and hear with our ears is unbelievably complex and contains level upon level of phenomenon that our senses cannot detect. We only detect "separate" things because our minds and social conditioning tell us they are separate. On the quantum level everything runs into everything else seamlessly. In truth without human thought there is no such thing as "the world". Without the history and stored up thoughts about "Mike" there is no such entity as "Mike" per say. What there is this incredible phenomenon that we can label all we want but this phenomenon exists untouched by our concepts ultimately. Things seem to come and go but where do they come from? Where do they go? No one can answer this. The happenings of this "world" are real only on a superficial level that constantly changes. Underneath these happenings is a level of reality that doesn't move, isn't born and doesn't die. All of these words are feeble in trying to describe something that ultimately isn't a something. But our lyrics are also from the point of view of a seeker who experiences all the ranges of human emotion and hardship. They aren't meant to be some kind of preaching. They are as honest as we can muster.

Mike - It is my natural voice. The day I started singing in this band many years ago that was the voice that came out. I do use different vocal effects to make the voice sound syrupy and otherworldly but all the range of pitch is me.

Mike - Metal Blade is a great company to work with. They are both enthusiastic about music and highly professional. I don't know what the album sales are at this time but the distribution is unreal as well as their promotion. We feel very lucky to work with quality people like the folks at Metal Blade. They are personal and sincere music fans themselves.

Mike - Starting May 5th we will hit the road for a little over 4 weeks. We can't wait! This will also be the first time we will play in Canada as we have three shows up there. It's going to rule.

Mike - To each their own. It was kind of surreal to go from DOOM metal to techno but I like odd situations like that so actually it was a bit fun in a weird way...from a distance.

Mike - Recording! we start tracking our new album March 18th and it should be done by the end of April for a early/ late fall release.

Mike - Neither, or both! DOOM!!! Mike/YOB