Scott “Wino” Weinrich is a legend of doom: like all true rock’n’rollers, his life and forty-year-long career have been colorful and tangled, riddled with hardship, setbacks, and successes. It all started with Warhorse in 1976, soon renamed The Obsessed, and after a decades-long hiatus, Wino reformed the band in the mid-2010s, coming back with a new album, Sacred, in 2017. A return to the roots of sorts, weathered and brimming with inexhaustible passion.

It’s about this passion that we talked about when I got the chance to chat with Weinrich for the release of the album. Generous and honest, he went over the return of The Obsessed, the history of his different projects, and everything that is sacred to him.

Go to part. 2 (2024)

This interview took place in March 2017 and was first published on Radio Metal.

Your first record with The Obsessed since The Church Within will be released in a few weeks. How do you feel about that?

The chemistry finally came together when me and Brian Costantino joined forces after thirty years. He’s the drummer for The Obsessed now but he used to be our roadie, our tech guy. We didn’t see each other for thirty years—a very a long time—and in that time period, he learned how to play the drums. I’ve been doing a lot of touring and after the last Spirit Caravan tour, me and Brian met and had a jam. After that, I was feeling pretty inspired. Since his main love has always been The Obsessed, it was a natural thing. It’s the chemistry we have now that inspired us to make the new record. The Obsessed was always my baby; my first band and my first love. Even though we had done some reunion shows, stuff like that, I didn’t feel like it was really right. So when we started putting Sacred together, of course, the first order of business was to re-record “Sodden Jackal”, which was the first The Obsessed single of the 1980s. I thought it was recorded very poorly and I wanted to record that properly. Then of course, there are a couple of other old songs… We had to dig pretty deep to get all fourteen songs on the new record. But when me and Brian started jamming and then we got offered the deal from Relapse, it was a very good incentive. And so we started again.

If I’m not mistaken, you re-formed The Obsessed after having disbanded Spirit Caravan, which you started after the second break-up of The Obsessed. How do the stories of these bands intertwine, and how different is it to work with both?

Well, the only band I have right now is The Obsessed, Spirit Caravan is over. Spirit Caravan happened at a very positive time in my life: I had my children, I had a pretty nice domestic situation, I was sober for many, many years. I felt like Spirit Caravan was a very positive band, I think that we were pretty prolific. For one reason or another, again, I thought that would be the band that I would do forever, of course, but you know, for whatever different personality reasons, conflicts came up regarding certain things—touring, personal things and so on… It wasn’t meant to be.

I decided to resurrect Spirit Caravan over the last couple years because I enjoyed the music and people wanted to see the band out live. We had a couple different drummers, Henry [Vasquez] from Saint Vitus then Eddy [Ed Gulli], and on the last Spirit Caravan tour with Ed Gulli, that was the impetus to get The Obsessed back together because Brian, our current drummer, used to be Eddy Gulli’s tech. So when we did Spirit Caravan, the last tour with Ed Gulli, that’s when me and Brian connected. It was kind of strange and interesting the way it all worked out. I don’t think Eddy liked to tour that much, so he encouraged Brian to sit down behind the drums one day and that’s why Brian started to play the drums. Eddy sort of handed this to us in a strange way. I wish everybody that I played with in the past, with Spirit Caravan and everybody, I wish them all well. I think we accomplished quite a bit, but right now my focus is on The Obsessed.

Since the reformation, The Obsessed already went through a few line-up changes already. What line-up actually recorded the album, actually?

I know it’s a little confusing and I apologize. Basically, we recorded the record, me, Brian and Dave Sherman—Dave Sherman was the bass player for Spirit Caravan. He did a really good job on the record, but for a reason or another we parted ways with him. He’s a great guy—he’s a beautiful guy, he’s got a big heart and all that, but it just didn’t work out. After we recorded Sacred and Dave left, I decided to try a little experiment where I recruited the bass player from The Hidden Hand, one of my bands from before, and I also recruited a female guitar player, Sara Seraphim, to play second guitar. The line-up was good; we played some shows, which I thought were cool. But again, some issues came up that made it impossible to continue with that line-up. Bruce [Falkingburg] and Sara are both fantastic players and they kick ass, but Bruce doesn’t really like to tour so when the level of touring that we wanted really came up, he asked us to replace him, which we did. And when we replaced him with Reid Raley, Sara never came back to play with us.

Now, we continue again as a three-piece, and I think this is absolutely the best line-up. We have Reid Raley, a super musician, on bass. He was our first choice but nine hours of driving separated him from us. But we forgot what a road warrior he really is, so it was no big thing for him to drive nine hours. He wanted to be in the band and we wanted him in the band. That’s where we are now. I think it’s the best line-up of The Obsessed, the final line-up. I will say that the last couple of months as all of this was taking place, it was a little bit painful. But you know, man, everything happens for a reason: this is the line-up now, the chemistry is here, everybody is feeling very inspired and we’re very anxious to take it out on the road.

Do you feel like the power trio is the best combination for this band?

Like I said, everything happens for a reason. You know, life is a struggle. As we get put through the trials and survive the trials, I guess we learn. Really, life is all about learning. For me personally, I feel a very heavy burning desire to play this music, to bring my songs to people. And I think that with Brian and Reid, we have achieved that vehicle.

What did the new guys bring to The Obsessed?

I would say that Brian has brought an incredible virtuosity in his playing. Reid is also a killer player. Both of the guys have super great attitudes. Reid is a Southern boy from Arkansas. He’s very down-to-earth, very honest. He doesn’t pull any punches, he doesn’t beat around the bush in what he says. He’s also a kick-ass player. Once again, he grew up on The Obsessed’s music, and so did Brian. These guys bring talent, they bring energy, they bring loyalty, and they bring heart.

The album was made with producer Frank Marchand who happens to also run your sound live. Do you think that the fact he knew the band live made a difference?

That’s right. He’s a kick ass dude, man. He understands this band, he was able to get into my head. He and his associate Rob Queen, they both were fantastic. They made for a really good team in studio with us. Frank’s command of the digital realm and his incredible collection of vintage instruments made for the most amazing combination. I really do think this record is the best-produced, best-sounding record of my career. We have vinyl copies in our hands right now, we listened to them and I think he did a masterful job. Even though he is recording into a digital board, everything is analog: I sang into a 30,000 dollar World War II-era microphone, and in his studio he has vintage drums and on every song we picked a different snare drum that we could actually tune. It was really a great experience with Frank.

You say that you “always get your two cents in on the production.” Do you feel like you can’t completely give free reins to a producer?

Yes, I do. Basically, Frank listened to what I wanted, and then he told me what we could do and how we could do it. A good producer is somebody who can pull a good performance from the artist without pissing him off, you know what I mean?

You’ve been touring for a while with The Obsessed. What did it feel like to play all these old songs again?

It feels fantastic! I feel like these songs are timeless. I never felt like we were doing them justice in the couple reunions in the past years. But now I feel completely inspired, and I will tell your readers that our sets are about an hour and fifteen minute and we play about six or seven new songs, and old songs, too. So when people are coming to our shows, hopefully they’ll get everything they need.

You said earlier that actually Sacred opens with a new version of one of your first songs, “Sodden Jackal”. Why is that? Is it a way to state that you are driven by the same things after all these years, or that it is still the same band?

I wouldn’t even listen to the first version of this song ever again. That song is timeless, and it needed to be recorded right. I think we did it justice and that’s what it is.

What about the title, “sacred”? Should it be regarded in the same line as the title of the last The Obsessed record, The Church Within? What’s sacred to you?

Sacred, to me, is the passion that we have for this music, the passion we have in our lives. Sacred is what we hold dear. Our music, our children, our hope. For me personally, I’ve been called the godfather of doom, and I understand, people need a term to describe things, but in my opinion, there has to be some hope somewhere. So the things that are sacred to me are the passion, the hope, the spirit. My core philosophy on my music is that when I was born onto this earth, I was given a gift: the ability to play this music. I believe it is my duty to bring this music out to enrich other people’s lives, as well as mine, in a way carry the torch of this energy. Playing this music has not been financially rewarding to me. It’s always been a struggle financially, but I’ve always continued because I believe in the spirit and passion of this music. What comes from this is much stronger than money. I will always continue to do this. I think that if what I believe in is strong enough, I will be able to survive and I will continue to play this music.

Is it different for you to write for The Obsessed or for Spirit Caravan—or any other project of yours?

That’s a good question. On Sacred, for example, the song “Stranger Things” was going to be an acoustic song that I was going to show Conny [Ochs]. But I woke up one morning and I was like: “Why am I putting the song in a box like that?” The Obsessed has always been about diversity. One of the things that is cool about Sacred is that it’s pretty diverse. Usually, I have ideas, I have concepts or a riff, and sometimes it will go better for a band. But right now the songs that I do and I have are for The Obsessed. I’m not in any of other bands right now and The Obsessed is my sole focus. But yeah, sometimes that would happen where I would have a riff that should go to a band. During the time I was in Saint Vitus, David [Chandler] wrote most of the songs and lyrics, I was mainly just the singer in David’s band, but I wrote a couple songs, the lyrics to “Blessed Night” and the “Vertigo” instrumental on the last Saint Vitus record. But as a rule, he wrote the music and most of the lyrics. Usually, at any given time, when I had a riff or a song, it would go to the other band I was doing at the time, whether it was Premonition 13 or Shrinebuilder, or now the Obsessed.

I guess it’s a different experience to sing your own lyrics compared to singing the ones written by someone else. Do you write the music first and then the lyrics afterward in general?

In the case of Saint Vitus, I would only sing lyrics that I could identify with. That’s one of the reasons why I left this band for Children Of Doom: I had problems identifying with the songs. Usually, the way I write is that I come up with a concept. For example, for “Razor Wire”, I came up with this concept of being tortured by a relationship, being put through a trial and have some pain caused by this relationship. So I had this line, [he sings] “You got me rolling in razor wire,” because razor wire is this sharp metal that’s on top of fences and that you can’t get out of—you can’t crawl through it. It’s a pretty hard time to be rolling in that, I thought, so I had that concept and I came up with the riff [hums the riff and the vocal line]. That’s all I had for a year! Then I had some life experiences recently where I was able to fill in the blanks with the lyrics. My lyrics are mainly about life experiences. “Sacred”, for instance, is a bit of a fantasy trip. It’s a love song, a lust song with a little bit of inter-dimensional travel in there—a little bit more fantastic than reality. But all of the songs that I write are mainly based on my life experiences. Songs like the “Razor Wire”, “My Daughter My Son”, stuff like that, it’s pretty personal. But my life is an open book. I’m very proud of this record. It was fun to do, it was challenging. But I think it came out great and I’m very happy with it.

During the last decades, the music industry went through many trends and changes but you always stuck to your guns. Have these changes had any impact on you?

The first thing that happened obviously was the Internet. As you already know, the Internet pretty much changed everything in the music industry. The old dogs were kicked away, the young dogs came up. They realized they had to play ball with Napster, the torrents, and find a way to survive with labels. Personally, I believe that certain things that happened, for example when Frank Kozik—an amazing artist who did album covers for the Melvins—started his label Man’s Ruin, I thought that was very cool, I thought that it kick-started the movement again. It brought force to what people were calling stoner rock when he signed Acid King, High On Fire, Queens Of The Stone Age… I think that was really helpful. We never changed, but it’s really nice to see that this wave is washing back over us.

Back in the day, it was a dream to be signed at Columbia but we got a shitty deal: unless you had a hit, you weren’t shit. I remember, when we did the “Streetside” video in 1993, or whenever it was, the main venue at the time was MTV’s Beavis And Butthead, the two cartoon characters. If they didn’t like your video, you were finished. When our video came on, one of them said: “Ah, these guys look old!” And that was it. Now, the venue for our video—which hopefully we’re going to see, the video for “Sacred” should be out very soon—is YouTube, which is a public venue! You don’t have to pay, you don’t have to have cable to watch YouTube. You can share a video for free. I think it’s pretty amazing. When people come to gigs, I always let them record or videotape the show on the promise that some time in the future, they will give me a personal copy of it. People have taped my shows and come to me ten years later and say, “Here’s the copy!” That’s the way to do it, and that’s the way we do it. Power to the people!

The doom and stoner scenes have really been back with force these past years indeed. Why, according to you?

I think there is a mass need right now. I mean, look at the world: the world’s on fire! France is going through turmoil like never before, or maybe not since the Revolution. We have religious extremism everywhere, we have nothing but hatred and blood… I’m hoping that this music will ease that pain a little and help people focus. If I can do my small part to help people look ahead, lift their spirit, look at the essence of things as I am trying to do, maybe we’ll make a difference—maybe we’ll make a small difference.

You’re now basically a legend of the genre and many musicians look up to you. What do you feel about that?

I’m honored to be respected by my peers, I’m honored to be respected and looked upon. I don’t like to dwell on the personal hero thing because I really believe the music should talk alone. I feel very happy and honored that I have been treated very well and very respectfully by other musicians over the last few years, I’m happy to be in this spot. My goal is just to continue to make kick-ass music. For the younger generation and people, I try to answer their questions, I try to talk to them as much as I can. I encourage people, that’s what we do.

Your bands usually play very heavy music, but you also have a few projects of stripped-down, acoustic songs—I’m thinking about your collaboration with Conny Ochs and the homage to Townes Van Zandt you did with Scott Kelly and Steve Von Till, for instance. How are these two things related, according to you? Do they balance each other, are they two sides of the same coin?

I really do think it is a balance. Conny is an amazing singer songwriter. To have the opportunity to collaborate with him was enriching for me, and I hope it was enriching for him. You can play acoustic music and still have a heavy song, no doubt. That’s cool, I dig this stuff I did with Conny. I owe those people, Exile On Mainstream and Conny, a tour because we never got to tour properly for Freedom Conspiracy. Eventually, we’ll get to that. But right now, my focus is on The Obsessed!

A couple of years ago, you went through quite an ordeal in Norway because of drug possession. As a result, you can’t travel freely anymore—not to Europe, at least…

The incident in Norway was a wake-up call for me. You must understand that at the time, I was the lead singer of Saint Vitus, and to be in Saint Vitus, to sing those songs, to do what I did every night with that band, I needed to be in a different state of mind. So those were the tools I leaned on. Unfortunately… The incident in Norway basically was a wake-up call, I decided to change my lifestyle. I was able to give up my tools—those drugs and the alcohol—and to embrace what I’m doing right now. Addressing the ban, I had a five-year ban and it’s already been almost three. But my lawyers assured me that we should be able to buy and regain my visa, especially if we have a lot of good press [chuckles].

I don’t know if it’s a consequence of that but Saint Vitus is now touring with Scott Reagers. Are you still involved with them?

We’re still friends. We got together in Philadelphia and I was able to stand in the crowd and watch them play their beautiful old songs that I love so much. Then I joined them on stage for a verse of “Born Too Late”. I love Scott Reagers, I think they’re all fantastic people. At some point in the future, if David asked me to do some reunion shows in Europe, and if I’m able, then I will. It’s really up to him. Everything is cool with me and Saint Vitus. I’m not in that band but I love those guys and I wish them well.

And what about Shrinebuilder? I don’t know if anything has been planned since the record came out a few years ago. Is there any chance to see you guys do something together ever again?

In 2012, when The Obsessed did a reunion at the Roadburn Festival with Sleep, Al Cisneros asked me if I wanted to do another Shrinebuilder record and I told him yes. It’s really up to those guys and I guess they will tell me whether they want to do it or not. I’ve always said that I’m willing to do it, so let’s see what happens.

You’re selling some of your artworks on your website. Have you always been painting?

I’ve always been doing it but I hadn’t really been that confident about my painting skills. The years that I was doing a lot of speed, I was pretty productive [chuckles]. So I decided to start going around to secondhand stores to buy frames and framing stuff up. People at shows would ask me for my art stuff, so I decided, “OK, I have a lot, I’m going to frame it up.” I’ve been doing it for a while but never on a professional level like this. I want to thank people for buying my stuff, it’s really helping me. Somebody buying an art piece from me puts food on the table and strings on the guitar. Hopefully sooner or later, we’ll be able to get the international thing together. The problem that we have with the art and international shipping is that it costs so much to ship overseas. We’re working on that right now and once I get that ironed out, hopefully people outside of the US will be able to buy the art too.

Is it the same creative drive that makes you write music and paint or is it something completely different?

I’d like to say the same. At any given time during the day, I could be doing something musical, maybe have my guitar open working on a wire or working on a pedal, and I would see my paint lay there and I might just get a wild desire to throw everything down and do a painting. It’s kind of an impulsive thing. A lot of times I go into it without knowing exactly what I want to do. What I learned about art and my favorite style of paintings is that I like to mix things, I like to mix chemicals in my paint, I like to paint on different pieces of paper… Because what I found is that sometimes they fight and sometimes they fuck. It’s very impulsive, I might say.

What’s next for you?

Basically we’re going to be touring very heavily. We’re going to be touring the US, the UK and hopefully we’ll be able to tour in Europe as well soon. But we’re already ready to go, so by the time we can get there, I think we’ll probably have a couple of brand new songs. I will continue to write, and with Reid and Brian, I think it will be an explosive line up. We will continue to tour our ass off and write new music, and hopefully see you sooner than later.

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