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Electric Wizard tour dates 2024

Electric Wizard is currently touring across 1 country and has 1 upcoming concert.

The final concert of the tour will be at Fernhill Farm in Compton Martin.

Currently touring across

Upcoming concerts (1) See nearest concert

Past concerts.

Damnation Festival

SonicBlast Fest

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Recent tour reviews

Electric Wizard is always a great band to see when you can.

A crushing force upon your skull, and your ears will cry in joy. Relentless and unforgiving, just relax and accept the raw power.

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Always a thrill to see Electric Wizard live! An intense, Earth shattering event fit for an apocalyptical end to the world! I'm still shaking from the deep dark slow rumble of their instruments!

On another note, Midnight was surprisingly great! They need to adjust their vocal mics though so we can hear their singer better. Other than that, great band.

Lastly, Brooklyn Steel needs to post their price list for their libations. It's always sticker shock to buy a drink there as you don't know what you are getting into!

Good stuff!

The Wiltern is a horrible venue for a band like Electric Wizard. After two songs, the venue decided to cut their visuals because they deemed them inappropriate. That kind of censorship is inexcusable and disgusting. We all came out for a metal show, not some PG13 shit. I will never come back to The Wiltern and I hope they get an ass load of bad juju for the shit they're trying to pull.

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Electric Wizard

​Electric Wizard tour dates: 1 concert in United Kingdom

About electric wizard.

Electric Wizard are an English doom metal band from Dorset. The band formed in 1993 and have recorded eight studio albums, two of which are now considered to be genre landmarks: Come My Fanatics... (1997) and Dopethrone (2000). Electric Wizard's brand of doom metal incorporates stoner and sludge traits, with lyrics focusing on the occult, witchcraft, H.P. Lovecraft, horror films and cannabis. In 2014 they formed Witchfinder Records, an imprint of Spinefarm Records, on which they plan to release all future albums.

• Electric Wizard (1994)
• Come My Fanatics.... (1997)
• Dopethrone (2000)
• Let Us Prey (2002)
• We Live (2004)
• Witchcult Today (2007)
• Black Masses (2010)
• Time to Die (2014)
• Wizard Bloody Wizard (2017)

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ELECTRIC WIZARD Announce U.S. Tour Dates This Autumn

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Electric Wizard Announce East Coast U.S. Tour Dates

Stoner doom legends Electric Wizard will hit the States this November.

It's been a hot second since stoner doom metallers Electric Wizard have toured the U.S. Now, the band has announced a series of American dates, with blackened street-metallers Midnight coming along for the ride.

The shows focus entirely on major markets along the Eastern Seaboard, most likely because the weed isn't as good in, say, Minneapolis (we kid, there's primo bud in MN).

Get stoned in the name of Pan at one of the following dates:

15 - St. Petersburg, FL @ Janus Landing 16 - Atlanta, GA @ The Tabernacle 18 - Silver Spring, MD @ The Fillmore 19 - Brooklyn, NY @ Brooklyn Steel 20 - Philadelphia, PA @ The Fillmore 22 - Worcester, MA @ The Palladium

READ THIS: All things weed with High On Fire's Matt Pike

The Wizard's had a solid year thus far, having blown minds at Psycho Las Vegas only a few weeks ago . Kerrang!'s own Morat described the singular experience as "not to be missed. Sure, they play pretty much in the dark, as do many bands this weekend, but with all the craziness on the huge projection screen it looks very atmospheric. And whatever is lacking in lights is more than made up for with volume. Good God, this is LOUD!"

Electric Wizard also got very high (ba-dum TSS) on our list of the best songs ever written about vampires . The band's inclusion on that ranking was for The Satanic Rites Of Drugula off of 2007's Witchcult Today. Describing the track, K! writer and self-professed vampire fanboy Chris Krovatin wrote, "In their eternal quest to mix old monster movies and pothead culture, stoner doom crew Electric Wizard created the greatest villain of all time: Drugula, a hellish shadow who craves dope-laced bloody. The weed vampire’s anthem is a crushing, regal doom epic that will have listeners hitting the bong and putting on a Christopher Lee movie in no time. Kudos for the inclusion of the lyric, 'Bloodlust! Druglust!'"

Midnight, meanwhile, came in at #11 on our list of the 50 best American metal bands of the past decade , which described them in flowery terms: "[Midnight's] grimy, nihilistic street thrash is the stuff out of every mother’s nightmare, while their songs about repugnant sex and switchblade justice somehow feel inclusive and welcoming. Leather, flames, and sweaty fucking — all of which are American dreams."

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Electric Wizard Announce U.S. Tour Dates

After their headlining set at the Psycho Las Vegas festival in August, UK doom-metal titans Electric Wizard  have announced a fall US tour of the East Coast.

The Wizard are currently touring in support of their 2017 album, Wizard Bloody Wizard , which marked the band’s ninth studio LP.

The East Coast tour kicks off November 15th in St. Petersburg, Florida, making its way north to a final stop in Worcester, Massachusetts, on November 22nd. The U.S. run will be preceded by select dates in Europe.

By arrangement with Mythology Agency. Joining Electric Wizard on the stateside gigs will be the blackened speed metal band Midnight out of Cleveland.

Pick up your tickets here .

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Electric Wizard

Latest setlist, electric wizard on november 4, 2023.

Bowlers Exhibition Centre, Manchester, United Kingdom

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Electric Wizard on Sabbath Worship, Doom Domestic Bliss, Death of Rock

Dorset, England's Electric Wizard sit at the pinnacle of the doom-metal movement, having released classic efforts like Dopethrone that helped shape the genre while still staying relevant and pushing the music forward to this day. Founded nearly 25 years ago, and guided through that time by vocalist/guitarist Jus Oborn's singular vision, the riff-heavy band has stayed close to its original blueprint: Black Sabbath (the band's name alone is a combination of the song titles "The Wizard" and "Electric Funeral") on a drug-fueled trip through a horror-film wasteland.

Oborn, the group's lone constant member, is now readying LP No. 9,  Wizard Bloody Wizard , with longtime collaborator (and life partner) guitarist Liz Buckingham, as well as bassist Clayton Burgess (Satan Satyrs) and drummer Simon Poole. The album, due on November 10th, finds the band employing some of its tried and true old tricks but to greater affect, as well as leaning more heavily on vocal melody to drive the songs. It's Electric Wizard's catchiest and most compact LP, and might be their most easily digestible, too.

With Wizard Bloody Wizard  on deck, we talked with Oborn about the melodic direction of the record, doom marital bliss and whether or not rock is totally fucked in 2017.

THERE'S A CLEAR FOCUS ON VOCALS AND HARMONIES ON WIZARD BLOODY WIZARD . IT COULD BE YOUR MOST MELODIC RECORD YET. WAS THAT A CONSCIOUS DECISION? JUS OBORN It's kind of how it happened. The vocals were pretty much added after we wrote the music. So I did spend a little time working on the vocals and I wanted them to have a much more important role in the song — something that we hadn't really tackled before. I listened to some stuff from the older days for inspiration, like Stooges, Alice Cooper, Sabbath and Zeppelin. The singer takes over the emotion of the song, where it's going and the sound. That was something I really wanted to do with this record.

IT'S MUCH EASIER TO GRASP ONTO THE SONGS. The last album was a very long, very heavy drug-abyss-type of album. And for this one, we wanted to do something different, so we made sure the album fit onto one single vinyl and the 20, 22 minute sides were the basis of how we approached the album. Get the songs to the point a little quicker. A kind of more direct album.

SO THIS IS YOUR 9TH ALBUM, AND IT'S NO SECRET HOW MUCH INFLUENCE YOU TAKE FROM BLACK SABBATH — EVEN THE NEW RECORD'S TITLE IS A NOD TO  SABBATH BLOODY SABBATH . WHAT'S IT LIKE KNOWING THAT YOUR GREATEST INFLUENCE ONLY MADE EIGHT ALBUMS TOGETHER? I actually never thought about that before. The first time I saw Sabbath, they were pretty much going as long as we've been going now. Sabbath has always been our first influence and probably our main influence as a British band ... working-class band that started from nothing.

AS SOMEONE WHO HAS BEEN PLAYING A SINGULAR STYLE FOR SO LONG, WHERE DOES INSPIRATION COME FROM? IS METAL EVEN AN INSPIRATION ANYMORE? The term "metal" has become so elastic or yet also more restrictive than it used to be. I'm not even quite sure what metal is anymore. For me, heavy metal was Led Zeppelin, Motörhead, AC/DC or whatever [ laughs ] but things have changed since then. I'm not so much into you know, like, high gain, fast guitar-ing type of stuff, but there's a lot of heavy music out there that still gets my attention. Whether it's strictly metal or not, I don't really know anymore sometimes.

As a band we've always had a wide range of influences. I don't think we're a metal band straight up. I know our first album was kind of doom metal, but then we were listening to, like, a lot of acid rock and a lot of drone-y English bands like Loop and [ My ] Bloody Valentine. I'm really into abstract jazz and noise stuff. Is that an influence? I don't know, and it's always hard to say because I don't think I'm ever influenced by anything in particular anymore. You pick up inspiration anywhere — sometimes it can just be a little melody or phrase or a scene from a movie or a line from a book. Not to sound cheesy, but these things can set off a chain of inspiration, but it's not necessarily a musical thing. It could be anything.

DO YOU EVER FEEL CORNERED BY THE FACT THAT YOU ARE IN A HEAVY-METAL BAND? OR DO YOU FEEL LIKE IT'S MORE OF A CHALLENGE IN THAT YOU CAN TAKE YOUR OUTSIDE INFLUENCES AND FILTER THEM THROUGH A METAL LENS? Oh, that's a big question. Yeah, sometimes I feel restricted by this band and the idea of it and people's expectations of it. And I think that you can take the wider thing with being regarded as a heavy-metal band ... that could be restrictive, as well. I have played many other types of music over the years but I haven't tried to package it and sell it to people. I'll do some country or some jazz because I like playing mostly. But I'll have these crazy ideas and then after a while I think, "This would make a fucking good Electric Wizard song." [ Laughs ] It's happened a few times.

THAT'S AMAZING. ONE FASCINATING THING ABOUT ELECTRIC WIZARD IS YOUR PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL RELATIONSHIP WITH LIZ BUCKINGHAM. IN MY HEAD, I IMAGINE THE TWO OF YOU SITTING AROUND AND WATCHING TV, THEN THE NEXT THING YOU KNOW, ONE OF YOU IS GRABBING FOR A GUITAR AND YOU'VE WRITTEN A SONG TOGETHER. It isn't far off from that. [ Laughs ] I mean, in an ideal situation we aren't watching TV — it's more like endless reruns of [ Spanish exploitation-movie director ] Jess Franco films. But that isn't far off in an ideal world. [ Laughs ] That doesn't happen too often.

SO A MIX OF DOMESTIC BLISS AND RIFFS ... I mean, we have the amps set up in the house to just get going.

SO LAST YEAR YOU ONLY PLAYED ONE U.S. SHOW, AT PSYCHO LAS VEGAS, AND IN 2015 YOU DID A FULL U.S. TOUR. CAN WE EXPECT A FULL U.S. RUN IN 2018? Fingers crossed — it is the plan. I would say that when we did the tour in 2015, we got royally shafted on our end and then we didn't want to come back so quickly or for so long. You know, it's one of those situations, but I definitely, definitely think we'll probably be doing it. It's a big country — they love really heavy rock and they always have.

ELECTRIC WIZARD ARE STILL A VERY UNDERGROUND BAND, AND YOU GUYS HAVE BEEN FIGHTING THE GOOD FIGHT FOREVER. WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU OFFER A BAND WITH A MODERATE AMOUNT OF SUCCESS, COMPARABLE TO WHAT YOU GUYS HAD IN THE EARLY YEARS? We are an underground band in a general sense. I don't think we're a doom band or a black-metal band or this particular metal band, but I do think we are a really fucking heavy underground band. As long as you're into dark, more obscure music, music with a bit more soul and a bit more passion than you know just fucking bopping around. I think the fans we found are pretty loyal ones, and I think we put on a good show.

If people want to, like, emulate our path and what we've done, whether they should or not, I don't know. [ Laughs ] I just think honesty, really brutal honesty, and really sticking to the music you really love is the key. Not swaying too much. I mean, I've never been one for jumping on all these lame trends, but then again some other bands do and maybe they're pretty genuine with it. I would stick to tradition, what I've always liked and I think that carries its own rewards in the end. You stick with something and it becomes a craft.

THAT'S A REALLY IMPORTANT LESSON: HAVE YOUR VISION AND STICK TO IT. EVENTUALLY, EVERYONE IS WRONG AND YOU ARE RIGHT. That's what you hope, right? If you have a strong vision and you stick with it then everyone's proved wrong. I mean, I think as far as how we start, I think we've done that to an extent because no one thought we'd amount to fuck all. [ Laughs ] No one thought we'd even turn up to gigs because we didn't have a fucking van or anything, you know? [ Laughs ] The odds were pretty bad. [ Laughs ] So yeah, I think you can do it if you fucking believe in it. And you gotta have a little bit of that ... If people put you down, you either curl up or you think, Fuck them, they don't understand what we're doing man. [ Laughs ] I think that It was, like, almost a badge of honor how many people you could get to empty a building during one of our gigs ...

HOW MANY PEOPLE YOU CAN GET RUNNING TO THE EXITS? EXACTLY. THEY SAY THAT THE BIGGEST INSULT IS APATHY. IF A BUNCH OF PEOPLE ARE JUST "WHATEVER," THAT'S WAY WORSE THAN ELICITING ANY SORT OF EMOTIONAL RESPONSE, BE IT POSITIVE OR NEGATIVE. Yes, that turns out to be quite true. That's what we did exactly with the first album — we weren't too happy with it. The second album, we were like, "Let's make this sound like the most horrible fucking thing that's ever been recorded." [ Laughs ] That makes people cringe — that's good.

AS THINGS PROGRESS FOR ELECTRIC WIZARD, WHAT DO YOU SEE AS THE BAND'S FUTURE? DO YOU HAVE A GRAND PLAN? I think this record is, you know, the product of a new lineup that's got its shit together. I'd like to see us record at least two or three albums in succession, and kind of developing a new style and taking it from there.

DO YOU ATTRIBUTE THE SOUND OF THE NEW RECORD TO STABILITY IN LINEUP? Well, that would be awesome. [ Laughs ] I mean, I'm not gonna promise anything but everything is great now. That's what we hoped from this record. For someone to say, "I don't like doom" or "I don't like heavy metal, but let me listen to this." The melding of melody and heaviness to it, that has created something pretty cool.

WHAT DO YOU THINK IS THE STATE OF ROCK IN 2017? It's possibly totally fucked. [ Laughs ]

POSSIBLY OR TOTALLY? Well, I don't know. You never know if things are gonna pan out. There was disco and brutal death metal a few years later, so things can swing back. I'd like to see a lot more, but what the fuck is rock music anymore anyway, you know? I read a magazine on the airplane telling me that Coldplay is the greatest rock band in the world. Is that what rock's become? Jesus fucking Christ. [ Laughs ]

We've played a lot of festivals that have a quite wide range of music, and you see people go fucking apeshit for hip hop and the dance music. It's fucking loud and it sounds kind of aggressive to me and brutal. And I'm thinking, "What's happened to rock?" It's not doing that anymore. It's not making people wanna go, "Fuck, fuck, shit." It lost a bit of that. We need to get that back. I'm kind of anticipating that the next generation is going to be only playing the blues and shit.

THINGS WORK IN A CIRCLE. I was in a record store a few months ago and some pretty young kids came in — 11 or 12 years old — and they asked the guy behind the counter, "Do you have any Yardbirds or Stones or John Mayall?" And the guy said, "I don't think we've got any." The kid said, "You call yourself a fucking record shop?" [ Laughs ] And I was like, "What the fuck? Maybe there is hope." [ Laughs ]

WHAT CAN PEOPLE EXPECT FROM YOUR UPCOMING GIGS IF THEY HAVEN'T SEEN YOU BEFORE? Expect blood. Blood and violence. And horror. That kind of stuff, I hope.

LOTS OF RITUALS. I mean, that's up to the fans. We just provide the soundtrack, you know?

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Electric Wizard announce fall tour dates

The post Electric Wizard announce fall tour dates appeared first on Consequence of Sound .

Fresh off a headlining set at the Psycho Las Vegas festival in August, UK doom-metal veterans Electric Wizard have announced a fall US tour of the East Coast.

Electric Wizard have been going strong for more than a quarter century, having formed in the early ’90s. They are currently touring in support of their 2017 album, Wizard Bloody Wizard , which marked the band’s ninth studio LP.

The brief East Coast tour kicks off November 15th in St. Petersburg, Florida, making its way north to a final stop in Worcester, Massachusetts, on November 22nd. The U.S. run will be preceded by select dates in Europe and Mexico.

Joining Electric Wizard on the stateside gigs will be the blackened speed metal band Midnight out of Cleveland. Dates can be seen below, and you can get tickets here .

As of yet, there’s been no word on a new Electric Wizard album, but the tour press release promises “more news from Electric Wizard to surface soon.”

Electric Wizard 2019 Tour Dates: 09/19 – Stockholm, SE @ Nalen Stora Salen 09/21 – Oslo, NO @ Kulturkirken Jakob 10/17 – London, UK @ O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire London 10/24 – Guadalajara, MX @ C3 Stage 10/26 – Mexico City, MX @ Hipnosis Festival 11/15 – St. Petersburg, FL @ Janus Landing * 11/16 – Atlanta, GA @ The Tabernacle * 11/18 – Silver Spring, MD @ The Fillmore * 11/19 – Brooklyn, NY @ Brooklyn Steel * 11/20 – Philadelphia, PA @ The Fillmore * 11/22 – Worcester, MA @ The Palladium *

* = with Midnight

Electric Wizard announce fall tour dates Spencer Kaufman

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Electric Wizard 101: Dorest’s Dankest Doom Band…

History, band members, best album, influences – you’ll find it all inside our Electric Wizard 101 guide

Electric Wizard, hailing from Dorset, England, aren’t just a band: they’re an institution. Known for low-end fuzz, massive riffs, and a penchant for all things grim, the band has been a staple of the doom/stoner scene for decades.

But what if you’re just getting started? Where to begin with Electric Wizard? What’s the best album? Will your mom approve? Let’s get down to basics and start from the beginning.

By the end of this, you’ll know enough to be totally conversational in all things pertaining to ELECTRIC WIZARD…

Members: Past & Present

• Jus Oborn: The mastermind behind Electric Wizard, Jus Oborn has been the band’s vocalist, rhythm guitarist, and occasional bassist since its inception. His down-tuned, fuzzy riffs and haunting vocals are the backbone of Electric Wizard’s signature sound.
• Liz Buckingham: Joining the band in 2003, Liz Buckingham’s lead guitar work has been an integral part of Electric Wizard’s sound since the release of “We Live.” Her playing style perfectly complements Oborn’s, creating a wall of heavy, psychedelic doom.
• Other Notable Members: Throughout the years, Electric Wizard has seen a rotating cast of members, including founding drummer Mark Greening, bassist Tim Bagshaw, and various other drummers and bassists who have contributed to the band’s evolution.

Discography: A Legacy of Doom

Genre-Defining Albums

Electric Wizard’s discography boasts two albums that have been hailed as genre landmarks: “Come My Fanatics…” (1997) and “Dopethrone” (2000).

These records showcase the band’s ability to craft monolithic, cannabis-fueled doom that has inspired countless acts in their wake.

Other Notable Releases

From their self-titled debut (1994) to their most recent opus, “Wizard Bloody Wizard” (2017), Electric Wizard has consistently pushed the boundaries of heavy music.

Albums like “Let Us Prey” (2002), “Witchcult Today” (2007), and “Time to Die” (2014) further solidified their status as doom metal icons.

History: A Journey Through the Occult and Heavy Riffs 📜

The Early Years

Electric Wizard’s origins can be traced back to 1988 when Jus Oborn formed the band Lord of Putrefaction.

I found all the Lovecraft when I was a child and a lot of biker and scifi stuff, too. I started to dig horror books and comics from a very early age. I was also obsessed with witchcraft and satanism. I loved a book called  S atan’s Child  by Peter Cave, and I loved satanic movies like  The Devil Rides Out.  Yeah, over and over again the same obsessions resurface. I guess these things really impacted on my consciousness because of my youth and drugs. It’s kept a thematic and aesthetic continuity throughout the Wizard history because of that, so that’s cool and very honest to ourselves as well. Jus Oborn

After several name changes and lineup shifts, Electric Wizard was born in 1993, taking their name from two Black Sabbath songs.

Rise to Prominence

With the release of “Come My Fanatics…” and “Dopethrone,” Electric Wizard gained a dedicated following and critical acclaim.

“Vinum Sabbathi” immediately takes hold and sets the tone for much of what’s to follow: drugs and the occult. “Now I’m a slave to the black drug, forced to serve this black god,” bellows Oborn. It encapsulates addiction in the form of servitude to a higher being, as well as someone’s failure to achieve a higher plane of consciousness through substances. The track is a strong opener and signals the descent into the abyss. Metal Injection

Despite personal setbacks (drugs, getting arrested, fighting, and drinking way too much for way too long) and lineup changes, the band continued to release new material throughout the 2000s.

For me, they never quite topped Dopethrone , it was definitely a case where lightning was put in a bottle and this – as all music fans know – does not happen very often at all.

Recent History and Legacy

The 2010s saw Electric Wizard continue to tour and release new music, cementing their legacy as one of the most important bands in the history of doom metal.

With a new biography, “Come My Fanatics: A Journey Into The World Of Electric Wizard,” released in 2023, the band doesn’t look like they plan on throwing the towel in any time soon.

As for a new Electric Wizard album? Who knows. It’s been awhile, so I reckon we’ll get at least one more from these grim bastards before they call it a day.

Complete Discography

Electric wizard (1994).

• Release Date : 1994
• Label : Rise Above Records
• Notable Tracks : “Black Butterfly,” “Electric Wizard,” “Mourning Prayer”

Overview : The debut album set the tone for Electric Wizard’s journey. With its heavy, slow riffs and dark themes, it was a solid introduction to their doom metal sound, laying the groundwork for what was to come.

Come My Fanatics… (1997)

• Release Date : 1997
• Notable Tracks : “Return Trip,” “Wizard in Black,” “Doom-Mantia”

Overview : This album marked a significant step forward in the band’s evolution, with longer, more developed tracks that showcased their ability to create enveloping atmospheres of dread and heaviness.

Dopethrone (2000)

• Release Date : 2000
• Notable Tracks : “Funeralopolis,” “Vinum Sabbathi,” “Dopethrone”

Overview : Often hailed as Electric Wizard’s magnum opus, “Dopethrone” is a cornerstone of doom metal. Its colossal sound, combined with themes of witchcraft, horror, and drug use, created a cult classic that continues to influence the genre.

Let Us Prey (2002)

• Release Date : 2002
• Notable Tracks : “A Chosen Few,” “Master of Alchemy,” “Priestess of Mars”

Overview : This album continued to explore the depths of doom, though with slightly more experimental and varied song structures. It’s known for its dense, foreboding soundscapes and intricate arrangements.

We Live (2004)

• Release Date : 2004
• Notable Tracks : “Eko Eko Azarak,” “We Live,” “Flower of Evil a.k.a. Malfiore”

Overview : Marking the introduction of a new lineup, “We Live” brought a fresh energy to the band’s sound. It retains the classic Electric Wizard heaviness but with a renewed focus on melodic elements and lyrical themes.

Witchcult Today (2007)

• Release Date : 2007
• Notable Tracks : “Witchcult Today,” “Satanic Rites of Drugula,” “The Chosen Few”

Overview : Recorded with vintage equipment for an analog sound, “Witchcult Today” is a return to form, combining catchy riffs with an occult rock influence. It’s both accessible and deeply rooted in the band’s doom metal foundations.

Black Masses (2010)

• Release Date : 2010
• Notable Tracks : “Black Mass,” “Venus in Furs,” “Patterns of Evil”

Overview : “Black Masses” continues the thematic and musical motifs of its predecessors while experimenting with tempo and dynamics. It’s a hypnotic blend of doom, psychedelic rock, and metal.

Time to Die (2014)

• Release Date : 2014
• Label : Spinefarm Records
• Notable Tracks : “I am Nothing,” “Time to Die,” “SadioWitch”

Overview : This album delves into darker, more nihilistic themes, reflected in its title. The sound is raw, unfiltered, and as heavy as ever, showcasing Electric Wizard’s ability to evolve while staying true to their core.

Wizard Bloody Wizard (2017)

• Release Date : 2017
• Notable Tracks : “See You in Hell,” “Wicked Caresses,” “Hear the Sirens Scream”

Overview : With “Wizard Bloody Wizard,” the band aimed for a more stripped-down, rock’n’roll approach to doom. It’s a departure from their heavier, more suffocating sound, demonstrating versatility and a willingness to experiment.

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Naked Brunch: How Buzzo Made The New Melvins Album

Melvins “tarantula heart” review: a sonic foray 4 decades & counting, holy schect schecter drops new “black ops” t-stylers for 2024, pin it on pinterest.

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Electric Wizard: "The world's going to hell, let go and dig it"

Electric Wizard’s self-imposed state of seclusion in darkest Dorset and auld-school values have given rise to one of the most powerful and potent doom bands on the planet

For many bands – whether they admit it or not – getting a foot in the music industry and schmoozing with the movers and shakers is an underlying part of The Big Plan.

It may surprise some people, but this ambition isn’t solely a trait of, let’s say, swoosh-haired, fresh-tattooed rock acts, and can be seen in a good number of underground and extreme metal bands. A quick glance at the careers of the more successful black metal bands in Norway, for example, illustrates how bands that once appeared permanently consigned to the fringes of society can eventually become central figures within the establishment.

Consequently, it’s always rewarding to interact with bands that have chosen to reject the industry and instead write their own rules, since the results tend to provide not only a greater sense of authenticity but also an abundance of originality and freer expressions of creativity. Electric Wizard are, of course, one such entity, and have rightly made a name for themselves as a pivotal band within the doom scene, becoming a leading act in the genre, not despite their unwillingness to play the game, but largely because of it. To that end the band have largely sealed themselves off – never more so than on their crushing new album, Black Masses – from the rest of the scene, using sticky cannabis resin as a primary tool.

“Drugs are an issue that comes up every time I talk about Electric Wizard and it’s just a part of our everyday life,” reflects vocalist, guitarist and frontman Jus Oborn. “But we are very insular. For myself, creating good music is about letting yourself go and not really thinking about it. When you create music you know when it’s good, you don’t have to analyse it, and letting yourself go is a lot easier when you lubricate it, which is what a lot of music is about – you wouldn’t have jazz without some sort of drug use.

“Weed puts you in that state and we obviously draw a parallel between that and a ritual state. I mean, if you think about the black mass in history, it was a medieval rave-up, wasn’t it? Music and dancing and people getting wasted and that’s the spirit that we’re still here to preach. If you want to get into it, you have to get out of it. I’m not a heroin addict or anything, I use weed to focus in many ways, otherwise I’d probably just be running round paying bills, stressing.”

While the band’s relationship with drugs is well-documented, another equally defining factor in the band’s identity is their geographical isolation. Located in deepest Dorset, the band have made a conscious decision to forgo the excitement of the bar and club circuit of the city and remain in the countryside. Due in part, Jus admits, to a sense of general misanthropy, this move is also fuelled by a strong desire to remain untainted by outside influences.

“I think any band that comes from a geographically isolated area develops a certain sound, certain areas of the world have a sound I think, just being from a rural area and being from South England, it does influence the sound,” explains Jus. “I mean, I think a band should be cultured in a way. If you’re going to be real, you have to have a reaction against what your surroundings are, otherwise it’s contrived or bullshit really. Electric Wizard’s a reflection of that; we’re not being inspired by anyone and we’re not having our arses kissed, which is a good thing if you want to make good music. I felt earlier in our careers that we were getting our arses kissed, and then you just create shit, ’cos you haven’t got any reality, you know?

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“After we did [2004’s] We Live album, I went back to a job in a warehouse. You’re working with normal people, and you’ve got a boss, and everything’s shit again, and you can dream about playing on Top Of The Pops . And that’s what creates real music. It’s easy to impress people who want to kiss your arse, ’cos they want something from you anyway. So fuck that, it’s bullshit. We put ourselves in a position like method acting, Electric Wizard is a particular world, so we live that world and it’s reflected in the music.”

Talking to Jus, it becomes clear that his Dorset upbringing has contributed a lot more than mere isolation to both the band and his personality. Instead this background appears to have given him an utmost reverence for tradition and old-fashioned ways of living, something that has had a profound impact on Electric Wizard’s way approach to working.

“Dorset is still quite backwards in a way. There wasn’t electricity in a lot of places until the 50s and 60s, and we didn’t have a telephone until I was like, 15 or 16. I remember going to Bournemouth was like going to the fucking moon. I went there once as a kid, and we used to talk about it, like a legend – ‘The Day We Went to Bournemouth’.” He laughs, before becoming more serious. “I grew up in that life, very far away from the rest of the world and the world’s changed a lot, so I’m just trying to hold onto that. As far as what we play, it is trying to instil some sort of values and traditions, something you can hold on to. I grew up looking at Morris dancers, and they’re holding on to this tradition, to the extent that what they’re doing is almost pre-Christian witchcraft rituals and they’re still doing them to this day. Well, we’re documenting this music for future generations – it’s very generous of us.“ He laughs again.

“I wouldn’t want to embrace modern elements. We’re purposely retrogressive, our recordings are done in a studio that doesn’t have digital, our covers are hand-drawn, these things are Luddite. Well, computers are evil aren’t they? I mean anyone who remembers The Terminator knows we’re all going to pay for this sooner or later!”

This Luddite philosophical bedrock and the wish to escape in some way the modern age may also explain Jus’s love of supernatural horror fiction, particularly the works of revered American author HP Lovecraft and the writers of the horror pulp fiction magazines, both of which provided escapist explorations and had their heyday in the pre-war period.

“I was into HP Lovecraft from the age of eight or nine years old – I actually got it from the school library,” reveals Jus. “I was attracted to the dark side, Satanism, witchcraft and so on way before I discovered heavy metal music. I liked the way Lovecraft wrote and his attitude. He describes it well in his essay Supernatural Horror In Literature , where he talks about looking for a particular effect where he’s dragged into another world and it’s so weird and bizarre, but he’s excited to be in this world of evil almost, and I felt you could recreate this with metal music quite easily. When I got into heavy metal music as a teenager listening to bands like Sodom, Destruction, Bathory, Venom, Alice Cooper – these bands were creating an aura that transported you to another world.”

It’s this fascination with horror and the occult that reverberates particularly effectively on Black Masses , a swirling black hole of a record that very much pulls you into its world and very effectively blows you out the other side As this concept album’s name suggests, the band have taken their interests in the dark side as a starting point for all the songs, with numbers including Patterns Of Evil , Venus In Furs (inspired by the Leopold von Sacher-Masoch novella and concerned with the same “evil women that Black Sabbath and Hendrix told us about”) and Satyr IX , exploring various incarnations of evil and the devil himself, or indeed herself. As it turns out, the motive here is also more than a little tied into the notion of tradition, especially that of heavy metal itself.

“This album is more evil, more Satanic sounding,” says Jus proudly. “We’ve been obsessing about certain films and very dark shit. We’ve meditated on the fact that the music we really like has always been inspired by Luciferian thought, by darker movies, books about the devil. I mean, being into metal when I was young was about The Number Of The Beast and trying to get a copy of The Devil’s Bible .

“It was part of the whole culture and we just obsessed on that and we’re trying to solidify those traditions on this record. I think the world’s heading into the pits of hell and you’re either going to be a Christian or dig it, have your Satanic age and just play as loud as possible, do as many drugs as possible, fuck as much as possible, and just do it. We’ve always talked about the true spirit of Satanic heavy metal, what it means to be into heavy metal. Everything’s getting a bit wimpy, too clinical or too pussyish.”

It’s a fairly common complaint among older bands these days that metal has lost its way somewhat, or at least that elements within the genre have taken it in a somewhat distasteful direction. But as Jus accepts, this is surely an unavoidable by-product of metal’s current success, something that ultimately benefits more underground bands thanks to a sort of trickle-down effect.

“Yeah, I’m not complaining,” he chuckles, “It’s good that metal is big, good for us – we’re more popular than we’ve ever been before. But you have to remember where heavy metal came from… you have kids now who don’t even know Venom! I mean, it’s always been our dream to emulate the success of 70s Sabbath, when Paranoid got into the charts. I mean that’s what we dream about, not being shit, but being really heavy and huge, so everyone can worship Electric Wizard. I mean there’s no shame in being successful if you’re cool, it’s only if you’re shit you need to be ashamed.”

As Black Masses proves, Electric Wizard’s approach to doom, while being a lot more lively and, well, electrified, than many of their more funereal-sounding peers, remains pretty dark and uncompromising throughout. It’s an approach that has allowed them to tour the planet successfully in recent years, but given this taste of success and their world-conquering aspirations, have the group ever considered writing tuneful, catchy material?

“To be honest, I feel we do!” replies Jus with a hearty laugh. “It’s just our viewpoint probably isn’t the same as other people’s. We feel we write pop songs, it’s just that they come via our worldview, our shit-coloured glasses. But yeah, I don’t enjoy touring personally, I don’t enjoy travelling and I don’t enjoy playing, but I enjoy getting to the fans and giving them what they want: a heavy fucking show. At the end of the day I cant stand a minute of it, but if hundreds of kids are screaming ‘Electric Wizard!’, then for that moment you think it was fucking worth it. And you do meet one or two people who make you think, ‘This is why I do it’ – people who get it. Or people who have tons of free drugs. That’s pretty cool too…”

This article originally appeared in Metal Hammer #212 .

**Electric Wizard are headlining this year’s Desertfest in Camden, London on April 29 - May 1. Get your tickets here . **

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Beyond Existential Dread: Electric Wizard’s Wizard Bloody Wizard Richard Fontenoy , November 9th, 2017 08:56

After more than two decades, Electric Wizard serve up heavy heavy slabs of nihilism and misanthropy with renewed power and purpose.

One of the things that stands out when revisiting Black Sabbath records is just how relatively straightforward blues-based rocknroll they are, all pentatonic scales and guitar solos. Lyrically, Geezer Butler changed everything, of course, helping propel a whole genre into existence, and mostly for the better. At a distance of nearly half a century, it's easy to forget how radical this all was at the time, even if it was also largely ignored, downplayed and mocked, save for the faithful of what became heavy metal. In some ways they turned into the ultimate cult rock band success story, cleverly managed and corralled into a money-making music machine. Their farewell tour earlier this year was one last turn around the lucratively overpriced arena circuit.

Read Mick Wall's entertaining biography of Sabbath for one version of the occasionally preposterous story of a band who seemed to be making it up as they stumbled along, enjoying good-natured Satan-bothering japes as they did so. Then consider another band from a later, more cynical generation, one which has perhaps adhered to, and advanced, the particular atmosphere and agenda of Sabbath's paranoid dope-fuelled gloominess the most faithfully of all.

Twenty years and more into their own trajectory, Electric Wizard are as indebted to Sabbath as ever - the album title, riffing further on their choice of band name, gives it away - just like every other doom and stoner band since circa 1973, maybe, but crucially Electric Wizard still manage to sound like themselves. Here, there's more than a few frazzled nods towards the likes of Blue Cheer or Groundhogs – as Sabbath did too, of course. The chugging riffs on Wizard Bloody Wizard are remarkably upbeat by comparison to the sometimes impenetrably sludgy fug of weighty mayhem for which they have become a byword, more suited to moshing perhaps than the slow-motion headbanging usually induced by, say, the ‘Satanic Rites Of Drugula’ or most of Dopethrone .

All the Electric Wizard tropes are out in full bone-quaking force: Hammer Horror schlockery, nihilistic lyrics celebrating narcotic-fuelled misanthropy and a visceral response to the iniquities of contemporary life, all draped in frank celebrations of drug culture, which is referred to as their religion on the anti-authoritarian ‘Hear The Sirens Scream’. There's not much actual cheer on offer: “I’ll be dead and blue”, Jus Oborn warns sardonically early on, “just like you”. He points out repeatedly that “all hope is lost, there'll be no new dawn, and all of your dreams will die... die” with the distant scorn of someone who gave up on hope for humanity long ago.

Such existential dread and derision is par for the course, but here it’s been stripped back musically from the band's usual monolithic and murky wall of sound. Oborn's voice is foregrounded, pulled into sharper focus up from the grinding nether regions of old, though he still sneers lustfully about funeral shadows, black whips and leather on ‘Necromania’. That song would make a great soundtrack for a remake of 1973's suicidal biker classic Psychomania . (Actually, Psychomania was re-released earlier this year on BluRay and DVD, so I’d say just enjoy the gleefully bizarre original with the volume turned down and Wizard Bloody Wizard playing instead.

The second half of the LP eases further out from the newly invigorated guitar-bass-drums churn, taking on a more psychedelic feel without necessarily flicking the switch to the full-on doom as last revisited to suitably dismal effect on 2014’s bleak and overwhelming Time To Die . The woozy organ-raddled flood of ‘The Reaper’ sets the walls dripping red and green, the wah’d guitar trickling and wobbling in the lysergic back-draught of the wind-tunnel rush, complete with addled, slightly sinister chuckles. There’s yet more lascivious leering on ‘Wicked Caresses’, but it’s the walking bluesy bassline and frazzled guitar line of the unfurling swirl of ‘Mourning Of The Magicians’ that lifts things to a higher - far higher - plane.

“So, come together,” Oborn implores, offering up a valedictory glimmer of hope as the album spreads its sulphurous wings in amplifier-endangering fed-back wails and head-nodding grind that splurges mordantly into the darkness. “Goodbye, farewell - I'll see you in hell,” he sings, neatly looping back round to the title of the album’s lurching opening number as he does so. This is pretty much Electric Wizard at their best – riding all the cliches, lyrical and musical, with the deft assurance of daredevil bikers taking one more turn around the wall of death.

As any band that’s been around for a while finds, it’s hard to stay fresh with each new album and most groups have their less-than-successful moments along the way. As with Sabbath’s 13 , so Wizard Bloody Wizard demonstrates that sometimes it’s worth going back to basics. It’s largely about nuance, how to wring every last drop of feedback and fuzz out of instruments that can’t realistically be pushed much further than they have been already. The trick that Electric Wizard pull off here is making it still feel as much as sound right, and above all remaining eminently listenable – and relistenable - while doing so.

Long live the new Wizard, much like the old one in so many ways but with a renewed sense of purpose. Wizard Bloody Wizard still rocks hard enough to justify the occasional rebellious upward glance from the existential trudge down the long spiral into nothingness that they evoke so bleakly, and so well.

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Interview: Electric Wizard’s Jus Oborn on weed, satan, and the band’s first North American tour in a decade

Posted on March 30, 2015 by Gabriel Sigler in Live Preview , Music // 1 Comment

Electric Wizard have always existed on the periphery, a highly-influential stoner doom band relegated to cult status. That all seems poised to change, however, as the UK band are about to embark on a sold-out North American tour for the first time in nearly a decade.

With songs centered around massively sludgy down-tuned riffs, expounding on themes of horror, weird fantasy, the occult, and weed, Electric Wizard have remained consistent over the course of eight albums, including fan favourites like 1998’s Come My Fanatics…  and 2000’s landmark Dopethrone .

Despite early critical success, the band struggled with constant line-up changes over the years and became embroiled in a complicated legal morass with their former label Rise Above Records, with the label threatening to prohibit the band from releasing any further music. That still-simmering situation resulted in the band forming their own imprint, Witchfinder Records, distributed through the UK’s Spinefarm Records, to release 2014’s Time To Die album. Written and recorded while the band’s future was in doubt from their ongoing legal situation, the album is the band’s angriest yet, with vocalist / guitarist Jus Oborn describing it as “negative and horrible” (in the best way possible).

We caught up with Jus to chat about weed, record collector nerds, and the band’s plans for the upcoming tour, which includes a long sold-out Montreal stop at Virgin Mobile Corona Theatre on April 4th. For all upcoming tour dates, visit  http://www.electricfuckinwizard.com/ .

You’re about to start your first North American tour in almost a decade, what’s taken you so long to get back here?

Quite a few reasons, but one of the main ones is I’ve had a few visa problems over the years, so I’ve had to go through quite a few hoops to do it, it’s always been a pain in the ass. It’s always been hard getting into the States, it’s a big operation, and every time we go to do it, we get too lazy and never finish it, you know?

It must be vindicating that the shows have been selling out so fast, was that surprising to you guys?

It’s awesome. I guess we were holding on and hoping that it would at least work. We’re definitely pleased about it.

Do you have weed hookups in each city already?

Uh, well like 90% of them. We kind of tried to stay in cities where I know we could hook up. And so, we should be OK. Unfortunately, that’s why we’re not playing too many in the South.

That dirt weed wrecks my balls man! I have that shit.

I heard you had a good story about crossing into Canada a few years back, what happened there?

Ha! It was a bit difficult last time, we were refused our visas, so we had to kind of say we were going to see the House of Frankenstein up in Niagara Falls, which they kind of believed because we looked like a bunch of freaks. And then we just hopped on the tour bus like a mile down the road and just started crossing our fingers.

Did you get to see the House Of Frankenstein?

Yeah, it was with Enslaved actually, the early black metal band that are still going. And to be honest, it was the most terrifying thing we ever did, we came out screaming like schoolgirls!

Getting on to the new record, Time To Die , what was it like recording this record with all the legal troubles surrounding the band at the time?

Um, I mean, it was a fucking pain. All you want to do is record music, and when you try to record it, you can’t. You can’t fucking hold on for fucking assholes to get their shit together. It was a real nightmare, you know? The important thing was to get the music recorded. All that other stuff is torture. I don’t want to have to deal with any of that crap, but I don’t want to get shafted up my ass the rest of my life. So you’ve got to deal and decide when you’re going to at least start a battle to like regain your rights and shit, you know?

Did all that negative energy find its way onto the album?

Oh yeah, definitely. It’s hard for me to listen to now.

It’s spewing with like, hatred and negativity. It’s a really negative and horrible record, but in many ways that’s cool.

We moved up to a bigger label and I think there was a fear from people that we were going to become commercial. I’m proud of it.

Were you going for that raw production this time around?

In many ways it was a circumstance of the recording. You can’t beat those kinds of idiosyncrasies of raw recording, you know?

Are you satisfied with the way everything resolved itself with Rise Records?

Um, things haven’t played themselves out legally yet, so to speak. We’ll let the crucifixions be done publicly.

The band has gone through a number of lineup changes, how long does it take you to settle in with a new member?

It’s never an easy thing. I hope we can pick the right people and keep things running as smoothly as possible, you know? I mean, you do know what you’re looking for, as you’ve been doing it for quite a while. You hope the transitions aren’t too painful for anyone, ha! I mean, you’re trying to keep the spirit of the band very true, so you don’t need too many wildcards coming into the band, everyone has to stick to the plan. People come in and they want to bring in their own stamp and identity, but then on one level, it’s still Electric Wizard, you know?

You’ve said that Electric Wizard could still continue if you weren’t in the band, do you still feel that way?

Ha well, I was just joking, but you don’t necessarily have to have me be a part of it, I think its become its own fucking beast sometimes. I’d say that to try and escape.

Do you feel that style you pioneered is living on outside the band now?

It’s hard to say, you know? I think the style has become quite, um, emulateable , right now, ha. I think there’s certain bands who really define their own styles that almost become like parodies of themselves eventually. It’s not easy, you know? We’ve done quite a few albums, and I hope we can still offer someone good quality music and still move forward in some way, but without changing that much.

There’s something to be said for having a consistent style though.

Yeah, I mean it’s hard, how many people want their favourite band to change? Slayer, Sabbath, Iron Maiden, people are like fucking furious when they try and move on.

People don’t want to hear a band like Motörhead change their style.

Yeah, exactly. I don’t!

Continued on page 2 below. 

• Electric Wizard
• Psycho Vegas
• Rise Above Records
• Spinefarm Records
• Time To Die
• Witchfinder Records

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ELECTRIC WIZARD: Australian Tour Dates Announced

According to HailMetal.com , British doom veterans ELECTRIC WIZARD have lined up the following Australian dates with POD PEOPLE :

Oct. 27 - Excelsior – Sydney, AUS Oct. 28 - Anu - Canberra, AUS Oct. 29 - Green Room - Melbourne, AUS Oct. 30 - The Nash - Geelong, AUS Oct. 31 - Green Room; Halloween Party - Melbourne, AUS Nov. 01 - Sound Underground - Canberra, AUS Nov. 02 - Boat of Doom - Sydney, AUS Nov. 03 - The Oxford - Wollongong, AUS Nov. 04 - The Marquee - Sydney, AUS

ELECTRIC WIZARD are touring in support of their latest album, "We Live" , which was mixed in Los Angeles with legendary producer Mathieus Schneeberger and released through Rise Above Records in January 2004.

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The Evolving Danger of the New Bird Flu

An unusual outbreak of the disease has spread to dairy herds in multiple u.s. states..

This transcript was created using speech recognition software. While it has been reviewed by human transcribers, it may contain errors. Please review the episode audio before quoting from this transcript and email [email protected] with any questions.

From “The New York Times,” I’m Sabrina Tavernise, and this is “The Daily.”

[MUSIC PLAYING]

The outbreak of bird flu that is tearing through the nation’s poultry farms is the worst in US history. But scientists say it’s now starting to spread into places and species it’s never been before.

Today, my colleague, Emily Anthes, explains.

It’s Monday, April 22.

Emily, welcome back to the show.

Thanks for having me. Happy to be here.

So, Emily, we’ve been talking here on “The Daily” about prices of things and how they’ve gotten so high, mostly in the context of inflation episodes. And one of the items that keeps coming up is eggs. Egg prices were through the roof last year, and we learned it was related to this. Avian flu has been surging in the United States. You’ve been covering this. Tell us what’s happening.

Yes, so I have been covering this virus for the last few years. And the bird flu is absolutely tearing through poultry flocks, and that is affecting egg prices. That’s a concern for everyone, for me and for my family. But when it comes to scientists, egg prices are pretty low on their list of concerns. Because they see this bird flu virus behaving differently than previous versions have. And they’re getting nervous, in particular, about the fact that this virus is reaching places and species where it’s never been before.

OK, so bird flu, though, isn’t new. I mean I remember hearing about cases in Asia in the ‘90s. Remind us how it began.

Bird flu refers to a bunch of different viruses that are adapted to spread best in birds. Wild water birds, in particular, are known for carrying these viruses. And flu viruses are famous for also being shapeshifters. So they’re constantly swapping genes around and evolving into new strains. And as you mentioned back in the ‘90s, a new version of bird flu, a virus known as H5N1, emerged in Asia. And it has been spreading on and off around the world since then, causing periodic outbreaks.

And how are these outbreaks caused?

So wild birds are the reservoir for the virus, which means they carry it in their bodies with them around the world as they fly and travel and migrate. And most of the time, these wild birds, like ducks and geese, don’t even get very sick from this virus. But they shed it. So as they’re traveling over a poultry farm maybe, if they happen to go to the bathroom in a pond that the chickens on the farm are using or eat some of the feed that chickens on the farm are eating, they can leave the virus behind.

And the virus can get into chickens. In some cases, it causes mild illness. It’s what’s known as low pathogenic avian influenza. But sometimes the virus mutates and evolves, and it can become extremely contagious and extremely fatal in poultry.

OK, so the virus comes through wild birds, but gets into farms like this, as you’re describing. How have farms traditionally handled outbreaks, when they do happen?

Well, because this threat isn’t new, there is a pretty well-established playbook for containing outbreaks. It’s sometimes known as stamping out. And brutally, what it means is killing the birds. So the virus is so deadly in this highly pathogenic form that it’s sort of destined to kill all the birds on a farm anyway once it gets in. So the response has traditionally been to proactively depopulate or cull all the birds, so it doesn’t have a chance to spread.

So that’s pretty costly for farmers.

It is. Although the US has a program where it will reimburse farmers for their losses. And the way these reimbursements work is they will reimburse farmers only for the birds that are proactively culled, and not for those who die naturally from the virus. And the thinking behind that is it’s a way to incentivize farmers to report outbreaks early.

So, OK, lots of chickens are killed in a way to manage these outbreaks. So we know how to deal with them. But what about now? Tell me about this new strain.

So this new version of the virus, it emerged in 2020.

After the deadly outbreak of the novel coronavirus, authorities have now confirmed an outbreak of the H5N1 strain of influenza, a kind of bird flu.

And pretty quickly it became clear that a couple things set it apart.

A bald eagle found dead at Carvins Cove has tested positive for the highly contagious bird flu.

This virus, for whatever reason, seemed very good at infecting all sorts of wild birds that we don’t normally associate with bird flu.

[BIRD CRYING]

He was kind of stepping, and then falling over, and using its wing to right itself.

Things like eagles and condors and pelicans.

We just lost a parliament of owls in Minneapolis.

Yeah, a couple of high profile nests.

And also in the past, wild birds have not traditionally gotten very sick from this virus. And this version of the virus not only spread widely through the wild bird population, but it proved to be devastating.

The washing up along the East Coast of the country from Scotland down to Suffolk.

We were hearing about mass die-offs of seabirds in Europe by the hundreds and the thousands.

And the bodies of the dead dot the island wherever you look.

Wow. OK. So then as we know, this strain, like previous ones, makes its way from wild animals to farmed animals, namely to chickens. But it’s even more deadly.

Absolutely. And in fact, it has already caused the worst bird flu outbreak in US history. So more than 90 million birds in the US have died as a result of this virus.

90 million birds.

Yes, and I should be clear that represents two things. So some of those birds are birds who naturally got infected and died from the virus. But the vast majority of them are birds that were proactively culled. What it adds up to is, is 90 million farmed birds in the US have died since this virus emerged. And it’s not just a chicken problem. Another thing that has been weird about this virus is it has jumped into other kinds of farms. It is the first time we’ve seen a bird flu virus jump into US livestock.

And it’s now been reported on a number of dairy farms across eight US states. And that’s just something that’s totally unprecedented.

So it’s showing up at Dairy farms now. You’re saying that bird flu has now spread to cows. How did that happen?

So we don’t know exactly how cows were first infected, but most scientists’ best guess is that maybe an infected wild bird that was migrating shed the virus into some cattle feed or a pasture or a pond, and cattle picked it up. The good news is they don’t seem to get nearly as sick as chickens do. They are generally making full recoveries on their own in a couple of weeks.

OK, so no mass culling of cows?

No, that doesn’t seem to be necessary at this point. But the bad news is that it’s starting to look like we’re seeing this virus spread from cow to cow. We don’t know exactly how that’s happening yet. But anytime you see cow-to-cow or mammal-to-mammal transmission, that’s a big concern.

And why is that exactly?

Well, there are a bunch of reasons. First, it could allow the outbreak to get much bigger, much faster, which might increase the risk to the food supply. And we might also expect it to increase the risk to farm workers, people who might be in contact with these sick cows.

Right now, the likelihood that a farmer who gets this virus passes it on is pretty low. But any time you see mammal-to-mammal transmission, it increases the chance that the virus will adapt and possibly, maybe one day get good at spreading between humans. To be clear, that’s not something that there’s any evidence happening in cows right now. But the fact that there’s any cow-to-cow transmission happening at all is enough to have scientists a bit concerned.

And then if we think more expansively beyond what’s happening on farms, there’s another big danger lurking out there. And that’s what happens when this virus gets into wild animals, vast populations that we can’t control.

We’ll be right back.

So, Emily, you said that another threat was the threat of flu in wild animal populations. Clearly, of course, it’s already in wild birds. Where else has it gone?

Well, the reason it’s become such a threat is because of how widespread it’s become in wild birds. So they keep reintroducing it to wild animal populations pretty much anywhere they go. So we’ve seen the virus repeatedly pop up in all sorts of animals that you might figure would eat a wild bird, so foxes, bobcats, bears. We actually saw it in a polar bear, raccoons. So a lot of carnivores and scavengers.

The thinking is that these animals might stumble across a sick or dead bird, eat it, and contract the virus that way. But we’re also seeing it show up in some more surprising places, too. We’ve seen the virus in a bottle-nosed dolphin, of all places.

And most devastatingly, we’ve seen enormous outbreaks in other sorts of marine mammals, especially sea lions and seals.

So elephant seals, in particular in South America, were just devastated by this virus last fall. My colleague Apoorva Mandavilli and I were talking to some scientists in South America who described to us what they called a scene from hell, of walking out onto a beach in Argentina that is normally crowded with chaotic, living, breathing, breeding, elephant seals — and the beach just being covered by carcass, after carcass, after carcass.

Mostly carcasses of young newborn pups. The virus seemed to have a mortality rate of 95 percent in these elephant seal pups, and they estimated that it might have killed more than 17,000 of the pups that were born last year. So almost the entire new generation of this colony. These are scientists that have studied these seals for decades. And they said they’ve never seen anything like it before.

And why is it so far reaching, Emily? I mean, what explains these mass die-offs?

There are probably a few explanations. One is just how much virus is out there in the environment being shed by wild birds into water and onto beaches. These are also places that viruses like this haven’t been before. So it’s reaching elephant seals and sea lions in South America that have no prior immunity.

There’s also the fact that these particular species, these sea lions and seals, tend to breed in these huge colonies all crowded together on beaches. And so what that means is if a virus makes its way into the colony, it’s very conducive conditions for it to spread. And scientists think that that’s actually what’s happening now. That it’s not just that all these seals are picking up the virus from individual birds, but that they’re actually passing it to each other.

So basically, this virus is spreading to places it’s never been before, kind of virgin snow territory, where animals just don’t have the immunity against it. And once it gets into a population packed on a beach, say, of elephant seals, it’s just like a knife through butter.

Absolutely. And an even more extreme example of that is what we’re starting to see happen in Antarctica, where there’s never been a bird flu outbreak before until last fall, for the first time, this virus reached the Antarctic mainland. And we are now seeing the virus move through colonies of not only seabirds and seals, but penguin colonies, which have not been exposed to these viruses before.

And it’s too soon to say what the toll will be. But penguins also, of course, are known for breeding in these large colonies.

Probably. don’t have many immune defenses against this virus, and of course, are facing all these other environmental threats. And so there’s a lot of fear that you add on the stress of a bird flu virus, and it could just be a tipping point for penguins.

Emily, at this point, I’m kind of wondering why more people aren’t talking about this. I mean, I didn’t know any of this before having this conversation with you, and it feels pretty worrying.

Well, a lot of experts and scientists are talking about this with rising alarm and in terms that are quite stark. They’re talking about the virus spreading through wild animal populations so quickly and so ferociously that they’re calling it an ecological disaster.

But that’s a disaster that sometimes seems distant from us, both geographically, we’re talking about things that are happening maybe at the tip of Argentina or in Antarctica. And also from our concerns of our everyday lives, what’s happening in Penguins might not seem like it has a lot to do with the price of a carton of eggs at the grocery store. But I think that we should be paying a lot of attention to how this virus is moving through animal populations, how quickly it’s moving through animal populations, and the opportunities that it is giving the virus to evolve into something that poses a much bigger threat to human health.

So the way it’s spreading in wild animals, even in remote places like Antarctica, that’s important to watch, at least in part because there’s a real danger to people here.

So we know that the virus can infect humans, and that generally it’s not very good at spreading between humans. But the concern all along has been that if this virus has more opportunities to spread between mammals, it will get better at spreading between them. And that seems to be what is happening in seals and sea lions. Scientists are already seeing evidence that the virus is adapting as it passes from marine mammal to marine mammal. And that could turn it into a virus that’s also better at spreading between people.

And if somebody walks out onto a beach and touches a dead sea lion, if their dog starts playing with a sea lion carcass, you could imagine that this virus could make its way out of marine mammals and into the human population. And if it’s this mammalian adapted version of the virus that makes its way out, that could be a bigger threat to human health.

So the sheer number of hosts that this disease has, the more opportunity it has to mutate, and the more chance it has to mutate in a way that would actually be dangerous for people.

Yes, and in particular, the more mammalian hosts. So that gives the virus many more opportunities to become a specialist in mammals instead of a specialist in birds, which is what it is right now.

Right. I like that, a specialist in mammals. So what can we do to contain this virus?

Well, scientists are exploring new options. There’s been a lot of discussion about whether we should start vaccinating chickens in the US. The government, USDA labs, have been testing some poultry vaccines. It’s probably scientifically feasible. There are challenges there, both in terms of logistics — just how would you go about vaccinating billions of chickens every year. There are also trade questions. Traditionally, a lot of countries have not been willing to accept poultry products from countries that vaccinate their poultry.

And there’s concern about whether the virus might spread undetected in flocks that are vaccinated. So as we saw with COVID, the vaccine can sometimes stop you from getting sick, but it doesn’t necessarily stop infection. And so countries are worried they might unknowingly import products that are harboring the virus.

And what about among wild animals? I mean, how do you even begin to get your head around that?

Yeah, I mean, thinking about vaccinating wild animals maybe makes vaccinating all the chickens in the US look easy. There has been some discussion of limited vaccination campaigns, but that’s not feasible on a global scale. So unfortunately, the bottom line is there isn’t a good way to stop spread in wild animals. We can try to protect some vulnerable populations, but we’re not going to stop the circulation of this virus.

So, Emily, we started this conversation with a kind of curiosity that “The Daily” had about the price of eggs. And then you explained the bird flu to us. And then somehow we ended up learning about an ecological disaster that’s unfolding all around us, and potentially the source of the next human pandemic. That is pretty scary.

It is scary, and it’s easy to get overwhelmed by it. And I feel like I should take a step back and say none of this is inevitable. None of this is necessarily happening tomorrow. But this is why scientists are concerned and why they think it’s really important to keep a very close eye on what’s happening both on farms and off farms, as this virus spreads through all sorts of animal populations.

One thing that comes up again and again and again in my interviews with people who have been studying bird flu for decades, is how this virus never stops surprising them. And sometimes those are bad surprises, like these elephant seal die-offs, the incursions into dairy cattle. But there are some encouraging signs that have emerged recently. We’re starting to see some early evidence that some of the bird populations that survived early brushes with this virus might be developing some immunity. So that’s something that maybe could help slow the spread of this virus in animal populations.

We just don’t entirely know how this is going to play out. Flu is a very difficult, wily foe. And so that’s one reason scientists are trying to keep such a close, attentive eye on what’s happening.

Emily, thank you.

Thanks for having me.

Here’s what else you should know today.

On this vote, the yeas are 366 and the nays are 58. The bill is passed.

On Saturday, in four back-to-back votes, the House voted resoundingly to approve a long-stalled package of aid to Ukraine, Israel and other American allies, delivering a major victory to President Biden, who made aid to Ukraine one of his top priorities.

On this vote, the yeas are 385, and the no’s are 34 with one answering present. The bill is passed without objection.

The House passed the component parts of the $95 billion package, which included a bill that could result in a nationwide ban of TikTok.

On this vote, the yeas are 311 and the nays are 112. The bill is passed.

Oh, one voting present. I missed it, but thank you.

In a remarkable breach of custom, Democrats stepped in to supply the crucial votes to push the legislation past hard-line Republican opposition and bring it to the floor.

The House will be in order.

The Senate is expected to pass the legislation as early as Tuesday.

Today’s episode was produced by Rikki Novetsky, Nina Feldman, Eric Krupke, and Alex Stern. It was edited by Lisa Chow and Patricia Willens; contains original music by Marion Lozano, Dan Powell, Rowan Niemisto, and Sophia Lanman; and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly. Special thanks to Andrew Jacobs.

That’s it for “The Daily.” I’m Sabrina Tavernise. See you tomorrow.

• April 24, 2024   •   32:18 Is $60 Billion Enough to Save Ukraine?
• April 23, 2024   •   30:30 A Salacious Conspiracy or Just 34 Pieces of Paper?
• April 22, 2024   •   24:30 The Evolving Danger of the New Bird Flu
• April 19, 2024   •   30:42 The Supreme Court Takes Up Homelessness
• April 18, 2024   •   30:07 The Opening Days of Trump’s First Criminal Trial
• April 17, 2024   •   24:52 Are ‘Forever Chemicals’ a Forever Problem?
• April 16, 2024   •   29:29 A.I.’s Original Sin
• April 15, 2024   •   24:07 Iran’s Unprecedented Attack on Israel
• April 14, 2024   •   46:17 The Sunday Read: ‘What I Saw Working at The National Enquirer During Donald Trump’s Rise’
• April 12, 2024   •   34:23 How One Family Lost $900,000 in a Timeshare Scam
• April 11, 2024   •   28:39 The Staggering Success of Trump’s Trial Delay Tactics
• April 10, 2024   •   22:49 Trump’s Abortion Dilemma

Hosted by Sabrina Tavernise

Produced by Rikki Novetsky ,  Nina Feldman ,  Eric Krupke and Alex Stern

Edited by Lisa Chow and Patricia Willens

Original music by Marion Lozano ,  Dan Powell ,  Rowan Niemisto and Sophia Lanman

Engineered by Chris Wood

Listen and follow The Daily Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music

The outbreak of bird flu currently tearing through the nation’s poultry is the worst in U.S. history. Scientists say it is now spreading beyond farms into places and species it has never been before.

Emily Anthes, a science reporter for The Times, explains.

On today’s episode

Emily Anthes , a science reporter for The New York Times.

Background reading

Scientists have faulted the federal response to bird flu outbreaks on dairy farms .

Here’s what to know about the outbreak.

There are a lot of ways to listen to The Daily. Here’s how.

We aim to make transcripts available the next workday after an episode’s publication. You can find them at the top of the page.

Special thanks to Andrew Jacobs .

The Daily is made by Rachel Quester, Lynsea Garrison, Clare Toeniskoetter, Paige Cowett, Michael Simon Johnson, Brad Fisher, Chris Wood, Jessica Cheung, Stella Tan, Alexandra Leigh Young, Lisa Chow, Eric Krupke, Marc Georges, Luke Vander Ploeg, M.J. Davis Lin, Dan Powell, Sydney Harper, Mike Benoist, Liz O. Baylen, Asthaa Chaturvedi, Rachelle Bonja, Diana Nguyen, Marion Lozano, Corey Schreppel, Rob Szypko, Elisheba Ittoop, Mooj Zadie, Patricia Willens, Rowan Niemisto, Jody Becker, Rikki Novetsky, John Ketchum, Nina Feldman, Will Reid, Carlos Prieto, Ben Calhoun, Susan Lee, Lexie Diao, Mary Wilson, Alex Stern, Dan Farrell, Sophia Lanman, Shannon Lin, Diane Wong, Devon Taylor, Alyssa Moxley, Summer Thomad, Olivia Natt, Daniel Ramirez and Brendan Klinkenberg.

Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly. Special thanks to Sam Dolnick, Paula Szuchman, Lisa Tobin, Larissa Anderson, Julia Simon, Sofia Milan, Mahima Chablani, Elizabeth Davis-Moorer, Jeffrey Miranda, Renan Borelli, Maddy Masiello, Isabella Anderson and Nina Lassam.

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