It’s been a bloody excellent few months for those Georgia sludge-prog types, Baroness. So much so in fact, that we sent Hugh Platt to corner bassist Summer Welch while he tried to roll cigarettes on the back stairs of the Camden Underworld, to demand the secrets of their success. And their beards.

First off Summer – the big question: are you happy with the level of beard in the band?
[laughs] “To be honest, I’ve never really understood the whole beard phenomenon. This is the first time in my entire life that I’ve even had facial hair , and I wouldn’t even call this a beard. I wouldn’t consider myself to be a bearded person. John [Baizley, Baroness frontman] has always had a beard – that’s his thing. I am aware of the ‘beard phenomenon”, and how people are totally into beards, and that’s cool, but I….really don’t care! [laughs]. I wouldn’t care if John had a shaven face, or a beard, or if we all had beards…I think facial hair is totally benign. It has nothing to do with the music, or who we are as people – it’s your face. No offense to anyone that’s stoked on beards, but to me it’s about the music, and not what you wear, or what books you read, or what you do with your….face “[laughs]

Well, we’re glad we’ve finally answered the beard question once and for all.

Well, tonight sold out like a motherbitch. How does it feel to be so in demand?
“I’d be lying if I said it was anything other than very flattering. It’s great, I’m humbled by everything. The past year has been a very interesting year for us, what with the release of this last record. It’s definitely propelled us forward in a major way. There’s been a lot of press and a lot of hype which I…try not to put too much stock into, as hype comes and goes, but I think the live shows speak for themselves. We just did a tour in the US, and every night was really, really awesome, very positive. The crowds were great. I think we’re all just really stoked that we are where we are. It’s been a pretty awesome experience, the whole thing.”

There’s no denying you guys have caught the hype. Blue Record picked up a few Album of the Year titles, as did Red Album before it. Do you feel pressure to maintain these high levels of critical expectation people have of you guys?
“I don’t feel the pressure from people or the press. The only pressure we feel is from each other because we’ve always had the mentality of ‘give it your best or don’t give it at all’. From day one, before we had a label, before we had anything, when were just four dudes in a basement with a bunch of shitty equipment, we’ve always strived to create something that is genuine and something that we feel represents us in the most honest way. Whether or not there’s a thousand people or just twenty watching us, we try to maintain that mentality. And of course it makes it a lot easier, and makes you want to continue doing it more when you have people backing you and you have fans. I guess to answer the question without going off on too much of a tangent, I don’t really feel pressure from people or from the media, but I feel like I need to do my best, and we feel that we need to do our best, regardless of what other people think.”

You mentioned a time way back when you had shitty equipment. At what point did you realise ‘shit, stuff’s really starting to happen for us!’?
“I guess the first time – for me personally – that we went to Europe and toured in front of a lot of people at festivals and stuff. That’s the point where I thought this is what I love doing, and this is my passion, but it could also be a means of survival. But I’ve honesty, I’ve always tried to approach it dayt by day and take it as it comes, and enjoy what I do.

“Obviously, the more we tour and more fans we attract, there’s more responsibility. That cheesy quote “With great power comes great responsibility” is really true; the bigger you get and the more people are investing in you, the more you need to maintain quality and be on the top of your game. We try to uphold that as best as we can, but at the same time we try to do that while holding on to our dignity, and above all, having fun. At the end of the day, if you’re not enjoying what you’re doing, there’s really no point in doing it.”

Watch Baroness perform ‘A Horse Called Golgotha’ live at the Camden Underworld

On a continuing theme, can you see yourselves following a similar path as your upcoming tour buddies, Mastodon?
“If you’d asked me that two years ago, I don’t know how I would’ve answered you. I think now I have to be honest with what I see and…the way that I feel about reviews and press and hype is that it comes and goes. You can get a great write-up in a magazine, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re a great band, and I think what holds true, what is tangible and is undeniable, is when you play a live show and there’s a packed club and [the audience] all have smiles on their faces, and everyone leaves with this feeling of contentment. I’ve witnessed that at our shows, and it’s really a truly amazing thing. On that level, yes, I could see it continuing on.

“At this point we’re just taking it day by day. What comes, well it’s a bonus, it’s an added bonus. We’re just constantly humbled by the fact that people continue to come out and support us. If it wasn’t for the fans, if it wasn’t for people like you and everybody else out there that likes our music, and appreciates what it is we’re doing, then we wouldn’t be able to tour the world and do what we’re doing.

“I’m kinda getting off the subject, but yes, I could see that. Mastodon’s a band that I respect because they got where they are because they worked hard. They started off how we started off – by playing to ten people in a basement, and not giving a shit because it was their passion, and that’s what they loved doing. That’s how we started. We never thought for an instant ‘oh God, we’ve got to make it big!’ it was always just ‘this is what we want to do’, and we’ve kept doing it. We’ve stuck with it, and here we are.”

The art direction of Blue Record appears to be a direct continuation of Red Album. Was that always pre-planned? Are you going to continue with this in future?
“I can’t say that it will continue on, and I’m not sure that it was even really pre-planned. I think when we recorded [Red Album], prior to that we had recorded two EPs that we’d titled First and Second, and we had another split release [with Unpersons] , that we called Third but it had a different title [A Grey Sigh in a Flower Husk]. We’ve always chosen simple, dumbed-down album titles as the music is very dense, the lyrics are very dense, the artwork is very dense – it always involves a lot of thought, and especially with [Blue Album], it’s meant to be a record you listen to start to finish, and it’s meant to be digested like that.

“The artwork is meant to compliment the music the same way the lyrics are meant to compliment the music – it’s all meant to be one cohesive package. And therefore the album title is meant o resemble that, but you’re not meant to read too much into the album title. Take it for what what it is, and listen to it and take from it what you want to take from it. We’ve had Red and we’ve had Blue, but I’m not going to say we’re going to have a Green or a Yellow come next. I don’t know and t’s not something we have planned out. We haven’t even really started writing music for the next record. So I can’t answer that question honestly.”

Watch Baroness play ‘Jake Leg’ live in Washington, DC

You talk about ‘consuming the album as a whole’ – with people increasingly “cherry-picking” tracks through iTunes, Spotify, MySpace, whatever, do you think music will suffer as a result?
“I feel that it has the potential to, but at the same time….I feel that in music today there’s definitely that trend of people grabbing bits’n'pieces, a song here, a song there – when I got into music, you would buy a record and you would listen to it. There wasn’t any internet, there wasn’t MySpace, there wasn’t anything like that. There were mail order magazines – if you wanted a record, you had to fill out this form with pen and paper, then two weeks later you got a record in the mail. And when you opened it up and listened to it, it was the whole package you bought. You would look at it and it was tangible, and it was real. And now, especially with the internet the way it is, it’s so easy to find anything and just download a song. There are positive things about that, but I think it also takes away from the ‘whole’. I’m losing myself here….”

No, we totally get where you’re coming from.

“We try to…create…what got us into music, like the bands we admire. That whole ‘feel’ is something we feel is very important in the whole experience of listening to a record, therefore we try to re-create that. I think people will recognise that, and take it for what it is. If they listen to one song and then like it, then maybe they’ll go out and buy the album. The artwork just adds to that – it adds to the whole package.”

So…can we expect to see you at Download or any other European Summer festivals?
“I cannot guarantee this, but I know we’ve just had an offer to play Hellfest, and I’m fairly sure we’re gonna take it. As far as other festivals go, we haven’t confirmed anything at this point. But we definitely want to, and I think if the offers make it worthwhile then we’ll definitely be over here, as we love coming to Europe, and festivals are really fun. You get to meet lots of cool people, and see lots of bands. We’re all about that.”

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Blue Record by Baroness is out now on Relapse Records, and received a more-than-respectable 5 out of 6 when we reviewed it last year. The band have just announced they’ll be supporting Mastodon on their mammoth US tour this Spring, giving us yet another reason to envy Americans – if you’re lucky enough to live stateside, check out Baroness’ official MySpace page for the full tour itinery.