Charlton Heston gets the minimal treatment: seminal Detroit producer Robert Hood is readying his new album, a sonic take on the 70s sci-fi movie The Omega Man. FACT took the opportunity to speak to Hood about country life, metaphors and why we’re like walking zombies through our lives.
In 1976, “Omega Man” Charlton Heston has a problem. He is apparently the sole survivor in Los Angeles following bacterial warfare. Fortified in a penthouse and guarding a life-saving serum, he roams the city by day. At night, he battles a horde of bloodthirsty zombies.
Thirty years later, The Omega Man has a problem, too. The movie, which was based on Richard Matheson’s 1954 novel I Am Legend and directed by Boris Sagal, hasn’t aged well. The zombies are more funny than scary, with their Spanish Inquisition-type robes. Heston comes across like a crazed Hugh Hefner as he interrupts his cocktail-sipping to blast his machine gun at the scavengers. Ron Grainer’s jazzy easy-listening score is at times completely out of sync with the screen action. Why the hell, one is bound to ask, did Robert Hood take this film as the template for his upcoming concept album, Omega?
It’s a choice fuelled by deeply personal motives. When Hood saw the movie as a child, he was struck, if not transformed, by it, he told FACT’s Bjørn Schaeffner in a telephone interview. Apparently The Omega Man‘s futuristic, spiritual and end-of-world themes have reverberated throughout Hood’s life. Which says something about the Detroit icon, who heralded the arrival of the Minimal Nation in the mid-nineties.
On his current EP ‘Alpha’ / ‘Omega (End Times)’, Hood gives us a taste of the forthcoming Omega album, throwing us right back into his minimal maelstrom: the fast and whipping pace, the sinewy beats, the brutal beauty.
Robert, how has the year started off for you?
“The year has started off on a great note. We have many new projects on the way, and spiritually we are on the right track. It’s been fantastic, so far.”
Do you still reside on a farm in Alabama?
“I wouldn’t call it a farm, there’s no cows or chickens. But the land we live on used to belong to a farm. Yeah, we still live on that same property.”
Tell me about country life.
“Typically, I get up, start my day with prayer, have a cup of coffee, read scriptures from the Bible. In Spring and Summer there’s a lot of yard work to do, so I tend to cutting the acres, there’s a tractor mower that I might get on, and I put on my hat, my farming gear. I might work out, too. Do a couple of push-ups and sit-ups, then move into the studio and do some studio work in the afternoon.”
[...] This month sees the release of Omega, the new album from Robert Hood. [...]
[...] sci-fi movie The Omega Man (1976) – he told us all about the album and its motivations in this interview. The album launch party took place at NITSA in Barcelona during Sonar week, and Hood has granted us [...]