By Robert Duguay

Bassist and songwriter Joseph D. Rowland on revisiting Foundations of Burden, perfecting Pallbearer’s sound, and bringing heavy atmosphere to an unconventional venue.

The weather is warming up, and for music fans in the Boston area and beyond, that means festival season is approaching. Numerous lineups appealing to various tastes are being announced. Fans of doom metal, stoner rock, and everything in between are already being served a slice of spring listening pleasure via Braintree’s Widowmaker Brewing (220 Wood Road) on April 17 and 18. Hopsmokerfest promises to supply an abundance of enjoyable amplification, courtesy of bands like High Command, Worshipper, Gozu, Heavy Temple, and Mother Iron Horse, among others. Both installments start at 4:20 p.m. Little Rock, Arkansas, doom masters Pallbearer will headline the opening night.

I spoke with bassist, vocalist, and multi-instrumentalist Joseph D. Rowland prior to the event about how Pallbearer began as a side project, the band’s plans to re-release one of their earlier albums, and what it was like for the group to perform in a different setting.

The Arts Fuse: Before starting Pallbearer, you and Brett Campbell were both students at the University of Central Arkansas. What were you studying, and did these interests in any way inspire the creation of the band?

Joseph D. Rowland: We initially met in 2005 when I was a junior at the university and Brett came in as a freshman. We then started a band together called Sports, which was an improvised, dark, psychedelic band. While we were doing that, we started a side project, which was Pallbearer, because we wanted to do something more composed and structured. I had already graduated from school at that point and Brett was no longer attending. We had never been music students. I have a writing degree and a television production degree, and now I’m an audio engineer. I went to school for that.

Anyway, when we met, we started playing music together that very day, and we’re still playing music today.

AF: This performance during Hopsmokerfest is part of a tour celebrating your reimagined version of the band’s 2014 sophomore release Foundations of Burden that came out last year. What was the experience of revising one of your albums like? You don’t hear about a lot of bands doing this type of thing.

JDR: It was great. We had been talking about revisiting the record pretty much since the original was released, but this is not a complete re-recording. We re-recorded some elements, but about 90% percent of the redux draws on the original tracks from the 2014 session. We ended up re-tracking the rhythm guitars, but it is essentially a remix and a remastering. Our impetus behind doing this revamp was that the original sessions for the recording didn’t go as planned.

We ran out of the budget to do what we initially envisioned because the studio we were working in was having technical issues with their Pro Tools rigs. We kept encountering an error, so our files were being corrupted. We ended up having to rush to put out the album. We spent a number of years working on it to get it ready to put out into the world, and we hoped one day to be able to come back and take another swing at mixing the record in order to put something out that’s closer to our original vision.

It’s not that we are disavowing the original. It still has its place in the pantheon of our catalog and we know that it is a record that connected with a lot of people. We don’t want to discount the fact that a lot of people are very attached to it. We also are attached to certain things about the original. But we wanted to take everything we’ve absorbed over the years as touring musicians, what we have learned as audio professionals and musicians, and refresh tracks on the album. We wanted to go back, take another crack at what we had in mind and see where it would land. And we decided to celebrate Foundations of Burden‘s re-release, its evolution, in live settings.

Pallbearer. Photo: Dan Almasy

AF: Hopsmokerfest is a unique event. It’s not your typical festival performance, which takes place in a field or a traditional venue. You will be playing in a brewery. Any thoughts going into this particular setting?

JDR: It’s going to be awesome. As veterans of the road, it’s always cool to find new settings to play. We often find ourselves in atypical places where people can enjoy live music. An unusual location really enhances the experience. We’re always up for that, and we take all of the measures we can to outfit ourselves, technically and so forth, so we are able to put on what we feel is our best performance — no matter what the scenario is. We’re excited about being given the opportunity to play in this distinctive spot.

AF: Looking forward into the future, does Pallbearer have any plans for a new studio record or any sort of collaboration or conceptual project?

JDR: We definitely have a few things that are in the very early germination stages, but we don’t have anything that I can say on the record yet. We’re going to be looking to the future once we get done with this cycle that we’re on right now, with the release of Foundations of Burden redux.

Rob Duguay is an arts & entertainment journalist based in Providence who is originally from Shelton, CT. Outside of The Arts Fuse, he has also written for DigBoston, Aquarian Weekly, Providence Journal, Newport Daily News, Worcester Magazine, New Noise Magazine, Manchester Ink Link, and numerous other publications. While covering mostly music, he has also written about film, TV, comedy, theater, visual art, food, drink, sports, and cannabis.