Car Bomb have never been particularly interested in doing things the conventional way. Since releasing their debut album in 2007, the Long Island outfit have carved out a reputation for some of the most unpredictable, rhythmically complex and downright punishing music in modern metal.
But while their music might be anything but straightforward, their approach to running the band has always been refreshingly simple: do things on their own terms, and make the music they want to hear.
“When we started, it was just three metal guys trying to write some ridiculous music,” says bassist Jon Modell. “We were quite old-school in the way we worked back then – we would just get in a room and throw ideas at each other.”
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A combination of word-of-mouth connections and the band’s own grassroots efforts helped bring Car Bomb to the attention of Relapse Records, setting the stage for their debut release.
“I had a friend who worked for Relapse Records. He put our name forward, and eventually, the label approached us about releasing our first record.
“This was during the MySpace days, so we’d spent a lot of time pushing ourselves and building an audience that way. We’d also become friendly with Joe from Gojira, who sang on one of our songs, and had taken us out on tour in 2009.”
Car Bomb decided to take matters into their own hands for their second album, parting ways with Relapse Records and choosing to go it alone.
“Relapse were great. They didn’t do anything wrong; I think we just couldn’t give them enough. We weren’t touring enough for them, and we weren’t writing music quickly enough either. We’re very much on our own schedule, so it was a mutual decision.
“We’re still friendly with those guys, but we wanted to see whether we could do it ourselves, and we thought we had the pieces in place to make that happen. Giving away the rights to our music was never something we were interested in.”
You mentioned that another of your early ambitions was to tour with Meshuggah.
The password to our band website was ‘TourWithMeshuggah’, but it was a joke – it was never meant to happen. It was an aspirational goal, and we’d laugh about it because we thought there was no way they were ever going to tour with us.
Then, in 2014, they reached out. They were celebrating their 25th anniversary, around the time of Koloss, and they brought us over to Europe for a short run of shows. It was completely surreal. We couldn’t believe it was happening.
Who were your other musical reference points at the time?
Meshuggah and The Dillinger Escape Plan, for sure. We were also listening to Fantômas, The Locust and, of course, Mr. Bungle. Elliot comes from more of a jazz background, and he and I are big Frank Zappa fans.
Our guitarist, Greg, is more into electronic music. Autechre and Aphex Twin are practically his Bible, and he’s also a big Failure fan. We threw all those influences into a blender, and somehow Car Bomb is what came out.
Does Greg’s approach to guitar influence your bass playing?
Absolutely. Greg is such a wild guitar player. He’s really into all the sub-menus of the Axe-Fx, and he’ll have pitch-shifters going down and up at the same time. You hear something like that and then have to figure out what you’re going to do with it. Finding things to work with in that space has been really interesting.
Obviously, there’s also the rhythmic side of things. We’re a pretty intense band, so working all that stuff out is a big part of the challenge.
You originally played fingerstyle before moving to a pick.
I was a fingerstyle player when Car Bomb started, but I had to move to a pick because the music was becoming too demanding. Either that, or I didn’t have enough faith in myself to do it with my thumb! Learning to play with a pick just seemed more achievable than trying to develop my thumb technique.
Back then, Victor Wooten was the only guy I could think of who was doing that kind of thing. Maybe if I’d started playing now, I’d have developed that technique further. There are guys like Jacob Umansky who are absolutely ridiculous with it.
When did you first start playing Dingwall basses?
I found one towards the end of 2015, just in time to record Meta in 2016. I have five or six Dingwall basses now, and they’re all I ever want to play.
Before that, I went through quite a few different instruments. At the beginning of Car Bomb, I was playing a Modulus, followed by a five-string Fender P-Bass.
I also had this really badass five-string Rickenbacker. It had a standard four-string neck, but they’d fitted a five-string bridge, so the string spacing was incredibly tight. It was quite difficult to play, but it looked amazing.
Then I started looking for something that could really handle the low tunings we were using for Meta. I was online searching for basses when I came across a live video of Nolly playing a Dingwall, and I haven’t looked back since.
![Car Bomb - Blindsides [Official Music Video] - YouTube](https://img.youtube.com/vi/1ohaFZllmUE/maxresdefault.jpg "Car Bomb bassist John Modell on how a support slot with Meshuggah went from band joke to reality 22")
What’s your live rig looking like at the moment?
It’s very simple. I’m using an old-school Gallien-Krueger 1001RB head, along with a Darkglass Microtubes B7K Ultra. I also have a Fortin ZUUL Noise Gate and a Darkglass Hyper Luminal Compressor.
Do you still enjoy having an amplifier and cabinets on stage?
I really do. There’s something about feeling the sound behind me and in my ears. I only moved over to in-ear monitors in the last couple of years, so the thought of dropping the cabinets is quite appealing, but I’m not quite there yet.
