The iconic doom metal band Acid King, was formed by front woman Lori S. in 1993. Although recently restructured, Acid King is still highly revered in the metal genre. Much of the band’s success can be attributed to Lori’s impressive range of self-taught skills. So as Chicago burb dwellers ourselves, we were thrilled to have the chance to talk with this local legend, whose early years growing up in the Chicago scene influenced the start of their music career.
You said you’re going out of town this week. I hope you’re going somewhere fun for the holidays.
Going to Chicago, that’s where I’m from.
I’m from the Chicago area, too.
I was born in Chicago, but I grew up in Des Plaines for the most part. Then Palatine, that’s where my mom still lives.
I’m sure you must have played shows at Metro then. That’s where my career started.
I love it. I spent a lot of time there. I didn’t move to San Francisco until ‘92, so all the ‘80s and up until then I was in Chicago. My old all-girl band played at the Metro. I’ve seen many good shows there and I agree.
I’m jealous. You probably got to see all the best ‘90s bands at Metro that I wasn’t alive for yet.
I did. I even played with Nirvana there. 1990, I think. Right before they got gigantic. You weren’t alive then. See? There are benefits of being old.
All the best bands started before 2000 anyways. I grew up loving the music scene in Chicago. So many local bands and cool venues.
I still have a ton of friends in Chicago and the city’s cool. If you asked me now, would I move to San Francisco? No, I wouldn’t. Besides the shitty weather, there’s so many better things going on in Chicago and cooler places. Obviously, it’s a lot bigger than here, but yeah, the me now wouldn’t be like, “San Francisco. That’s where I want to move.” It’s awesome, don’t get me wrong, but when I moved here in the ‘90s, it was just a different vibe that wasn’t around in Chicago. It’s changed a lot, but it’s going through another change now. What I like is it’s reverting to seeing more bars opening because COVID just pretty much obliterated the whole entire city.
It’s good to see things reverting back to normal. Who was your favorite ‘90’s band?
Sub Pop changed my life when all that stuff came out. Bands like Mudhoney, Nirvana, and Soundgarden. That music didn’t exist. It was taking the ‘70s but adding a twist onto it. Big Muff or wah-wah pedals came back. I went through many transitions of music from growing up in the ‘70s from classic rock to new wave. Totally into Devo, The Police, The Pretenders and Gary Numan. Then going into British punk rock and hardcore, back to classic rock. Then I discovered Saint Vitus and Sub Pop, and that was a whole new era for me. So, I want to say Nirvana, for sure. Mudhoney and Soundgarden also. L-7 was up there, too—I loved them, they’re in the Top 5.
I get stuck watching documentaries on those bands and wish it was like that now. Maybe I’m just so set in my ways that I am not even looking to discover new bands I’d like.
I hear you. If you look at my record collection, it stops in the ‘90s or my CDs, at least. It’s funny. In the early ‘90s, I discovered Monster Magnet and Kyuss. I remember hearing them and being like, “What is this? What is this?” So, all those things helped.
Kyuss is so sick. Well, if you were to be able to look back on yourself in the ‘90s and give yourself advice, what would it be?
I don’t know if I would do anything different. All that music shaped who I am as a musician and influenced me in different ways. I basically started playing the guitar when I was 19 because this punk rock boyfriend of mine played and all the girlfriends would sit upstairs, all the boyfriends played the guitar, and I was like, “What are we doing?”
You wanted to be the guitarist, not the girlfriend.
I asked him to teach me how to play and I learned two chords, the major and minor chord. That was when I started a band with no experience, never played, never sang, never wrote a song, didn’t know anything. I worked in record stores like Wax Trax, Record Bar, Sound Warehouse, and Flipside. I grew up with music in my life my entire time until I got to the point where I needed to make more money than minimum wage. I was like, “Okay, it’s time to not work in a record store anymore.” I don’t think anything would change, honestly. I feel very lucky that I was there during it all.
I’d say the same thing about boyfriend skateboarders. I wanted to learn how to skate, not be the girlfriend. Learning how to play guitar with just two chords and then starting your own band is crazy.
Well, punk rock, you know what I mean? You shake it up, two chords. I don’t know how I did it to be honest, but somehow, I did. It just came, I had it in me and didn’t even know it.
Badass. I came home early since I broke my leg skating. So, I started taking guitar lessons. I figured I could always learn something new.
There’s no time limit. I didn’t start until I was 19, doesn’t matter. Obviously, you need to know how to play, but it’s just about being creative too on the guitar. You don’t have to be some Eddie Van Halen fricking shredder or Slayer guitar player. You don’t have to be Gary Holt to be in a successful band. You just play what you want and write decent songs. Hopefully people like it too, but don’t get tripped up on technicalities and, “Am I a good enough guitar player?” None of that matters.
I don’t know if I could write anything. Right now, I just want to play the shit I know, like covers. My guitar teacher is teaching me “Come As You Are,” since Nirvana songs are pretty simple. Nothing else to do with a broken leg so might as well learn something.
You’re like, hey, COVID comes, you learn to skate. You broke your leg, and now guitar.
Exactly. I’ll see where it goes. Is there any specific advice on your rise in the ‘90s that you were like, “Damn, I’m going to remember that forever”?
I remember a couple things my ex-husband told me. Once I got in a band and had songs, all I wanted to do was tour Europe. I was just obsessed with making that happen or even just touring in general. He said, “Yeah, every band goes through that. Where you just have to go, and do it no matter how horrible it is.” Another thing he said was, “You got to be nice to everybody because you never know when your paths are going to cross again. You might play with a band that’s an opener, and next thing you know they’re the headliner.” That’s good advice for everybody in life in general.
Especially in the music industry, it’s a small world. Just like the skate industry. I always think about that, it truly goes a long way.
Yeah, I mean obviously if they’re an asshole, they’re an asshole, but it doesn’t mean you have to be.
There’s always going to be assholes. Do you have a certain song that eases anxiety or stress to make you feel better?
I have some airplane turbulence songs because we fly a lot. Whenever I’m up in the sky, I listen to Mark Lanegan, one of my favorites. Or Cat Stevens. I know this sounds like old people stuff, but I love Cat Stevens.
It’s soothing.
Tea for the Tillerman is one of my favorite albums. Those are my go-tos for like, “We’re only in turbulence, it’s going to be okay. It’s just clouds in the sky,” music. I cannot listen to heavy or anything fast, that just does the opposite thing for me.
I usually put on The Sundays or Mazzy Star for that. I totally get that. Are there any memorable embarrassing moments that come to mind?
Earlier in my career where I wasn’t experienced enough. This was before Acid King. I did not have strap locks on my guitar, and I decided to do a Mike Ness jump, you know? One leg out and one leg back. I never even practiced it before, and my strap fell off. I fell and had to fumble around trying to put my strap back on my guitar. It was the most embarrassing moment of my career. Luckily, there was barely anybody at the show and nobody knew who we were, so it didn’t matter, but never did that again.
You know now. You should practice the move first.
Kids, if you want to do the rock jumps, practice in advance. And put strap locks on your guitar. If you’re talking about, like, I threw up on somebody’s equipment, that’s one thing because you were drunk. If it’s a musical embarrassing thing, as you get more experienced, those stop happening because you know how to handle them. Fast-forward to 2018, we were playing Desertfest in Belgium, and my strap fell off just like it did back in the punk rock days. The whole strap lock came off, all the hardware and everything, bam. I was like, “Fuck.” So, I’m trying to hold my guitar and play it. I didn’t fall. There were no rock jumps, and I basically just handed it. I tried to duct tape it quickly and it wouldn’t stay. We don’t have any roadies, like a guitar tech. I just handed him my guitar to some guy that was on side stage, meanwhile just the bands kept playing. I kept singing without my guitar, while he duct-taped the shit out of it and gave it back to me. I don’t even think I tuned it. Someone even asked me if I did that on purpose, I was like, “What?”
Why would I do that on purpose?
Like, “Hell no.” So now you make those embarrassing moments a part of the show. I’ll sing the wrong words, or I’ll forget lyrics, you know? In the past, I would always tell everyone in the band, “I’ll be the worst player out of them all. I’ll hit wrong notes.” I’ll be like, “Oh, where am I on the guitar?” It happens all the time. As the singer, I’m supposed to be the entertainer out there with the crowd, and I’m not a technician. Sometimes you just get lost. It used to really affect me. I would hit a wrong note, and it would take me a while to get back in the game. I am a huge baseball fan, so now I give myself a little baseball analogy. It’s like, “All right, you threw a few balls, but now you’re going to get into a strike zone.” You must give yourself this internal pep talk. Again, with experience comes easier for you to deal with these things.
Totally. Do you remember the first time when you started your band with just two chords what it was like performing for the first time?
I have a video of my very first band. I stood there with my head down. I was playing my guitar because I had to look at my hands to play the notes. I don’t even think I ever looked up until the end of the song. I didn’t engage. I couldn’t do anything but stand and play because standing and playing was huge. Like, how do I do that? I looked like a statue.
I don’t even like doing anything in front of a crowd.
So, if I look back, what would I do differently in the ‘90s? I wouldn’t have done anything different back when I first started. However, I would’ve waited until I practiced more and was comfortable standing and playing and looking at people. I was obsessed with performing immediately. The minute we had songs, I wanted to play whenever there was an opportunity. There were house parties in the suburbs back then that I wanted to play, even though I could barely play. I have no idea where that came from, but obviously that gave me more experience. At the same time, in hindsight, it would’ve been better for me to have more experience before I ventured out playing since we played some terrible shows.
Who wouldn’t want to take it to the stage right away. I read that the rite of passage for being in the band was reading Say You love Satan, right?
Yeah, I kind of abandoned the ship recently because the band has such a revolving door of musicians now. The last couple people, I gave them copies, but I can’t tell you if they read it. There’s been two books now, Say You Love Satan was the book that I got the band name from and there’s a book called The Acid King. Which is about the true story since the book I read at first was very sensationalized, a lot of “satanic panic,” if you want to call it that. They really upped the Satan game to scare people. The real story of the kid, Ricky Kasso, was a messed-up meth head. A suburban kid that didn’t have a horrible life, but didn’t have a great one. Satan got added in there compared to why he might’ve gone that route to begin with. That was the case, but now I’m abandoning the ship on that one.
Was it like Pearl Jam’s song “Jeremy,” where you just read about the story and thought it was interesting and a cool name?
Yeah, I mean, I have so many different players now. They’re not always going to be band members; they may play for a year or a couple shows. Before people would be more of a band member and stay longer. So, it made sense to have them read the book and feel more part of the whole Acid King experience. I’ll have to rethink that.
Is it fun to have it be more of a revolving door, or did you like it when people were officially in the band?
I liked it better when people were in the band. It’s been good and bad. Good because some of the people I’ve played with have been much better musicians and have elevated the band in a way that the previous musicians wouldn’t have. So that’s been awesome. It’s been a good learning experience and made me a better musician playing with them. But it’s hard because you feel like you’re alone and you don’t have a person to write music with necessarily all the time. You constantly have to get them up to speed to be able to play at a certain level that didn’t matter before. A lot of practicing the same songs. Like, are they the right person? There are higher stakes now since Acid King is more popular. It makes it harder and not as much fun.
I’m sure everyone that gets an opportunity to play with you is very stoked.
They are. It’s been interesting playing with so many different people. Who stays, who goes, why they stay, why they go. When you’re in a band where I’ve been the singer and songwriter for so long, it’s going to be harder to find people that want to stick with it for any length of time.
Yeah. We were talking about skills that you can learn later. If you were to pick up any skill that you would want to learn, what would it be?
I wouldn’t mind learning motion graphics and becoming better at Photoshop. Once you’re a musician, you become an editor and a content creator, otherwise you have to pay somebody. I’ve ended up being that person. I can make my little videos on the Splice app or CapCut, but I’m certainly not trained. I’m just self-taught. It’d be nice to make more professional videos because it goes along with the territory. Being in a band, when you get bigger, it’s not just about playing music. You’re a business person, you’re the manager, you’re an LLC, you’re a CEO, and you’re the content creator. You’re now the online store.
You run all of that?
Yeah, there’s so many components to it. I think I’m just very punk rock in my ways. Maybe I’m just a control freak and I don’t want anybody taking advantage of me. I don’t want to give the control away or whatever. But there’s things I should be doing to make my life easier, but I don’t do them. I do everything myself.
If you do it yourself, you know it’s going to get done right. Delegating to others is hard. At least for me, in my job.
It is. I have people help me when I need it. I’ll hire someone to make videos or flyers for me that look professional because I’m not a good graphic designer. I wouldn’t make a good flyer and I’m not even going to try. I don’t sell my own merchandise. I have people that do it for me. So, there’s things that I do ask for help for, but in general, I pretty much do it all.
Are you advancing all the shows that you perform, too?
Not really, it depends. When we go to Europe, it’s much more affordable. Basically, you call up your place, they know your gear, they give you a van, you hire somebody that’s recommended as the tour manager, they pick you up from the airport and do it all. They advance the shows and receive the payment. I barely do anything, which is why I love going to Europe because I get to play the guitar and have fun. I’m booking the plane tickets and hiring the crew and that’s it. If I went on a bigger tour in the U.S., I would hire a tour manager and a driver, so I didn’t have the burden of it all. But now, we pretty much do fly outs here and there, so I end up doing it. My booking agent does a lot more than just book. He’ll advance the shows and if I have more questions then I’ll take over from there, but for the most part he does it. It’s a team effort.
Wow, that’s so cool that in Europe, everything’s all set for you. The van, the backline, the tour manager. I had no idea.
That’s why everyone tours Europe. Here, you’re on your own. Yes, there’s places you can rent vans that are astronomically expensive, and you’re bringing your own gear. But vans in Europe have loft beds built in. Here it’s against the law to do that. Unless you buy your own van and build it yourself with your own security in it. I’m not going to buy a van at this point. I live in San Francisco. What am I to do with a van? You also must then hire all the additional people you have to pay. This all boils down to how much money you make and what you can afford. That’s why I ended up doing a lot of things myself. Then I can pay people more money and pay myself more money. I always think, Is that really worth giving somebody money for something I can do myself?
It’s more badass that you’re punk rock and don’t mind doing any of that. There are so many musicians that would never.
Well, I’m a producer by trade. I am a video post producer, so I’m used to dealing with numbers. I don’t mind it, but some people are like, “Hell, no. I’m not booking flights to Europe; I’m not getting on Hotels.com.” They’re just not those kinds of people.
Even advancing or settling shows is a lot. So being the performer also is gnarly. I respect that.
But like I said, it’s a small number of shows. Fly out to Chicago, fly out to the East Coast for three shows, that’s easy. If it was a three-week tour in the U.S., I’d hire somebody to do it. My booking agent here does a lot, so we share that. There’re also some cool apps now that are free and awesome for touring. You put everything in there and invite the band members or your crew. Then they have everything on their phone. They don’t have to be like, “Hey, Lori, what time are you playing?” It makes it a lot easier. There’s some data entry involved, but the booking agent in Europe turned me onto that. He plugged in all the information, which eliminates papers and people asking you 5,000 questions, even though they still do.
Who would be the number one person that you would fangirl over?
Before Acid King, I met Mark Lanegan and I was so intimidated. I said something really embarrassing and he just kind of looked at me like I was an idiot. I was like, “Yeah, I’m an idiot. I don’t know what I’m talking about.” And I left. I was super starstruck. We used to have bands stay at our house a lot, so I met so many back in the day when they would stay over. I remember being backstage for U2 before they were huge. I drank a beer out of their cooler and I was like, “I don’t want to hang out back here. I don’t even know these people.” It didn’t even connect to me, the magnitude of the situation. We just saw Ice-T backstage at Hellfest sitting there by himself since Body Count was playing. I got up enough nerve to say something about Body Count, so I didn’t seem like I didn’t know anything. I went up to him and said “Hey, sorry to bother you, just wanted to say hi and looking forward to seeing Body Count.” The Melvins opened for Body Count in the ‘90s and he was super nice.
I love it when people are good guys.
I couldn’t get up enough nerve to take a picture of him, but next thing I know is my drummer and bass player are taking selfies with him. I couldn’t go to level two, but I should have.
I never can either. I have memories which are all that matters, but I think it’s just we’re conditioned not to ask for photos.
Totally. Neil Young and Jim Jarmusch were at this film festival for a documentary. I was just fixated on Neil Young even being there and thought, “I’m standing next to Jim Jarmusch.” I wasn’t going to say anything because he had this all-silver suit on. He was so cool, I was starstruck. I’m really shy in general; I don’t like going up to people or bothering them. And if they’re jerks, you don’t want to have that memory either. The latest person I got to meet was Igor Cavalera from Sepultura. I’m a huge fan. The drummer that played with me last year is friends with him. We were in London, and he put him on the guest list for our show. He was a super-nice normal person. We hung out for a long time and shot the shit. It was nice to talk to him, and he was there to see our band.
So, you were the cool one.
Exactly. I was the rock star.
If you were to have something on your tombstone, what would it say?
I always say to people, “Drive fast, take chances.” It’s a line the first bass player made up. It made me laugh because we both had motorcycles. Every time I took off he’d be like, “Oh, drive fast, take chances.” Then years later wrote a song about that. I say that to people a lot, but I don’t know if I’d put it on my tombstone since it’s not something that I came up with, but I say it a lot.
