Today I'm interviewing the head honcho ROB HAMMER behind the incredible Facebook Group Doom/Stoner/Sludge/Psychedelic and runs the excellent YouTube Page ROB HAMMER *stonerdoom*psych*sludge*grunge*metal* amongst other pages as well including one for his beloved and favourite band CONAN.
Rob Hammer explains how he became involved with the underground scene, building up his Facebook and YouTube pages over the years and also his role within orchestrating the mighty downfall of SMOD.
There's a lot of ground to cover and I'm grateful for Rob to completing this excellent and in-depth article. Read now.
Hi Rob. Thanks for doing this interview. How are things with you today? We’re here to talk about your amazing Facebook and YouTube channels. Can you give a brief history of how you became involved with the Facebook Page and when did you start the YouTube page.
Well it's more the other way around. In 2014 my youngest brother invited me to the biggest Facebook group there was at the time (and still is) DSSSM "Doom Stoner Southern Sludge Metal". I had never heard of doom metal even though I had been a music lover/collector for decades. Within months I was completely hooked! In the beginning I had no love for harsh vocals so bands like Windhand, Ufomammut & Arc Of Ascent were among the first ones to impress me and then there was Conan. I quickly found out that I had a thing for psychedelic effects and CRUSHING doom.
After relentlessly posting for quite some time I got asked to become a reviewer (for the Doom Charts) but since EngIish is not my first language (I live on the European mainland) I declined. Same thing when I got the offer to become a page admin for The Sonic Void. I knew I wanted to do more to help out "the scene" but I was still in doubt about how to do that.
Then I contacted Tangy Zizzler, the guy behind 2 YouTube channels: Mr Stonebeliever & The Bong Druid Of Mammoth Weed Mountain, requesting to upload a couple of songs that were missing on YouTube. Nothing but respect for him but him failing to do so basically lead me to the decision to start a channel myself. The premier channels back then were all more into heavy psych & stoner or focused on traditional doom (The Holy Parish) so I saw some room on the heavier side of the spectrum. Blackened or funeral doom & doom/sludge, even though my personal taste at that time was very much pure (stoner)doom.
In the early 90's I ate grunge for breakfast, lunch and dinner so a fantastic live track by Alice In Chains was my first upload in December 2016.. In the months after that, John Vasilakis (of The Sonic Void channel & page) explained to me how to do full album uploads and that really got things started....
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/ROBHAMMERstonerdoompsychsludgegrungemetal
From the moment I had my channel I started posting my uploads in other groups as well. In that period I also got in touch with Sue Wright from Scotland (whom I asked to be my fellow admin once I had my own group) and Joe Eldridge. This American guy started a “secret” group on FB called Shadebeast and for quite a while we had an “incrowd” group filled with reviewers (such as yourself Steve 😉) , musicians, YouTubers (666MrDoom for example), bloggers, label owners, you name it.
At some point Joe decided to make a number of members admin, so I got to see and experience what that meant which sparked the idea to get a group myself, and connect that to my channel in the hope that both would strengthen eachother.
One of the groups that I was active in was PUBLIC (it's private now but it had my my prefence back then), as where most others were private. It had exactly the genres that I wanted AND I saw that it was completely unmanaged at that point. I reached out to one of the admins and offered to start running it. So in May 2018 I was added as a moderator at first. I booted hundreds of inactive/bad accounts, deleted many posts that had no business there and I created a few announcements that contained some strict rules.
The DSSSM group was filled with (weed)memes and I noticed that many of the more serious music lovers were fed up with all the bs that was posted in there, so that was the main reason to “take over” the Doom/Stoner/Sludge/Psychedelic group and change it into the more serious counterpart of DSSSM. I started adding the link to the group to my uploads and told the bands that I came in contact with about it as well. So we went from 12K members to the 37K that we got now and it's still growing hard.
Facebook (Doom/Stoner/Sludge/Psychedelic): https://www.facebook.com/groups/jpriest011
Has it surprised you how popular your channels have become over time and how important people consider your efforts to the overall underground scene. Truth be told, I only follow a few YouTube pages now and again but yours and 666MRDOOM I follow religiously every day or so. Helps me out on great records I maybe missing. So thank you for that. Do you follow any other YouTuber channels within the scene or do you focus upon your own stuff?
I think I can answer both questions in another lengthy answer 😉.
In the beginning there were a number of channels that had my attention and I'm subscribed to ALL of them because I wanted to know as many bands as possible. In order to get/buy/download music I got me a Bandcamp account where I started following a number of people that had (way) more experience and that I had gotten to know in the DSSSM group, as well as all bands & labels that I came across in groups, were uploaded by others and so on.
I'm close to 13K and new bands get added almost daily. Especially on Bandcamp Fridays it'll get crazy and I've had days with over 800 mails! In general I get dozens of Bandcamp mails even on the slowest of days. I also get many requests by mail and via pm's on Facebook & Instagram. (my “handle” for those 2 social media pages as well as for YouTube = @ Rob.DOOM.Hammer ).
I think I put in 10-20 hours per week on my hobby but when I look at all the love I'm getting I can only say that it's totally worth it!!! You mentioned my “efforts to the overall underground scene”, but I'm just one of many! Earlier I named some of the people who were in that secret Shadebeast group and it's a combined effort of us all to help out the bands who spend a lot of money on gear, practice space and recording studios! That's the main reason why I refuse to make money in any way with my hobby. Every now and then I'll accept a CD or t-shirt but in general I'm just glad to get a download code for Bandcamp (where I spend at least 150 euros every month). I do what I do to support the underground scene, NOT to make a profit!
Do you have a set of rules that you abide by when uploading bands to your channel. (I know the SMOD rule which we’ll discuss later)? And what's your take on AI?
Well my rule in general is that I have to like the music! But of course there's stuff on my channel that's not really my thing but sometimes you also have to make choices in order to grow the channel which –in the end- will benefit the bands and labels on it. I try to spread my uploads as much as possible over the course of the day and when a do single track I usually follow with an EP or album.
Pretty recent there's a big discussion about AI music. There's a bit of a grey area as I know of one band that writes the melody lines themselves but use AI to complete the songs. I did upload it but I don't think I'll do it again. But fully generated AI music? NO! I wanna help artists and bands! Not a guy that happens to be good with a computer program...I do however feel that the use of AI art is completely up to the one who's publishing the music.
Right. Time to the main business of the whole SMOD controversy. We were big advocates of banning that person (not even going to say the dude’s name) from the scene back in the day. How did you become aware of SMOD’s dirty underhanded practices? For myself, it was SMOD publicly threatening a female friend of mine using derogatory, sexist and racist terms. Also using my work without credit. I decided enough was enough.
For those who don't know what “SMOD” is; there's an American guy who runs a YouTube channel called Stoned Meadow Of Doom = SMOD.
I'm not sure if it were the "friends only” Facebook posts by Tangy Zizzler (of those 2 YouTube channels mentioned earlier), or the post by your colleague reviewer Frazer Jones (of the Desert Psychlist blog) in the (small) Hard Rock Revolution FB group about SMOD using reviews by others, mixing them up and pretending they were written by himself.
It felt like an endless battle for both of us. As we pointed this out, he had some high profile supporters still backing SMOD and telling us that we were wrong. It was frustrating and getting horrible backlash from his horrible cult of followers for stating the obvious. Even when we had evidence of this it still went unpunished. Did you ever feel like giving up at times which I unfortunately did as it affected my mental health.
Well he left me alone at first -my channel was probably too small at the time- but when I got my first takedown request because SMOD demanded exclusivity- I got mad and did an extensive post in the DSSSM group bringing all his shenanigans out to a big group for the first time, and that post was active for months! SMOD left the group when he noticed that people were clearly not on his side! For those active on FB, this is the permalink to a copy of the post that I did on my own page:
It turned out that my channel all of a sudden had been massively reported so bots took it down. He got humans to take a look at it, and they quickly realised that there was nothing to report and it was simply an attack by a group of people trying to shut me down! Luckily my channel got restored after a couple of weeks, but without this Polish guy I might have given up eventually.
We formed a cool alliance with other folks and slowly the message started being heard but yourself and the other dude (whose name I’ve forgotten, apologies) were the main factors of SMOD finally get his just rewards. It was great to see his “EMPIRE” starting to fall and his biggest supporters starting to see what despicable practices he was upto with bands, individuals and anyone who disagreed with him in the scene. Was that one of your proudest moments you accomplished within the scene?
It was a post by a guy called Luca Piazzalonga at the end of 2019 that eventually led to a shitstorm that REALLY got the scene to notice!
You already mentioned the harrassing of female musicians or girlfriends of musicians, the stealing of reviews but lots of other stuff as well, most particularly the stuff that was going on in his FB group SMOD Nation. Homophobic/anti-semitic and racial slurs + the condoning of racism/fascism & 'Heil Hitler' memes in there. Several pages did articles/posts about the situation even though half of the stuff that I/we know wasn't even mentioned!
https://www.metalsucks.net/2020/02/19/stoned-meadow-of-doom-youtube-channel-founder-reveals-himself-as-racist-sexist-edgelord/
https://astralnoizeuk.com/2020/02/18/venomous-beed-the-problem-with-stoned-meadow-of-doom/
https://mfknzine.com/2020/02/17/stoned-meadow-of-doom-youtube-channel-outed-for-racist-comments-by-metal-community-alternative-channels-to-switch-to/
https://monsterriff.com/2020/08/08/a-fall-from-grace-what-happened-to-the-stoned-meadow-of-doom/
I can't say that that was one of my proudest moments but I was sure glad that the scene finally took notice! All big bands and almost all labels stopped working with him.
No, proud moments were more like doing a radio show for a local radio station where I handpicked all the music and got to talk about my hobby for 2 hours 😀 . I curated a compilation of unsigned bands that got released on CD by the Off The Record Label and I also curated 7 very succesfull compilations for the Doomed & Stoned Bandcamp page. Recommending bands to the directors of my 2 favourite festivals, and then seeing them get signed? Yeah, those were moments I was proud of 😊 .
I don’t know if SMOD is relevant or as important as he once was but it’s great to see him not having much of a say within the underground scene. Though, I know some bands still support him. I even have folks send them videos of his page of their album for me to review. They get deleted full stop. Does that annoy you as well to see folks still supporting SMOD?
Well if a band is already on my channel and I see it appear on SMOD I will reach out and tell them the story. The majority of the bands are just new and unaware. Most of them ask for a takedown or simply won't work with him no more on future releases which is ok for me. But in some occasions I'll simply take down my own upload and delete all evidence of promoting them.
In October 2023 YouTube implemented some new rules taking away the option to make money of another artists’ work so that took away his income! (He's now now charging 25$ per upload).
I'll admit that I had lots of fun when I found out that monetising was no longer possible 😝.
You told me previously that SMOD and his followers still harass you to this day. How do you deal with that? They don’t bother me now as much but perhaps after this interview is published I may be reacquainted with some old friends.
Well some time ago on international coming-out day, I got a new profile pic using the rainbow colours. As a hetero I wanted to show support to the gay community. I got ridiculed in SMOD nation for being a faggot and such. But it's basically been quiet ever since. SMOD will most likely never fully go away but as long as I'm active in the scene I won't stop informing people. It's my belief that people of all colours & gender, or from whatever sexual orientation, background or religion should feel welcome in the stoner/doom/sludge scene!
OK, enough SMOD talk. Do you love any other genres of music and would you consider putting those artists on your YouTube channel or perhaps even start another one?
Well the length of this interview is already getting out of hand so I won't elaborate on that. But Roy Orbison was the first artist that I loved as a very young kid. My 2nd LP was by the Selecter (2 Tone ska). Bowie & Prince dominated my teens and a bit later Bob Marley as well. And then I discovered grunge.... Soundgarden & Alice In Chains are my 2 alltime favourite bands but I collected anything that was labeled grunge in those days. But recently I actually uploaded some reggae to another channel as that's the music I listen to the most when I'm taking a break from doom. That's the very short version 😉 .
I know your deep love, respect and admiration for the mighty CONAN. Who are perhaps your favourite band (but I could be wrong on that one). How did you discover CONAN? Which release was this?
Yeah Conan is my current fave band. I was brand new to the scene and I'm not sure, but I think I first checked the video that they did for “Foehammer”, a track of their 2014 masterpiece Blood Eagle. My youngest brother & I went to see Conan for the first time in April 2015 (in the weekend of my birthday). I introduced myself and had my picture taken with the band.
Some time later, completely by coincidence, I met Conan's Jon Davis on a small festival when he was the tour bus driver for The Skull. I introduced myself again and that started our contact. In the time after that I set up a YouTube channel for Jon's record label Black Bow Records https://www.youtube.com/c/BlackBowRecords and a Facebook group: CAVEMAN BATTLE DOOM *a group about CONAN and all associated things* https://www.facebook.com/groups/525649494915850
And you had the chance to listen to new material before it’s even released. Have you heard the new album? What can we expect?
Yeah I had the honour and pleasure of listening to all new stuff that Jon released after Revengeance (2016). He knows that I speak my mind so I guess he wants some honest feedback. I always do a little teaser post on Facebook but without actually telling anything 😉
So sorry, I can't spill anything about the new album except for this: it's Conan being Conan so WITH 2 vocalists...
We all need time away from the underground scene. How do you switch off and relax? Do you spend time with your family or have any hobbies that you’re involved with?
Well I keep my private life away from my hobby for the most, except for some pics that I share on Instagram. You can see there that I like to travel (over 30 countries). I play basketball and watch a lot of NBA (Stephen Curry & Luka Doncic are my favs). In the weekend I'll be doing beers at my fav bar and most Sunday evenings I'll go to the movies with one of my best friends.
If someone asked you for advice on starting a Facebook/YouTube channel, what advice would you give them?
There's actually a guy that's been harrasing me and George (666MrDoom) about this for quite some time. He keeps coming back with fake name accounts and emails asking for advice. Well except for being mentally stable; you REALLY have to commit because messages and requests will be coming non-stop!
In 2019 my streak of daily uploads stopped because I went to China for 3 weeks. Same in 2022 when I got hospitalized twice with gallbladder issues. But last year I went to The Gambia (Africa) and I programmed stuff from my still-to-do list so my subs got something new to listen to every day 😉.
Rob, thanks for doing this interview and for the wonderful work that you do. You’re an asset to the scene. Keep up the great work.
Steve, same goes for you!!! One of your first sentences was: “Can you give a brief history”, I failed that one big time 😉, sorry ‘bout that... but thanks for having me.
I would like to thank the people that I haven't mentioned, but have helped & supported me for the past 10 years. Doom on!
Words by Steve Howe and Rob Hammer
