Neurosis reveal more about adding Aaron Turner to their lineup

Longtime fans of the post-metal band were delighted to see Neurosis make an unexpected comeback this year, as per theprp. After Neurosis‘ singer/guitarist Scott Kelly came clean about abusing his wife and kids in 2022, it appeared as though the band had ended abruptly. His bandmates in Neurosis publicly denounced his behavior, kicking him out of the lineup and suspending the powerful group. That is, until March 20th, when they unexpectedly released a brand-new studio album online titled “An Undying Love For A Burning World,” along with the announcement that they had replaced Kelly with Aaron Turner (SUMAC, Old Man Gloom, ex-Isis).

Turner appears to be the most obvious candidate for the position, at least theoretically. During a considerable portion of the aughts, so many post-metal bands imitated Neurosis and Isis‘s songs that the term “Neur-Isis” started to be used to describe the genre. Turner and guitarist/vocalist Steve Von Till discussed how the band underwent this rebirth in a recent Bandcamp interview. Von Till gave this response when asked how Turner was chosen.

We were thinking about how we could reinvent ourselves with the same energy that we reinvented ourselves with when I first joined, when we went from ‘The Word As Law‘ [1990] to ‘Souls At Zero‘ [1992]. But we’re no longer young men. What kind of puzzles could we put in front of us to create that level of reinvention when time doesn’t move the same way it used to? It came down to finding the right energy.

Honestly, the only hesitation about Aaron at first was that it seemed so obvious. And we weren’t convinced that he wasn’t too busy with his own work to just want to drop everything and join our dysfunctional old man band.

Turner shared his point of view, too.

It’s not like Steve and I had never spoken, and he all of a sudden asked me to join. Our paths became interwoven a long time ago. Numerous projects of mine released stuff on [Neurosis’s label] Neurot. I did some artwork for Neurosis. Neurosis took my old band [ISIS] on tour. I don’t know if Steve remembers this, but in the early 2000s, he proposed that I come up to the Bay Area and do some stuff with him and one of the guys from Enablers.

This is a relationship of community where everybody is doing stuff with each other constantly, and there are always ideas flowing back and forth. In that way, it wasn’t surprising to me. I’d had an open dialogue with Steve for many years. At the same time, it was definitely a what-the-fuck moment for me because this is a band that I had been deeply influenced by in many ways, both musically and ideologically.

Von Till said that Neurosis was searching for someone who could provide fresh ideas rather than just fill a position.

We’ve always been a collective, and we need the energy. As much as people may think they understand what happens behind the scenes in certain bands, Neurosis has always been collaborative. This album being a reinvention, we didn’t want the same old shit. We wanted somebody to come up with new ideas and a fresh approach—to make not only the old stuff their own, but to bring new stuff. All “Neur-Isis” jokes aside, it’s really been what Aaron has done with SUMAC, the really unhinged sonic dynamics and mastery of raw emotion, and his unique approach to guitar, that we felt was really going to click with our energy.