Brett Netson is a cheery and intense guy. He’s got an easy smile and open personality, and quite a musical legacy. He’s been a sideman with Built to Spill and Earth and led the 90s heavy psychedelic group Caustic Resin. On September 9, he’ll release Caustic Resin’s 1998 album The Medicine Is All Gone on vinyl for the first time. The album was a turning point in that band’s history. The songwriting was tighter, the sound more fully realized. “We just tried to go as deep into our own heavy trip as we possibly could,” said Netson.

That was Caustic Resin’s attitude. “We tried to kill it every time,” says Netson. “We weren’t fucking around.” The goal was to put their full selves into every song, every album, and every show. You can feel that on the records they made. “I don’t care about money or being famous or girls,” Netson says. “That’s what Caustic Resin was about. Like, we want to a serious fucking show for everybody.”

That led to band members were pushing themselves to the brink with drug abuse. It cost Netson, in terms of felony charges and personal crisis, and he spoke very plainly about what it did to him in this interview. “You get told you’re a fucking monster and you just kind of believe it,” he says.

The conditions weren’t perfect for the interview. We spoke a couple of rooms over from the main room at Boston’s Paradise Rock Club, where Netson was playing with Earth that evening opening up for Japanese doom metal band Boris. We had a choice – work through Boris’s soundcheck or sit in 90-plus degree weather in the van. It gets loud. But then, that’s part of what the conversation was about it in the first place.

Stay tuned after the conversation for a new track from comedian Dan Crohn‘s great new album, It’s Enough Already.