A Crash Course in Scott "Wino" Weinrich: From the Obsessed to Saint Vitus | Page 2 | Revolver

A Crash Course in Scott "Wino" Weinrich: From the Obsessed to Saint Vitus

Go deep on doom-metal icon's prolific output with our career-spanning playlist
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Revolver has teamed up with The Obsessed for an exclusive Transparent Blue with Black Smoke vinyl variant of their classic album The Church Within. Quantities are extremely limited — so order yours before they're gone!

In the early Eighties, Washington, D.C.'s music scene was pretty clearly split between longhairs clinging to the supercharged Seventies sounds of heshers like Zeppelin and Sabbath and a new crew of short-cropped kids diving headfirst into the hardcore punk scene of Minor Threat, Bad Brains, Black Flag and more.

It was during this time that Scott "Wino" Weinrich launched his now-iconic stoner doom crew the Obsessed in nearby Potomac, Maryland. His band's heavy-as-hell headbanging sound (and biker-tough looks) should have put him in diametric opposition to the hardcore kids — except that Wino's "no bullshit" approach (and genuine love of both heavy metal and punk) actually won over many key members of the hardcore scene, including Black Flag's Henry Rollins and Fugazi/Minor Threat's Ian MacKaye.

"No one does what they do," said MacKaye around the time of the Obsessed's '94 album The Church Within. "No one does what Wino does. It's his thing. Straight-up, no one else can match it … I hear other bands that sort of have similar styles … but Wino is 100 percent the real thing."

Since those early days Wino has been keeping it 100. From his work in the Obsessed, Saint Vitus, Spirit Caravan and the Hidden Hand to collabs with Bullring Brummies (with Sabbath's Geezer Butler and Bill Ward and Priest's Rob Halford), Probot (with Lemmy and Dave Grohl), Shrinebuilder (his Neurosis/Sleep/Melvins supergroup) and dark folk singer Conny Ochs — Wino's musical journey has been a loud, fun, fascinating trip.

No single Spotify playlist could encompass the full range of his expressions, but below is our best attempt to provide a good primer on Wino's "magical" musical realms.