BOMBAY BICYCLE CLUB/A Different Kind Of Fix: Available January 17th, 2012!

BOMBAY BICYCLE CLUB

A DIFFERENT KIND OF FIX

1.17.12

2012 release, the third album from the British Alt-Rock/Pop band. Recorded in Hamburg, London and Atlanta, A Different Kind Of Fix sees the guitars firmly plugged back in for album number three, but added to the mix are synths, sampled loops, layered vocals from all four band members and washes of reverb throughout. Production-wise, the album reunites BBC with Jim Abbiss--who produced their debut--and also introduces them to Ben Allen (noted for his work with Animal Collective) whilst lead singer, Jack Steadman co-produces throughout. Includes first single, "Shuffle", "How Can You Swallow So Much Sleep" and "Take The Right One".

LABEL PROFILE: Sireena Records

The electric and eclectic world of German reissue label

SIREENA RECORDS

By Stephen SPAZ Schnee

     The greatest musical gift that we have today is that we already have over 100 years of recorded music to immerse ourselves in. From classical to Heavy Metal, there is so much for a music fan to discover and rediscover.  No matter what you are looking for, genre-wise, it is out there and ready to be found.
     If you are a fan of slightly obscure German and European Prog Rock, Krautrock, Jazz Fusion and Rock 'n' Roll, then there's a label I'd like to introduce you to: Sireena Records.  Already over a decade old, Sireena's catalog generally consists of reissues by artists that might be obscure to the general public but are adored by the music aficianado. From Octopus and Harlis to Shaa Khan and Bullfrog, there is a treasure trove of great artists to acquaint yourselves with. Mixed in with '70s and '80s reissues are some bona-fide current releases by some of the bands, including live recordings.
     Sireena was founded in 2000 by Tom Redecker and Lothar Gartner.  Redecker has steered the label forward for over a decade and shows no sign of slowing down.  Alongside Bend Paulat, who has been part of the Sireena family since 2008, Redecker has plenty of releases planned for 2012 and beyond.  One look at where they have come from and where they are headed will tell any music fan that this is a quality label that will continue to excite and surprise listeners for a long time to come....
  

STEPHEN SPAZ SCHNEE: Before starting the label, were you an avid music collector? If so, what types of music were you collecting (genres, bands, formats, etc)?

TOM REDECKER: My interest in music always was big. I didn’t care if it was Rock, Folk, or even Jazz: I absorbed everything like a sponge. Music from the USA, England, France, Germany, I didn’t care. I spent all my pocket-money on records and music mags. And for concert tickets. Thank God I  worked as a stagehand at concerts and I was able to see a lot of bands live!

SPAZ: What inspired you to start up a label?
TOM: There were several vinyl releases which had not yet been published on CD. Therefore, Lothar and I founded Sireena Records in 2000. We were two huge music fans. Krautrock, folk, hardrock, psychedelic – there was and still is NO border in regard to the taste of music. Meanwhile there are a lot of labels which specialized in reissues – great labels like Rhino or Bear Family – but we are even more specialized…

SPAZ: How did you go about picking the name of the label?

TOM: Sireena is a title from my musical project The Perc Meets The Hidden Gentleman. We thought that this also fits as our label-name.

SPAZ: When did the label first start operations?

TOM: We started in the year 2000 with the first label release of a CD called Pueblo Woman from Electric Family (Sireena 2001), which contained live recordings and studio outtakes.

SPAZ: When you first set up the label, what were your initial goals? And do you feel you’ve achieved those goals so far?

TOM: We had no special targets except to produce CDs and vinyl and to survive. And we are still alive! There are still so many diamonds to be dug out. Guess that is our main goal.

SPAZ: How do you go about picking the titles that you release?

TOM: We do have long lists which we created on our own and which are growing constantly. This is due to the fact that many fans of our vinyl are steadily feeding us with worthy sugestions. We have very close contact to music collectors all over the world with whom we are communicating with. Once we receive a suggestion, we research, apply for licence, and possibly have a future release on the label.

SPAZ: Is there an elusive album out there that you have been eager to reissue but haven’t been able to get the rights to?

TOM: This is something we face time and again. Especially the major labels, whoare not often willing to give their permission and license to us. Therefore, we prefer to work directly together with the artist. We do have a fine series called The Artist’s Choice. Here, we publish music directly out of the artist’s archives which is special fun to us. But in the meantime, we also get permissions from record companies and publishers to produce our records.

SPAZ: Is there a particular artist (or artists) out there that you would love to have on your roster?

TOM: Neil Young! To me, he’s still the greatest musician alive. Journey Through The Past is not yet available on CD but I would much more prefer to reissue it on 180gm heavy vinyl. Neil, if you’re reading this, please contact me!!

SPAZ: If you had a choice, would you prefer to reissue an album as it was originally released or do you like the opportunity of adding bonus tracks?

TOM: Depends on what kind of album it is. If the original was a concept album then you don’t need any bonus tracks. But if I heard fantastic additional tracks, then it would make sense to add them to the album.

SPAZ: Which format do you personally prefer? (CD/Vinyl/Cassette/MP3)

TOM: Definitely vinyl! I am very happy that the interest to buy vinyl is rising. It is the format of the music collectors.

SPAZ: As a collector and music lover, how do you view the current music scene?

TOM: The music disappears more and more into the internet and that worries me. But I don’t give up!

SPAZ: How do you view the idea of a future filled with download-only releases? Don’t you feel that collectors will always want to physically own the music that they purchase?

TOM: Definitely! As already mentioned, we’re producing for music collectors not for music consumers. Collectors want to have a physical CD/vinyl at hand, preferably vinyl, and mp3 files are of no interest to them.

SPAZ: Do you see the resurgence in the popularity of vinyl growing?

TOM: It makes us very happy. It is definitely much more fun. It is more expensive, the handling is more complex but that’s all OK: this way it is more fun. We release music on vinyl which hasn’t been released on vinyl before. From Stone The Crows, Mott The Hoople or Chic. Exclusively on vinyl – wouldn’t have thought about it five years ago – but it is working!

SPAZ: At the end of the day, do you have a particular personal favorite amongst your own label releases?

TOM: Very difficult. I have a relation to all our releases and I don’t want to highlight one of them. They all are our babies.

SPAZ: What would you like people to know about the label?

TOM: We are music maniacs but this is our gear! This helps us to go on searching and finding. Join us during this search.... there’s so much more to explore !

SPAZ: How can our readers contact the label with suggestions, comments and praise?

TOM: http://www.sireena.de/  or info@sireena.de

FAB FAN MEMORIES: THE BEATLES BOND

When They Was Fab:

An EXCLUSIVE interview with

LOUISE HARRISON and

producers DENNIS SCOTT,

BRYAN CUMMING & NATHAN BURBANK

By Stephen SPAZ Schnee

     No matter how much information is available at our fingertips, whether on the ‘net or in books, we can never get enough of The Beatles. From the heady days of vinyl in the ‘60s up through the age of digital downloads, The Beatles have continued to dominate the music world, even 40 years after they split. Practically every Rock band with a snappy tune has been compared to the Fab Four at some point in their career and most bands borrow from the blueprint that John, Paul, George and Ringo wrote back in the ‘60s.

     Four decades after they called it a day, they are still being listened to by new generations of music fans, many of whom were born after the deaths of John Lennon (1980) and George Harrison (2001). Even after they told their own story in The Beatles Anthology, there still seems to be a passionate desire to learn more. The recent release of Fab Fan Memories: The Beatles Bond is the latest chapter in The Beatles’ tale: a collection of fans talking about how the band affected their lives. From normal folks off the street to celebrities like Alan Menken, Phil Keaggy, Janis Ian and Melissa Manchester, everyone has their own personal memory of The Beatles.

     The most dominant voice on this fascinating release is Louise Harrison, George’s older sister, who shares some of her own Beatles memories and introduces each of the subjects discussed. Louis has been involved with many projects over the years, making her a familiar and comforting voice to many Beatles fans. On Fab Fan Memories, her relaxed and friendly voice practically steals the show.

     In a unique twist, on this release, brief musical interludes are provided by two separate bands: The WannaBeatles and The Liverpool Legends. The WannaBeatles are a quartet of dedicated and stellar musicians featuring Grammy-winning producer Dennis Scott. They provide the Beatles-influenced originals and are executive producers of Fab Fan Memories. The Liverpool Legends are a Branson-based Beatles tribute band that Louise Harrison helped create and is still involved with.

     Stephen SPAZ Schnee was able to connect with Louise, Dennis and fellow WannaBeatles members Bryan Cumming and Nathan Burbank to discuss this fab and gear release and to shed light on all things Beatles related…

SPAZ: Fab Fan Memories is now available. How are you feeling about the project and everything leading up to it?

LOUISE HARRISON: I’m really happy with how the project turned out. All the people that I’ve given it to have been very, very happy to listen to it. They’ve all thought it really gives a nice, friendly insight to the response that people have had toward the Beatles all these years. I’m hoping that it will be something that people will enjoy having as part of their library.

DENNIS SCOTT: It’s great when a project lives up one’s expectations. That has certainly been the case with Fab Fan Memories. Both longtime Beatles fans as well as new listeners have expressed a deep appreciation for this album which allows them to tell their stories about The Beatles. As one of the album’s producers, is very gratifying to know that this album has helped accomplish that goal. Conceptually, this project “come together” even better than I could have hoped for. It is the power of the idea behind the album that makes the recording itself so unique.

NATHAN BURBANK: Knowing how much the Beatles influenced me growing up, It was fun talking to Beatle fans about how the band influenced them. I now feel even more rooted into the worldwide Beatles family.

BRYAN CUMMING: This has been an unusual project, full of unexpected surprises, with a tight deadline that brought a lot of creativity into the process.

SPAZ: How did this project come about?

DENNIS: A series of related incidents caused the idea to germinate. As you know, I play with a Beatles tribute band known as The WannaBeatles. The group was approached to write and perform a theme song for a Beatles themed local TV show. It was agreed that the audio track for that show would also be used as the content for an upcoming CD. However, that did not go quite as planned. At around the same time, I attended a Nashville based Beatles Meetups Group where I saw guest stand up and tell their own “Beatles Stories.” I was touched by affection and friendship of these fellow fans. Some of their stories were just amazing. It was an “ah ha” moment wherein I knew that somewhere in all of this was an album that needed to be made.

NATHAN: The same spirit that visited Paul the morning he woke up with “Yesterday” in his head must have visited Dennis in his sleep. I think he woke up knowing that we were to make an album which married interviews with music, and that it was to be called, Fab Fan Memories – The Beatles Bond.

SPAZ: How did you decide which audio bytes to use for the release? I’m sure you had plenty to choose from?

DENNIS: Yes. It’s too bad CDs don’t have a longer playing time because there were several stories that did not make it to the final mix. During the editing process, I gravitated towards the interviews that were touching or funny rather than a regurgitation of Fab Four facts. It is the emotional attachment to The Beatles that impressed me. Hearing what fans went through during those times really struck a chord with me.

NATHAN: Some audio bytes were obvious – the dancing Barbies; the man losing his job in order to acquire a Beatle’s autograph, etc. – while others were more subjective. Sometimes one of us would remember an interview we had personally done and so we would suggest certain parts of it be included. The hard part was having so many good stories but so little space!

BRYAN: It was like editing a documentary, finding and staying tuned in to the underlying themes. But even more intuitively, it boiled down to the selecting most entertaining and engaging stories, and then finding music that best fit the tone of that particular segment.

SPAZ: Louise, how did you get involved with the Fab Fan Memories?

LOUISE: I received a call from Dennis Scott in Nashville. I’ve worked a number of times with different people from Nashville. I have a great respect for everything that Nashville is all about. I’m very spontaneous about everything. I don’t give much thought to what I’m getting into most of the time, which isn’t always good for me, but I immediately said yes. I was thrilled with the idea of working with Beatles fans because, let’s face it, for the last 48 years, they have been my family and they consider me their global mum. I was happy to be part of something that was bringing the fans to the fore and giving them a chance to have a voice in the whole story of The Beatles.

SPAZ: You’ve done voice over work with Beatles-related projects in the past, correct?

LOUISE: I’ve done so much stuff that I don’t even remember half of the things that I’ve done! (laughs). Back in the ‘60s, I was doing daily Beatle reports on about 21 radio stations all across the country. In the ‘90s, I put together what I called Good Earth Keeping Tips, which were environmental spots that were addressed to Beatle people and anybody else who was interested about the environment. I did 170 of those public service announcements and they were broadcast on 9200 radio stations all across the country during ’93 and ’94. So, yes, my voice is fairly well-known to Beatles fans all across the planet, really.

SPAZ: Instead of interviewing obvious celebrities in regards to the Beatles’ influence on them, you’ve thrown a curveball and featured people not normally associated with them and their music including Melissa Manchester, Billy Swan, Phil Keaggy, Wesley Orbison and Janis Ian. Did you purposely try to avoid the obvious artists and go for the ones that the public may not immediately realize were influenced by the Beatles?

DENNIS: Although celebrity appearances are interesting and help draw attention to the product, I wanted to hear from the everyday fans. And “In the end” (sorry, but life is full of Beatles song titles) I learned that when it comes to The Beatles all of us are everyday fans.

NATHAN: We started talking to anyone we thought would have an interesting take on the Beatles – fellow musicians and fans - and then we slowly widened the circle as we made more contacts. Practically everyone over the age of twelve has a Beatles’ story to tell.

BRYAN: The reality is that the influence of the Beatles is far deeper than has been documented by cultural historians at this point in time. Almost by accident, we wound up with a Studs Terkel type of approach, where interviews with everyday people provide the essential material from which the cultural landscape can be observed.

SPAZ: Dennis, tell us a little about The WannaBeatles. Does the band normally do Beatles-influenced recordings as opposed to Beatles covers? Or a bit of both?

DENNIS: The WannaBeatles came about when three other musicians and I were playing a gig at a Mexican Restaurant. At some point in the evening, we started playing Beatles songs and felt an immediate reaction from the crowd. That turned in to a regular Beatles night billed as “Beatles and Fajitas.” We became inspired to do a better job re-creating the music and went back to school using all the technological aids available to us. Four years later, we’re doing a high energy show that not only covers Beatles songs but also includes songs we have written in tribute to or in the style of The Beatles. Although we are not a “look alike” band, we introduce comedic elements that offer fun and variety for our audiences. This includes Beatles parodies (i.e. “Crème Brule” for “Yesterday”). And, because people say I look like Paul Simon, we have worked up a spoof of Simon and Garfunkel (“The Sounds of Nonsense). Audience involvement is almost as important as the songs which, of course, are timeless.

SPAZ: The Liverpool Legends appear on the album as well. Isn’t this the group that Louise had a hand in putting together?

LOUISE: Back in the early part of the 21st century, I became good friends with Marty Scott, the guy who plays George in this band. I had met him shortly after my brother died. If we believe in anything dealing with eternal life or things like that, it just seemed to me that my brother’s being had sort of enabled this particular meeting. When I met Marty and got to know him, he became so much of a substitute or replacement brother to me and has been ever since. When he realized that I didn’t have much in the way of resources, he said “Hey, why don’t we put together a Beatle band and that way, you’ll have something to keep you occupied and something to keep me out of mischief and a way of making a living.” So, that was really how we started this thing. I think that my brother’s being had something to do with us being able to round up just the right guys as quickly as we did. We have done something that’s very exceptional: it’s just a phenomenal group of people. We have had such tremendous acclaim from everybody that has seen us. People walk out of the show in awe and they come over to me and say “This is the best show I’ve ever seen!” so I guess we’re doing something right!

SPAZ: Is it a bit strange seeing someone portraying the ‘role’ of your brother?

LOUISE: Not really. Let’s face it: people have been portraying my brother for the last 40 years so I’ve gotten used to it!

SPAZ: The Beatles seem to have surpassed Elvis in being the most influential Rock artists of all time. Why do you think that their appeal has stood the test of time?

DENNIS: In my opinion, it was the culmination of various forces at work that brought the Beatles together. It was the times in which we were living as well as their undeniable talent that allowed the group to grow. They created music that was melodically and lyrically interesting. Add to that the contributions of George Martin, their producer, and you have songs that are memorable and will continue to endure.

LOUISE: I’ve talked to many theologians, philosophers, psychiatrists and all kinds of people over the years and so many of them have said the Beatles phenomenon went far beyond just the music. Their message has resonated with people all across the planet, the good people. Again, I’ve been very very privileged to be part of that Beatle family because, inevitably, the people that I am associating with, the people that love The Beatles are the positive people that want to do some good in the world. I think the message is something that people want to hear, people want to live by it. The Beatle message is so, so important, especially the lines in John’s song ‘Imagine’, where he says “Imagine all the people sharing all the world” and “Imagine all the people living life in peace”. Those are two of the most important things that The Beatles, as a group, ever said and although it was John that said it, they were all part of that mindset.

NATHAN: The Beatles were intentional not to copy their successes. They were constantly looking for new sounds and new subject matter. In the song, “She Loves You,” for example, they wrote the lyric from a third person’s perspective, which was a fresh way to write a love song. In the song, “You’re Gonna Lose that Girl,” John further expanded this approach by speaking to a girl’s current boyfriend, rather than to the girl directly. Couple these ideas with creative chord changes and melodies, and you get an idea of why the Beatles created such a lasting legacy.

BRYAN: It was a combination of factors that made them so big. The central factor was their talent and cohesiveness and chemistry as a group, but along with this raw material were the essential roles played by Brian Epstein and George Martin, and of course, the timing of the cultural moment.

SPAZ: With each passing year, the Beatles’ dedicated fan base continues to grow. Even with the Beatles Anthology and all the info on the internet, there still seems to be a desire for more info. Are you surprised that there is still so much to share, as you have proven with Fab Fan Memories?

DENNIS: No, there is a tremendous thirst for any new tidbit of information or discovered recordings. When it comes to Beatles fans, you can never have too much. That’s why Fab Fan Memories: The Beatles Bond is becoming a welcome addition to collectors. And, of course, getting Louise Harrison’s memories and unique perspective on tape is quite a treat.

LOUISE: I’m certainly hoping that there still is a lot of space for people to want to know more about The Beatles because, finally, after 45 years of people saying to me “Isn’t it about time you wrote a book about The Beatles and about your experience with them?”, I’m finally writing my book about them and it’s called It’s About Time.

NATHAN: By hearing what others think about the Beatles, it broadens one’s own understanding. It’s akin to having multiple camera shots of the same scene. People want to keep learning about the group they love by studying them through different lenses.

BRYAN: What we've learned with Fab Fan Memories is that there's no bottom to the well of art. The Beatles are like Shakespeare or Bach: popular, endlessly fascinating and worthy of our attention, because it's constantly fresh and alive. Their music does exactly what great art is supposed to do.

SPAZ: What’s next?

LOUISE: (laughs) Well, apart from trying to finish my book and starting Help Keep Music Alive (her charity dedicated to keeping music programs in schools across the U.S.), I may get a chance to put my feet up now and again. But I’m not really holding my breath that that might happen

DENNIS: With Laurie Montgomery at the helm, our distributor, MDI, is busy setting up interviews and shows that will help bring the Fab Four memories to an ever growing audience. The WannaBeatles and I continue to tour. As a producer who wears several hats, I am completing work on writing a producing music for a touring showed based on the popular children’s character Clifford, The Big Red Dog. More projects are in the wings.

SPAZ: What do you have currently spinning on your CD and DVD players?

LOUISE: I hardly have time to put my CD or DVD player on at all, as a matter of fact! One of George’s songs that keeps going through my mind when I’m not thinking of anything is a song, a fairly obscure one, where he sings “I don’t want to do it” (‘I Don’t Want To Do It’, written by Bob Dylan and featured on the Porky’s Revenge soundtrack). I don’t know why, but that keeps going through my mind.

DENNIS: Being consumed with music of one form or the other, 24/7, I like to roll down the car window and just enjoy the sounds of silence. However, if there is to be any music coming through my speakers, you can bet that it will be courtesy of The Beatles.

NATHAN: I tend to listen to a lot of theatrical cast recordings and soundtracks. I’m particularly interested in how arrangers create tension and mood for film underscoring.

BRYAN: The "Disk Repair" utility!

Thanks to Louise Harrison and Dennis Scott

Special thanks to Laurie Montgomery, Bryan Cumming and Nathan Burbank

FAB FAN MEMORIES:

 THE BEATLES BOND

Available NOW!

The return of SPAZ!

OK, so I haven't been keeping the NEW WAVE JUNKIE blog active over the last 18 months or so, but I've certainly been busy over at www.discussionsmagazine.com.  

Just today, I imported all of the things that I thought fans of old New Wave would be interested in.  Might not stick to the New Wave genre specifically, but I'm sure that you are like me and you enjoy to dabble in all things music.  

I'll try to keep this site more updated as I go along, but feel free to visit me here or there.... and drop me a line if you find the time!

HARLIS: The reissues on SIREENA RECORDS

HARLIS

HARLIS

NIGHT MEETS THE DAY

While German Prog/Art rockers JANE may be a familiar name outside of the Prog arena, HARLIS were a tremendously talented offshoot of the band who recorded two albums that didn’t conform to the Prog Rock rulebook, but didn’t stray to far from it either. Led by former JANE member CHARLY MAUCHER, Harlis were a bit looser than their contemporaries, which added a raw edge to their sound.  While the band features excellent musicians, Harlis’ sound is more about the band as a whole as opposed to the skills of the individuals.  Adding a bit more Blues and British and American Rock influences into the mix may have turned away some Prog fans, but in doing so, their sound has a timeless quality to it.

Harlis’ 1975 self-titled debut was a joyous slice of Rock that didn’t really belong to any defined genre.  The opening track, “BMW”, straddles the line between the Blues and Pub Rock, while “Free” sounds like a Joe Cocker-led Gospel nugget. “Grey Rain” veers towards melodic Pop territory. “Runaway” is another bluesy rocker that adds a little Lemmy to the Cocker-esque vocals. “Bells Of Bothfeld” is a nice instrumental that does showcase the great musicianship without sounding like a pretentious noodle-fest.  The album closes with “Michael” and ‘Time Will Run”, which are both spacious Pop tunes with Prog flourishes.  While the band may sometimes sound a little unsure of themselves in a few spots, the album is a breath of fresh air.

Night Meets The Day (1976) is a concept album with a nautical theme and is a far more adventurous album than their debut. The band is tighter yet more spacious in their playing, which allows them to express their musical vision with more feeling. The atmosphere of the album is more melancholy, although not dark or depressing. On songs like “Shipwrecked Stranded”, Harlis sound even more like a band working together as a unit, playing live together in the studio and capturing the moment on tape. While the individual players are exceptional, it’s interesting to hear their understated and relaxed interaction.  The album’s instrumental, “Endless Sea”, sounds like it’s floating about the room instead of bouncing off the walls.  Sure, there are rockers here (“Ruler Of The Island”, “The Last Sea Battle” and “King Of The Pirates”), the album is more about atmosphere, feeling and vibes. 

Both albums are recommended to fans of Jane, Prog Music and German Rock.  While the albums are not as slick as records by like-minded bands, that is the core of the band’s charm.  They may not have been destined for Top 40 success in the U.S., it sure would have been nice if FM radio had embraced them all those years ago…. 

Both Harlis albums have been reissued by SIREENA RECORDS.  I'll be covering a lot of the label's releases here on the Discussions Magazine blog in the near future.

An EXCLUSIVE interview with M83!

LIVING IN A DREAM:

An EXCLUSIVE interview with M83’s ANTHONY GONZALEZ

By Stephen SPAZ Schnee

     There used to be a time when the double album was a grand and bold musical statement from an artist and not just a regular release with a few remixes added as a bonus. From The Beatles’ White Album and The Who’s Tommy to Led Zeppelin’s Physical Graffiti and Pink Floyd’s The Wall, any band brave enough to release a double album caught the attention of the critics and music fans alike. Even Prince’s 1999 and XTC’s English Settlement set new heights for those artists, attracting more fans than ever. But over the years, the double album has become a real rarity. While you may find many two disc releases on the shelves, the second CD usually contains nothing more than bonus demos, acoustic versions or remixes. In essence, the legitimate double album seems to be a thing of the past… but thank goodness nobody told M83’s Anthony Gonzalez that!

     When Gonzalez moved from his homeland of France to Los Angeles nearly two years ago, his new surroundings inspired a prolific period of songwriting and experimenting with music. Early on, the transplanted Frenchman realized that his vision was much larger than a conventional 45 minute album. The songs that poured out of him began to form an album that would exceed anyone’s expectations, even his own. By the time it was complete, Gonzalez had created a double album that was mysterious, dark and utterly beautiful.

     From Ambient and Electronica to Shoegaze and Dream Pop, Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming is an ambitious project and is the culmination of everything released in M83’s decade-long career. While the band’s sound has progressed over the years, this is an album that takes the best elements from all of their past releases and adds more depth and power to the mix. Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming takes the listener on a trip through different moods and atmospheres and leaves an indelible impression on their senses. This is an album that is raw and powerful yet unabashedly joyful. The album never outstays its welcome: every note is there for a reason and the entire project would feel incomplete were you to remove even one track. This is what double albums are all about.

     Stephen SPAZ Schnee sat down to speak with Anthony about Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming, his inspiration and much more…

SPAZ: Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming is just about ready to drop. How are you feeling about the album and things in your world right about now?

ANTHONY GONZALEZ: I feel excited. I haven’t felt this excited for a long time… maybe since Before The Dawn Heals Us (2005). I feel confident and proud of this record. I’m just so excited to go back on the road and play shows in front of my fans. Sometimes, it’s hard to be a musician. Some people think its all holidays all the time. But sometimes, it’s very stressful. Emotionally, it can be hard to cope with everything. But when you feel good about an album, you’re excited to talk about it and play live shows. You’re looking forward to it. You’re like a kid… you’re just excited about everything.

SPAZ: The album is a very ambitious two CD release. When you started recording the album, did you plan on so many songs making the album or did it evolve over time?

ANTHONY: You never know what to expect when you start composing an album, obviously. But early on, I realized I wanted a double album. We’d been touring a lot for the previous album and being on stage and on the road for such a long time made me realize that I wanted to create a big project. I couldn’t wait to go back into the studio while I was still on the road. When I first moved to L.A. one and a half years ago, I was so excited about being in the studio again. I was enjoying myself so much. I was playing with my keyboard like I’ve never played before. I was experimenting and improvising. That was the first time that happened in many years. When you’re excited about being in the studio, it flows out of you and you keep composing and composing. At the end, you have a lot of songs to pick from. (laughs)

SPAZ: The era and the art of the double album has all but disappeared over the years. Was there ever a time that you felt you should compromise and whittle the album down to an average album-length single disc?

ANTHONY: Yeah, definitely. It’s the wrong time to be releasing a double album. But I thought that if I don’t do it now, it would be even more difficult to release a double album in two, three or five years. But I’ve been working on this album for a year and that’s a long period of time. Sometimes, you start to lose confidence and you start doubting yourself. But other times, you feel proud. I like to feel as if this album is a gift to myself. There was so much pleasure in the making of this album. I was feeling all these different emotions. If I felt like this during the making of the album, hopefully people will feel like this listening to it. So, I said let’s go for it, let’s go double. I didn’t want to have any regrets. I wanted to do something for myself for once.

SPAZ: While the tracks on the album certainly flow together very well, each track has it’s own personality (and in some cases, multiple personalities). Did you initially create the songs as distinct individual tracks, or were you always looking at these tracks falling under a unifying theme?

ANTHONY: I can’t say that all the songs are part of a main theme. Some of them are… the ambient songs and small interludes are part of that theme. But I love pop songs and I wanted this album to have pop songs as well. I think this album is like a combination of all my previous albums together. I wanted to have a lot of different elements: epic songs, slow songs, quiet interludes and pop songs.

SPAZ: Some of the lovely and moving melodies are gentle and understated, while others are powerful and loud. Were the song arrangements dictated by the melodies or did the melodies come out of the song arrangements? Tracks like “Soon, My Friend” and “Reunion” are very different, yet equally effective.

ANTHONY: You know what? I have no idea! (laughs) I’m not waking up and saying to myself “OK, today I’m going to work on an epic track or I’m going to work on a slow interlude.” I write what comes naturally so I don’t have the feeling that its forced. I didn’t have to fight against the songs. It was just a natural progression. It makes sense that some of the songs needed to be very epic and very orchestrated. But you also want to keep some songs very quiet because they didn’t need anything more.

SPAZ: The album, like all of your releases, seem to draw from the last 30 years of Pop, Rock and Electronic music, from Brian Wilson to OMD, yet you manage to maintain a very distinct sound. What influences you?

ANTHONY: A lot of things. This is what I like about being a musician, being an artist: you can be inspired by so many different things. I was moving to a new city (L.A.). I was going out to see movies. I was going out to live shows. I was going to museums. I was reading a lot of books as well. I was just being inspired by anything. Its funny because sometimes I feel like I don’t want to make music because I don’t feel like something good is going to come out of my brain. But for this whole year, I felt so inspired by everything and anything. It could be something simple like meeting a new friend or talking to some people at a party. Or being inspired by a movie you just saw the day before. This album was inspired by one year in my life.

SPAZ: Are you sometimes surprised by your fan’s interpretations of your songs?

ANTHONY: It does surprise me, but in a good way. It’s exactly what I like about music. It’s very different from reading a book where everything is written on a page or watching a movie where everything is up there on the screen. There’s this feeling of freedom and I like that. I can’t wait for people to tell me stories about them listening to the album.

SPAZ: People tend to create their own visuals in their head while listening to the music… Do you think that music videos can take away from a listener’s own personal attachment to a song?

ANTHONY: Yeah, of course. Sometimes, the video can be a perfect match for the music. But sometimes it doesn’t happen that way and that’s a risk. I grew up watching videos during the MTV era. This is part of my culture. I couldn’t picture myself releasing an album with no music videos. Its part of the process of the making of an album.

SPAZ: What’s next for M83?

ANTHONY: I’m really excited to go back on tour. It’s been two years now since we’ve played any shows. I couldn’t be any happier than I am today. I am proud of this album and I’m ready to travel and play this album in front of my fans.

SPAZ: What is currently spinning on your CD and DVD players?

ANTHONY: Recently, I was listening to and love the new Mogwai EP. I’ve also had the chance to listen to the new Zola Jesus album. It’s really, really good and I can’t stop listening to it. On my DVD player, I have Halloween 2 from Rob Zombie. I just saw it two days ago. His Halloween movies are really good movies, honestly. I was a big fan of the original Halloween movies, but… I don’t know… this guy comes from a different planet!

Thanks to Anthony Gonzalez

Special thanks to Jacki Feldstein, Nicole Blonder and Anthony Balboa

M83

HURRY UP, WE'RE DREAMING

10.18.11

An EXCLUSIVE interview with CHRIS ISAAK!

HERE COMES THE SUN:

An EXCLUSIVE Interview with

CHRIS ISAAK

By Stephen SPAZ Schnee

     Memphis-based DJ and music fan Sam Phillips launched his Sun Records label in 1952, initially focusing on Blues and Rhythm & Blues artists. While the label didn’t score any huge hits for the first few years, their luck changed in 1954 when a young man named Elvis Presley walked through the door. From that moment, Rock ‘n’ Roll music as we know it was born. Add some Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins and Roy Orbison to the mix and you’ve got the most influential label of the Rock ‘n’ Roll era.

     Some 30 years later, 1985 to be exact, a young man named Chris Isaak released his debut album, Silvertone. While he may have looked, at the time, like the latest entry in a long-line of Rockabilly artists, one listen to the album was proof that this singer, songwriter and guitarist was much more than a Retro-billy throwback: Isaak had depth, charm and a heartbreaking beauty in his voice and songs. More Elvis and Roy than Johnny, Carl and Jerry, Isaak’s music was heavily influenced but not dictated by the sound of Sun Records. His melodies were timeless, the arrangements were simple and the production did not carry the weight of ‘80s studio trickery. Isaak, like those Sun artists that influenced him, was the real deal.

     Since then, Chris Isaak has continued to travel his own path, taking his influences with him but always staying true to his own musical vision, which seemed to incorporate numerous genres. Scoring a huge hit with “Wicked Game” in the early ‘90s, the sudden brush with fame lifted Isaak into the spotlight, a place where he has seldom strayed ever since. From rapturously received tours to critically-adored albums, and even the odd acting gig and TV series in between, Isaak has continued to perfect his unique sound without compromising his integrity or losing his large fanbase. In fact, he is now more popular than ever.

     With a solid catalog of originals behind him, Isaak finally decided to revisit the music that inspired him as a child. Along with his ace backing band, Silvertone, Isaak entered Sun Studios in Memphis to record an album of songs by the artists who created Rock ‘n’ Roll within those very same walls over 50 years before. From hits like “Ring Of Fire” and “Oh, Pretty Woman” to lesser known tracks like “Dixie Fried” and “Miss Pearl”, Isaak and his band had completed nearly 40 tracks before deciding they had enough to work with.

     While it may have been difficult to decide which 14 tracks were going to make it onto his 2011 album, Beyond The Sun, the results are stunning. A few of the tracks may be remarkably close to the originals, yet Isaak and his band add their own personalities into the mix and put the Rock ‘n’ Roll passion right back into the songs. This isn’t just a stop-gap tribute album to tide his fans over: this is an artist revisiting the magic and reigniting the fire that set him in motion so many years ago. The Deluxe Edition of the album is even better since it includes a second CD containing an additional 11 tracks.

     Stephen SPAZ Schnee was able to catch up with Chris Isaak to chat a little about Beyond The Sun, his career and so much more…

SPAZ: Beyond The Sun is just about ready to drop. How are you feeling about this project and everything leading up to it?

CHRIS ISAAK: You know, I’m really excited and I’m dying for people to hear the record. For a record to be a hit, people have got to hear it, first of all. So far, everybody that’s heard it that I’ve played it for went, “Wow! You should have done this record a long time ago! (laughs) I love this kind of music! What is this?” When I was a kid, I was listening to this music. In the packaging, I put in pictures that I had from when I was about 20 or 21, the first pictures that I took before I had a band or anything else. I worked all summer and I got a Shure microphone and a Silvertone guitar, I borrowed my dad’s jacket, I snuck into the college theater and stood up on the stage and had my picture taken. And I said, “Look! Now, I look just like Elvis and I’m ready to go!” (laughs). And that’s all the music I wanted to play was that Sun Sessions music. I’ve been wanting to make this record a long time.

SPAZ: What inspired you to do this project now as opposed to any other time in your career?

CHRIS: Because when I started off, I thought I looked a little like Elvis when I combed my hair back. When I was boxing, everybody who was on my boxing team, their nickname for me was Elvis. That was before I even sang. When I went to Japan, I cut my hair short and that sort of killed that. But when I was starting off, I didn’t want to fall into a thing where that was what I did, somebody else’s music. I wanted to make sure I could write my own songs and have my own sound. On purpose, I struggled hard to write my own songs and not to do cover songs in the beginning.

SPAZ: I really liked the different approaches to the songs, both in the arrangements and at the mixing stage (with a few tracks being recorded or mixed down to mono). In essence, you’ve re-created these songs as Chris Isaak vehicles. Was it a little daunting to record these tracks, knowing that they are iconic Rock ‘n’ Roll classics?

CHRIS: Thank you. I appreciate what you just said because that’s exactly what I was trying to do. I said, “This is not a throw-away record. We’re not going in and like, hey, let’s have some fun and cut a few oldies and then be done. Let’s really work on this like we do any other album.” We rehearsed more for this album because we were going to cut it all live… and we did. The vocals you hear, those were done with those guys all at one time. If I make a mistake, we do another take.

SPAZ: All these tracks were one take?

CHRIS: Yes. I’d try it in three four takes, but we’d get it in one pass. We wouldn’t fix it. I’m proud of that but hardly anybody goes in without wearing headphones and being separated so that they can, later on, fix the mistakes. But in the old days at Sun, everybody was in the same room, everyone bled into everyone’s microphone. Elvis was standing there singing and you heard him. Jerry Lee Lewis was playing piano heard the piano over in the vocalist’s microphone. You could kinda feel like it was party going on. You could tell where people were standing in the room because you could hear it between two or three microphones. And that’s what we did. When I went in, I told the guys, “Listen, we can’t play forever in there because I’m singing this stuff, so if I’m singing it good, you better hit it because that’s the one we’re gonna use!”… and we went in and everybody played great. I never had so much in the studio. I think part of it was that everybody realized that this isn’t a rehearsal, this isn’t a practice, we’re making a record. Everybody could hear what the other guy was doing. You’re playing together instead of through earphones and hoping that somebody else later makes sense of it.

SPAZ: Your passion for the material is apparent in every track. Did any first takes make the album, or was it a long recording process?

CHRIS: I’m so proud of the band. Talk about passion for this music! If somebody listened to this record and said “Oh, I’ve got a great singer. We should make one of those records. Let’s hire some guys in L.A. and let’s do it,” I don’t think you could. My drummer, Kenny (Dale Johnson), loves this kind of music and he’s a natural fit for it. He plays in shuffle, which a lot of those songs have, or a ‘stripper beat’… they didn’t have very many straight ahead rock beats on those recordings. He plays with a real subtle groove that nobody else has got… and that’s tricky. The bass player (Rowland Salley) comes from background where he played early Country Western and Bluegrass. He played a standup bass and he totally loves this kind of music. My piano player (Scotty Plunkett)… how many guys can cop Jerry Lee Lewis riffs and then throw their own riffs in with it and make it sound like its blended? Scotty is a monster on piano. But for him to be able to capture that style of Jerry Lee and some of those simple Gospel piano riffs… When we started off, we said “Let’s learn all these songs and then when we’ve made the record, let’s not listen to it at all. When we’re done with rehearsing, let’s go into the studio, let’s cut it, let’s have fun and let’s do it our own way.” So, on “Ring Of Fire”, Scotty’s playing a B-3 Organ, which is not on the original. We’d do stuff like have a guitar and piano go back and forth on a solo that isn’t on the original version. I said “We’ll just do whatever feels good to us. We already know the songs.” At the end, the only time I listened to it was at the end when I was done mixing. I thought, OK, now I wanna hear: what did we come up with versus the originals. I still have to laugh because I’ll listen to some things that those guys did and I love those guys so much. When we were recording, we had Roland James, who played guitar on all Jerry Lee Lewis’ stuff… he’s just a great guy and my favorite guitar player. He was in and I remember asking him “Hey, Roland. I’ve got a question. It sounds stupid, but I just don’t know who else to ask but you were there: how loud did you play in the room, because I’m singing, you know?” He said, “Chris, we played as loud as we wanted!” My guitar player (Hershel Yatovitz) was standing there right next to me and just gave me a big grin, like, oh boy, all bets are off. And then I could have kissed Roland because he continued on, “You gotta remember though, Chris. It was 1956 and we didn’t want to play very loud!” (laughs)

SPAZ: Being a fan and artist from the days of the record LP, when putting the tracklist together, do you still think of things in ‘vinyl’ terms with the songs making up a Side One and a Side Two?

CHRIS: We’re actually putting this out on vinyl, so we actually have a real Side A and Side B. This is a perfect record for that. What was fun for me is that you usually make a record and you have 16 songs you record and then you cut it down and put out 13. On this record, we had so much fun recording it…my manager asked “How many songs did you guys cut?” I said “We’re up to 38 songs and we’re still going.” And she’s like “Stop! Please! You have enough for three albums!” And I s aid “Let’s put out a double,”… and we did! (The Deluxe Edition of Beyond The Sun has 11 additional tracks.) It was fun because we knew these songs and we practiced a bunch. When we’d go into cut ‘em, it wasn’t like, “Oh, we have to go in and overdub and we’ll fix that…” No, some of the songs we cut, I bet we cut ‘em in three takes. We’d rehearse it plenty and then we just went in and played.

SPAZ: It’s been over a quarter century since your debut album, Silvertone, was released. Did you think that you’d still be at it in 2011?

CHRIS: You know, when I started off, you never dream where life’s going to take you. It could take you bad places or it could take you good places. You just hope it’s going to be something nice and I’ve just been really really lucky. I hooked up with Kenny and Roly, Hershel and Scotty, my crew… people I’ve worked with I’ve been with forever. Some people don’t understand that if you are a musician, the road can be your life and if you don’t have friends out there on the road with you, it can be a really lonely ride. I guess that’s why people end up getting in trouble. But they’re my friends. Here I am, years later with those same guys… and it’s a ball.

SPAZ: You’ve cultivated your own unique sound over the years, which is as timeless now as it was then. Have you ever been tempted… or even encouraged by the powers that be, to alter your sound and try to fit into whatever cookie-cutter sound is popular at the time?

CHRIS: I’ve been lucky. I have good producers. I always kinda knew what I wanted to sound like. I’ve always been drawn to a pretty vocal and song that’s got some kind of truth to it. So, I always thought that if you had a song that has a ring a truth and you’re singing well, it’s going to be fun, good music. The trend just kind of went around us. I do remember at one point, a person at the record company said “Chris, you’re a surfer and you’re in good shape: you should take your shirt off when you’re up on stage!” And I said, “Why would I do that?” And they said, “For the girls.” I said, “I’m a singer, not a stripper!” (laughs). And I was thinking ahead and I said, “You know, if I start taking my shirt off now, my career’s going to be over in about three years! I don’t want to do that!”

SPAZ: What’s next for Chris Isaak?

CHRIS: I’m going to go out on tour all over the U.S. We’re going to tour Australia. The record’s coming out and I think that there’s a lot of interest in it. So, we’re so excited to actually play it live. It’s so much fun to play this music live. The look on people’s faces when you kick into “Ring Of Fire” or something… it’s just a ball

SPAZ: What do you currently have spinning on your record, CD and DVD players?

CHRIS: I just introduced a bunch of films for that Turner Classic Movies channel… I watch old movies all the time. They called me and asked me to come down to the studio for a bit… I watched Rebel Without A Cause a couple of times in a row so I could talk about it. What a fun, strange film. I always find something new in it. (Audio-wise), when I travel, usually in my car, I’ve got Jerry Lee Lewis going on.

Thanks to Chris Isaak

Special thanks to Jacki Feldstein and Kimberly McCoy

 

CHRIS ISAAK

 

BEYOND THE SUN

 

BEYOND THE SUN (DELUXE EDITION)

 

10.18.11

KITTY, DAISY & LEWIS/Smoking In Heaven: Available October 18th, 2011!

KITTY, DAISY & LEWIS

SMOKING IN HEAVEN

10.18.11

2011 sophomore album from the British retro-obsessed siblings. While the band’s influences are firmly rooted in the past, Smoking In Heaven hurtles towards an interminable future with songs that boast stylings of R&B, Soul, Ska, Pop and jazz, adding another dimension to their unique style and sound. ·Album consists entirely of original material written by the band and recorded/produced by the band on entirely vintage analogue equipment in their home studio.

An EXCLUSIVE Interview with ANVIL!

METAL DISORDER:

An EXCLUSIVE Interview with

ANVIL guitarist/vocalist

STEVE "LIPS" KUDLOW

By Stephen SPAZ Schnee

     Canadian Heavy Metal band Anvil is celebrating their 30th Anniversary as a recording unit with the release of the anthology Monument Of Metal. While the album contains 19 of their finest musical moments (including re-recordings of a handful of their early tracks), it’s merely an introduction to the band’s journey, which has been a long, frustrating and ultimately fruitful one.

     Led by guitarist Steve Lips Kudlow and his childhood friend drummer Robb Reiner, the band has gone through many personnel changes over the years, although their riff rockin’ Heavy Metal sound has remained largely unchanged. While their early ‘80s contemporaries were fast becoming millionaires by jumping from one Metal trend to the next, Anvil were largely forgotten as Hair Metal took root and became the music of choice for Rock fans all over the world.

     Like any other trend, Hair Metal and all the bands who sailed that ship were cast aside by Grunge, then Nu-Metal, Hardcore and every other trendy Metal genre that was quickly snapped up by the general public (and just as quickly discarded). Through it all, Anvil kept doing what they did best: creating classic Heavy Metal.

     In 2008, longtime Anvil fan, former roadie and film director Sasha Gervasi put together a documentary entitled Anvil: The Story Of Anvil, which thrust the band into the spotlight again and made them instant Metal heroes. The band has never looked back and are busier than they’ve ever been.

     Earlier this year, Anvil released their 14th studio album, Juggernaut Of Justice, and received some of their finest reviews to date. The album’s closing track, the glorious horn-heavy “Swing Thing”, is quite possibly the first Swing Metal track ever to be recorded, and it’s one of the band’s crowning achievements.

     Barely half a year later, the Monument Of Metal compilation is about to hit the shelves and take Anvil to a new level of Heavy Metal insanity. Stephen SPAZ Schnee was able to catch up with guitarist/vocalist Steve LIPS Kudlow to discuss Anvil’s latest releases and talk about their career thus far…

SPAZ: A few months back, you released Juggernaut Of Justice and you’ve got the Monument Of Metal compilation dropping at the end of September. How are you feeling about things right now?

STEVE ‘LIPS’ KUDLOW: I feel pretty good. We’re about to start touring… well, we have been touring and it’s been quite non-stop. This has been the first actual few weeks that I haven’t been that busy. Having three weeks off, it seems like an eternity… but it’s not that long!

SPAZ: It’s your 30th Anniversary as a recording unit: did you ever consider releasing a box set spanning your three decade-long career?

LIPS: I think it was something that we were considering and it still may happen. The compilation album was the door-opener for all of it. We picked the choice tunes (for Monument Of Metal) and then we’re probably going to re-release the whole back catalog. We were talking about doing it in a box set but we’re not sure. But they may just come out individually over a duration of time. Our European label wants us to do that. But there’s some issues that still have to get worked out like unreleased tracks, obscure things that never saw the light of day… getting those included so there’s something more there than just the old catalog. There’s a bunch of stuff in the works, but everything takes time. We like to concentrate on the future rather than worrying and focusing on what we’ve already done.

SPAZ: Given that Monument Of Metal is a single disc collection, was it difficult to choose the tracks? And what were the criteria for the 19 tracks that ended up on the album?

LIPS: It’s really interesting because we didn’t really put a criteria on them. We just went, “Well, off of this album, which song?” And then we’d pick a few songs and say “This was on the first Anthology (released in 2000) and this wasn’t. And since it stands the test of time, OK, we’ll use this one!” That’s sort of how we went about doing it. We talked about the records and just picked our favorites at the moment. That’s really what it came down to. This is the second anthology that we put out. We couldn’t keep pressing the first Anthology because we had to keep buying the rights (of the songs) from the original label so we had to make a new one. We changed a few things from the first one and added a couple of re-records. Because of the legal aspect of using the old versions, it would have cost us a lot of money. Even if you own the studio albums, you’re going to want this because it has stuff you don’t have.

SPAZ: It’s pretty amazing while listening to Monument Of Metal and noticing that you have remained pretty true to your original sound over the years. Have you ever been tempted to alter your sound to keep up with the ever-changing music scene (like so many of your contemporaries have done)?

LIPS: It’s my own self-belief in my personal identity. That’s what it comes down to. I can’t be anybody else. I’m not going to contrive things just to make money. That doesn’t work for me because I take responsibility for it all, even if it’s in a detrimental way. That’s just the way it is. I’m not going to change what I’m doing… because that’s who I am! (laughs) I think that there are those who are easily influenced by outside people who are inconsequential… people who are just money-makers and want to make money. Their attitude is “Why wouldn’t you want to change your sound to make money?” If you think about it in those terms, then they are probably right if you look at it from their perspective. But from another perspective… this is what I do. When I create a song, it’s one of my songs and it sounds like one of my songs: it has an identity. Now, why would I want to change that when I’ve worked 30 years at maintaining an identity? (laughs)

SPAZ: Some bands change their style only to find that their old style has become hip again and they scramble to regain their old audience.

LIPS: It’s really the trend-oriented, commercial pop bands like Poison, who disappeared and were replaced with Alternative Rock and bands like Nirvana. The incredibly pretentious style got replaced with an incredibly unpretentious style. That sort of illustrates how trends work. Trends work like a pendulum. They swing back and forth. What might be out of date today is tomorrow’s biggest thing… and vice versa. So there’s no point in trying to change anything you do. Just wait for the pendulum to swing back! (laughs) That’s the reality of it. For most, they’re never gonna last long enough for that ever to happen. For the most part, that’s usually the case. When the pendulum does swing back, all these bands are scrambling and putting the band back together and trying to get back out on the road and going again. They didn’t stay at it, so whatever record they put out is certainly not going to have the flow. It’s going to be picking up… but not picking where they left off. It’s going to pick up further down the road because they let it slip. There’s no real way to make up for the lost time.

SPAZ: Juggernaut Of Justice is your 14th album. Back in ’81, when you released Hard ‘n Heavy, did you ever think you’d still be putting out albums 30 years on?

LIPS: I hoped I would be. You have to understand that my perspective was not to become the commercial hit of the day. I never wanted to do that. That’s not what this is about. This is Hard Rock and Hard Rock is a hard sell anyway. I never wanted to be a commercial commodity and I stayed away from it pretty much for 30 years. If you are a commercial band, that’s very very short lived. So, I’d rather put out 20 albums that are exactly the way I want to do it and what I want to do than two or three albums that are completely contrived record company product. You can always do that… or at least attempt to do that… but then you are either a hit or you are gone. I never wanted to go in that direction. That’s not with this is about. This is about longevity. It would make a lot more sense to put out a lot of hardcore records and then maybe at you’re 20th record, make an attempt at selling out! (laughs) If you hit it out of the ballpark after 20 records, then everybody’s got 20 records to buy. For us, that kind of innocently happened in a sense. Here, we stayed in the underground and we were very accepting of our situation. Then along comes a fan, from a long time ago, and makes a movie… and that changes the course of everything. The thing that’s very cool is that, what you always worry about when you’re in a Metal band is that when you become popular is that people immediately start pointing their fingers and say “Sell out! Sell out! Sell out!” But in this particular case, the movie actually glorifies the fact that we weren’t sell-outs! And it’s that that made it so successful! (laughs). People are not condemning us for becoming popular because we became popular by being unpopular!

SPAZ: Albums seem to be a dying art form these days. When putting Juggernaut… together, did you think of it as one whole, or do you still think in terms of Side A and Side B?

LIPS: I think we put it together so it would run as one whole thing. That’s what we were looking to do. You want people to listen to it from beginning to end.

SPAZ: Where on earth did “Swing Thing” come from? It’s an excellent mix of metal and horns plus a great showcase for Robb’s skills. Any chance of doing more tracks like that?

LIPS: It’s interesting. Robb has been a fan of this music for many, many years. In fact, that’s what started him on drums: seeing Buddy Rich on Here’s Lucy. As a young kid, he took drum lesson from Jazz teachers. That’s where his roots are. He took lessons until he was about 17. I’ll never forget it… his teacher used to come and give him lessons at his house and I’m standing next to Robb, his teacher and Robb’s mom and his teacher goes “This is Robb’s last lesson. There’s nothing more that I can teach him. He’s already surpassed my abilities!” It was pretty insane. He’s extraordinary fanatical in everything he does. Having that in the band, we’ve utilized many things from that genre, but of course it’s not recognizable because it’s being presented in a completely different format. We’re using distorted guitars so it really doesn’t sound like Swing when you remove the horns, let’s put it that way. But in this particular case… my father passed away about five years ago and I inherited his car. Along with his car came all these cassette tapes: Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman and, of course, the radio stations. I began listening and I wouldn’t change the stations… and it really dawned on me as to why my father thought what I was doing was noise. And how archaic and Neanderthal what I was doing in comparison to what was going on in these songs. It is how remarkable how simplistic things became. And it’s not just necessarily the music as much as musicians not being educated by the things that have been. They fall out of trend and great abilities get lost. We’re never going to see a clarinetist like Benny Goodman ever again. There isn’t a call for it so no one is striving to get there. Kids are getting up now and they’re going “I’m gonna learn how to play guitar!” That’s what’s been going on in the last 50 years. Having said that, it’s gone through an incredible evolution. Now, one day I woke up with this chord progression that I could hear being played, in my mind, with horns. And I thought that’s really interesting. I wonder how that would work if I wrote all the guitars that I’m hearing in horns. Usually when I think of things, I think of things in guitars and I never fathom horns, but this was a weird moment. I could hear the horns, so I figured it out on the guitar and I began arranging it with the band. I created a bed track that you could put horns right n top of it and that was what I was really striving to do. So I leave the tapes with our producer, Bob Marlette, who says “Lips, it’s not a problem. My wife plays. We can do it with real horns.” About a week later, he sends me the recording and I put the headphones on and I listened to it and I practically had to go empty my pants! (laughs) From a musician’s point of view, when you break barriers with a piece of music, that is the most gratifying feeling you can ever have… when you’ve created something that no one else has ever heard or fathomed before. Nothing can be more fulfilling than doing something like that.

SPAZ: Heavy Metal and Hard Rock has so many subgenres nowadays. Which genre do you think best describes Anvil?

LIPS: Part of the problem is where do we fit in? Where do you pigeonhole Anvil?

SPAZ: To me, it’s Rock ‘n’ Roll.

LIPS: It can be. There’s a lot of factors. The Juggernaut… album is like a template of all different kinds of Metal. You look at a song like “When Hell Breaks Loose”, that’s kind of Speed Metal. You’ve got a song like “Paranormal”, and that’s your dark, slow Metal. And then you’ve got “New Orleans Voodoo” and that’s like Scorpions Metal. There’s a lot of different facets on that record.

SPAZ: What’s next for Anvil?

LIPS: We have an American tour coming up in October. In November, we’re in Europe with Saxon. Then in the Spring, it’ll probably be South America. We’ve got a lot of touring this year. A lot of touring.

SPAZ: What do you currently have spinning on your CD and DVD players?

LIPS: The most recent thing I watched on DVD would have to have been Withnail & I. Every time I tried to watch it before, I couldn’t hear the sound or I fell asleep. I finally sat down with a pair of headphones and watched it. Good movie. And yesterday, I went through the process of listening to the vinyl version of Juggernaut… and the CD version.

SPAZ: And which one was better?

LIPS: The CD. It’s not because the vinyl isn’t good, it’s just that the CD is better. It’s clearer and the output is way way higher.

Thanks to Steve LIPS Kudlow

Special thanks to Anthony Balboa, Jenny Modglin, Andreas Katsambas and Kevin Farrell

ANVIL

 

MONUMENT OF METAL:

THE VERY BEST OF ANVIL

 

9.27.11