“It wasn’t in my head when we were making the record, but on certain songs I thought, ‘What would any crazy guitar player do here?’ It’s not shred for the sake of playing a lot of notes it’s playing the right notes to complement the music – but in a faster way.” “I’m dancing around the word ‘shred’ myself,” he says. “It’s more like ‘a lot of notes.’ You’ll notice one or two motifs in each song, and then it expands to a lot of notes before going back to the main motif.” “I wouldn’t call what we do ‘shred’,” Henson says. On the horn-driven R&B groover Genesis and the ’70s soul stunner Reverie, the two guitarists make their instruments sigh and swoon, but at unexpected moments they dish out showstopping leads that turn the music on its head.īut for all of the wondrous guitar playing on the album, both Henson and LePage take issue with a certain word affixed in the parlance of their fretboard community. Henson and Page pepper Sophia Black’s sunny vocals on ABC with smooth rhythmic jabs, but before you know it, they’re somersaulting over themselves in a whiplash-inducing assault on the senses brimming with sheets of fleet-fingered fretwork runs. The soothingly sensual, electronica-laced The Audacity lulls you in before it explodes with walloping riffery and hyperspeed soloing. The artistic reach of the genre-bending band appears to know no boundaries, and the sophisticated manner in which they construct their material, matched with their highly charged instrumental prowess, makes for a thrilling and, at times, shattering listening experience. Let’s get right to it: Remember That You Will Die is a true original of our period and an across-the-board motherfucker. “It was a dream come true getting Steve on the record,” Henson says. I mean, c’mon, he’s a f**king legend Tim HensonĪnd what do you know? There’s even an appearance by a certain guitarist known as Steve Vai. It was a dream come true getting Steve Vai on the record. There’s R&B-hip-hop production duo Brasstracks, Canadian keyboardist Anomalie, pop-R&B vocalist Sophia Black, emo rapper and singer Killstation and Deftones frontman Chino Moreno, among others.
The album’s core production team remained as it did on New Levels New Devils – Henson and LePage, along with longtime collaborators Judge and Y2K – but whereas that record featured a smattering of guests, this time out the band unfurled the welcome mat for a dizzying array of talents. “It was a nice change of pace that allowed us the opportunity to really figure out what kind of record we were making.” “The time off the road was like one big snow day from school,” Henson says. In stark contrast to how they recorded previous albums, Henson and LePage, along with bassist Clay Gober and drummer Clay Aeschliman, took advantage of the extended Covid lockdown periods and concocted Remember That You Will Die in a more leisurely, freewheeling manner. We try to filter out stuff that isn’t great.” I guess that means we like some pretty cool music. What hasn’t changed is that we just make music we want to hear. LePage weighs in, saying, “We still feel like we’re hot shit, but we’ve learned that we don’t have to be silly geese about it. We still feel like we’re hot shit, but we’ve learned that we don’t have to be silly geese about it Scott LePage I feel like I’ve got less to say about it now.” We know we’re doing pretty cool stuff otherwise, we wouldn’t be so excited to share it with everyone.” He pauses, then adds, “I don’t know. Now we’re older and we want to let the work speak for itself. Reminded of his comments, he now laughs and says, “We were in our shit-ass period back then. If I were a kid, we would be my favorite band. In a 2019 interview with Guitar World, Henson pulled no punches: “I think we’re great. Henson and LePage’s penchant for hubris has been well documented. “I guess the people missed us after all,” LePage jokes. At the time of this writing, the sumptuous video for the track (“We filmed it in the bougiest mansion we could find,” cracks Henson) has racked up nearly 10 million views on YouTube – clearly, the mad genius behind the band’s anti-marketing tactics delivers results.
0 kommentar(er)
