Popes interview

The Popes: Hello Again Or

Story and photo by Daniel Coston

You should have seen them, you should have heard them. For many years, this statement has been used by many to describe the Popes. In 1988, the Chapel Hill-based quartet released their debut EP, Hi We’re The Popes. At a time when very few bands in the region were even releasing a single, the Popes self-released a six-song record that felt like the lost link between the Merseybeat-inspired melodies of the past, and the restless energy that would soon infuse so many younger bands. The band then sent the record across the country, gathering national interest from magazines, and many deejays.

What should have been a blazing start to the band’s career, however would eventually become the best known document of this band’s potential. After working for three years to secure a record deal, the band recorded an entire album for RCA subsidiary First Warning, only to have the deal fall apart. The band folded soon after, leaving behind a few spare songs on hard-to-find cassette compilations. While members of the Popes eventually found their way into new projects such as the Lovely Lads, Stumble, and the Public Good, a reunion as the Popes didn’t seen to be in the cards.

In 2011, Hi We’re The Popes was re-released on CD, finally giving many fans the chance to hear what the fuss had been all about. “I think it was because we listened to the EP when it got digitized, and we were surprised at how good it sounded,” says Popes guitarist and vocalist John Elderkin, sitting at the band’s first rehearsal in over twenty years. “And then people actually bought it.”

“We then thought that everybody else has been reuniting, so why not us?” adds fellow guitarist and vocalist Steve Ruppenthal.

On February 4th, the Popes- Elderkin and Ruppenthal on guitar and vocals, and Henry Pharr on bass, with new drummer Chris Garges- will return to Chapel Hill with a headlining show at Local 506. There are no set plans for the group beyond this show, although the band seems open to continuing this new chapter of the band. “Maybe a Charlotte show, and then New York,” says Elderkin with a laugh. “Who knows?”

Having already played together in high school, Elderkin and Ruppenthal put together the Popes with a clear idea of its sound. “I always thought of the Popes as this cross between Clash sensibility, and Beatles sensibility,” says Elderkin. “It was a 50/50 thing. To me, the Clash were a pop band.”

Joining forces with Pharr and original drummer Albert Nisbet (followed by Jim Rumley, who replaced Nisbet after the EP’s release), the band soon put together their first EP. “We had written these songs,” says Ruppenthal, “[Producer] John Plymale was very nice, and worked with us, but we were clueless about the whole studio process. The songs were a snapshot of college life, with a twist.”

“Steve and I had never been in a studio,” adds Elderkin.

“I had been in a studio long enough to rehearse,” follows Pharr. “I remember we ran through four or five songs, and Plymale saying, ‘It’s sounds disjointed.’ It wasn’t until we played ‘Not Beautiful’, and that finally kicked it in.”

When asked about hearing that EP today, Ruppenthal says, “I didn’t want to listen to [those songs] for a long time,” admitting that the feeling was somewhat fueled by disappointment with the band’s outcome. “There were also these themes that I couldn’t relate to, anymore. It wasn’t until we remastered them, that I heard them again. Now, I think they sound really good.”

“When we put that EP out,” says Elderkin, “people were surprised that we were serious about making a record, and promoting it. Nobody else in the area was doing that. Soon after, Dillon Fence, the Veldt, and others started making records.”

Over the next three years, the band toured constantly. However, the band’s only release during that time would be the six song cassette, Afar. Their focus had turned to getting a record deal. “That’s the way it seemed to be going,” says Elderkin. “It seemed to be moving towards that. We spent a lot of time recording demos, to get a label deal, but we never released any of that officially. Now, that seems unfortunate, but that was our thinking, at the time.”

While the future of the Popes is undetermined at this point, the reunion has already succeeded in giving fans the chance to hear the band in person, instead of traded CDs, and well-worn cassettes. It’s also given the band some perspective on what they did, and still can accomplish. “We realize now that they were good songs,” adds Ruppenthal, “that we should get together, and play these songs for people that like them.” 

Ever wonder where my Observer pics end up?

Scene & Heard is the section where much of my work with the Charlotte Observer ends up. Below is the link to last week's postings. Check out more pics here from the Kilgo's Canteen reunion, and go back through my event photos through the years.

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/01/25/2961353/scene-heard-12512.html

Glenn Miller Orchestra photos, January 22, 2012

Newberry Opera House,
Newberry, SC
photos copyright 2012 Daniel Coston

Fleet Foxes interview

Fleet Foxes: Wander This World Together

interview, introduction and photographs by Daniel Coston

Originally published in Big Takeover Magazine, winter 2009 issue

The first thing you notice about Fleet Foxes is their sound, a mixture of musical influences that we have all heard in different places, but rarely put together in this fashion. Then you see them live, and you see five musicians pouring out multi-part harmonies and playing a variety of instruments, and you realize that this band is for real.

Both their self-titled album and preceding Sun Giant EP suggests an alternate universe of sound, one where troubadours embrace both Beach Boys Smile-era harmonies and arrangements, and folk melodies and lyrics that give it a seemingly personal touch that draws the listener in further. Fleet Foxes is that rare band that reminds you that the palette of musical possibilities can still reach farther than we have come to expect.

For guitarist, singer and songwriter Robin Pecknold, the past year has brought a steady stream of possibilities and changes. By his admission, he is still getting used to all of the attention that his band now commands. But it is his honesty and love of music that makes talking to him all the more enjoyable. 

BT: When I saw you in North Carolina last month, you were playing a packed 200-plus venue, and then three days later, you were playing to a sold-out Bowery Ballroom in New York City. What is that like to go from the smaller crowds, to the bigger crowds at this point?

Pecknold: It just depends upon the crowd. Unless you’re playing to twenty thousand people, I think it’s really up to you and the crowd to decide what wavelength you’re on together. You can play a show for a hundred people, and if they’re all totally not into it, that’s gonna be a different experience than six hundred people at the Bowery all totally behind you, and supportive. Size means less to me than general feeling of the crowd. 

We played the Pitchfork festival, which was over 10,000 people. At that point, it was kind of abstract. Aside from the few people that you can make out their faces, it’s almost like looking at a painting. But they all were really sweet and supportive, and that was different than some other festival experiences where it’s the same amount of people, but nobody is giving you any attention, and that decides how you feel about all those people, and what makes you nervous.

BT: How have you been handling the media coverage? Have you been having to get used to talking about your music?

Pecknold: I think it’s a drastic shift from living at home, writing music and working a job, to being on the road all of the time, and meeting people. Having people recognize you is a very different experience. I think it takes a little adjustment. I don’t think I’m fully used to it yet. There are elements that are harder to deal with than others. Obviously, it’s all a big blessing,  but it’s tough being away from your family, or not having time to write songs, but at the same time, it’s a very lucky thing that has happened.

BT: The roots of this band go pretty far back. How long have you been friends with [guitarist and songwriter] Skye [Skjelset]?

Pecknold: For almost ten years now. Once I started writing songs when I was around fifteen,  we started working out stuff in my basement, just for fun. I guess that was the start of the band, but there was never a name. 

I think we discovered a lot of stuff together. At around that age when you’re  discovering music for yourself, becoming a music listener. That’s what you want to do. We would kind of show each other stuff. 

BT: What I was struck by in reading your bio is that the music you were listening to growing up was very diverse, which is very much like the music that you’re writing now. It’s not one category, it’s several. Was that always a point in your head, you didn’t want to be one thing, you wanted to be whatever it felt like at the moment.

Pecknold: Yeah. Every song was kind of an exercise, or a stepping stone. I don’t think that you should hold songs as sacred. The song is just a reflection of what kind of choices you wanted to make at that time, and what was inspiring you, or what felt good at that moment, and that’s always changing. 

The music that I listen to for enjoyment is usually just stuff that’s beautiful, or stuff that you can hear the person behind the song. To me, that’s the only criteria when listening to something. So that doesn’t have a genre requirement.

BT: Do you think categorizations for some people sometimes get in the way of just listening to music, or enjoying music? Should people be more open to those things?

Pecknold: That’s tough. When you hear a song and enjoy it, that’s an honest experience. And any time that you put that into words, it doesn’t really matter what the words are. You had an experience with that song, and that is what ultimately matters. And I think that it’s true no matter how somebody comes to music, whether it is by comparison or categorization. Ultimately, if they react well, they’re reacting to something within the song, and that’s what they’ll take away from it. 

BT: Are there things that you hope that people take away from your music, both with the record and EP, or is it whatever the listener gets from it?

Pecknold: I don’t know. The more expectation you put upon the listener, you know, you hear a song, and it’s really over the top, and if I hear a song that’s too over the top, I think it’s just pandering. That the artist is putting an expectation on what that song is, and how that song is going to affect the listener, and that’s affecting their song in a bad way. You hear a song that’s very bombastic, or very emotional, and it comes across as fake, or it’s so, one thing. It’s not really letting you have an experience with it, it’s telling you how to feel. So I think that the less you think about a listener, or how a song is gonna come across, the better just to leave it up to them.

BT: You and Skye have been working together for a while, but how did you find the rest of the band? It’s a really strong collective you have, a real five-man group.

Pecknold: Yeah, totally. That took time. We’ve played with other people in the past. For us, it wasn’t really about technical ability. Ultimately, if you’re gonna be in a band, it’s important to start with people that are already your friends, or people that you want to be friends with. 

In the past couple of years, we met Casey [Wescott], and through Casey, who plays keyboards, we met [bassist and vocalist] Christian [Wargo]. And we’d been fans of Christian and his music because he was in a band called Crystal Skulls. And it was the same way with Josh [Tillman], who plays drums. We’d known of Josh because he was a singer-songwriter playing shows in Seattle, and that’s how we’d gotten to be friends with him. 

So it was really just people that we knew that had their own creative impulses. And I think if we weren’t doing this band, everybody would be working on something else. And as a member of the band, it’s inspiring to me that everyone has their own creative drive, too.

BT: Have you found that having these five guys in the band has influenced what you and Syke were writing? Could you hear more of what you could create through them?

Pecknold: Yeah, I think it opens up a lot of doors. Playing with people well-versed in what they want. I think in the future, it’ll lead to more musically rich stuff. Because Christian and Josh will come up with stuff that is really cool, and stuff that I never would have thought of. I think that’s super-cool.

BT: The Sun Giant EP came out earlier this year, before your full-length album was released this summer, but I’ve heard that you had already recorded the album before the EP.

Pecknold: We finished the LP in November of last year. It was kind of a long process making that. There were a number of songs that had been in the works, and it came down to the last day of mixing that we were like, still deciding the tracklist out of all these songs that we had recorded. It really took that long, until the last day of mixing to really know what the record was. 

So the day after that, we showed the record to Sub Pop. We had been talking to them a little bit. And they said that they wanted to put it out, but they could only put it out in June, seven months later. Because that’s how it works. If you’re recording something without a label, a label that might put it out is not waiting for you, because you’re not on their label. They’re planning their release schedule, anyway.

We were really excited to be on Sub Pop, but it was frustrating to have to wait to put it out. So basically we had finished the record, and we had this new batch of songs, which were being worked out. And we were just working on them for fun, and they were kind of turning into their own little batch, that works together as five songs. So we were like, let’s just record these five songs that are their own thing as an EP in January, and then put it out on our own as soon as we get it back from the manufacturer. 

We spent a week making and mixing the EP.  Because we had done demos for all of the songs, we knew what they were gonna be. Then, once we finished the EP, Sub Pop came down to the studio and listened to it, and they said, “Yeah, we’ll put this out, on the same schedule that you were gonna put it [the EP] out.” So that was fun for us. 

I don’t think the EP is more representative... of where the next record is gonna go, because it was done later. They [the album and EP] were kind of the same time, more so than the next record will be. I think the next record will be a lot different.

BT: Has the next record started to take shape?

Pecknold: Yeah, I think it’s coming together. Obviously, we haven’t recorded anything yet. I’m always trying to think about how those songs will come together, because there are a lot of songs in the works.  

BT: When I saw you live, I really struck by the four-part harmony that you guys have. Tell me about the importance of harmonies within your band. 

Pecknold: For us, first off, it’s really enjoyable to sing with other people. It requires a different kind of concentration. You can’t really just tune out, because you always have to be listening to everybody else. Especially at shows. You can’t just sit back and play guitar and sing your lead vocal. You have to be constantly hearing what everyone else is doing, and stay on top of it.

And the other thing is, we wanted the record to sound full, but we didn’t want to have to add big electric guitars, or strings. It felt like this was a really fun way to make the record sound full, without having to add all of these parts that we couldn’t do live. Any extra arrangements we did went into vocals. And for me, I grew up singing idly with my folks, or doing musical theater stuff, it’s always been a part of my life.

BT: I read in Mojo Magazine that you have traded emails with Van Dyke Parks. How did that come about?

Pecknold: I first emailed Van Dyke when I was... maybe 15, or 17. I was super into Smile, and through Smile, I found all of his music, like Song Cycle, To Discover America. I found his email address, and I said, “Hey, I really love your music, I’m trying to write songs, too.” And he wrote back this incredibly sweet, really encouraging email, that was like, “Keep doing it, keep following your individual path. Try to make that you really love, or feel proud of.” And that was really encouraging, at that age. 

Then he wrote about a month or two ago, saying if we ever wanted string arrangements, give him a call. It was pretty bizarre. I don’t think that he understood that he inspired me, and was kind of responsible for the band in some obtuse way. And then he emails offering us help. To read that, it ws kind of a mindf-ck, for me, and very cool.  

BT: What is it about the Beach Boys’ Smile period that speaks to you?

Pecknold: Just hearing how... Smile is so weird to me, and yet its it still pop music. It just proved to me that how fluid that medium is. The rules governing pop music are much looser  than the rules governing hard rock, for instance. And those songs are just so good. 

Heron Interview

Heron: Upon Reflection

Introduction and interview by Daniel Coston

After years of working with, and listening to many fantastic musicians, I am always grateful to discover that there still is more great music to enjoy. For me, such is the case with the British band Heron. Formed in Maidenhead, England in 1967, this collective of singers and songwriters are still making music that fans around the world are continuing to discover.

Heron’s sound coalesced on their 1970 self-titled debut, recorded in a field near the band’s rehearsal barn in Appleford, Berkshire. Released on the Dawn division of Pye Records, he album remains a high water mark of the British folk-rock scene from that era, with memorable melodies and laid-back harmonies. When the combination of a record plant malfunction, and a delivery van strike derailed the momentum for the band’s “Only A Hobo” single in 1971, Heron instead plowed forward with a double album, Twice As Nice And Half The Price. Recorded the following year in a cottage, in the Devon vilage of Black Dog, Heron pushed beyond the notions of a “folk” sound, and moved more into a collective sound that it still hard to define.

After the band broke up in 1972, several members of the band reformed several years later, and played and performed sporadically until the early 1990s. All the while, a growing worldwide audience had begun to discover Heron, with the early albums commanding high prices from collectors. Over the last several years, Heron’s original lineup- vocalist Tony Pook, vocalist and guitarist Roy Apps, vocalist and guitarist Gerald Moore, and keyboardist Steve Jones- have reformed to produce new music, and find new audiences.

Here together, in a rare group interview, is the story of a band that still refuses to be pinned down, and still does things on their own terms.

Coston: Talk about the beginnings of Heron.

Tony Pook: Roy and I met up when we were at school, and then we started playing at the Liberal Club. We knew Gerald as Gerald, Gerald T. Moore. We’d had no connection with him before that, until he, Roy and I teamed to do what we were doing.

Heron was originally me, Roy, Gerald, and Martin. And a guy called Mike, who had something to do with King Crimson, and the King Crimson crowd.

Coston: What were your influences in putting Heron’s sound together.

Pook: There weren’t any. It just emerged. What came out, was what we did.

Steven Jones: I got out of college in 1968, and I met Gerald soon after, and was the link to I meeting you guys. Later, I had been doing duo gigs with Gerald, and I think I came up for a visit, first.

Jones: I remember Roy, Gerald and I rehearsing the songs for the first album in the barn in Appleford, and [manager and producer] Peter [Eden] coming to see us down there, and Gerald said, “We could get Steve to come down and put keyboards on it.”

Gerald Moore: We had done the recording session at Pye first. And then I sold Peter on going down to Appleford, and then [Peter] had to sell the idea to [the record label].

Peter had been booking me in for sessions, and he had all kinds of things going on. He basically said to me, “Let’s do a session.” And I said, “I don’t want to do my own thing anymore. I want to play with Heron.” And he came down to see us at the barn. He said, “I’d rather do your thing, they’re too folky.” And I said, “Well, they’re my mates.” And he said, Well, all right.” But Pye really liked it.

Coston: The legend is that Heron had a bad experience in the studio, and that led you to recording in the field.

Pook: We didn’t have a bad experience. We just didn’t like it. The place had no windows, it was underground.

Roy Apps: I certainly wasn’t happy recording in the studio. I hated it.

Coston: Who came up with the idea of recording in a field?

Jones: We all think it was us.

Moore: I think it was my idea. I said, why don’t we bring the Dawn people down to Appleford. We didn’t say, “Why don’t we do it in a field?” straight away. We said, “Why don’t we bring them to the farm, because Traffic had something at their place. And then when they came down, I think Tony said, “Let’s do it by the river?” Originally, they were going to come down to the farm. Peter came down first, and by the time Peter got to Pye, it was in the field. So it probably was everyone, and Peter.

Pook: I think it was everyone’s idea. We liked being at the barn, and it was only a short walk to the field. You read stuff, and some people think it was a contrived thing. But we were living out there, and it sense to record out there.

Coston: Were there any problems in recording outside?

Apps: We just accepted the trains. We would have had problems if the weather had been rubbish, but it was gorgeous weather.

Jones: We wanted the [sound of] the birds, but we couldn’t actually record them. We had to stick a mic out some distance to get the birds.

Coston: What happened to the band after Heron’s release? How did you decide to record a double album?

Jones: I recall that there were so many tunes, that we were actually getting clogged up. So that we could get to the new stuff, we had to get down the old stuff. We had to create space for the new tunes.

Pook: My recollection is that we said, “Why not do a double album?” Do two albums for the price of one.

Moore: I remember that I wanted to amaze everyone with our breadth of [songs]. We could do Motown tunes, folk tunes, our own tunes. We were branching more into playing the bass and drums.

Apps: I was itching to do a bit more rock and roll, although we still had a certain amount of the old style Heron stuff.

Moore: One, we wanted to break the mold of folk band, rock band, singer-songwriter band. We wanted to cover several genres, and say that we weren’t any type of band. Also, if you look at the back photo, we wanted to show people. Billl Boazman, Terry Gittings was one of your mates. Mike Cooper, Jeff Hawkins. Bill [Boazman] was there, and we said, “Bill, do a tune.” And he felt a bit embarrassed, because he felt it was our album. And we said, “Nah, come on, man, you’re our mate.” Cooper was more than happy to put his slide on things. We had a scene, we had a vision, and we didn’t care about things. We wanted to do our own thing.

Apps: The record label had more problems with that.

Coston: What happened to the band after Twice As Nice?

Pook: We needed a break.

Apps: The record company lost interest. To be fair, they put a considerable amount of weight behind the first album, but after Twice As Nice, I remember Peter telling us that that they weren’t going to do another one, because they wanted to hear a “direction,” as they called it. They wanted a bag to put it in, and we didn’t have one. Gerald had a lot of things that he wanted to do.

Moore: I moved to London, we moved to London.

Apps: We sort of drifted apart, rather than splitting up. Gerald pulled me aside, and said, “Right, that’s it.”

Moore: I put Heron on whatever gigs I could to keep it going, but in the end, we had different interests.

Apps: You had to leave, Tony had to leave, put in the end, without the record company behind us, there was no way to live by our own devices, so it was harder to stay together.

Coston: How did everyone gig back in touch in the late 70s?

Jones: For me, it was getting the mobile studio together, and we met in Cookham.

Moore: I was hitching a ride.

Jones: And I hadn’t seen you in ages, and said, “Hey, get in,” and you said, “Listen to this.” And we got to the churchyard, and you pulled out a harmonica, and you played....

Moore: “Working For The Dollar.”

Jones: And it got us talking about stuff, and then, with the studio, we had a place  to work out and record. Tony, he was in touch, but he was in Falmouth, which is a long ways away.

Coston: What led to the band picking up and recording again in the 1990s?

Jones: Once again, it was the recording thing. I went on holiday with my wife Lyn, and we happened to be at Black Dog. And I said, “Hey, let me show you where we recorded.” We went down to the farm, to see if it was there, and it was. But a woman said, “Oh, I know all about you.” We talked about the cottage where we recorded, and she said, “Oh, Robin and his family would love to see you.” Robin and his family had bought the album, and on the way home, the idea was hatched that it’d be great to get the guys back together to do an album again.

It also came from me not knowing how widespread our stuff has become. I’d felt like our stuff had been forgotten about, and lost. And I thought that it would-be good to do an nostalgic album to cover the stuff we did years ago, and then do the more modern stuff, and have a double album. One album to cover the old stuff, and one album to bring in the new.

Coston: When did you discover that a new generation had discovered Heron?

Apps: I sussed it from my own kids. They’re in their twenties now, but they were in school. They loved it, and their friends really loved it, and it made me realize. I got to mix with a younger set of musicians, and they all really respected it.

Jones: My discovery was the internet, getting a website, and all sorts of people contacting us. Young and old, and mainly from Japan. There was a lot of young people from Japan.

Coston: What has been the response to the last couple of albums?

Jones: People keep buying them!

Coston: How do you put your songs together?

Moore: We don’t, really. Roy has a song, or whoever has a song, brings it along and we arrange it without saying much, and arranging anything. People just do their thing naturally, and it either works, or it doesn’t.

Apps: Everybody brings their own thing to it, and somehow it works.

Coston: Describe the new album.

Moore: It has a sound that keeps old Heron elements of harmonies, and melody, and pastoral mood, but its not really the same. It’s more grown up rhythmically, and more grown up harmonies.

Apps: We’re much better musicians than we were then.

Coston: Would you say that you all work at your own pace?

Pook: I do, yes. Very, very slowly.

Apps: Gerald works on his very, very frantically.

Coston: It’s now been forty years since Heron’s debut album. Did you expect to still be doing this, all these years later?

Moore: As a kid, I always dreamed that I would doing this, when I was older. I saw Chuck Berry play when he was fifty, and fifty seemed like an incredible age to do a gig. But I don’t feel like as I thought it would feel. I would’ve thought way back then that I’d still be full of the idealism I had back then. But I suppose I’m more professional now.

Apps: I envisioned myself as a Hemingway character on the beach, and young musicians coming to me for advice. (laughs)

Coston: Finish this sentence. Heron is....

Pook: Fab! (laughs)

Jones: Without regrets.

Check out Heron’s website at www.relaxx.co.uk

Kilgo's Canteen reunion photos

Kilgo's Canteen reunion
January 12th, 2012

Kilgo's Canteen was a popular teen and dance show that was taped at WSOC from 1957 to 1970, and syndicated throughout the Southeast US. I happened to have lunch at Jonathan's Restaurant in Matthews, NC last month, and saw a flyer about this event. Olivia Fortson, my fantastic editor at the Observer, was gracious in letting me cover this event for her, and it also gave me the chance to speak to host Jimmy Kilgo for my There Was A Time book. Here's a few photos from the event, for those of you that were there, or wish you had been. Anyone who would like copies of these photos can email me at danielcoston@aol.com. And, twenty minutes after photographing this event, I was photographing B. B. King, which you can see via the link from last week's post.

Mike & The Ravens interview

Mike & The Ravens: From Pillar to Post

by Daniel Coston

“Logistics, mostly,” replies noted writer, producer and musician Will Shade, when asked why Pillar To Post, the new album from Mike & The Ravens, will be their last, after 50 years together. “Getting all six of us in one place for an extended amount of time has become very difficult. Especially since we rehearse, arrange and record in the studio. The band does not rehearse ahead of time. [Guitarist] Steve [Blodgett] might bring in some demos that he’s written beforehand, but the band learns the songs and arranges them in the studio, and finally records them. This takes months, which entails both [vocalist] Mike [Brassard] and I leaving our respective homes for up to half a year!” 

Formed in Pennsylvania in 1960, Mike & The Ravens put together a raucous sound that pre-dated garage rock and punk by half a decade. Their adherence to all-original material caught the ears of fans throughout the Northeast US area. After breaking up in 1962, the band did not reconvene until Shade put them back together some forty years later. “I found a live tape of them playing at Rollerland in 1962,” remembers Shade. “They sounded like an R&B Ramones. They played fast as hell. They didn’t so much perform songs, as get them over with. I told them that’s what I wanted.”

When asked how the band has been able to do this again with the original lineup, Shade responds, “Through sheer good luck! And since most of them abandoned music, they didn’t succumb to the clichés, like drug and drink. They formed when Eisenhower was still President!” 

For their new album, “The band was far tighter then they’d been when they got back to record their first album, ‘Noisy Boys! The Saxony Sessions,’ in 2006,” adds Shade. “For that album, some of the members hadn’t touched their instruments in decades. Not only were they up to running speed on this album, they also knew what was expected of them.

When asked to describe the band, founding member Steve Blodgett responds, “Lots of pent-up energy and frustration. A total of 320-plus years. Everyone likes to joke around. The line between joking around, and rock and roll is pretty thin. We know each other very well.”  

More records from the individual bandmembers are in the works, adds Shade. “It’s been a real sonic adventure and spiritual odyssey. I used to be frightened of aging. But I remember standing in the studio with Mike. We were listening to the Johnny Burnette Rock ‘n’ Roll Trio, and both of us were jumping up and down, playing air guitar. I wasn’t a guy in my 30s, and Mike wasn’t a guy in his 60s. We were both teens being transported by the spirit of music. I see guys out in the studio working harder and longer hours than any 20-year-olds I’ve seen. I’m absolutely in awe of their willingness to jump off a cliff, with no idea where they’re going to land.”