Aging rock act on new album: This time we wanted to go back to the basics

Seems like every other issue of RS features a legacy act describing their new album as a return to basics, or something similar. I feel like I've seen Dave Grohl and Bono do so recently but can't find the quotes. Hopefully this Muse statement, even if it is slightly anti-album, can serve as inspiration to get the thread rolling:

https://i.imgur.com/5T3KfOi.jpg

But in a radical twist, they have decided to lose the high concepts and release new songs individually weeks after recording them (...) "It reminds me of when the band first started..."

This thread should also have room for quotes in the spirit of "we went into the studio with 300 new songs and in the end only 14 made the cut"

i'm into this radical new idea of just focusing on one song at a time.

"..and release new songs individually weeks after recording them .."

didn't Ash try this approach for a while ?

here's Grohl on the latest Foo Fighters:

So we were like, ‘God, if we were to record again, how are we going switch it up?’ For us to switch it up right now (whistles) would be to go into the studio and make a record like a normal band. That kind of became the focus, it was like alright, now that we can sort of shed that other stuff and just write songs and record them in a studio as you do.”

https://www.alternativenation.net/dave-grohl-reveals-foo-fighters-will-switch-new-album-sonic-highways-dead/

wait, what were they doing before? not writing songs and recording them on the moon?

seattle grunge rocker rob halford will tell you that it isn't always so easy to go back to basics.

https://scontent-lga3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/28685635_10156694694627137_7491661337674484406_n.jpg?oh=262fb34b4144f30bdf1ec04eae601257&oe=5B44A395

haha, I love that image

This is Wire since they came back for the 2nd time, isn't it?

Flagpole: This interview is about your new album, but since it hasn't been released yet, can you tell us something about it?

Michael Stipe: Well, it's a lot louder than the last three records. It's
very raw, and, uh, punk rock. It's kind of in-your-face.

Joe Strummer on Cut the Crap

"We wanted to strip it down, back to punk rock roots"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O12XU0KS8fU

Ha, that Grohl quote is priceless! Pure Spinal Tap.

I'm guessing mookieproof's Stipe qupte relates to Monster.

*quote, even.

Was searching for a Nick Cave quote, circa Nocturama and Grinderman, on writing and recording quickly. Fifth google result already bled into Pixies interviews:

https://dailycollegian.com/2017/09/a-conversation-with-the-pixies-joey-santiago/

DC: Your new record “Head Carrier” sonically builds off the new addition of Bassist Paz Lenchantin. I’m wondering what it was like to get into the studio with her? Did she contribute anything new to the Pixies sonically?

JS: Yes, of course she did. Her suggestions and her arrangement ideas. When we got into the studio with Paz, it was time to get back to basics, whatever that meant with us. We didn’t have to work hard at finding a new connection. When we start making music, it’s just making music. There’s no thought or pressure involved in it. If it’s good, it’s good. If it’s bad it’s bad. That was our only criterion.

Talking of Spinal Tap, here's Scouting For Girls on how people don't want to watch them play anymore because they're shit:

We’ve gone back to basics and we’re playing Academies and smaller venues, it’s all very intimate and we much prefer playing the smaller venues. We love being on the road and seeing the country.

By the way, in the same interview they actually do talk about going back to basics in the recording of their new album, they use the phrase back to basics twice in the same interview, but that's enough from Scouting For Girls.

i swear every single new U2 album has a quote from Bono that's akin to, "we just wanted to get back to the sound of four guys in a room playing."

https://cps-static.rovicorp.com/3/JPG_250/MI0003/892/MI0003892592.jpg

came here to post about u2, beaten to the punch

I'm sure there is a Chris Frantz quote about getting back to basics before Little Creatures was released. Google (or my memory) is failing me.

U2 find it impossible to make an album that sounds like that, which is the funniest thing about it.

(xxxposts)

someone mentioned Stipe but i was gonna say there's at least a couple R.E.M. records that qualify for this, right?

"back to basics is the death of romance" --Stephin Merritt

bill wyman's bass is v cool

someone mentioned Stipe but i was gonna say there's at least a couple R.E.M. records that qualify for this, right?

― alpine static, Wednesday, March 7, 2018 9:24 PM (fifty-two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah that quote Mookieproof posted refers to Monster (as Turrican guessed) but I automatically assumed it was Accelerate...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6gKe9Fr2ok

go into the studio and make a record like a normal band
go into the studio and make a record like a normal band
go into the studio and make a record like a normal band
go into the studio and make a record like a normal band
go into the studio and make a record like a normal band
go into the studio and make a record like a normal band
go into the studio and make a record like a normal band

Ok I Googled "back to their roots" in Goog News and here's what I found:

Of Mice & Men go back to their roots on new material -
“I think what we’re doing right now, which is the most important thing that we can, is really just honing in on the elements of what makes our music sound like our music.”

25 YEARS AGO: BON JOVI RESTART THEIR CAREER WITH ‘KEEP THE FAITH’ -
“We needed to find ourselves individually,” he said. “The Bon Jovi situation was extremely successful, and I was very happy to be in a band of that stature, but there was almost nothing left to write about at that point — we were all just so tired and so burnt out. All we were writing about was bein’ on the road and bein’ in a hotel room and bein’ lonely and talkin’ to your girlfriend on the phone. They miss you and you miss them — that was what our lives were about at that time.
“So to actually take a step back and see what was happening in our lives gave us some more stuff to write about. Plus, all of a sudden I was working with people like Eric Clapton and Tony Levin from Peter Gabriel, and Jon was workin’ with Elton John and Jeff Beck, so workin’ with all these different artists gave us different influences, which we brought back to Bon Jovi. It made it fresh and brand-new, and we were excited to be with each other again."

Every huge artist has their "Keep the Faith"

Future historians will explain all culture - indeed, all of history - primarily through the lens of Bon Jovi's discography.

John F. Kennedy was the American presidency's "New Jersey."

"The Winter's Tale" is Shakespeare's "Keep the Faith."

The Ford Model T is the "Slippery When Wet" of cars.

Stonewall Jackson's famous flank march at the Battle of Chancellorsville was the Confederacy's "Have a Nice Day."

We needed to find ourselves individually
We needed to find ourselves individually
We needed to find ourselves individually
We needed to find ourselves individually
We needed to find ourselves individually

actually my favorite Bono-ism on this front is referring to Achtung Baby as "the sound of four men chopping down the Joshua Tree."

suck on that, eno

There's some serious g-droppin' goin' on in that Bon Jovi quote

also rofling at Puffin's history lesson through the lens of the BJ discography

Never said by Yes, Tangerine Dream, or Gentle Giant.

This thread should also have room for quotes in the spirit of "we went into the studio with 300 new songs and in the end only 14 made the cut"

ahah, I have always hated these comments.
Especially when you hear how shitty the remaining 14 tracks are, most of the times... makes you wonder what the other 286 sounded like !

Animal Collective: 'We wrote our new album as a rock band'

Asked how it differed from their previous albums, Weitz said: “We all moved back to Baltimore, the last few records we’ve written apart and by sending each other stuff. This time we all wanted to write in the same room together. We went back to our roots and we got a little practice space in this barn on Josh’s [Dibb – fellow band member] mum’s property and it was like being a garage band again.”

This one we wrote as a rock band in a room and we wanted to record it that way.”

and yeah, the original "back to basics" move was the Beatles' Get Back sessions, surely.
Or maybe the Stones' Beggars Banquet, actually.

^^ bonus points for "a barn" xpost

and yeah, the original "back to basics" move was the Beatles' Get Back sessions, surely.

― AlXTC from Paris

wasn't this inspired by the Basement Tapes?

While the band's two albums for Sony have been rockers, Ness says Social Distortion plans to turn it up a notch for its next studio effort.

"I'm about half way through writing the new album and on it I'm going to stray away a little bit from the country and blues influence and I'm digging back to that late '70s feel. It's a personal thing I gotta do. I just want a real hard-edged, stake-our-claim, back-to-our-roots record.

"It's like, 'Hey, you flannel-wearing, pony-tail, pierced-nose kid. I took beatings so you could dress the way you dress and we were doing this long before any of these other people were doing it,"' says Ness.

not an album but an early back-to-basics move: Elvis' 1968 comeback special

yeah, I thought about the Basement Tapes but how was it wasn't really a return to bacics, was it ? It wasn't Dylan going back to his folk songs alone with his guitar...

the unspoken truism here presumably being that layman's-terms descriptions of the recording process are fundamentally dull

like, I'm struggling to think of a plausible summary of one which wouldn't invoke some form of music biz cliche

suspect the audience that things like the OP are written for is now small and stubborn enough that if this kind of thing got excised from the 'big band with new album' narrative entirely they would be sore about it just because it's a thing that one expects to read

ouch sorry : but it wasn't really a return to bacics, was it ?

Some bands get back to basics differently than others.

"For us, we wanted to go back to our roots. So we said, yeah, let's go to a house like the Stones and Led Zeppelin used to do. Let's just do our own project and have some fun.

"So, we rented a house in Spain, a villa overlooking the sea, and that allowed us to make a really free sounding record. I mean, on Hysteria, I remember spending a month recording just one guitar riff. On Slang the emphasis was on the song, the inspiration for it, the vibe.

"We wanted it to have more the feel of classic albums by bands we liked, like the Stones or Zeppelin."

Also, wondering about artists with a very strong and long back catalog but who NEVER did the "back to basic" move : Prince (I'm not too sure about his 90s output) ? Bowie ? Stevie Wonder ?

yeah, I thought about the Basement Tapes but how was it wasn't really a return to bacics, was it ? It wasn't Dylan going back to his folk songs alone with his guitar...

― AlXTC from Paris

as good an explanation as any for why the "basement tapes" don't suck but every single "back to basics" record it inspired does

Wasn't Hours Bowie's Back to Basics?

I'm sure Bowie did this, he tried virtually everything else post-Scary Monsters.

sounds kinda awesome

what's it gonna taaaaaaaaaaaaake

record directly onto the WAV file you'll upload to spotify u cowards

jk it does sound kinda awesome

“‘A La Sala,’ I used to scream it around my house when I was a little girl, to get everybody in the living room; to get my family together. That’s kind of what recording the new album felt like. Emotionally there was a desire to get back to square-one between the three of us, to where we came from–in sonics and in feeling. Let’s get back there.” - Laura Lee Ochoa

Stereogum on Pearl Jam:

Spurred on by recording his 2022 solo LP Earthling with the young super-producer Andrew Watt, Eddie Vedder had an idea. He told Stone Gossard, Jeff Ament, Mike McCready, and Matt Cameron to come down to Watt’s studio in LA, with a “Let’s just see what happens” kind of attitude. In a complete reversal from their past several recordings, the five members of Pearl Jam gathered in a room, banged out ideas together, and wrote a host of songs in a matter of days.

A+

The album’s recording process was fully analogue: recorded on tape, mixed on an analogue console and cut directly on to the acetate used to make records.

The Night Dreamer label does direct-to-disc recordings, mostly by jazz acts but also by some others (Seu Jorge, Seun Kuti & Egypt 80). They're generally really good.

re-read the foo fighters' concrete and gold wiki article the other day and it has quite an enterprising paragraph

The band describe the album's sound as where "hard rock extremes and pop sensibilities collide",[17] comparing it conceptually to being "Motorhead's version of Sgt. Pepper"[18] or "Slayer making Pet Sounds".[19] Explaining further, the album's sound was described as combining heavy guitar riffs with "lush harmonic complexities".[20] Hawkins added that in contrast to their mindset in the previous albums going to "let's make a good rock n' roll record", Concrete and Gold was "the weird record."[21] Grohl described the title track, which features the vocals of Shawn Stockman from Boyz II Men, as sounding like "Black Sabbath and Pink Floyd" and explaining that they "built a choir" out of Stockman's vocal takes, overdubbing them so it sounds "like 40 vocals stacked".[11] Hawkins described the album as their "most psychedelic" and "weirdest" sounding.[10] Writers described the album's overall sound as hard rock[22][23] and progressive rock.[24][25]

still sounds like their previous albums alas

From that Adrianne Lenker article upthread

Everyone recorded together,

got it

not wearing headphones

uhhh...kind feel like the authenticity goal-posts are getting moved on me

they left not having listened back to a single take, trusting that Weinrobe had captured everything.

what?

We went back to basics. Didn't even take our guitars out of cases. It was like when we started, just four guys sitting in a room not playing anything.

If we need to, we’ll miss soundcheck and just sit under a tree and talk for four hours, because we can’t play music together unless we feel connected. We therapise one another.”

It does seem like if Big Thief wanted to pivot to making podcasts, their fans would be fine with that.

Recording in the same room without headphones is super nice (ie no iso booths, hearing your live sound, plenty of bleed, just like rehearsing), I get that. But yeah they lost me at not listening to any takes. I assume that means not breaking the momentum by going into the control room, and going back later to select takes and mix?

Our bass player just left in the middle of the album and walked outside and got hit by a bus.

Didn't want to jeopardize the album by "overplaying"

xpost re:foos-
i'm so pleased that the phrase "pop sensibilities" is still being used in 2024. i also really like sarcasm.

More like Poop sensibilities

Just five guys in a room, three of them high, arguing and being passive aggressive.

fwiw, sounds like it was 2017 (and the idea sounds cool! even if the results weren't?)

I love this thread so much, every revive is a gift

Just five guys in a room, three of them high, arguing and being passive aggressive.

― President Keyes, Tuesday, April 2, 2024 12:45 PM (thirty-five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I would love to see more big time bands be this honest in the promotion cycle/press release

I'm checking out that FF album... it def. (and sadly) doesn't sound like "Slayer making Pet Sounds," ha ha

Motorheadpepper?

We wanted to go back to sick bass

"Good Decapitations"

I love this thread so much, every revive is a gift

I Just Wasn’t Made For This Sacrifice

God Only Knows (How Much He Hates Us All)

Summer Days... And Summer Nights!

(I know that's Megadeth, but it's all I got)

this is only thread adjacent but all the same, Shabaka Hutchings joins the recording without headphones cadre:

So for instance, one of the things that I did was have everyone not use any headphones or separation, and tell everyone that we want to be playing as if it’s the introduction or the outro of any particular song. We want to hold that space. Just to get them into a mold of how they engage together.

https://www.stereogum.com/2258591/shabaka-hutchings-perceive-its-beauty-acknowledge-its-truth/interviews/qa/

The album’s recording process was fully analogue: recorded on tape, mixed on an analogue console and cut directly on to the acetate used to make records.

And 99.9% enjoyed by people listening on laptop speakers through a digital interface

OTM

Geoff Barrow on the new Beak> album, >>>>:

After playing hundreds of gigs and festivals over the years we felt that touring had started to influence our writing to the point we weren’t sure who we were anymore. So we decided to go back to the origins of where we were at on our first album—with zero expectations and just playing together in a room.

Beak to Basics

From the Pitchfork review of the new Godspeed album:

More than any Godspeed record to date, “NO TITLE AS OF 13 FEBRUARY 2024 28,340 DEAD” feels less like a deliberate, intricately structured composition than the natural, intuitive result of friends seated in a room together, hanging on to each other, and finding salvation in the adrenalizing rush of a great riff

dälek

“The Essence is a window to where me and Mike are at right now. We quite literally took it back to the essence on this joint.”

“Straight up me on the MPC 3000 and Mike on Processed guitar, playing off of each other as we created the track. Lyrics and flow are central to the joint and dictated the direction of the production and how we sculpted the arrangement. As always there are layers to the meaning but I also wanted to be crystal clear on what I was spitting. There are minimal to no overdubs. We somehow kept the heavy “wall of sound” feel but stripped away superfluous layers to just the parts and pieces that were needed to complete this as a “dälek” song. This is just a taste of what is coming.”

https://www.stereogum.com/2306908/chiptune-band-anamanaguchi-wrote-a-rock-album-in-the-american-football-house/music/

“Crazy sounds come from normal-looking houses,” Anamanaguchi’s Peter Berkman says. “We made the decision to be physically in the same room for nearly every step, writing everything as a group instead of editing and tweaking files over the internet.”

Ultimately, Anamanaguchi recorded Anyway with in-the-red psych overlord Dave Fridmann (The Flaming Lips, MGMT, Sleater-Kinney) at his Tarbox Road Studios in upstate New York, straight to tape using vintage analog gear.

“We wanted to swap our social diseases in person.”

straight to SSD using digital VSTs

Story about the 15 anniversary of the last STP album with Weiland mentions the problem with the opposite of this aesthetic:

“I would never want to make a record like that again,” said Robert DeLeo. “It was literally the three of us in a place and Scott over here somewhere else and sending over vocals. We took on the role of producing that record and, as a producer, when those vocals were coming over, they were not satisfactory. They just weren’t… It was literally making a record without having four guys in a room, you’re doing four different versions of a song to figure out what key is the best because the communication and the people surrounding Scott, it had come to that point.”

https://www.loudersound.com/features/the-troubled-story-behind-stone-temple-pilots-sixth-album

It was literally making a record without having four guys in a room

Lol at this actual quote.

Robert DeLeo, quit trolling the "Aging rock act on new album" thread

Bono, perennially laid back and loquacious, suddenly becomes energised when he talks about U2's recent writing sessions.

"It was just the four of us in a room, trying a new song and going, 'What's that feeling? Oh right, that's chemistry'.

"We had it when we were 17. We've had it over the years but you lose it sometimes, [especially because] the way music is assembled these days is not friendly to that chemistry.

"But isn't it strange that it's just got to the moment when just bass, drums, guitar and a loudmouth singer sounds like an original idea.

"That's where we're at in 2025."

'What's that feeling? Oh right, that's chemistry'.

he's such a twat

Yes a very original idea about which we have 708 examples of itt

I think this is the one to beat:

Call it mythology, call it world-building, call it four guys in a room chasing the cosmos.

“We hit the mountaintop with The Battle at Garden’s Gate,” Sam tells me. “That was everything we wanted to do creatively at that point. So the natural next step was going back to where we started—just four guys writing and recording together with as little overthinking as possible.”

“Just four multimillionaires in a room, man.” (xpost re: U2)

I have to say that the late Jon Hassell's "just a man blowing into his non-effected trumpet" spin on this concept turned out one of his best, however unusual of him. (Fascinoma, 1999)

Was reading wikis about Squeeze albums before bed last night (you know, as one does), and found this about Some Fantastic Place

Some Fantastic Place marked another change for the band, in that Difford and Tilbrook, who typically write lyrics and music separately (with Difford usually giving Tilbook completed lyrics to write the music for), went for a relatively simplistic approach, sitting down together and writing the majority of the album as a team. The duo credited this approach with revitalising their working relationship, bringing about a "big jump" in their creativity level. Tilbrook commented: "It was like discovering a new partnership, because suddenly we were able to bounce ideas back and forth off each other."[2]

Tilbrook had recently built a recording studio near his London home, so the band visited the studio everyday, both rehearsing and recording the record there.[5] The studio was allegedly located in Blackheath above a welder's shop.[7] The writing took approximately two months, and "for two or three of the songs, [the band] sat in the same room with each other." Difford explained: "Glenn created an environment, and to leave our homes and go and work together was something new. It was good to sit in the same room and be inventive. It makes things simpler; you don't have to wait for the results. It's quite inspirational."[5] The studio was relatively small, which Tilbrook felt worked for the band just as he hoped it would, noting the "really good vibe."[6]

Compared to previous albums, more open debate concerning the song arrangements occurred between members than on any previous Squeeze album, which Difford called "a lot of to-ing and fro-ing" and believed helped make Some Fantastic Place one of the band's better albums. Each band member had strong ideas on how they wanted the songs to be, and they stood on firm ground when they believed they were right. Difford enjoyed this experience "because it showed that people really cared."

Did you hear the one about the band comprised of quadruplet brothers who went back to basics?

"We wanted it to just be four guys in a womb."

Or that band made up of very small people who practice inside an electronic vacuum cleaner: Four Guys in a Roomba.

I did like "Everything in the World," Squeeze's best single since the early '80s and it got actual airplay on my college station. Maybe the revitalization worked:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vkj66DTDz-g