Gigaton: Official album thread

[VinylGuy]

I feel those two were always tight. They see thing similar in terms of music, art and the direction of the band.

[Leatherhead]

I honestly think Stone has been a problem. I don't think he's cared much for a while now. Ed was probably trying, but might've felt like he was alone and so then turned to BOB for a lot of things.

[Ms Harmless]

Stone's song on this album is one of the best, and Stone's song on the last album was one of the worst

I have a sneaky feeling that isn't Stone's fault

[VinylGuy]

I honestly think Stone has been a problem. I don't think he's cared much for a while now. Ed was probably trying, but might've felt like he was alone and so then turned to BOB for a lot of things.

A problem for what? The inner work of this band remains a mystery. We didnt even know they were working so hard on an album.

[LetMeSleep]

Looking at the ratio of songs on each album I'd say there has been a BOB/Ed leadership team at play. I've said it before that Ed gets to spend as much time as he wants/can on his material so the songs pretty much come in fully formed. This leads to about 5 tracks on each album being Ed songs. Throw in 1 or 2 each from the other guys and Ed then deems what he wants to work with lyrically and melodically. There's the other 6 or so tracks. Album done. If BOB wants to work quickly then Ed songs are the easiest.

If I was Stone in that setting I'd be pretty nonplussed about putting in too much energy. Where as Mike probably sees it as an opportunity.

[Tuolumne]

I'm gonna sound like a broken record, and Gigaton is great, but they were not lazy the 3 albums before that. The complete opposite. Just a different approach. On Gigaton they let the songs breathe naturally. On the previous albums, they would have lasered in on songs like Superblood, spent huge amounts of time streamlining the song structure, extended verses, removed transitions, connecting tempo changes, and tightening the music like crazy. It's obvious to me how hard they worked, the only criticism I will deem valid is that they *over* worked those songs. The mentality that they had and with BoB present, the 06-13 version of that band would have viewed some of these new songs as too "sloppy". They were going for cutthroat efficiency. A sideways detour into a tag like in Never Destination or the outro to Who Ever Said? Pull it out. Gigaton, they let the natural feelings of the songs shine, the compositions are kept loose and they probably labored over the sonics rather than song efficiency this time out. They've never had a major creative decline, IMO. 11 (well, 12 if you ask me) really good to excellent albums. They overcame the risk of a steep decline when they spread out the songwriting duties. One of the reasons I love this band.

My sense is that the majority of RM considers sonic layers to be the equivalent of hard work and fully fleshed out ideas. While that may be the case in terms of hard work, it is *not* lazy to beat up a song until it's tight and efficient. They followed the garage punk and pop songwriting ethos of "don't bore us get to the chorus" on Backspacer, and it is brilliant.

But back to Gigaton, I love that they are using guitars as a textural instrument, and letting the groove and keyboard atmosphere take a lead role on alot of the songs. I *really* like the idea of Ed's older voice matching up against organs, keyboard, drum programs, and synths. I could see River Cross, DOTC, Alright, and Seven oclock being great templates for his voice as he moves into his 60s in age. He's figured out a way to make that work. More importantly, the band appears to have figured out how to play behind him in this format. That's the biggest accomplishment of this album. Jeff, Stone, Matt adding in instrumentation that isn't their typical wheelhouse is extremely exciting. It shines a light on their talents and gives them new roles within the band. River Cross is actually flirting with a Doors or Velvet Undergroun kina trancy thing before they let allow a sort of earnest lift close it out, which is totally in character for Ed and the band. I really hope they keep building to these new things.

the problem is, there is nothing "garage rock" about Backspacer; it's far too slickly produced for that; they achieve it, and new wave, better on Gigaton; I find that apologists for Backspacer are always rehashing their stated aims in recording it, because those stated aims were absolutely fine; before Backspacer came out and it was described to us in theory, I was super into finding out how they would accomplish that; I was excited; but the actual album is entertaining in parts, not great according to what we were told we were getting (in my opinion)

I think you are focused on the aesthetic of garage rock. I'm talking about efficient and to-the-point song structure. Don't bore us get to the chorus. As far as the sheen, that's what they were going for. They wanted it to be inviting. Backspacer is a sparkly and shiny album with loads of hooks and melodies. It's a great album to put on in front of people. It's great big tent that allows anyone and everyone to come in and enjoy, it's like a good group event. It's a very "extroverted" album. Gigaton, for as much as I'm loving it, is a different animal. It's an "introverted" album. It doesn't exactly grab me by the balls and bring me in. It more draws me in and absorbs me into it's world. I want to be alone when I listen to Gigaton and I want to close my eyes and take it in. I don't see how people can't like both types of approaches. It's not an either/or proposition.

[VinylGuy]

Again, i dont even know how they work. Ed seems to decide a lot, yes but the inner work is still a mystery. Gossard has a lot of writing credits these last couple of albums.

And i think Ed taking the reign of choices goes back to Vitalogy.

[96583UP]

hooray for the band realizing that BOB stifled their creativity

[LetMeSleep]

Again, i dont even know how they work. Ed seems to decide a lot, yes but the inner work is still a mystery. Gossard has a lot of writing credits these last couple of albums.

And i think Ed taking the reign of choices goes back to Vitalogy.

Stone hasn't had much. Over the past 3 albums:

BS: AtW, SS.
LB: LtRP
G: Buckle Up

[Ms Harmless]

hooray for the band realizing that BOB stifled their creativity

this is a miracle

[VinylGuy]

Again, i dont even know how they work. Ed seems to decide a lot, yes but the inner work is still a mystery. Gossard has a lot of writing credits these last couple of albums.

And i think Ed taking the reign of choices goes back to Vitalogy.

Stone hasn't had much. Over the past 3 albums:

BS: AtW, SS.
LB: LtRP
G: Buckle Up

He shares a lot of writing credits of many other songs. There is a list somewhere here of all the stuff he wrote or co wrote.

[Ms Harmless]

I'm gonna sound like a broken record, and Gigaton is great, but they were not lazy the 3 albums before that. The complete opposite. Just a different approach. On Gigaton they let the songs breathe naturally. On the previous albums, they would have lasered in on songs like Superblood, spent huge amounts of time streamlining the song structure, extended verses, removed transitions, connecting tempo changes, and tightening the music like crazy. It's obvious to me how hard they worked, the only criticism I will deem valid is that they *over* worked those songs. The mentality that they had and with BoB present, the 06-13 version of that band would have viewed some of these new songs as too "sloppy". They were going for cutthroat efficiency. A sideways detour into a tag like in Never Destination or the outro to Who Ever Said? Pull it out. Gigaton, they let the natural feelings of the songs shine, the compositions are kept loose and they probably labored over the sonics rather than song efficiency this time out. They've never had a major creative decline, IMO. 11 (well, 12 if you ask me) really good to excellent albums. They overcame the risk of a steep decline when they spread out the songwriting duties. One of the reasons I love this band.

My sense is that the majority of RM considers sonic layers to be the equivalent of hard work and fully fleshed out ideas. While that may be the case in terms of hard work, it is *not* lazy to beat up a song until it's tight and efficient. They followed the garage punk and pop songwriting ethos of "don't bore us get to the chorus" on Backspacer, and it is brilliant.

But back to Gigaton, I love that they are using guitars as a textural instrument, and letting the groove and keyboard atmosphere take a lead role on alot of the songs. I *really* like the idea of Ed's older voice matching up against organs, keyboard, drum programs, and synths. I could see River Cross, DOTC, Alright, and Seven oclock being great templates for his voice as he moves into his 60s in age. He's figured out a way to make that work. More importantly, the band appears to have figured out how to play behind him in this format. That's the biggest accomplishment of this album. Jeff, Stone, Matt adding in instrumentation that isn't their typical wheelhouse is extremely exciting. It shines a light on their talents and gives them new roles within the band. River Cross is actually flirting with a Doors or Velvet Undergroun kina trancy thing before they let allow a sort of earnest lift close it out, which is totally in character for Ed and the band. I really hope they keep building to these new things.

the problem is, there is nothing "garage rock" about Backspacer; it's far too slickly produced for that; they achieve it, and new wave, better on Gigaton; I find that apologists for Backspacer are always rehashing their stated aims in recording it, because those stated aims were absolutely fine; before Backspacer came out and it was described to us in theory, I was super into finding out how they would accomplish that; I was excited; but the actual album is entertaining in parts, not great according to what we were told we were getting (in my opinion)

I think you are focused on the aesthetic of garage rock. I'm talking about efficient and to-the-point song structure. Don't bore us get to the chorus. As far as the sheen, that's what they were going for. They wanted it to be inviting. Backspacer is a sparkly and shiny album with loads of hooks and melodies. It's a great album to put on in front of people. It's great big tent that allows anyone and everyone to come in and enjoy, it's like a good group event. It's a very "extroverted" album. Gigaton, for as much as I'm loving it, is a different animal. It's an "introverted" album. It doesn't exactly grab me by the balls and bring me in. It more draws me in and absorbs me into it's world. I want to be alone when I listen to Gigaton and I want to close my eyes and take it in. I don't see how people can't like both types of approaches. It's not an either/or proposition.

OK but a lot of different musical styles are efficient and streamlined and simple; there is nothing "garage rock" about those recording choices, OR new wave frankly, so why even reference those things? Taylor Swift songs are catchy and to-the-point, no one would call them "garage rock"; it's a pointless reference if the aesthetic choices are antithetical

[Tuolumne]

I'm gonna sound like a broken record, and Gigaton is great, but they were not lazy the 3 albums before that. The complete opposite. Just a different approach. On Gigaton they let the songs breathe naturally. On the previous albums, they would have lasered in on songs like Superblood, spent huge amounts of time streamlining the song structure, extended verses, removed transitions, connecting tempo changes, and tightening the music like crazy. It's obvious to me how hard they worked, the only criticism I will deem valid is that they *over* worked those songs. The mentality that they had and with BoB present, the 06-13 version of that band would have viewed some of these new songs as too "sloppy". They were going for cutthroat efficiency. A sideways detour into a tag like in Never Destination or the outro to Who Ever Said? Pull it out. Gigaton, they let the natural feelings of the songs shine, the compositions are kept loose and they probably labored over the sonics rather than song efficiency this time out. They've never had a major creative decline, IMO. 11 (well, 12 if you ask me) really good to excellent albums. They overcame the risk of a steep decline when they spread out the songwriting duties. One of the reasons I love this band.

My sense is that the majority of RM considers sonic layers to be the equivalent of hard work and fully fleshed out ideas. While that may be the case in terms of hard work, it is *not* lazy to beat up a song until it's tight and efficient. They followed the garage punk and pop songwriting ethos of "don't bore us get to the chorus" on Backspacer, and it is brilliant.

But back to Gigaton, I love that they are using guitars as a textural instrument, and letting the groove and keyboard atmosphere take a lead role on alot of the songs. I *really* like the idea of Ed's older voice matching up against organs, keyboard, drum programs, and synths. I could see River Cross, DOTC, Alright, and Seven oclock being great templates for his voice as he moves into his 60s in age. He's figured out a way to make that work. More importantly, the band appears to have figured out how to play behind him in this format. That's the biggest accomplishment of this album. Jeff, Stone, Matt adding in instrumentation that isn't their typical wheelhouse is extremely exciting. It shines a light on their talents and gives them new roles within the band. River Cross is actually flirting with a Doors or Velvet Undergroun kina trancy thing before they let allow a sort of earnest lift close it out, which is totally in character for Ed and the band. I really hope they keep building to these new things.

the problem is, there is nothing "garage rock" about Backspacer; it's far too slickly produced for that; they achieve it, and new wave, better on Gigaton; I find that apologists for Backspacer are always rehashing their stated aims in recording it, because those stated aims were absolutely fine; before Backspacer came out and it was described to us in theory, I was super into finding out how they would accomplish that; I was excited; but the actual album is entertaining in parts, not great according to what we were told we were getting (in my opinion)

I think you are focused on the aesthetic of garage rock. I'm talking about efficient and to-the-point song structure. Don't bore us get to the chorus. As far as the sheen, that's what they were going for. They wanted it to be inviting. Backspacer is a sparkly and shiny album with loads of hooks and melodies. It's a great album to put on in front of people. It's great big tent that allows anyone and everyone to come in and enjoy, it's like a good group event. It's a very "extroverted" album. Gigaton, for as much as I'm loving it, is a different animal. It's an "introverted" album. It doesn't exactly grab me by the balls and bring me in. It more draws me in and absorbs me into it's world. I want to be alone when I listen to Gigaton and I want to close my eyes and take it in. I don't see how people can't like both types of approaches. It's not an either/or proposition.

OK but a lot of different musical styles are efficient and streamlined and simple; there is nothing "garage rock" about those recording choices, OR new wave frankly, so why even reference those things? Taylor Swift songs are catchy and to-the-point, no one would call them "garage rock"; it's a pointless reference if the aesthetic choices are antithetical

Fine, I won't use "garage rock". Jeezus. I just mean efficient. Hooky, to the point, succinct. Is that okay?

[Ms Harmless]

I'm gonna sound like a broken record, and Gigaton is great, but they were not lazy the 3 albums before that. The complete opposite. Just a different approach. On Gigaton they let the songs breathe naturally. On the previous albums, they would have lasered in on songs like Superblood, spent huge amounts of time streamlining the song structure, extended verses, removed transitions, connecting tempo changes, and tightening the music like crazy. It's obvious to me how hard they worked, the only criticism I will deem valid is that they *over* worked those songs. The mentality that they had and with BoB present, the 06-13 version of that band would have viewed some of these new songs as too "sloppy". They were going for cutthroat efficiency. A sideways detour into a tag like in Never Destination or the outro to Who Ever Said? Pull it out. Gigaton, they let the natural feelings of the songs shine, the compositions are kept loose and they probably labored over the sonics rather than song efficiency this time out. They've never had a major creative decline, IMO. 11 (well, 12 if you ask me) really good to excellent albums. They overcame the risk of a steep decline when they spread out the songwriting duties. One of the reasons I love this band.

My sense is that the majority of RM considers sonic layers to be the equivalent of hard work and fully fleshed out ideas. While that may be the case in terms of hard work, it is *not* lazy to beat up a song until it's tight and efficient. They followed the garage punk and pop songwriting ethos of "don't bore us get to the chorus" on Backspacer, and it is brilliant.

But back to Gigaton, I love that they are using guitars as a textural instrument, and letting the groove and keyboard atmosphere take a lead role on alot of the songs. I *really* like the idea of Ed's older voice matching up against organs, keyboard, drum programs, and synths. I could see River Cross, DOTC, Alright, and Seven oclock being great templates for his voice as he moves into his 60s in age. He's figured out a way to make that work. More importantly, the band appears to have figured out how to play behind him in this format. That's the biggest accomplishment of this album. Jeff, Stone, Matt adding in instrumentation that isn't their typical wheelhouse is extremely exciting. It shines a light on their talents and gives them new roles within the band. River Cross is actually flirting with a Doors or Velvet Undergroun kina trancy thing before they let allow a sort of earnest lift close it out, which is totally in character for Ed and the band. I really hope they keep building to these new things.

the problem is, there is nothing "garage rock" about Backspacer; it's far too slickly produced for that; they achieve it, and new wave, better on Gigaton; I find that apologists for Backspacer are always rehashing their stated aims in recording it, because those stated aims were absolutely fine; before Backspacer came out and it was described to us in theory, I was super into finding out how they would accomplish that; I was excited; but the actual album is entertaining in parts, not great according to what we were told we were getting (in my opinion)

I think you are focused on the aesthetic of garage rock. I'm talking about efficient and to-the-point song structure. Don't bore us get to the chorus. As far as the sheen, that's what they were going for. They wanted it to be inviting. Backspacer is a sparkly and shiny album with loads of hooks and melodies. It's a great album to put on in front of people. It's great big tent that allows anyone and everyone to come in and enjoy, it's like a good group event. It's a very "extroverted" album. Gigaton, for as much as I'm loving it, is a different animal. It's an "introverted" album. It doesn't exactly grab me by the balls and bring me in. It more draws me in and absorbs me into it's world. I want to be alone when I listen to Gigaton and I want to close my eyes and take it in. I don't see how people can't like both types of approaches. It's not an either/or proposition.

OK but a lot of different musical styles are efficient and streamlined and simple; there is nothing "garage rock" about those recording choices, OR new wave frankly, so why even reference those things? Taylor Swift songs are catchy and to-the-point, no one would call them "garage rock"; it's a pointless reference if the aesthetic choices are antithetical

Fine, I won't use "garage rock". Jeezus. I just mean efficient. Hooky, to the point, succinct. Is that okay?

yes

[Ms Harmless]

I'm not trying to be an ass, the band also referenced garage rock and the Ramones and new wave, but Backspacer doesn't really sound like any of those things

[Jorge]

It does sound a little New Wave-ish. "Got Some" certainly does, it's almost a direct lift of Devo. "Speed of Sound," too, with all the synths.

[Ms Harmless]

It does sound a little New Wave-ish. "Got Some" certainly does, it's almost a direct lift of Devo. "Speed of Sound," too, with all the synths.

I hear Devo, yes

[Birds in Hell]

So Jeff was recently on this Missoula-centric podcast (A New Angle) and there's a section of it that is the most illuminating thing I've heard from a band member in regard to their process in the studio.

Nuggets:

- They did bring in BOB for a couple of days and after that they all felt it wasn't working and they weren't really taking chances like they were without BOB.

- Basically, he said that they have a tendency to procrastinate and sometimes certain band members won't really like what another band member has written so they usually have BOB around who can cut through a lot of that stuff and make the session productive and tighten up all the parts. BOB wants "every bar to be meaningful." It sounds like they look to him as a "fixer" of sorts (yea yea yea).

- Said there are 4 or 5 songs on the record that in the past would never have gotten past the demo stage cuz it didn't necessarily fit how they saw themselves as a band.

- He then directly said that the outro on Retrograde would never have been done b/c it's the type of thing BOB wouldn't have deemed worthy. Mentioned that the outro is by far his favorite part of the song. Called it a "space jam."

- He said the experimentation of their process with Josh led to them trying all kinds of things they just wouldn't have before. Part of it was taking time and the other part was having their own studio.

- Jeff is definitely all for experimenting and creating as much as possible. Said he will try to write something every day. Just seems like a super down-to-earth, good dude.

I listened to this and ended up transcribing most of the relevant discussion bits.

Jeff turns into a total space cadet about halfway through his answer about recording the album. Music is, like, so vast.

Jeff, I want to talk about the new album a little bit. Within that, I would have to assume there’s a natural rhythm of some kind to building an album, releasing an album and then going on tour to promote that album - and when you’re recording, I don’t know if you’re thinking of some of these songs, how they’re going to play live and some of that. Can you maybe talk a bit about what that process has traditionally been for you, and then this situation has been so different, it has to be very disruptive.

The unique part about making this record is we started this record three years ago and we started doing it just on our own with Josh and John, who are guys that work in our warehouse studio that we just built three years ago. We thought maybe in the middle of it somewhere we would have Brendan O’Brien, who’s been involved with our most of records, we thought we’d bring him in - and we did, for a couple of days, and at the end of it we were like “ahhh, I liked it better before”.

It felt like we were working at our own pace and we were taking more chances. It’s the good and the bad. The bad part is that we procrastinate like crazy. Somebody would come in one day and not like what somebody did the day before. As long as we kept trusting each other and kept it moving, it was fine. But to finally get the record out, I feel more proud of this record than probably any record we’ve made in the last 20 years, mainly because we did it on our own and we took chances. There’s four or five tunes on the record that were songs that never would have gotten past the demo stage, because it felt like maybe they were outside of what we considered ourselves to be as a band.

To have everybody on board with those songs, and have those songs be on the record, and to be in rehearsals for two weeks - a couple of the weirder songs took a little while but then they started to turn into something and then it started to be really good, and then all of a sudden it was “we can play every one of these songs live” - and that’s such an awesome process, especially having been in a band for thirty years, to feel like we're doing something new still.

John can attest to this, music is so vast, and rhythms and melodies, and the possibilities of making music are so vast that when you can break through to a new level with a group you’ve been doing it with for so long, it’s just such magic. Like John was saying, being comfortable here and being in a practice place and working up new things, and being a drummer it’s like, the possibilities of what you can do with your two legs and your two hands are infinite. I think we both understand that this is a life-long journey in being a musician and being writers and all of that.

So, I think I got off-topic a little bit, but we were in a really good place before the tour got postponed. We were rally cranked to play these songs live. It’s going to happen but it’s going to be a while.

John Wicks (JW): I was in my truck yesterday and I heard that tune, Retrograde. Is that one of the new ones?

Yeah, yeah.

JW: That tune is killing, oh my god.

That was one where, if we would’ve been in the studio with Brendan - he’s so good at tightening everything up and having every bar be meaningful - we probably would’ve lost that whole outro, and to me that’s the best part of the song.

JW: Yeah, I agree.

I mean, the front part of the song is amazing, but the fact that it goes into this space jam at the end is really nice.

JW: It is cool. Super cool.

At what stage of that - I mean, it’s probably different for different tunes, there’s probably tunes where you start, I would imagine, thinking about how it would play live early on, and then others, like you said, it takes you a while to figure out how that would translate. Is that at all part of the calculus with making music?

It’s not for me. I don’t think it is for really anybody in the band. Once the lyrics start to get finished up and then the song is really starting to come together, then you have these thoughts like “wow, this is going to be great live”. And Ed, on almost every record there’s a lyric or two that you just know the crowd’s going to respond to, that’s going to be inclusive, and it’s going to provide a connection. Ed has many strengths but that’s my favourite thing about him is how he can write something that makes everybody in the room feel like he’s talking to them. There’s a few moments like that on this record. Once we started rehearsing those songs, it was like “oh, live, this is just going to crush”, you know, and some of those are rock moments and some are quieter moments.

[wease]

Really cool. Thanks for sharing, guys.

[96583UP]

fuckin eh time to liberate this tour