The Atlanta based garage rock quartet the Black Lips have been a pretty busy band since their 1999 inception. Releasing five albums since 2003, the band has been touring nonstop since that time and have played dozens of countries in their travels. After the quick and chaotic period of recording for their 2009 album “Two Million Thousand”, the band took their time recording their upcoming album, “Arabia Mountain” (due out in June).
With the album all done and the final touches being put on it, the band is embarking on a length tour with the Vivian Girls. About a week before the tour was set to begin, I was able to chat with bassist Jared Swilley as he was enjoying some time at home before the tour. We discussed the issues the band had with their last album, as well as a potential exciting yet dangerous tour that the band may play later this year.
Here’s my interview with Jared:
AM: What was the band’s mindset going into the recording of “Arabia Mountain”?
JS: Just to make it the best ever, but you always want to make every upcoming album the best ever, you know? I’m not knocking the last record, it wasn’t bad, but there was just something not right with it. I think it came from the fact that it was extremely rushed and we only took a week and a half to record it. We thought that would be a big album for us and even though the reviews were good, it really didn’t take us anywhere. This time, we paid way more attention to detail and took enough to record and think out the album.
AM: What do you think were the major issues in the recording of your last album?
JS: We were young, but we rushed it out in order to go out on tour. We had an offer to do some major touring, almost 10 months worth and decided to rush things. We did the album ourselves, and I was even writing songs on the fly in the studio. We didn’t have the proper equipment, including this really primitive track back machine. It was so hot in Atlanta at that time that I was recording the album in my underwear. We couldn’t run fans because the microphones and machines would pick it up. It was a tough period.
AM: So, it’s easy to say this was the longest that the band took to record material?
JS: Oh, by far it was the longest time we ever took to record an album. But we didn’t record all of the 9 months though- we did some touring in between recording. We were probably recording for 30 days and some extra days for mixing and other stuff- but for us, it was the longest time we took. It gave us long periods to write and rewrite and get it right.
AM: What did producer Mark Ronson bring to the table for this album?
JS: He pays a lot of detail to attention. He wants to make sure that the drums sounded old, warm and good. He had these cool old microphones and wanted an older sound to it. We learned when recording that he really understands vintage gear and is really good at the arrangement of the songs.
AM: The band has played many gigs overseas, anything else planned for the near future?
JS: Well, we have some Midwest and west coast dates later in the year, as well as some of the European festivals. But what we’re really hoping happens is a tour of the Middle East. We have a friend there trying to get us in countries like Turkey, Syria and perhaps a few places in Northern Iraq. We were recently contacted by someone that works in the Ministry of Entertainment or something like that who had seen us with the Raconteurs a few years back and really is into the band and wants to have us there. But obviously, with this drama of this cultural revolution going on in the middle east at the moment- who knows if we’ll be able to do it.
The Black Lips plays at the Magic Stick on Sunday, April 17th. Tickets are $13 and are available at www.ticketmaster.com. Additional tour dates and band info can be found at www.black-lips.com.
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