It’s hot out. I mean really hot. The tabloids, who love this sort of thing, have sent reporters off to watch tarmac bubble, and public transport heading south from the Midlands has come to a standstill thanks to issues outside London. In other directions, there’s a strict speed limit, and the train (by which I arrive in Birmingham) seems to be entirely free of air conditioning, meaning that my t shirt feels like it needs wringing out before I’ve even made it to the venue. In all this, I can only imagine that Crobot must be about ready to explode as they soundcheck in a sweaty, airless venue and so, when I arrive at the O2 Academy to find it beautifully cool and welcoming, it is with no small relief that I step inside to interview the band.
Crobot, by now, need little introduction. Their back catalogue is surprisingly consistent in its quality and groove but, in my humble opinion at least, it is with Motherbrain that all of the band’s previous promise has been hauled out into the light. It is a magnificent album and, writing this interview up some weeks after its release, I can report that my initial fervour has not dimmed. Indeed, since getting a copy of the gorgeous, swirly vinyl (which is discussed during the interview), I’ve grown to appreciate the album more, especially the slower, deeper cuts that seem to come alive within the analogue grooves. Who knows, maybe it’s all in the mind, but Crobot feel like a band custom made for vinyl and, in Motherbrain, they have a record where not a single track is skippable – it’s perfect for the format and will feature high in Album of the Year lists for sure.
On the grill: Brandon Yeagley (vocals) & Chris Bishop (guitar & vocals).
So, the first question really is that you your last record, Welcome to Fat City was a reference to Hunter S. Thompson and a slightly scathing comment on the global condition, I guess, and motherbrain seems to be a little darker still, so I wanted to ask about the title and how the concept came together.
Chris: It started off as just a song that we demoed out, called motherbrain, and we were in the sessions for the album and we really didn’t have anything that we liked better for an album title so we kinda forced it in there a little bit.
Brandon: But yeah, speaking for ourselves in the States, it’s a darker place now…
…have you seen who our Prime Minister is?
Brandon: I wasn’t going to go there… but no, a lot of things happened to us in the last couple of years and we kinda pulled from all of that and we just wanted to make a really heavy record, too…
It feels slightly darker and more psychedelic and, although the opening tracks have that familiar Crobot vibe, it feels like there was an influence from trippier, more alternative music – what sort of things were you taking inspiration from?
Chris: Well, we had a lot of time to write a lot of things, so there were some songs that were really authentic funkadelic and traditional funk music and even 90s hip hop, like West Coast rap, almost (without rapping, obviously), but groove-wise. Then there were really dark, more grunge type elements – hard Soundgarden / Alice in Chains for sure and we stepped back and found that we gravitated more towards the heavier stuff and most like manager people who listened to it – everyone was always into that, and that’s sort of where we went with it.
The last album was Machine and Alan Moulder – which was one hell of a pairing – who was behind this outing?
Chris: Corey Lowery, who is currently in Seether, and he just did a fantastic job from start to finish. From the moment we walked in the door at the studio, it was like “go time”. We started right away, and we didn’t mess around and he’s the hardest working guy we’ve ever worked with and we’re very proud of what came out of those sessions.
Brandon: Also, Paul Logus, who mastered the first record.
It’s a really nice sounding record and it has that dark, organic vibe and it’s great to see that there’s going to be a vinyl release – the physical side is still really important to you guys?
Brandon: Yeah, definitely. It’s the old school rocker thing and we want to hold on to that.
It can be challenging, I think, to get the mixing and mastering right for all the different formats – did you go for separate versions or is it all one?
Chris: I’m sure if the budget was there, we would… but, you know, we’re just happy to put out a record.
One of the things that attracted me to the last record, and to this one in particular, is the artwork and Motherbrain has a truly stunning cover – who put that together?
Chris: I did it. I do all the artwork for the band and ‘Fat City…’ was definitely more the funkadelic, light-hearted, weird, sort of like propaganda street art. And then for this one we went back to a more serious feel, you know. It’s got the Cherokee Rose, which is like the Georgia State Flower, which is where we recorded the record, and it’s got flowers on it… I don’t know, it’s elegant and dark but it’s still really heavy looking, you know.
It’s awesome – I know that great artwork doesn’t make a great album, but if you’ve got great music, then the cover art really builds that experience…
Chris: [Drawls, in an incredibly creepy manner] I used a wax face for reference…. Split in half…
Was it your heroin needle I saw outside???
Brandon: I think he’s more into mescaline!
Chris: Yeah!
You’ve just released a video for lowlife – it’s a cool, crazy video and lyrically really interesting, tapping into that corporate greed vs. everyday man, is that a reasonable summary?
Brandon: Yeah, absolutely. We wrote that song with Johnny Andrews and he had the whole “lowlife” hook – that was the one ting that he brought to the table, so I had to work backwards from that. It’s about just kind of being yourself and owning it, no matter what kind o label someone puts on you. It’s definitely a heroes journey of trying to combat the powers that be and not letting anybody kind of force you into doing something, by trying to guilt you into it or call it something else or whatever. If you think that whatever I’m doing makes me a lowlife, then so be it, I’m a lowlife.
The lyrics flow really well across the album, when you put the lyrics together, do you step back and look at it in relation to the album flow, or do you look at it in a more compartmentalised way?
Brandon: It’s like a hodgepodge – a lot of the songs we had going into the record, some of the songs we wrote whilst we were there and just about everything got revamped in some shape or form whether it was lyrically, melodically, structurally… so, everything was ever-changing until the moment we left so, you know, it’s actually now, when the whole product is there, that I can take a step back and try to make sense of the whole thing as a story.
It looked like, as a band, you had a huge amount of fun making the video with tables flying and money raining down – do you guys enjoy getting involved in making videos?
Chris: It was a lot of fun,. We were coming up with a lot of those goofy ideas on the fly – you know, “why don’t you do this… throw money… print money” So many props around.
You know, we’ve got to do something…
When you come to putting videos together, do you storyboard them out or do you have people working on those ideas for you?
Brandon: This was Dave Brodsky’s brainchild really. The way we wanted to approach it initially was as a one shot, so initially we wanted o do the whole thing as a one shot that would be following Brandon and we’d just be at different spots… so, for the chorus he’d walk in on the band and at the very end he’d walk up on stage and that was juts too hard to pull off because we’d have had to make sure that everyone nailed all the acting scenes stuff. So, we broke it into three sections, which was much easier, but it was still really hard to do. Each scene… by the end of it, I was soaked in sweat, but it was cool and everyone had a lot of fun. There was a lot of our family and closet friends and stuff, they came and helped out…
The other change that you’ve made is that you’re on a new label – Mascot – how did that come about?
Chris: Wind Up just got bought out by Concorde. Over here though, we had Nuclear Blast, so that was a like a hand in hand thing, so once Wind Up fell and went under, we got kind of thrown on to another label an they didn’t really know what to do with us, they didn’t have the budget for us, so that was like a couple of months after ‘Fat City’ came out. So, we were like collecting the pieces and writing and shopping the band around to different labels and Mascot was the first one to hit us up and it took them a while to figure things out in that regard but it worked out and this is the first album here and we’ll see how it goes.
They’re an interesting label and they’ve got a cool roster from Joe Bonamassa to P.O.D. – again, you guys seem to have a diverse sound that can appeal from blues rock to alt-rock and grunge…
Brandon: Yeah, Bootsy Collins is on there too… awesome!
How’s the tour been going?
Chris: People have been showing up and they#ve been super-excited and it’s been so hot and sweaty and it’s been good. We woke up today and me and Eddie were sick, but we managed to sweat that out – it’s the first night of the tour the venue is air conditioned.
I don’t think I’ve ever been in here… when it’s comfortable!
Yeah! We walked in and it was just like [gasp of pleasure]
You need to understand this doesn’t happen in England, we don’t do heat… We’re happiest when it’s raining…
Sounds like Seattle!
Any final words?
Thank you for supporting us and coming to these shows. It’s really hard for small American bands to come over and do this, so every bit of support helps.
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