Antwerp’s Triggerfinger will be releasing the strutting and swaggering new album ‘Colossus’ on 25th August via their new home Mascot Records (Black Stone Cherry, Black Country Communion, Monster Truck, Big Jesus, Shaman’s Harvest).
The Belgian based trio (Ruben Block, vocals & guitar; Paul Van Bruystegem, bass; Mario Goossens, drums) have been exploding across Europe and have played an intensive 200 shows in the last 20 months, which also saw them support Muse on their sold out 50,000 capacity Stadium show in Aix-les-Bains, France and Park Live Festival in Russia.
Insatiable for the live stage they have opened for Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Rolling Stones (twice), Thin Lizzy, Clutch, Big Sugar and Therapy? They were asked to step in at Pinkpop to replace the mighty Foo Fighters who pulled out with Dave Grohl injured and they’ve sold out the 8000 capacity Vorst in Brussels, the Paradiso in Amsterdam an impressive 10 times as well as the 6000 capacity Heinkenen Music Hall. They also performed in the boxing ring during the Heavyweight title fight between Wladimir Klitschko (UKR) and Tony Thompson (USA) at Stade de Suisse in Bern, Switzerland which was broadcast across the world, including screens on Broadway – check out the performance here.
After four studio albums; Triggerfinger (2004), What Grabs Ya (2008), the Platinum selling Belgian #2All This Dancing Around (2010) – which included the #1 hit ‘I Follow Rivers’ that has had 30m+ combined Spotify plays/Youtube views and the Gold #1 By Absence of the Sun (2014), the collaboration with Wu Tang Clan’s Method Man on the stomping one off single ‘The One’ last year and the massive touring, it was time for a change. While writing COLOSSUS Triggerfinger wanted to add a few new flavors to the mix.
“We wanted to get out of the rat race for a while”, Ruben Block admits. “The first step was doing a few collaborations with other musicians that would kick us out of our comfort zone. It made us look at our songs in a different way. The second step was building our own little studio where we could work and wail 24/7. All amps on 10 at two in the morning? No problem! But there was more to it than sheer volume. The previous albums were all built on roaring energy and the live interaction between the three of us. That was not our main concern anymore. This time the song would be king. ‘Anything goes’, that was our motto. Acoustic instruments, samples, keyboards, percussion, two bass guitars: as long as they served the song, we were happy.”
By now the question was, who could mold al this material into a new Triggerfinger album? Ever since the early nineties two names had popped up regularly on some of their favorite records. Produced by Mitchell Froom and engineered by Tchad Blake as a team and separately they’ve worked with the likes of Los Labos, Elvis Costello, Paul McCartney, Bonnie Raitt, Richard Thompson, Tom Waits, Arctic Monkeys, The Black Keys, U2, and Pearl Jam.
After meeting with Mitchell Froom in June of 2016 the band set up camp in Froom’s home studio in Santa Monica for six weeks, and they hit it off instantly. The subdued producer quickly became a fourth band member, adding eerie sounds coaxed from his collection of vintage keyboards. Los Lobos’ saxophone giant Steve Berlin added his mojo on three tracks.
Colossus was the first song where the band worked with two basses. Block: “Ditching the guitar really opened up the groove, and the combination of two bass guitars was very intriguing, sonically. It was heavy, but fresh at the same time. Images and pieces of conversations flashed through my mind, like a collage, and over this monumental groove I began to chant: ‘Colossus! Colossus!’ It stuck.”
“This must be the boldest thing we’ve ever done”, Ruben Block says. “We’ve been fans of Mitchell Froom’s work for a long time, but working with your heroes can be a dangerous thing. Mitchell proved to be comforting and challenging at the same time. He opened so many doors for us, and with COLOSSUS he put us on track for the next few years.”
Mitchell Froom: “After meeting the band and spending a few days going over ideas, I had no reservations about collaborating with them. In fact, I felt very lucky to be asked. This was, for me, a rare situation – a great band who really were looking to open things up a bit, and they came in with a lot of compelling ideas to back it up. It was also very clear that all of the focus was going to be on the music – no ego issues. And we could have a lot of laughs. As a producer I couldn’t have asked for a better situation.”
Colossus will be released on August 25th, and will be Triggerfinger’s first album with new label Mascot Records/Mascot Label Group.
