“Ain’t No Easy Way”
from the album Howl
2005
iTunes
Download a free MP3 “Ain’t No Easy Way” from BMG.com
[right-click/save-as]
“We went through some hard times as a band. Lost the meaning of why we were doing what we were doing… but I think this album somehow has been a new beginning. Just the music alone and making this record really inspired us to keep the whole thing going, and get the band back together with Nick.”
So comments Robert Turner honestly on the return of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and their third album Howl, set for release in late August.
When the band broke onto the scene in 2001 with their fuzz guitars and dirty full throttled cry of “Whatever Happened To My Rock ‘n’ Roll?” in September 2001, they were a refreshing blast of fresh air — a band who truly cared about their music, but walked and talked and looked rock ‘n’ roll.
The group had formed in San Francisco when Peter Hayes (who grew up on a farm in Minnesota), Robert Turner (Santa Cruz mountains) and Nick Jago (originally from Devon) met up San Francisco in 1998. Taking their name from the Marlon Brando film The Wild One, things started to look up after they moved to Los Angeles the following year, signed to Virgin and started work on their first release.
BRMC’s eponymous debut album was released in 2001 to amazing reviews. The band toured the UK in 2002 on the NME tour, after their first UK date supporting Oasis at the Royal Albert Hall at the personal request of Noel Gallagher. The band spent most of the year based there, playing several shows in the summer, again with Oasis (at Finsbury Park) and headlining the Radio1 tent at the Carling Weekend: Reading & Leeds festivals.
With the release of their second album Take Them On, On Your Own in autumn 2003 — the same time as they stepped in to save the day and replaced the White Stripes (when Jack White injured his hand) at the Carling Weekend Festivals — the band looked set to carry on onwards and upwards, but it wasn’t meant to be. Several factors, including in-band personnel problems and differences over the artistic control of their music with their label, meant their return was an anti-climax and within the year they were back in the US and parted from Virgin.
 B.R.M.C. |
Undeterred and unbowed, the band immediately started work on a new album, unsure of what they’d do with it but determined to carry on.
The new album was recorded over a 12-month period in Philadelphia and Los Angeles, the longest the band had ever spent on a record. “We did it in pieces,” Robert says. “The first couple songs like ‘Howl’ and ‘Sympathetic Noose’ were started around the time of the last album and, I don’t know, somehow the lack of professionalism we took towards those songs just sounded better. Just having fun playing and mixing on the fly with no cares.”
“We always wanted it to come across that it was a good time making the music,” says Peter.
Robert continues, “We went back to recording in the same way as the first LP. More produced, like old fashioned recordings where you’re building the parts and the sound like a Beatles or Beach Boys record, layering tracks. Which is the opposite of Take Them On, On Your Own where we wanted to capture the natural sound and feel of a band just set up playing in a room together, a very raw, very different approach.”
The result is an amazing 13-track album, which shows a considerable musical evolution of the band. From the opening track “Shuffle Your Feet,” you can hear a new bluesy, country-tinged side to the band, whilst never losing their groove. Through the lush, epic sounds of “Weight of the World” to the stripped back simplicity of lead single “Ain’t No Easy Way” to the haunting “Restless Sinner,” many people will be surprised at this “new direction” for the band.
“Well this is a whole different kind of songwriting and sound than what people know us for,” Robert explains. “The truth is that I guess we’ve written these kind of songs our whole lives, more rootsy Americana, back porch kind of songs, or whatever you want to call it, but never had the balls to put them out on a record, or the musicianship to really pull it off until now.”
The new album also sees the band mature lyrically. “The words were very important to us on this album,” Robert adds. “I would hope people start going back to the days when words and poetry and writing actually meant something again. It’s been a long time. There’s a lot of shadows behind these words. We wanted to give a nod to Allen Ginsberg and the beat poets of the ’50s and ’60s in the album title, and we tried to bring that spirit and all those voices into the music as well. Beyond that, we’d just got out of a bad record deal and we were free to just make the music we loved again.”