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The Warlocks “Surgery”
Birdman / Mute Records August 23rd 2005“
The room is usually dark when they play. And the music is darker,
a great wall of guitars aswirl in psychedelic gloom and bohemian
anxiety…. The Warlocks sound is entirely timeless….”-
LOS ANGELES TIMES, 2003
Two years have passed since the LA Times heralded the Warlocks emergence,
and the band has used them to steep its psychedelic gloom in rich
texture reminiscent of Phil Spector's greatest works.
Holed up in his California room, frontman Bobby Hecksher translated
his current listening (Shangri-Las, Ronnettes) into modern tales
of life and death; his own heartbreak and tumultuous existence serving
as roadmaps for the band's trademark gritty melody.
“Personally speaking it hasn't been a easy ride to get here,”
explains Bobby, “I often feel like I'm in some kind of fragmented
dream-state. We've been through some fucked up shit to get here
but that's the way it's always been. My life has been one big emotional
rollercoaster…”
When Phoenix crashed into our collective consciousness in 2003,
the vibe was heavy-psychedelia. Fire and brimstone. Narcotics and
paranoia.
“Phoenix is the second full-length from the seven-piece psych
explosion known as the Warlocks, a band that seems poised on the
edge of indie-rock greatness and ready to take the time-honored
next step for substance-celebrating rock bands, the rehab record.”
- NYLON, 2003
While Surgery is hardly clean, it is certainly a sign of emotional
rehabilitation, with songs drawing influence from the band's chaotic
years of touring and personal mind-blowing experiences of Bobby's.
Moving to LA, jamming with Beck and the Brian Jonestown Massacre,
dropping acid with Timothy Leary… all this and more contribute
to the new sound. Surgery is other-wordly and full of soul, with
soothing sci-fi lullabies and the bands trademark rohypnol rock-outs.
Recorded in a series of LA Studios (Sunset Sound, Fantasy Island,
Sound Factory) from January 2004 with legendary producer Tom Rothrock
(Beck, Elliott Smith, Coldplay), Surgery is both more accessible
and more vulnerable than Phoenix.
The Warlocks are Bobby Hecksher (lead vocals and guitar), JC Rees
(guitar), Corey Lee Granet (guitar), Laura Grigsby (tamborine and
organ), Jenny Fraser (bass), Jason Anchondo (drums), and Bob Mustachio
(drums).
Biography 2005
The Warlocks story is already the stuff of legend; a swamp of drugs,
record deals signed in blood and ever-changing personnel (the band
has already had nineteen members) which, in any other circumstances,
would ensure the music came in a poor second to the tale. But with
The Warlocks the eerie beauty of their songs always wins out. This
is a band unafraid to take itself to the outer limits of endurance
to let loose what's inside them, even if it almost kills them.
“At the end of 2003 The Warlocks had been touring for three
years straight” explains Bobby Hecksher, newly centred and
speaking from his apartment in Echo Park, Los Angeles.
“We were in Spain and there were still two weeks to go of the
tour and I was out of my mind sick, the worst I've ever been. I
had an ear infection and the doctors told me if they'd seen me two
days later I would have lost my hearing permanently. It was the
lowest possible place I could have reached. I knew I had to take
some time away and summon up the old energy again… ”
Rock genealogists can breathe easy: aside from the departure of
token Brit drummer Danny Hole (replaced by the splendidly named
Bob Mustachio) the band have only one other line up change since
we last met: bassist Jenny Fraser replaces Bobby Martine. As before
the rest of the group lines up as: JC Rees (guitar), Corey Lee Granit
(guitar), Laura Grigsby (tambourine and organ), Jason Anchondo (drums),
and, of course, Bobby Hecksher (guitar and lead vocals).
Those already tuned into this frequency will be aware of The Warlocks
albums to date: debut album 'Rise & Fall' (released in the US
only on Bomp) and 2003's acclaimed 'Phoenix'. A fire'n'brimstone
epic full of slow-burning jams and searing blasts of motor-neurone
rock noise, at times it sounded like Steppenwolf and The Velvets
gorging on the greatest tracks from the 'Nuggets' comps'. However,
if the success of 'Phoenix' brought the band to a much wider audience
-not least the stunning use of 'Hurricane Heart Attack' in Cedric
Kahn's acclaimed French flick 'Red Lights'- then new album 'Surgery
' is a massive step further on: perhaps even their masterpiece.
“Personally speaking it hasn't been a easy ride to get here”
explains Bobby.
“I often feel like I'm in some kind of fragmented dream-state.
We've been through some fucked up shit to hget here but that's the
way it's always been. My life has been one big emotional rollercoaster…”
Bobby Hecksher grew up in the swamps of Tampa Bay, Florida. Raised
on his grandfathers radio station -a rock'n'roll outpost visited
by everyone form Chuck Berry to Jerry Lee Lewis- he learned the
basic tracts of rock'n'roll almost through osmosis. Having moved
to Los Angeles at a sixteen, he took to staying out all night at
the infamous Mad Hatters Club, jamming with fellow miscreant Beck
(Bobby played bass on 'Stereopathetic Soul Manure') playing in the
infamous Brian Jonestown Massacre and, of all things, dropping acid
with Timothy Leary.
Needless to say all these experiences, as well as three chaotic
years on the road have been channelled into 'Surgery'.
Recorded in a series of LA Studios (Sunset Sound, Fantasy Island,
Sound Factory) from January 2004 with legendary producer Tom Rothrock
(Beck, Elliott Smith, Coldplay), 'Surgery' is both more accessible
and more vulnerable than 'Phoenix'.
An otherworldly, subversive soul record to rank with Mercury Rev's
'Deserters Songs' or Spiritualised's 'Ladies And Gentlemen', it
has a ghostly grace which mixes soothing sci-fi lullabies ('Gypsy
Nightmare'; the gorgeous 'Angels') with their trademark characteristic
rohypnol rock-outs , not to mention a few black humoured nods to
the illness which almost derailed Bobby permanently ('Tangent's'
pointed: “I got so sick/the nurses they've all quit!”).
If the song 'Surgery' itself is the the sound of The Sex Pistols
playing My Bloody Valentine with lacerating lyrics to match (“You
operate/ Like no one else I know/ And your scalpel cuts/Deep clean
through my heart and my mind!”) opener 'Come Save Us' is a
shiver-down-the-spine onslaught which -if it doesn't get your nerve-ends
twitching- probably means you're dead already.
“I was listening to the Shangri-las, the Ronettes, the whole
Phil Spector Wall Of Sound thing” he enthuses.
“The aim was to create some new rock'n'roll hybrid: sonic space
age doo-wop! I wanted the album to sound bigger, fuller, sicker
than before. At the same time I also wanted to reflect what I've
always been into: Sonic Youth, Spacemen 3, Adam And The Ants. I'm
so proud of this album. I feel like we're a billion light years
from all those other groups around at the moment…”
Indeed. Whilst most of the retro-centric bands who've burned so
brightly over the last couple of years ago have either imploded
or found themselves stuck on endless repeat, 'Surgery' sees The
Warlocks (buoyed by a worldwide deal with Mute) grown into a truly
awe-inspiring rock group: the sort which changes lives and alters
perceptions in the same manner as their idols did before them.
On a song like 'Suicide Note' (sample lyric: “I was trying
to tell you that/ I need you more than I can say”) they're
so far out, it even makes you worry about how long they can maintain
such intensity.
“That song is me at the end: the farewell, the clifftop, walking
the plank, the very last step on this eart” says Bobby.
“I put everything I've got into it, and from that darkness
comes positivity. With The Warlocks that's the only way.”
A dazzling new album about nothing less than life and death then,
from the strangest, most precious band on the planet. We sure have
missed them.
Prepare for 'Surgery'.
Paul Moody.
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