Enjoy:

A Eulogy for the Damned is due out Feb. 14 on Candlelight.

But the announcement yesterday that this lineup of C.O.C. will headline Sunday night, April 8, at the London Desertfest is just the latest endorsement it has earned. Dean, Weatherman and Mullin toured twice in 2011 with Clutch, including their New Year’s tour last month, and played the 2011 Maryland DeathFest and Roadburn festivals (among others), supporting the single Your Tomorrow on Southern Lord. The track “Your Tomorrow” would wind up as one of the strongest on the album Corrosion of Conformity as well, but the record does an excellent job meeting and surpassing any aesthetic expectations that could be put on it.

Because, hey, let’s face it, if you’ve got a trio lineup of C.O.C., they’ve got a lot to live up to. Animosity is a crossover classic, and coupled with everything the band was able to accomplish after Keenan joined, then Corrosion of Conformity needs to cover a lot of ground to be a success. The album’s greatest attribute, however, is that it seems to ignore all of that in favor of just rocking out on some killer songs. As a result, cuts like “Rat City” and “Leeches” and “What We Become” hone in on the band’s hardcore past without seeming like a put-on while “Psychic Vampire,” “The Moneychangers” and “Come Not Here” bring in elements of the riffy Sabbathian groove that was always present in their sound, however prevalent it may or may not have been.

If you’re interested, the full album review is here. Just prior to their heading out with Clutch to put 2011 to bed, Dean and I spoke about what brought C.O.C. back together in this form and how it was composing the new album without Keenan, recording it with longtime producer John Custer, his own process for composing lyrics, and much more. Like the music on the self-titled, he was honest and straightforward in his responses, as you can see in the interview that follows here.

–Special thanks to Candlelight Records for letting me give away THREE copies of the new C.O.C. album on vinyl! Enter to win by sending your name and address below. Contest runs until Jan. 20!

[Please note: This contest is now closed. Thanks to all who entered.]

Complete Q&A is after the jump. Please enjoy.

Take me back to what got you guys jamming. What put the idea in your head to really pick up C.O.C. again?

Well, I mean, we didn’t really put it down, in theory, but it’s just in practice, we were waiting around to work with Pepper, because we’d done some good stuff with him and we were looking forward to the opportunity to get him and Reed back together and do some stuff. He was pretty occupied with Down, but what put the idea in our head was him actually saying, “Let’s go play some festivals. We could do well.” And then it turned out he couldn’t do it, so we just suggested in jest that we should do it as a three-piece (laughs). I kind of blurted it out and nobody was laughing, so it was like, well, maybe we should pursue this. Then, once we got into that process, it seemed a little lame to be going out there to play the nostalgia circuit. Obviously, as a three-piece, our last record was quite a while back, so we’d be learning an Animosity set that people wanted to hear, but at the same time, we didn’t want to play the nostalgia circuit, so it was kind of a condition of mine that we would get some new material together, and while we were dusting it off, do a recording, so it wouldn’t be just exploitation of past deeds.

And that was the Your Tomorrow 7”.

Yeah. That was pretty much what we could get together to have a little something to sell on tour and to have something to take to the media or whatever. We kind of immediately had four new songs in our set. Four brand new songs.

When did Reed come back into the picture?

About three years ago, I started jamming with him in a band called Righteous Fool. We still do that, we just recorded an album. So we got him to break out the drums and get back with playing a little bit on that. Once I saw that he was really running on all cylinders, we talked about the C.O.C. thing. It just kind of worked out.

Can you talk about the change in dynamic between C.O.C. working as a three-piece as opposed to having Pepper involved while you’re writing?

Everybody has a lot of ideas to contribute, and the more participants involved, the less direct individual contributions everybody’s gonna make in the realm of songwriting. Take one person out of the equation, and it’s that much more everybody has to contribute and gets to contribute. That’s interesting. That’s a good thing. I thought we all rose to the occasion. Another thing is, we were doing it with this format a really long time ago, when we were literally still in high school, so it was kind of like reverting to something that we hadn’t done for a while, but it was very natural to us and kind of reminded us (laughs) of old times. In a good way.

Yeah, I saw those old pictures on Facebook. You look like you’re about 12.

I think Reed was 15 when he got that drum set. He’s still got the same Tama drum set. It’s ridiculous how old it is. He really ought to think about putting it in cases, because it’s probably worth something just based on its antique status.

Were you surprised at all at the reaction you got initially to coming back as a trio live?

Nah. There’s so many different incarnations of C.O.C. and the various incarnations have covered a lot of stylistic ground along the way. People will become alienated with some new thing that we do, and they’ll pine for whatever came before, so there are a lot of people that were anxious to hear the hardcore thing, or the hardcore-punk-metal-crossover-type of thing or whatever. We were getting a lot of requests to do that, and people spouting off about how that was better or they wanted to hear that. So I think we expected a good reaction. We expected there to be interest. It was about what we expected.

On the album, you kind of cover all the bases, sound-wise.

Yeah. It’s not just a crossover nostalgia record at all.

Were you conscious of that as you were putting the songs together? Did you have the shape of the album in mind?

I think once we had a few songs written, then we could be a little more calculating. We started off with some real natural exploration of ideas and just moving quickly to write some lyrics and craft a couple songs. Once we saw where it was going, then maybe it was a little but more calculated, like, okay, we want to show the scope of what we can do with this lineup and not have it just be pigeonholed to be going backwards to old times, even though we wanted to demonstrate that we could still play fast.

Given all the years since, has your opinion changed at all about the Animosity-era material? Do you feel differently about those songs now than you did then?

I felt pretty good about them. I think I feel about the same way. I think that’s one of our strongest recordings, and as far as from a performance standpoint and an idea standpoint. I think it holds up pretty well. It was fairly unique among that kind of music.

What do you think has let the album endure? It seems like there’s always the C.O.C. debate. Everyone has their favorite record that they’re going to champion.

Oh yeah. It was a good balance of young energy kind of getting to the point where there was just enough experience involved that there was agile performances, capable performances. Still maintains some of the amateurish energy, but there’s capable performances as we were, in our own way, becoming pretty good at the instruments. There just happened to be some good performances captured.

Was there ever any doubt you’d be recording with John Custer again for this record?

Perhaps. We knew he’d be into it. We were considering possibly doing it all ourselves, but ultimately I thought that he could really add some ideas and add some perspective to it. A little bit of depth. He kind of likes to sit back a little bit and let the band be the band a little more than he probably did with Blind or he did with Deliverance, certainly. He’s pretty much just trying to enable us. He’s not trying to mastermind, really, anything. I enjoyed working with him this time. It was kind of John Custer and C.O.C., really, that produced it. It was a good collaboration. He was remarking that we were kind of working like one organism, and I thought that was apt. But I think for a moment there we were thinking about trying to just entirely produce it ourselves, and I don’t know how that would’ve turned out. At this point, I’m glad we did it the way we did it.

One thing I’ve noticed in listening is a balance between a raw, natural sound, and still being clear and full. Did you know you wanted that kind of natural vibe?

We wanted something organic. We wanted a pretty organic performance. We weren’t looking to record something that was put on a grid with real prominent drum samples that sounded like a machine, although there’s some music like that I might enjoy. We wanted honest performance, and something that invoked a real live but also powerful rock band-type of thing. I’m still digesting how it turned out. We mixed it pretty quickly and I know I’m happy with it, but I don’t really have that much perspective on it yet. I’m very happy with the results… I’m just not sure what’s making me happy (laughs). I can hear everything. The idea was to have something a little bit vibe-y, a little bit real, but still presentable.

Tell me about the song “Leeches” and when that came along in the writing.

That’s something that Reed stood out on. That’s his vocal, that’s his lyric. He kept belittling it and describing it as, “I guess I have this punk rock song.” Listen to that opening progression, it’s kind of like early Black Flag or something, but it has a couple real melodic parts to it; real almost anthemic-sounding chorus that has a little bit of depth beyond the type of song that it is. He showed that to us, and we assimilated it kind of quickly, and we worked pretty fast on that. That has kind of a throwback vibe to it, but there’s some melody there. The lyrics seem a little bit cut and paste hardcore, but in a good way.

I think it sums up some of what’s going on with the record, because it’s familiar for anyone who’s heard the trio C.O.C., but it’s not really a throwback.

A lot we were thinking of when we first began the songwriting process is that we weren’t necessarily going to do Animosity again. We were going to look at the things that were influencing us at the time of recording Animosity, some things that came before us, and some of our young contemporaries at that point. So we were looking at Bad Brains, Black Flag, and even early Slayer, Metallica, Mercyful Fate and stuff like that. I think a song like that is almost more indicative of some other hardcore of the era than a C.O.C. song, per se (laughs).

How does the writing break down? That’s Reed’s song. I’m not going to ask you to go track-by-track, but how did things shake out this time around writing-wise?

A lot of things happen. Sometimes people will come in with what they think of as a complete idea, and they present it to the band, and sometimes, that’s the arrangement and that’s the idea. Other times, on bass, people will bring a song in, and I’m kind of big on throwing a wrinkle into a bridge or turning it around and making it resolve somewhere different or something like that. That’s the sort of thing we started to think about when we were working with Custer, and also working with Pepper. He has a good ear for those finishing touches on a song like that. I kind of jumped on board that bandwagon. I’ll have a lot of those if someone brings a piece in. But a lot of times, someone brings in a complete song. Four or five of them were real collaborative. Me and Woody trading riffs and saying, “Okay, well, now we need a bridge, now we need to do this.” A lot of times then we would come up with a completely instrumental collaborative piece and then coming up with the vocals was kind of a dirty job, but someone had to do it. Usually falls to me, so I’ll be coming up with a vocal melody and lyrics for somebody else’s initial musical ideas. That’s kind of a challenge. It’s kind of fun. It’s almost more fun to come up with the vocal part for someone else’s musical idea than your own. But this time I had a lot of complete songs of my own. Four or five, six of them. Pretty collaborative, though. The song “Come Not Here,” that’s 90 percent Reed’s music and his concept for a song, but we collaborated a lot. He had a real strong vocal melody that he would hum all the time and try to get us to harmonize on. I think we collaborated on the actual lyrics themselves at the last possible minute we could’ve been working on them and still had the song on the album. Like a month ago or something (laughs). That was real collaborative. I think the middle part was probably Woody’s idea, and we thought that we would get Custer to help us with some insane overdubbing ideas to make the middle part sound like Wings. Make it sound like “Live and Let Die” (laughs). Without hiring an orchestra or resorting to keyboards. It had to be a guitar-based thing we could never do live. If you’re making an album, you want the lion’s share of the stuff to be things that you can pull off live, and I think we really stuck to that. A minimum of overdubs, or overdubs that reinforce the basic thing that you wouldn’t miss live. But there’s a couple exceptions and that would be the most notable, the middle of that song. That and “Rat City” would be the most collaborative stuff, where we really just traded off ideas, and be like, “Here, you think of a part.” So there’s a couple different approaches and all levels of collaboration there, from the megalomaniac to the completely consensus-based.

What’s your process of writing lyrics?

I’ll tell you what, sometimes I start off with an idea and I just try to channel whatever comes into my head on that matter and step away and look at it. Sometimes it starts to take on an alternate meaning, and if it seems too direct or on the nose, I try to go back and be a little more vague so that there’s the possibility for people to have other interpretations. That way, when you have it all written and said and done, people will mention their really involved interpretations of it and make you sound like a genius. Then you’re just like, “Yes. Yes.” You just adopt their mythology for it, so the next time I’m giving a – you got an early interview here, so I don’t really have much to say – but in about six weeks, I’ll have all these really elaborate explanations for the songs that, by virtue of being vague, I get from people who come to me and tell me what it’s about and I’m like, “Oh yeah, yeah. That’s what I was thinking.” But really, I just try to leave it a little bit up to interpretation. I think that makes the songs a little more enduring. Some of the stuff is pretty on the nose, and I’ll have a concept that’s set in stone, but it’s a little inexact, and if I’m not just channeling what I’m hearing directly, I find it hard to work deliberately and literally in a straight line. It’s one of those things that just has to happen. I’m not that good a writer. I’m just a receiver of randomness, and I try to assemble it in a meaningful and entertaining way.

You’re doing the New Year’s tour with Clutch.

Yeah, it’s genius. We’re driving due north to do Portland, Maine, and then we’re gonna do sunny Syracuse at the end of December. Great idea (laughs). Whose fucking idea was that? Last year, Righteous Fool opened for them. The same run last year, and we were in Cleveland, and we got to Asheville, North Carolina, on New Year’s Eve, and that was pretty cool. This year it’s C.O.C. and New Year’s Eve in Philadelphia.

You guys toured with them earlier this year too. I was in Flint, Michigan, and you had dropped off the bill last minute. What happened there?

Drummer fell out and had a seizure in Pittsburgh, and we were kind of concerned about him. He bounced back and we were back out there about the time they hit Columbia, Missouri. We were kind of not very excited about Flint, because that’s always a good show for us, and a very good show for Clutch. That kind of sucked.

Any other solid touring plans for 2012 yet?

Oh yeah, starting in March, we’re gonna do a bunch of US dates [NOTE: Those dates have since been announced]. Still finalizing who we’re playing with. But we’re gonna do a little brief headlining tour of the US and we have some plans to go to Chile and we definitely have some festivals in Europe in the summer, and that’ll be interesting to see if they still have Euros to pay us or not. I’m sure it’ll be fine (laughs).

Corrosion of Conformity’s website

Candlelight Records

This in itself makes C.O.C.’s latest a landmark, but moreover, it’s the defiance of expectation that really sets Corrosion of Conformity apart. One might look at the fact that they chose to make it a self-titled as a kind of statement that this lineup is somehow definitive, maybe a subtle “fuck you” to Keenan, but I don’t think that’s the case. Rather, naming the record after the band feels appropriate for these songs because what these songs do is essentially distill 30 years of natural and genre-transcending progression into a cohesive set of 11 tracks that play out over 43 minutes. In every move they are C.O.C., and that seems to be more the basis of choosing the title rather than showing anyone up. I acknowledge that’s speculation and opinion on my part as a listener and a fan of the band, but I’d gladly offer the forward-looking development of these tracks as supporting argument. Dean, Weatherman and Mullin could easily have slopped together 35-40 minutes of crossover punk, called it Animosity 2 and ridden the coattails of their past glories to reunion-act glory, but they didn’t do that. Instead, with Corrosion of Conformity, they take the band’s past scope and form something cohesive and – most of all – new from it. Whatever else you take away from this review, take that. C.O.C. are not rehashing what they’ve done before. As much as these songs may be carved from a lineup dynamic that existed 27 years ago, the ensuing time has meant that the players are different people than they once were, and the album shows that right from the beginning of opener “Psychic Vampire.”

In a way, the first 40 seconds of Corrosion of Conformity tell the whole story, and even more so when one considers the efficiency and lack of pretense with which the album is executed front to back. It’s perhaps in that spirit that C.O.C. most capture the simplicity of their earliest days, but one can’t deny the grunt at the beginning of “Psychic Vampire” and the riff-led groove that ensues as epitomizing a side of the band, just as does the faster, more propulsive 10 seconds that follow and open into the verse groove. Without warning, Dean, Weatherman and Mullin have established much of the course of the record, which sets its dynamics through pacing changes and balances Southern heavy rock with unabashed punk-born fury. “Psychic Vampire” sets itself out among the strongest cuts on the album in doing so and is based in large part on these two opening riffs, which play out in juxtaposition as Dean takes the frontman/vocalist role for two distinct choruses that he keeps through much of the material, backed capably by Weatherman and Mullin. Where some other tracks, particularly later in the set, need time to sink in, the likes of “Psychic Vampire” and “River of Stone,” which follows, are more immediately memorable. Weatherman’s riffing, as captured by longtime C.O.C. producer John Custer’s excellent recording job, is part of that, keeping a tonal consistency with In the Arms of God while also capitalizing on the added rawness of having one six-stringer versus two.

Mullin distinguishes himself right away on “River of Stone,” which is the longest song on Corrosion of Conformity at 6:12. His double-bass drumming is consistent throughout the first part of the track, but not rushed in terms of pace. The song opens in its chorus, but is mostly head-down forward motion, playing off some of the faster crossover elements that were hinted at with “Psychic Vampire” and are brought to the fore on “Leeches” still to come. Most of the song’s extra length comes from a break at 3:20 wherein Dean’s bass, soaked in wah, leads to a solo from Weatherman that carries the song back to its verse and chorus. Again, they show tempo flexibility and establish a solid flow, and Custer makes his presence felt as a shout rises in the mix to transition back into the verse that leads to the chorus finale. Dean’s vocals surprise in their capability to carry the song, and though it’s not a shock C.O.C. would want to establish this early, he impresses throughout the album in both arrangement and occasionally deceptively melodic execution. Not, however, on “Leeches,” which is two-plus minutes of crossover rawness that goes directly to the Animosity roots. It’s the shortest song on the album, and possibly the rawest, though Weatherman rips several leads worthy of the band’s legacy, and Mullin handles the changes fluidly while the vocals trade off leads and backing shouts. “Rat City,” which arrives just before closer “Time of Trials,” works in a similar vein, but “Leeches” is more outwardly aggressive, making the interlude that comes with “El Lamento de las Cabras” feel well earned.

Its title translating from the Spanish to “The Cry of the Goat,” “El Lamento de las Cabras” might be the most reminiscent of the Pepper Keenan era as C.O.C. get here. The song is basically a Southern rock guitar break – hilarious that it’s 40 seconds longer than “Leeches” – that finds Weatherman layering acoustics and electrics to shift the mood of the record from the raw to something more emotionally complex and more deeply engaging. Four cuts in seems early for an interlude, but as the three-piece have already covered as much aesthetic ground as they have, “El Lamento de las Cabras” is ultimately well-placed, providing a moment to recover from the onslaught of “Leeches” and a sweetly-toned (all things relative) precursor to “Your Tomorrow,” which is among the most effective blends of the varying sides of C.O.C.’s sound as they present on the album. Where “Psychic Vampire” had divided the more thrashing and the more grooving riffs into separate parts, “Your Tomorrow” brings them together a cohesive and still quick-paced whole. Dean’s delivery of the chorus line, “Who stole your tomorrow?” feels like an anchor of the record’s sociopolitical themes, and though the song will obviously stand out to anyone who heard it as a single in 2010 or 2011, it remains strong in relation to the material around it and is one of Corrosion of Conformity’s best tracks, bolstering a strong middle section that continues with “The Doom.”

Pretty ballsy to call a song “The Doom” these days. Doubly so to make it the centerpiece of the record. That said, “The Doom” has a riff that’s about as quintessential as C.O.C. riffs get without being “Albatross.” The pace ratchets up after about a minute in, but the groove is maintained – one wants to send a care package of band-aids to Mullin’s snare – and shows again how much of the diversity within the sound of Corrosion of Conformity comes from the fluidity of the tempo shifts and how much the trio is able to get the most out of them stylistically. Mullin is a big part of that, and though he doesn’t have the flash of Galactic’s Stanton Moore, who played on In the Arms of God, his long-term chemistry with Dean and Weatherman makes this lineup frighteningly solid. Weatherman layers his leads over a chugging riff and the song finishes strong into the speedier “The Moneychangers,” which is more angular but still nod-worthy, particularly in its quick-turning bridge and pinch-harmonic chorus. A more subdued break leads to heavy riffing and a crisply soloed outro, but more than that, “The Moneychangers” provides a firm transition from the middle of Corrosion of Conformity into the back end of the record, keeping the substantial blend of “Your Tomorrow” in mind while also beginning to show some of the lasting effect that the album’s later cuts have on the listener. That is to say, where “Psychic Vampire” hit you over the head with its chorus and “Leeches” was blindingly intense, “The Moneychangers” doesn’t give the full scope of its quality away so quickly.

It works all the more with repeat listens, so that what might be missed the first or the first couple times through comes across that much better when the initial novelty of, “Hey, it’s a new C.O.C. record!” and the first couple tracks has worn off. Thus, Corrosion of Conformity is ultimately able to stand up both to its underground hype and the high quality standard set by the band’s past releases. “Come Not Here,” which hits after “The Moneychangers,” keeps the same unassuming ethic – a quiet start leads to a subversively memorable chorus begun with the line “Bow down or walk away,” which might as well stand in for the options the trio is offering listeners in terms of reaction to the record as a whole. It’s probably the most powerful vocal arrangement on the album as well, but also more musically atmospheric, acoustics coming back into play. It relies on its chorus, but the chorus is strong enough to carry it, and as “What We Become” revitalizes the energy level with straightforward, pretense-free riffing and lyrics taking the “company man” down a peg, it’s further demonstration of the album structure’s overall effectiveness. They brought the mood down a bit, now they’re picking it back up. “What We Become,” while also substantial and catchy in its own right, in turn serves to provide fluid transition into “Rat City,” which is over nearly as quickly as was “Leeches.”

Call and response vocals, fleet riffing and a healthy dose of lyrical ire make the two tracks almost like companion pieces, however. “Rat City” is no less rife with blue-collar disaffection, and a catchy delivery of the title line ensures a lasting effect on the listener. With vocals from Dean, Weatherman and Mullin, the song is more melodic than it at first appears, and keeps the momentum steady rolling into closer “Time of Trials.” Weatherman’s guitar is higher register for part of the verse, but the “Time of Trials” wastes no time getting to its point; the riff is introduced once, and in no time, Dean is in on vocals and the song is underway. Dean’s performance on bass for the finale is easily among his best on Corrosion of Conformity, showing personality late as he sets up Weatherman’s well-reverbed, big-sounding solo with smooth but still aggressive runs. The song and the album end with Weatherman chugging out one last riff, and as unpretentiously as it arrived, C.O.C.’s self-titled is over. Deluxe editions include two bonus tracks, “Canyon Man” and “The Same Way,” but the record proper concludes without ceremony, big rock finish or long fadeout. As much as the opening of “Psychic Vampire” set the tone for what followed, the end of “Time of Trials” sums it up: It was heavy, it rocked, and now it’s done. And while not much more needs to be said about it than that by the band, in the context of what they’ve been able to accomplish overall, it’s an understatement.

Corrosion of Conformity not only brings back one of heavy rock’s most seminal and defining bands, but it pushes that band into new ground it’s never yet known. The achievement is substantial, the performances crisp, the production clear but organic, but sure enough, these elements and the varied aesthetic of the band come together to create something wholly stronger than its parts. Dean, Weatherman and Mullin unquestionably benefitted from their time on the road prior to recording, but the core of songwriting at work is by no means something they lucked into or stumbled upon. They may have been back for a while now, but with their self-titled, C.O.C. have the document to prove that the trio lineup in 2012 is no less commanding than anything that’s come before it.

Corrosion of Conformity’s website

Candlelight Records

Supporting Orange Goblin on their UK run will be Grifter, who are on board for all but the Irish shows.

This comes right off the PR wire:

Orange Goblin will release their brand new studio album, A Eulogy for the Damned, on Monday, Feb. 13, 2012 in the UK/rest of world and Feb. 14, 2012, in the US. This date is the same day as Black Sabbath released their self-titled debut album in 1970!

A Eulogy For The Damned is the band’s seventh studio album but first for new label home, Candlelight Records. The 10-track offering was recorded at The Animal Farm studio in South London, UK, produced and engineered by Jamie Dodd and mastered by two-time Grammy-nominated Pink Floyd engineer Andy Jackson at Tube Mastering. A Eulogy For The Damned will be released on CD and limited edition colored vinyl in gatefold sleeve.

A Eulogy for the Damned Track Listing:
1. Red Tide Rising
2. Stand for Something
3. Acid Trial
4. The Filthy & the Few
5. Save Me From Myself
6. The Fog
7. Return To Mars
8. Death of Aquarius
9. The Bishop’s Wolf
10. A Eulogy for the Damned

To celebrate the release of the new album, Orange Goblin will hit the road in April 2012 for the A Eulogy for the Damned UK & Ireland Tour. Dates for this are as follows:

04/07 Desertfest @ The Underworld London
04/08 The Fleece Bristol
04/09 The Old Bell Derby
04/10 Classic Grand Glasgow
04/11 Sound Control Manchester
04/12 The Garage Swansea
04/13 The White Rabbit Plymouth
04/14 o2 Academy Oxford
04/20 The Pint Dublin
04/21 Spring & Airbrake Belfast

Orange Goblin will also be appearing live at the following locations later this year (with more festivals to be announced soon):

11/13/2011 Candlefest Moho Live, Manchester
12/03/2011 Hard Rock Hell V Prestatyn, North Wales
12/17/2011 The Underworld Camden, London
01/14/2012 Club Zeljeznicar Zagreb, Croatia
6/15–17/2012 Hellfest Clisson, France (Exact date TBA)
8/11/2012 Bloodstock Open Air Fest Derbyshire

Sad as I am to see this series end, I’ll take my comfort in knowing we’re that much closer to the next Orange Goblin record. What follows is a summary of the band’s time in the studio. Thanks again to Ward for putting these updates together, and to Candlelight Records for making it happen. This is already one of my most anticipated releases of 2012.

If you want to see the now-complete series in its entirety, click here. Orange Goblin is Ward on vocals, guitarist Joe Hoare, bassist Martyn Millard and drummer Chris Turner.

Thanks for reading:

Orange Goblin – Studio Summary

Well, here we are. Six weeks on from when we first set foot in The Animal Farm recording studio in Bermondsey, London and we have another Orange Goblin long-player in the can. It’s been a very different, almost relaxed affair and the breaks between sessions have been great, allowing us to take the songs away and scrutinise them before going back and adding to them or changing them where we saw fit.

I think we’ll all miss the studio a bit. It became our little haven for those six weeks and a chance to get away from the real world! A place where it became acceptable to drink five beers before lunchtime and eat cold pizza until you felt nauseous! A place where we heard tales of how often Brain Harvey (ex-East 17 numbskull!) farts, how amazing the “Guitarminator” is and how we should never, ever ask the producer for a “laptop mix!” I certainly won’t miss the stress of trying to get the songs finished and writing the lyrics though… That can wait another five years now!!!

I have to take the opportunity to say a massive thank you to Jamie [Dodd], Ville and Mat [Leppanen] at the studio for their understanding and letting us come and go as we have done, without them this album would never have happened. Here are a few of the highs and lows of the last 6 weeks recording the album:

HIGHS:

1 – Getting all the rhythm tracks done within the first five days of recording. Not that this wasn’t expected as Chris has never taken more than a couple of days and Martyn is usually pretty spot on too. We afforded ourselves a bit more time for the drums and bass this time though as writing the songs was only completed on the day before Jamie first hit ‘record.’ Anyway, spurred on by silly amounts of Boddingtons and steak-flavoured crisps (chips to the Americans!) the rhythm section got the job done and to celebrate we all went out for a victory drink in honour!! This meant an all night session in the Crobar, far too may beers and sambucas, a massive dent in all our wallets and an even bigger hangover the day after!!!

2 – Guitars and vocals going as smoothly as they did. What with all the coming and going of various people at various time, Joe and I managed to keep focus and get our parts done in time too. We set up a routine of him doing a track, then me doing one, so neither of us got weighed down with too much and we both got a regular break. Jamie was great in this respect as it meant him having to go back and forth with setting up the guitars and the vocal booth but it worked out in the end. We didn’t do anything in particular to celebrate but had a constant supply of cider, red wine, lager and whiskey, which always helps! I have to give special mention to the afternoon I locked myself away in a different room with the sole intention of completing lyrics for one of the songs. An hour later Joe burst into the room to find me fast asleep with absolutely nothing written!!

3 – The day of the photo-shoot. I can’t remember the exact date but the shoot went really well and it was a nice, sunny day (rare in London during the summer!). What was amazing was the number of screaming, teenage girls that had gathered at the studio gates who we joked must be waiting for us! We later discovered that they were there for a teenage boy band that were rehearsing (miming into their hairbrushes!) next door. As I left the complex in my car that afternoon a couple of young girls asked if I would smuggle them into the studio in the boot (trunk to the Americans!) of my car… I’ll leave you to make your own sick joke up here!! PS – I didn’t!

4 – PIZZA DICE!!! This was an absolute godsend!! It was established in the first couple of days of recording that there were only two local pizza companies that were prepared to deliver to a recording studio on the fourth floor of an industrial complex so we decided to try them both. The first was Tower Pizza, who didn’t make a very good impression by bringing us completely the wrong order, not that we complained as it meant we got more. That was until we opened the box and tasted it!! I’m not exaggerating when I say that it was the worst pizza I have ever had. All four of us were starving but we threw 90 percent of the order away as it was so bad. I’m pretty sure chicken isn’t supposed to be green! Next day we tried Pizza Dice and hey presto, it was fantastic!! The order was right (always a good start!) the pizza tasted fresh and the chicken wings were not green! Plus, they also sent ice cold Coca-Cola, which went perfect with the whiskey!!

LOWS:

1 – Tower Pizza. (see above)

2 – Joe waking me up. (see above)

3 – The crowds of teenage girls NOT being into Orange Goblin. (see above)

4 – The studio being based on the fourth floor and having a no-smoking policy, which meant treks downstairs and outside every time we needed a cigarette! At least it gave us a chance to work off the beer and pizza!

It’s been fun writing these updates for The Obelisk and I’d like to thank JJ for posting them each week. All that remains now is for us to get the final mixes, master the damned thing and get it out there for the world to hear! It will be out by the end of March 2012 and I’m sure it’ll be worth the wait! Thanks for reading!

Ben Ward, 22nd September 2011.

Hope you enjoy. To see all the updates on Orange Goblin‘s recording progress, click here. Thanks to Riggs for taking the time out:

After joking in the public eye (Facebook) with Mr. Ward about having me sing some backups on the new OG record, I was pleased to see an email that contained 10 fresh tracks from the band. Ben gave me few instructions on just what they wanted and which songs to sing on. “Focus on these two,” he said. So I went into Mad Oak Recording Studio (I know the owner) with engineer Joe Slibia. We worked on the two songs, and worked on a few more. I put backups on five songs and sent them back UK way. I let Ben know that I was going to lay down as much as I could in the day and the band could use what they wanted and toss out the rest. They seemed pretty happy with most of the stuff, and went onto mixing. So I will soon find out what made the cut, and what hit the floor. I for one am very excited.

This new OG record is going to kick ass! from what I gathered, it’s like a perfect blend of Iron Maiden, Motörhead, Lynyrd Skynyrd, yet remains completely Orange Goblin. There is some great melodies and a fine mix of tempos. Even the rough mixes I heard sound killer. Everyone hit this shit at the top of their game. I got excited about the latest Lo-Pan record when I first heard it. I feel the same way about this OG record. I can’t wait till everyone can hear the fuckin’ rock that is Orange Goblin.

Thanks once again to Ward for sending in these updates and photos. If you’ve missed past installments, you can find them here. Orange Goblin is Ward, guitarist Joe Hoare, bassist Martyn Millard and drummer Chris Turner. The new album is being produced by Jaime Dodd at The Animal Farm studio in South London. Here’s the latest:

Orange Goblin – Album Recording – Week 5

OK, so these blogs are getting harder and harder to write as week by week we get less and less to do and there is more and more sitting around whilst Jamie [Dodd, engineer] starts setting up mixes. So this week I’m gonna take you back to last Tuesday when I sent the recorded files off to Craig Riggs from Roadsaw at his studio in Boston. We’d all been very keen to have Riggs involved in this album with some backing vocals so when he agreed, we couldn’t wait to hear what he’d done. By Friday evening he’d starting returning the files and I have to say we were all blown away by what he’d done. It sounds great! First thing Saturday morning and Jamie had uploaded all of Riggs’ work into the mix and everything was right with the world! It was just Joe and I at the studio again as Martyn has flown out to Egypt for a two week holiday with his girlfriend and Chris was at home looking after his boys.

Both Joe and I got to work and I finished the last vocal track (“Return to Mars”) and Joe put all the finishing touches to his guitar parts so we were all done tracking!! This led to a mini-celebration involving large amounts of cider, beer and that dreaded pizza again (which isn’t so bad after said amounts of cider!). As we started getting ready for mixing, there was much swearing and shouting at the TV as Liverpool crashed to their first defeat of the season in the football. I think this was all a little bit odd for the photographer that turned up to do some shots for a Terrorizer magazine studio report and the guy from Jagermeister who turned up to interview Joe and I about the recording process so far! Despite this we all went home happy and ready to start recording keyboards first thing on Sunday morning.

Chris was back today but Joe wasn’t around as he had to attend a Christening. We were expecting to get the keyboards down today but unfortunately, Matt, the keyboard player couldn’t make it (he’s coming in to do it next weekend now!), so Chris and I sat around very, very bored whilst Jamie went over and over the same song adjusting snare drums sounds, cymbals, kick drums and all that kind of stuff!! We didn’t hang around too long, preferring to leave it in Jamie’s capable hands. We have one more full weekend of mixing to do next week (and the keyboards) and then it will be complete. I think a week away from these songs will do us all good now as we are bordering on overkill at the moment. So, next week will be the last report and then the process of mastering and preparing the artwork and planning a marketing campaign begins, all leading up to the release of this album in March, 2012!

Ben Ward, 14th September, 2011

If you missed past installments, click here. Orange Goblin is Ward, guitarist Joe Hoare, bassist Martyn Millard and drummer Chris Turner. Please enjoy this latest update:

Orange Goblin — Album Recording – Week 4

We’d had another week to prepare for the recording again and we all arrived bright and early Saturday morning ready for a photo shoot. Our good friend Oran Tarjan turned up to take the shots and we spent a few hours around the studio complex doing shoots in various locations. As the day wore on a massive crowd of teenage girls had gathered at the studio gates and we were convinced they must all be there to catch a glimpse of their heroes Orange Goblin! It was only a bit later on that we found out that a young boy-band were shooting a video in the studio next door and they weren’t waiting for our autographs after all! With our egos in tatters, Joe set about getting a large chunk of his work done before I got down to some work, allowing the rest of the band to make suggestions for certain parts and we ended up with two more songs finished, both of which are very different from my normal vocal delivery. This album is really taking shape and it’s dawning on us all that there is some stuff that we have never really tried before but all agree that it works really well and I think the OG fans will like it too. Chris finished all his percussion parts (MORE COWBELL!!!) and we resisted the urge to order yet another nasty pizza from the only place in South East London willing to deliver to us, in favour of finishing early and going home for a decent meal! This seemed like a great idea until Joe, my son Max and I got stuck in massive traffic jams due to some rioters clashing with the police in Mile End and all the roads being closed. At least my son had fun counting the police riot vans rushing to the scene! We eventually got home and A LOT of ice cold beer soon helped me forget the traffic misery!

Sunday was more of the same, really, so not a great deal to report, except that Chris wasn’t in as he was celebrating his seventh wedding anniversary by taking his wife out for the day and Martyn showed up before heading off to a party which was also being attended by Su Pollard of Hi-De-Hi fame (…don’t ask!) During Martyn’s brief stay he did crack us up with his tales of woe which involved ranting about inappropriate party attire, overpriced, deflated balloons and a very expensive melted birthday cake. Joe and I eventually managed to regain composure to get within a whisker of being finished with the aid of some cheap lager and Scotch whiskey! Producer Jamie [Dodd] burned us some CDs to take home and listen to and we arranged some rough mixes to be sent to a good friend of ours in Boston who will be supplying some guest vocals on a few tracks this week. I have to say at this stage that everything is sounding better than ever and apart from the odd verse here and there (which I plan to re-sing this weekend), the vocals sound great! By the end of this Saturday (10^th) we should have everything recorded and mixing will start first thing on Sunday!

So another weekend gone and we’re another few steps closer to having the album finished! A few important lessons have been learned this week, important things about recording techniques and ways we can improve our performance in the studio and on stage. But, I think the most important thing we learned is this – DO NOT get Martyn Millard to organise a surprise birthday party!

Ben Ward, 6th September, 2011

If you missed them or would like a refresher, the first studio update is here and the second is here. Thanks once again to Ben Ward and to Candlelight Records for making this happen.

Orange Goblin – Album Recording – Week 3

After two very productive weekends recently we wanted to keep the momentum going so Joe and I were at the studio first thing Saturday morning, eager to get started with more guitars and finally some vocals. I had every intention of being good and sticking to hot tea with lemon and honey to look after my throat but after an hour of twiddling my thumbs whilst Joe added guitar tracks I gave in and had to have some cider! I then convinced myself that I should have some red wine in order to warm the vocal chords up! It worked too as I was soon in the vocal booth (hotter than a sauna!) and was belting stuff out, all of which sounded pretty cool. By the end of the day I’d got three songs finished, including the album opener which I’d consider the hardest of all the vocal tracks. Martyn turned up in the afternoon and spent his time yelling at the TV, eating pizza and keeping me updated with the football scores as I was trapped in the sauna! Whilst I took breaks between songs (for more cider and pizza!), Joe carried on with more basic guitar and solos and at the end of the day the whole album was really starting to take shape.

Joe was already at the studio when I arrived on Sunday morning and continued to work whilst I tried (but failed) to finish writing all the lyrics! I still have a week for this so I’m not panicking just yet! Chris and Martyn showed up a bit later on and between sandwiches, microwave meals and more booze we managed to get another two vocal tracks recorded so by the end of Sunday, Joe was about 85 percent done with guitars and I was 50 percent done with the vocals. We also received some new artwork ideas and a new logo design from our friend James Isaac (Jimbob from the band Taint) who is handling the artwork for the album. I have to say we are all delighted with what we have seen so far and we’re really excited about what the final artwork will look like. All the songs finally have titles but we have yet to decide on a final title or running order. I can reveal that the 10 songs on the album are titled as follows: “Red Tide Rising,” “The Fog,” “Acid Trial,” “Stand for Something,” “The Filthy & The Few,” “Death of Aquarius,” “The Bishops Wolf,” “Return to Mars,” “A Eulogy for the Damned” and “Save Me From Myself.”

At the end of Sunday, we burned rough mixes of all 10 songs to CD and had a listen in the car going home and I have to say that it already sounds absolutely huge! I genuinely believe that this is the best Orange Goblin material ever and can’t wait for people to hear the finished product and get the chance to play some of this new material live! Next week we hope to finish all the vocals and guitars which will leave us to add all the bits and bobs like keyboards, etc. We also have a photo shoot and some press to deal with next weekend, so until then…………………………

Ben Ward, 30th August, 2011

Last week’s update is here. Orange Goblin is Ward, bassist Martyn Millard, guitarist Joe Hoare and drummer Chris Turner. More to come, and in the meantime, dig it:

Orange Goblin – Album Recording – Week 2

After a very successful first three days in the studio we all went away and had four whole days off to listen to what we had recorded and decide if any changes to the drum tracks needed to be made, but I think we were all 100 percent happy with the work that Chris had done and by Friday when we arrived back at the studio, Martyn continued laying down his bass tracks, quickly adding to the good stuff he’d done last weekend as well. The break in recording also gave me a good chance to go away and listen to the songs and make sure that the lyrics and vocal melodies are going to work when it finally comes to laying them down. I’ve now got finished lyrics for seven of the 10 tracks, which leaves me with two full weeks to write words and melodies for three songs! Even by my standards, this should be easy enough! Martyn concentrated long enough Friday to get all his parts done despite the rest of us trying to put him off with the temptation of beer, cider and pizza! We all left there Friday night confident that we were well ahead of schedule so Chris and I went back to mine and celebrated this with more beer and whiskey!

Saturday morning, I was up early (and hungover!) and went for a breakfast fit for a king (steak, poached eggs, fried potatoes, onions, mushrooms and tomatoes – Thanks Tom!). This was the perfect stomach lining for a day on the ale! I didn’t actually attend the studio on Saturday as the English football season has started now and I had a ticket to see Liverpool play at Arsenal at the Emirates stadium in London and Liverpool won 2-0!! I honestly had intended to go to the studio after the game but because Liverpool won, there was much celebrating to do and the rest of the band accepted that I wouldn’t drop by! Whilst I was away Joe began laying down his guitar tracks (I’m amazed he managed this, as Martyn was running around the studio celebrating the fact that his team, QPR, had also won that afternoon!) After a while of working on different tones and sounds Joe cracked on and made some very good progress. By the time I got to the studio on Sunday he was well over half way through his basic rhythm tracks and everything was sounding awesome!!

Martyn and I spent the whole day listening to Joe plough through his rhythm tracks and deciding where we needed to multi-layer the guitars and where to keep it simple. I think Joe has a very good sense of where he needs to do stuff and where to drop out and I feel it adds a lot to the overall sound of Orange Goblin albums. Chris never made it to the studio on Sunday as he had family business to attend to but he made a point of sending us messages that his team, Wolves, had won again and were in fact top of the league!! Before we left the studio we had to load all our drums and bass gear out of the studio as they are now done with! We’ll be back again next weekend for Joe to add his leads and for me to start doing vocals on all the songs that have finished lyrics, if this all goes to plan then the following weekend should be spent finishing vocals and guitars and adding the finishing touches (keyboards, percussion and any other little bits and pieces that may need doing!). Once that is done we start the mixing!!! All in all another very productive weekend and three much-needed points for Liverpool, QPR and Wolves. I don’t think all our teams have ever won on the same weekend before………..must be a good sign!!!

Ben Ward, 23rd August 2011