It’s a tough loss, and I miss him dearly every day.”įor Stasik, the loss is leavened by the baby girl that made him a father for the first time. We did four or five days in a row, and then we flew back for the funeral. “That tour was really emotionally charged for his memory. It was weird, our first show in 16 years that has ever been cancelled because of weather or we couldn’t be there,” Stasik recalls. “We found out the terrible news the first day of tour. The following album and subsequent tour would help the outfit land its first label deal. Umphrey’s almost called it quits right there, but ultimately the group forged ahead with new drummer Kris Myers. The 35-year-old Mirro’s departure to attend med school a dozen years ago was a turning point for the band, coming shortly after the release of its second album, Local Band Does OK. The new album’s release will have a pall over it, though, because original drummer Mike Mirro passed suddenly on January 30. I just think it’s finally time now to bottle our own wine.” We’re happy with everything that ATO did. “We have always been kind of gearing towards being able to do it ourselves anyway, and this was a big opportunity to do that. “They could’ve picked us up for two, but they decided not to, and we were like ‘good,'” says Stasik. With Similar Skin they take another step, self-releasing for the first time in a dozen years after Dave Matthews’ label ATO handled the last one. During the last eight years, they’ve built upon that foundation, continuing to stretch their craft and attempt new things, such as backing King Crimson guitarist Adrian Belew on tour. Stasik and his bandmates self-released their first two studio discs, and by 2006’s fourth album, Safety in Numbers, they broke into the lower reaches of the Billboard Album charts. Sixteen years later, their faith’s been vindicated. Though each of the founding quartet got expensive degrees from Notre Dame that had nothing to do with music, the guys were determined to take the plunge. They felt the last album was too scattershot stylistically and wanted to create a more tightly focused album.Īnd for Umphrey’s it’s been that way from the beginning. Stasik and the gang also wrote dancier, more electronic tunes concurrently, but those are shelved for now. Whether it’s progressive rock, hard rock, alternative rock, it’s still rock ‘n’ roll,” Stasik says.Īround half of Similar Skin‘s tunes have never been heard live, while the others were culled from an extensive back catalog of unrecorded songs Umphrey’s had been kicking around. “It was interesting when the six of us got together everybody’s headspace and mindset was very much back to our rock ‘n’ roll roots. On 2011’s Death By Stereo, the tracks “Domino Theory” and “Go to Hell” stake out harder-hewn, metal-inflected territory reminiscent of Queens of the Stone Age or Russian Circles. The change should not come as a surprise to the band’s fans. It’s an awesome instrument and guitar solos are super-rad.” “I don’t want to live in a time where the electric guitar is forgotten. There’s a lot of electronics and computers, but nothing is cooler to me than the electric guitar and I’m saying that as a bass player,” offers Ryan Stasik. “We have to face the fact that this generation now loves the EDM movement. With Umphrey’s forthcoming eighth album, Similar Skin, the band caters to its chunkier instincts. The proggy, improvisationalists in the band cut their teeth in the jam scene during the early 2000s, but all of that’s about to change. It sits idly by as cowboys, rappers, banjo-sporting hair farmers, and glow-stick waving tweakers pass it by. Capital-R rock is in the midst of a Great Recession.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |