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| Local Spotlight: Dead Hot Workshop took time with 'Heavy Meadow' | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| By Chris Hansen Orf, Get Out | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| November 15, 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||||||
But to hear drummer Curtis Grippe tell it, Dead Hot never really got a chance to strut their creative stuff in the studio, as the band was always forced, due to limited budgets and a quick-working producer on their major label disc, “1001,” to get those records done in a hurry. But now, eight years after their last disc, 1998’s “Karma Covered Apple,” Dead Hot Workshop is set to release a brand new album, “Heavy Meadow,” and for the first time the band was not in a rush, recording the whole album over five months at Grippe’s new home studio in Paradise Valley. “One of the reasons we even decided to do (“Heavy Meadow”) was that we had the luxury of doing this at my house,” Grippe says over an iced tea on Tempe’s Mill Avenue, where the band got its start playing clubs, including Long Wongs, Edcel’s Attic and Chuy’s. “The frustrations over the years of only having X amount of days in the studio has always hurt us in some ways. This was a complete reversal for us.” The result is an ambitious 12-song disc that easily stands with the band’s greatest work. If the Gin Blossoms’ late guitarist Doug Hopkins was Tempe’s John Lennon, then Dead Hot’s brilliant singer/songwriter Brent Babb has always been Tempe’s Bob Dylan — a writer of tremendous gifts that could have literature professors burning the midnight oil analyzing his dizzying array of metaphors. Babb’s work on “Heavy Meadow” is no less stunning than on the band’s previous effort, and Grippe says that the open-ended studio time was necessary to keep up with the band’s perfectionist work ethic. “Brent was changing lyrics in the studio,” Grippe says. “(G.) Brian (Scott)’s bass playing is better than anything he’s ever done, and (guitarist) Kylie (Babb) was fantastic — everybody really played well.” Like all of Dead Hot’s work, “Heavy Meadow” is a tour-de-force of American musical styles, running the gamut from country to folk to hard rock, yet is still distinctly a Dead Hot Workshop disc. “Before, (recording) was not a creative thing at all,” Grippe says. “It was mainly an exercise in duplication (of the band’s live sound). It was very mechanical. “When we started (“Heavy Meadow”), we were like, 'Let’s take our time and make sure everybody gets out of this what they want,’ and, man, we got what we wanted.” >> Dead Hot Workshop performs 9 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 22 at Last Exit Bar and Grill, 1425 W. Southern Ave., Tempe. $5. (480) 557-6656 or myspace.com/dedhot Contact Chris Hansen Orf by email, or phone (480) 898-5684 |
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Travis
Great article on an awesome band!! Suggest removal of this commentMay 12, 2007