(EDITOR’S NOTE — The Living Braindead will drop its new album, ‘Makeover,’ on Saturday March 15. We’ve had the privilege to give it several spins; It’s a great record and very much worth your time. The band will be hosting an album release show this Saturday at Nietzsche’s with special guests Smitten for Trash and Shambles. Doors at 8 p.m. We recently sat down with The Living Braindead’s Joe Kent to discuss the new album. It was a great talk and we’re thankful for his time. Please read our story below. The Living Braindead is Jill Ann, vocals; Jon Kozlowski, drums; Joe Kent, guitar; Joe Maggio, guitar and Nick Oring, bass. — Photo provided by band.)
1120 PRESS: Thank you for speaking with us and congratulations on the new album! It's very good. How are you feeling about it now that it’s set to drop?
JOE KENT: Yeah, I think we did a really great job, and I think Ron Hensberry did a really great job recording and engineering it. You know, we asked for a revision or two, but once he reined in some stuff, we were all in. And we're like, ‘Oh, that's what we're paying for! This is perfect!’ Ron really knew how to bring the best out in us.
1120: Is there anything in particular that you are most proud of in all of this?
JK: That we're finally putting out an album after it's been a minute. Jill joined right after Music is Art in 2022. So, it's been almost three years trying to get this album out. I’m not only proud of finally having the album come out, but also having it come out on vinyl and CD and everything else.
1120: You mentioned this was an almost three-year effort. What were some of the challenges getting it made?
JK: Agreeing on who was going to record the album, I think, was part of it. But Jill came to us with Ron who works at GCR. We did it out of his house. We recorded it all together. And then, when I went in to add guitar parts, what I heard in my headphones, I was like, ‘Oh, man, this is gonna be really, really spectacular. Like, this is gonna be really good!’
We did release a single prior to this, ‘Bar Whore’. We recorded that on our own and our bass player, Nick, mixed that. And then we just released, ‘Partial Truths,’ which is off the new album.
1120: The bass on that song really stands out. It’s very good.
JK: Yeah, that's our current guitar player, Joe Maggio. He was our bass player up until last February, and that's when we got Nick, and Nick started playing with us.
1120: So, the album is called, ‘Makeover,’ and as a band, you have gone through a lot of challenges and lineup changes. Tragedy, too, with the death of your previous bassist. Does the name of the LP have any particular meaning?
JK: Like, you’ve mentioned, you’re familiar with both albums, so you'll notice a lot of the songs are basically the same songs from ‘Falls Count Anywhere,’ just made over with new lyrics and in some cases, new structures. There's the Ska part in ‘Partial Truths’ that we just released, which was not in the original. So, it really symbolizes kind of the makeover from the previous lineup when we had Kaydee singing and transitioning into Jill, and the new lyrics and the new structures of songs and what Jill and Joe brought to the table.
This is The Living Braindead, but it's a new era. There's been a makeover. Basically, we wanted to finally get something out that sounded like us, because ‘Falls Count Anywhere’ doesn't sound like us anymore. It sounds like us five years ago when we released it, as opposed to now. We've got a whole new singer. We've got a new bass player. I mean, we've gone through a few bass players since then. So, it really represents the new sound and what we're going for.
1120: As far as the addition of Jill, when a band changes a vocalist there’s a
potential to really change the sound of the band. What do you think Jill brings to the band.
JK: Jill brings a lot, honestly. And everybody who's seen us with our previous lineup and who’s been there from the beginning, they tend to come up to us after shows and they’re like: ‘You guys are so much better now.’ And I always tell everybody that it’s Jill, 100 percent. She puts in the work. She makes the effort. She writes the set list. She does a lot of promotion. She does a ton of stuff, and she took a lot of work off me. She also brings her energy and her sensibilities and her vocal style to the mix. And really, again, back to the ‘makeover’ aspect of it, she really transformed how those old songs sound. When you listen to a song like ‘Settle Down,’ which is the first track on the album, which used to be called ‘Don't Drown’ on the previous one, you know, with the previous singer on the previous album, it sounds like a completely different song.
1120: Yeah, she has this very powerful voice and gives off a bit of a Brody Dalle-vibe from The Distillers.
JK: Funny enough, we have gotten a lot of comparisons to The Distillers since she's been in the band. We actually were covering ‘Drain the Blood’ for a little while.
1120: With a female vocalist, does it now open new ground for the band in the sense that you have an ability to explore a direction musically that you otherwise might not have been able to?
JK: Yeah, I think so. Jill knows a bit about how to play music, too, so she'll bring ideas to us that weren't necessarily there before. For example, there's a ballad on this album. It's called ‘Richard Trenton Chase.’ It's about the serial killer. And Jill came up with a chord progression for that one. She was like, ‘Here is what I'm playing.’ And I, you know, just tweaked it a little bit and made it what it is. But 100 percent of the credit to her on that song. I don't necessarily know if that’s a direction we would have gone sonically without her.
1120: What, in your mind, is different about this album compared to the previous one? What stands out to you in terms of musical direction, and sound?
JK: I think production, first and foremost. The previous album was done by our late bass player Brian. He recorded all that. He mixed it, put it out. And on this one, we went to somebody who actually works in a studio. We didn't go into the studio. We went to his house and recorded. But he knew a little bit better what he was doing and we kind of knew what we were looking for a little bit more. We got the first mix back and we sent him a page of changes and he knocked them out. And everything was exactly how we wanted it because what we wanted was our sound. We wanted it to sound like us, but, you know, only better (laughs). And I think Ron really nailed it. He did an amazing job.
1120: So, you’ve also went from a four-piece to a five-piece. What did that allow you to do as a band?
JK: I think it added more depth to our live sound. If you listen to ‘Bar Whore,’ there's Joe and I, and we're actually playing two different things during the verse. And so, it allows us to kind of thicken our sound a little bit. So, there's places where we can play leads where there weren't leads before. And we can play other things on top of things now as opposed to before when it was just one guitar, one bass.
1120: Was it a conscious decision to go to a five piece for those reasons or did you just sort of evolve?
JK: Yeah, absolutely. It was absolutely to kind of thicken the live sound. And we actually did that right as we were recording this album. So Nick is actually not on the album. It's me and Joe. I'm playing guitar, he's playing bass — except for on ‘I Bet Your Life's a Drag,’ on the second guitar solo. That's Joe. He recorded that after the fact and sent it over to Ron, and Ron mixed it in.
1120: You mentioned that it took you guys three years to put the album out, but in following your socials, you guys have been done with the record for a while. You’ve shown some extraordinary patience in releasing it. Was there a reason behind that patience? Was there a strategy to that?
JK: We tend to release things on Jon’s birthday. (laughs)
We got the album a while ago, and then we were waiting for the album art to get finished. Matt LeMay did an amazing piece of art for the album cover. Then once we got that, it's like, okay, when do we want to put it out? And it's like, ‘Well, Jon’s birthday's is in a couple of months. Let's put it out then!’ I wanted to put it out on his birthday, which is March 12, three days before our album release show. And everybody else was like, ‘Well, no, let's just put it out the day of the album release show.’ So that's where we're at now.
Another thing, too, was we were waiting for the vinyl to come in, which we were a little bit worried that it wasn't going to be here in time. But in the end, it got here way sooner than we expected, and we were very happy about that. So, we've got that actually going out to Revolver Records, to Black Dots, and I’ve got to get down to Timeless Babes at some point, and drop off some there. So, it will be available in some stores as well as at our shows. It's also available on our Bandcamp.
1120: What else is on the agenda for 2025.
JK: We're playing with Green Jelly on May 2, which is really cool. We're gonna be doing the Punk Rock Prom again too. This time it's gonna be in July, because the day we originally booked, there's a much bigger punk band coming to town. That’ll be at Nietzsche’s.
1120: Is there anything else you want to add about the album that we haven't covered?
JK: Great album art from Matt LeMay. I think I've already mentioned that, but it's worth saying again. He did an amazing job. I can't wait for everybody to get it in their hands. And as far as the album itself, I just want people to know we worked very hard on it. I think we did a really great job and we’re excited for people to hear it.
Comentarios