Next Shows, Next Album
The annual D4th of July here in Minneapolis is always a good time, and this year has morphed into a festival of sorts with three straight days of shows. We’re playing on the 4th itself, w/ our buds The Flatliners, A Wilhelm Scream, and many more. If you’re thinking about taking a vacation in Minneapolis, and can’t decide between January or July, GO IN JULY you big dummy and check these shows out. More info here. Tickets for our show here.
Later in the summer, we’ll be playing Awesome Fest for the first time, which should be…. I feel like there’s a funny and appropriate adjective I could use here but let’s go with “enjoyable”. On top of that, we’ll be heading down the west coast for a series of shows leading up to it. More info soon.
Finally, we’ll also be playing the greatest Fest, The Fest, like we do every year.
So, plenty of chances to see us this year.
Any new music, you ask? Well, we have 13 new songs written, and I’m working on the music for #14 right now. We’ll keep plugging away at them, making them better, and then record the best 11 or 12 as soon as we’re ready. I think they’re sounding pretty sweet.
What will it sound like? Here’s one preview: On previous albums, the rhythm guitars were doing power chords for I’d say 97% of the time (occasionally breaking away for the stray octave or ‘journey chord’). On this next album, I think that’s dropped to 75-80%. That’s right: WEIRD CHORDS. Tons of them. I’m talking, ‘stretch your pinky finger up four frets’ levels of strangeness. Inverted chords. Lots of “drone notes”– a major increase in them. Like, so many that there might be a senate hearing on these drones.
To be clear, the songs themselves don’t sound weird, it’s just that some of the chords are weird. Don’t get scared; I think it works. Hell, when it comes out everyone will probably just be like, “What the hell are you talking about? This sounds like every other Banner Pilot song. Drones, my ass.” Either way, I’m stoked on how it’s sounding and hopefully ya’ll will like it.
Cool!
-Nate
PS – I totally flaked on the Europe diary, huh? Jeez. I actually wrote most of it out but never got around to finishing it. I’ll wrap it up and post it (nine months after the fact, but whatever) at some point here