Hurricanes and pandemics couldn’t stay Glass Hammer from liberating the heaviest and maximum various album in their occupation, as Prog came upon after we spoke to the band in 2020 about Dreaming Town…
If this yr has proved anything else, it’s that planning is an absolute mug’s sport. That’s been specifically true for musicians in every single place the planet, maximum of whose traveling and promotional escapades were swiftly curtailed. It’s important to really feel for Glass Hammer, particularly. The Tennessee prog veterans were playing a robust run of inventive shape in recent years and those DIY underdogs are extra well-liked than ever, so the discharge of latest album Dreaming Town will have to were a stroll within the revolutionary park, adopted through a noisily attended lap of honour. Sadly, Mom Nature had different concepts. Coinciding nearly completely with the album’s unencumber, brutal tornadoes tore thru Glass Hammer’s house the city of Chattanooga in
mid-April, decimating miles of houses and companies and injuring 19 folks.
So when Prog enquires how issues are going for the band’s core duo of Steve Babb and Fred Schendel, to not point out their households, we’re principally checking that they’re all nonetheless in a single piece. Thankfully, the solution is sure.
“We had been fortunate. We’re all k. One large tree got here down from our neighbour’s backyard and took out our fence, however that’s about it,” Babb finds with an audible grimace. “The hurricane used to be 1,500 yards vast, and we had been supposedly proper at the out of doors of it. However should you force about 3 mins around the highway, it’s like a bomb went off. It’s a 20-mile lengthy trail, the place these kind of stunning houses had been, and there’s simply not anything there. I didn’t need to bitch about it an excessive amount of, however it took place proper on unencumber day. So it used to be like, ‘Oh my gosh, now what?’”
Possibly, the ‘now what?’ became out to be an international pandemic!
“Yeah, proper! So now all of the non-essential industry are closed, so our recording studio’s simply sitting there [Babb and Schendel co-own a studio and produce records across multiple genres]. They’re opening up the state of Tennessee however our mayor gained’t open up Chattanooga. We’d love to make a dwelling once more, however a minimum of the album’s completed and it shipped. My spouse handles maximum of that and she or he controlled to get the entirety despatched out. We had no WiFi, TV or anything else for approximately 10 days, so numerous time we had been the use of our iPhones as hotspots. It used to be loopy, if it’s essential to’ve noticed us packing and getting all these things out! However folks have it now and so they adore it, so it’s all just right.”
Within the face of authentic adversity, Babb admits to being comforted through the truth that Glass Hammer have simply made some of the best albums in their occupation. Even though no longer precisely an intensive departure from the band’s contemporary run of significant information, Dreaming Town is noticeably heavier and extra various than any earlier album. Eagerly embracing a extra old-school heavy steel vibe on songs just like the identify observe and The Key, whilst venturing additional into darkish, ambient electronica on The Tower or even skittering, commercial rock on A Determined Guy, it’s an album stuffed with delicate shocks and courageous leaps ahead.
“The sound of all of it has been evolving for the closing 3 albums,” says Babb. “On Valkyrie [2016], we put a three-minute instrumental digital piece referred to as Nexus Woman proper in the midst of some standard Glass Hammer stuff. Other folks in point of fact went loopy for it, so we idea, ‘Wait a minute, possibly we’re onto one thing!’ On Chronomonaut [2018] I believed ‘Let’s take a look at it once more!’, so we began enjoying with some Tangerine Dream-like concepts and Fred did brass preparations to provide a few of it a Chicago really feel, and folks answered smartly to that. On the similar time we additionally were given the concept that we in point of fact sought after to rock at the subsequent album.”
The sheer thunderous bombast that erupts a number of occasions all the way through Dreaming Town is possibly the report’s maximum startling revelation. Glass Hammer have written a couple of killer riffs of their time, however that is the primary time the American citizens have strayed this on the subject of the Black Sabbath or Led Zeppelin blueprint.
“To be truthful, neither certainly one of us is in point of fact partial to revolutionary steel as such, however I’m an old-school fan of Rush, of A Farewell To Kings and Hemispheres, and such things as Ozric Tentacles, that heavy, spacey stuff,” Babb states. “We each sought after to rock out, so we began bobbing up with the ones sorts of items and it made us all really feel nice so we simply saved going. I do have a background in steel to some extent. Additionally, Fred’s a really perfect rhythm guitar participant. That’s him doing maximum, if no longer all, of the rhythm enjoying in this album.”
Virtually accidentally, Dreaming Town is undeniably tailored for a definite breed of prog and steel fanatics, impressed as it’s through the Michael Moorcock and Robert E Howard novels that Babb absorbed as a formative years. An idea piece that takes position in the similar global as 2005’s The Inconsolable Secret album, it follows a afflicted, sword-wielding warrior who will have to fight his method thru “a spectrum of horrors” to rescue his misplaced love.
“I knew I sought after to do an idea a few determined guy. I believed I would possibly give it
a Western motif, however everyone talked me out of that,” Babb chuckles. “Then I prompt swords and sorcery, and everybody used to be like, ‘Ooh, that’s very cliché!’ and I mentioned, ‘Tremendous, let’s do it, let’s embody the clichés and simply run with it!’ [Laughs] With prog rock, you pay attention all of the clichés about elves and wizards and all that stuff, so I simply sought after to move with that. I sought after a tale a few man with a sword who’s an anti-hero. That’s no longer standard Glass Hammer to me, in point of fact. With us it’s normally concerning the satisfied finishing. However issues don’t all the time finish satisfied! So he has hope on the finish, however no matter he’s been on the lookout for has no longer been resolved.”
Does that mirror a darkening of your individual worldview? Glass Hammer have all the time been a predominantly certain, nearly hippie-like band, on the subject of outlook.
“Smartly, it’s indubitably my view of one thing. There’s private stuff entwined in it, after all. Simply private scenarios that experience took place. As for what’s occurring on the earth, you almost certainly know that almost all folks within the band were or are Christians, so yeah, I do imagine in satisfied endings, however I simply don’t know should you in finding it on this lifestyles, so possibly that’s the place that is coming from.”
Again within the depths of fable, Dreaming Town indubitably appears the section, too. Its paintings used to be as soon as once more created through Polish artist Michaeł ‘Xaay’ Loranc, who designed the band’s present brand and whose paintings has embellished each and every Glass Hammer album since 2014’s Ode To Echo. This time, Babb had an excessively particular imaginative and prescient in thoughts.
“I advised Michael I sought after it to appear to be certainly one of my outdated Elric [The Elric Saga – Michael Moorcock’s series of fantasy novels] paperbacks and provides it that really feel,” he notes. “I all the time give this man lots of concepts and he says ‘Yeah, I am getting it!’ after which he offers me one thing totally other and blows me away. We do that little dance and we each fake that he’s gonna do what I need him to do, after which he does what he desires anyway! [Laughs] I did say I sought after this scarred-up, rugged-looking man and the sword and the town, and he did do all of that, so I’m very happy.”
Having maintained their standing as a self-sufficient entity for almost 30 years, Glass Hammer don’t have anything to end up at this level. Steve Babb jokingly observes that he is aware of that his band’s target audience is nearly solely “guys between the ages of 45 and 65”, however he additionally recognizes that contemporary years have noticed the dimensions of that target audience incessantly develop. Sticking on your weapons it sounds as if does repay sooner or later, tornados however.
“Yeah, from what I perceive, so far as our gross sales are going, there’s a brand spanking new target audience that’s simply came upon us,” Babb grins. “I’m no longer positive what’s took place however one thing has! We kinda reinvent ourselves each and every few years and I’ve questioned if regularly doing it beneath the identify Glass Hammer is a great factor, as a result of the entire thing’s modified over the years. However we don’t need to get started launching a brand new band each and every two or 3 years when it’s simply me and Fred doing the similar stuff. It sort of feels to be running simply nice at this time.”
Assuming that the arena is up and working once more some level quickly, Babb and Schendel are shopping at a brighter long run than ever prior to. Dreaming Town sounds just like the fruits of a few years of laborious paintings and experimentation, and the reaction from fanatics has already been overwhelmingly certain. Unfortunately, plans to accomplish in this yr’s Cruise To The Edge had been scotched together with everybody else’s 2020 traveling plans, however Steve Babb sounds undeterred and truly thinking about the way in which his enduring mission is progressing.
“Fred and I paintings in combination with reference to on a daily basis, both on our track or any person else’s, and we had a dialogue concerning the nice reaction to the report. He’s pleased with what we did and I’m too. I’ve advised different folks that we deserve the suitable to be wishy-washy about this, however because it stands now, we need to stay construction in this, with a heavier sound. Those new songs are in point of fact just right, so we’ll be striking a few of them into the are living display, after we in any case get to rehearse once more!”
Sneaking out some of the yr’s largest information through the outside in their enamel, and with tornados whistling of their ears, Glass Hammer have as soon as once more proved that the DIY ethos is alive and smartly in prog. They’ve additionally equipped us with the perfect method of get away from the continued drudgery of lockdown and social-distancing: a large, daring and bombastic idea album with swords, sorcery, towering melodies and big riffs. As Steve Babb cheerily concludes, it used to be all indubitably definitely worth the effort.
“We labored in this factor for months and months after which the Sure cruise used to be cancelled, I’d already given the order for the CDs and the T-shirts had been being made, so what used to be gonna occur? For roughly a month we had been at the fringe of our seats! So I’d say it used to be a huge effort on our section to get this album out, however you don’t need to speak about that an excessive amount of as a result of we’re no longer medical doctors or nurses. We’re no longer heroes! We’re simply suffering to make a dwelling like everybody else.”
