NAME: Blitzen Trapper
PROGRESS REPORT: Recording the follow-up to 2008's Furr in Portland, Oregon.
"I don't really record records," says Blitzen Trapper leader Eric Earley. "I'm always writing and recording." And because of that, it's hard to answer some of the basic questions about the next Blitzen Trapper record. It will probably come out next year -- though it could come out now (he's already recorded over 20 tracks). It will probably be more consistent. But, since he and his band chose album tracks by simply drawing their ten or so favorite songs from those already recorded, nobody is sure exactly what will be on the album. Earley doesn't seem worried about it. He writes and records when the band's got a break between tour, scheduling just one day at a time, whenever he has a new song written. He splits his time between Mike Coykendall's and Gregg Williams' studios in Portland. Each studio has its own advantages: Coykendall's studio lets him record to tape, while Williams' has a more digital set-up, which means Earley can get warmer vocals and fine-edit the electronic elements when he needs to." I kinda just move in a lot of different directions," Earley explains. "I don't really think it terms of records. I just think in terms of songs."
It might be more accurate to say Earley thinks in terms of stories. Both Wild Mountain Nation and Furr displayed a range of styles -- '70s hard rock, to country, folk, and electronic music -- so Blitzen Trapper's most consistent element has been Earley's unusual stories, which take on myths and wild metaphors. Earley promises even more narratives on the next album: "One of them is an autobiographical sort of story that's kinda fictionalized. There's one called 'The Tailor.' It's about this guy's journey. He comes from the sea and creates his family out of electricity and his life takes these turns and he becomes this tailor in a foreign land and he's called before the king," Earley says. "It's stuff like that -- these strange fables or parables. But they all have meaning for me and they all have lines in them that I think are important and that serve to make the songs meaningful." One even has a fairytale-esque name: "The Brothers Three," which Earley describes as a traveling fable.
Otherwise Earley can't really say how the new album is sounding. "This stuff on this record is very hard rock, almost like Led Zeppelin, and some stuff is almost like Black Sabbath. Hard rock stuff," he says, but adds: "And then some stuff is very folk, just a guitar and a voice." He says that there won't be overtly country tracks on the record. He's been working with sounds that he hopes will sound as if they're sampled from old records: strings, electronic beats, and even some North African / Middle-Eastern sounds, thanks to Blitzen bassist Michael VanPelt. "I hear a lot of that stuff from him in the van when we're driving. And I'll ask, 'What is that?' He'll tell me and of course I won't remember," he says. VanPelt put some bands on a mixtape for Earley, who was especially interested in an '80s Libyan pop star. Though Earley can't remember his name, the musician "uses this bizarre key instrument to do these fast and weird Eastern melodies," he says. Part of what he liked was listening to Libyan music and finding parallels with his family's Appalachian background, America's third world country. It was a strong influence on Furr, and Earley hopes it'll show up stronger on his next album, though, again, it won't be an overpowering element. "I think it's dangerous to think all those things are super strong. They're all just light touches," he says. "In the end it's all just melodies and lyrics. In the end it's all just songs."
[Photo by Todd Roeth]
Blitzen Trapper - "Furr" (MP3)
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