SLASH Bassist TODD KERNS - "It’s A Lost Art To Be Able To Play Your Fucking Instrument"
April 6, 2012, 12 years ago
SceneSlut.org recently interviewed SLASH bassist and SIN CITY SINNERS vocalist, guitarist TODD KERNS; an excerpt follows:
The new Slash album, Apocalyptic Love, was recorded straight to tape. What was that experience like and did you feel pressure not to be the guy who stuffs up the take?
"It’s funny because we were just in Toronto and Slash said on radio that I was the only one who didn’t mess up."
Well done, you!
"Thanks, I’m certainly going to try and keep that myth going! I’m sure I messed up something here and there. For me it was great, when I first started playing and recording music, it wasn’t long before the two-inch analogue world was dying but I resisted it every step of the way. With everything I was doing we would record analogue and onto two-inch tape, and slowly we just started to record drums on tape before going completely digital.With this album we were initially talking about taking the songs to an audience before we went into the studio, which would have been super exciting, but our schedules didn’t work out. However, we wanted to retain that live feeling so all the guitar, drums and bass were recorded together rather than the normal method of starting with the drum track. For us, it was more about trying to capture the music collectively. The cool thing about the record is that we retained a little bit of talking between songs, the count-ins; the sort of things that are normally cut out."
Excellent, I love hearing stuff like that.
"I can appreciate that because I’m the same way. It is always fascinating to me that we live in a day and age of special monitors and in-ears and it’s all like 'Oh my god, I can’t hear myself', then you look back on things like THE BEATLES at Shay Stadium and they’re all singing in harmony together when they can’t hear a thing. It’s a lost art to be able to play your fucking instrument. As I said, I’m not a RUSH prog rock kind of musician but I attack my instrument with confidence, knowing that we don’t have click tracks on stage or recorded vocals and keyboards on stage, we are just a rock band. We’re basically a dirty club band in a larger situation. I don’t really understand the idea of doing it any other way. My world is, I play my instrument, sing my part and we all play together."To read the interview in its entirety, click here.
Slash will release Apocalyptic Love in North America on May 22nd with the following tracklisting:
'Apocalyptic Love'
'One Last Thrill"
'Standing In The Sun'
'You’re A Lie'
'No More Heroes'
'Halo'
'We Will Roam'
'Anastasia'
'Not For Me'
'Bad Rain'
'Hard & Fast'
'Far And Away'
'Shots Fired'
