MOTHERTRUCKER "Kings of Kabaddi -I think this song was really important for us as it was the first time we made the bold step of not having something that was purely based on riffs but expanded the Mogwai / Slint elements of our sound to create a slow burning epic that was still heavy but different to what we had done before. Instrumental riff-centred rock from Birmingham, Mothertrucker are distinctive and heavy. Their demo, "The Last Ride of Dr. Sanchez", was fantastic -Mothertrucker's latest album "Electric Blacksmith" is even better. Drummer James talks to Roadburn about the making of "Electric Blacksmith", out on Gallipoli Records. Words | James Mothertrucker started out as most bands do because we just all wanted to have fun together! Myself [James - Drums], Charlie [Guitar] and Tom [Bass] discussed the idea of the band in a pub and a name had already been bantered around by our friend Ben Taylor [who obviously never ended up joining the band] and so we just hired a room, borrowed equipment and started to play. Tom and I had never played our instruments before, and I mean literally NEVER played them before we had our first band practise as a three piece. So hopefully everyone can tell we've come on leaps and bounds since then. After just two practises we decided to rope in our pal Chris [guitar] who was and still is an awesome musician, so he pulled us into shape! After one year of slowly buliding structure into our epic jams we played our first gig in Birmingham and recorded what was to be our debut self-released mini-album, "The Last Ride Of Dr Sanchez", which then went to get awesome reviews from everyone... much to our pleasent surprise I might add. So now nearly 3 years on [we formed in October 2003] we've finally got the sound we wanted... We returned to The Zoo Recording Studio in Nuneaton with our producer Carl Harris who also layed down "The Last Ride Of Dr Sanchez" [now out of print] in November of 2005 for three days and recorded the five tracks on "Electric Blacksmith" live with all four of us in the room and then just added layers / tinkered with things after the bulk of the music was recorded. We used all of our own equipment, just us in a small dark room really! We love recording, but we've always felt our live sound is superior to our recorded outputs, and we still think this with "Electric Blacksmith." We're all hugely proud of the CD as it's a marked progression in terms of us as a band from "Sanchez" to "Blacksmith" but we hope that relatively soon someone with the funds and links to great studios gets in touch and helps us record our first album that we've been dying to make. ELECTRIC BLACKSMITH> On to the songs... Horn Of Edwards A little while back I got a bit of money for my birthday, so I decided it would be a great idea to buy an e-bow. This did indeed turn out to be a great idea as they are awesome gadgets that can be used to tease epic drones from your guitar, particularly when used in conjunction with a delay pedal. I spent many happy hours dicking around with my bow after purchasing it and this song is a result of that. The title is in honour of the lesser known Norse deity Edwardios [hose name translates into modern day english as "Ian Edwards"] who was a god of Metal and used to drink foaming mead from a chalice crafted from the horn of a geat bull. This chalice is the Horn Of Edwards to which the title refers. The Taking Of Planet 55 Essentially, I wanted to write something long and heavy with lots of riffs and this one kind of ticked all the boxes. A challenge for us to get to grips at first because we hadn't been together long but I feel we got there in the end. Split into two parts, the first section is awash with high paced stoner riffage compared to the second section and its outro being more doom and prog like with lots of delay and wah. There's some real heavy stuff in this one but contrasted with some slower more melodic passages makes it a well rounded son of a bitch. An old Doctor Who book became the inspiration for the title. Dark Destroyer Me and Mr Scrivens crafted this song by combining bits of riffs and melodies we had knocking about but were having difficulty expanding to full songs in their own right. I contributed the sludgy dirge that makes up the beginning and end whilst Chris penned the bone shaking riff that drops about halfway through. There's no real concrete reasoning behind the title for this, so you can interpret it in many ways. It could be about Nigel Benn, it could be named in honour of the real ale "Dark Destroyer" which has a menacing black ship depicted on its label, it could be the name Science called Derek in the last series of Big Brother or it could be none of these. Feel free to think up your own views Kings Of Kabaddi I think this song was really important for us as it was the first time we made the bold step of not having something that was purely based on riffs but expanded the Mogwai / Slint elements of our sound to create a slow burning epic that was still heavy but different to what we had done before. I felt that this opened up our eyes to writing more varied songs and making us realise that there's pretty much no limit to what kind of sounds we can create and still be a heavy band. The title is inspired by the Indian sport Kabaddi which used to be shown on Channel 4 on Sundays many years ago but has sadly long since disappeared from their schedules. We were having a conversation lamenting the loss of this televisual sporting treat, so this song now exists as a tribute to a great sport which will one day hopefully return to our screens. Visit www.kabaddi.org to discover more about this fine sport. ELECTRIC BLACKSMITH> Influencial albums... We've all got such different and varied tastes in music, and it's hard as one person to list influences on behalf of the band, but I would say that five albums I'm pretty sure we all enjoy are: Isis - "Panopticon" Pelican - "The Fire In Our Throats..." Down - "Nola" Mogwai - "Young Team" Kyuss - "Sky Valley" We try not to rip off other bands, but rather blend styles and hopefully create something of our own as opposed to just being copyists.