ON TRIAL "Now what's this? 8 guitar tracks, and none of them work all the way thru? And we haven't really got studio time / money to listen carefully to all of them to sort them out? Someone didn't do their homework! Fuck fuck goddamn... okay, let's hope there's nothing good on this take, cos now it's deleted..." "Forever" marks a new chapter as well as a welcome return for the veteran Danish psychrock crew On Trial. It's their first new studio album of original tracks in almost 5 years, and also the first with new members Anders Stub on drums [ex-Mother Superior] and Bjarni Olsen on rhythm guitar. "Forever" finds the band moving toward more succinct heavy 70's rock songs, but keeping their trademark fuzzy "On Trial sound" intact. The band shares some thoughts and memories about the making of the album.... Listen to he on demand webcast of On Trial live at Gutter Island Festival '06 -On Trial will play the Friday Roadburn date, April 20th. Words | Nik This was a collective experience, and done in an atmosphere of chaos. We ended up very drunk and stoned every night of the session, for better or worse. The main impression is that we all kept pushing small ideas all the time, throwing their own drops of luminescent paint onto the framework... ...all the time people are going back and forth between the recording studio and the next room, where ideas for the album cover is taking shape on a laptop... Nik is spewing grand schemes and ideas, but nothing gets unanimous applause till Henrik slides in one of his photos from Anders' garden... ...it's early in the process, but late at night. Even Ralph has lost control at this point. Confusion is rampant, what is this? What are we doing right now? Suddenly the authorative voice of Sorenthe assistant recording engineer, fer chrissakes, comes in: "Guys, Henrik played this solo and it wasn't good enough - you wanted to ditch this take, keep the second half of the other, and do a new first half." The band: "Oh? Uh, okay then... Henrik, get your ass in gear!" ...now what's this? 8 guitar tracks, and none of them work all the way thru? And we haven't really got studio time/money to listen carefully to all of them to sort them out? Someone didn't do their homework! Fuck fuck goddamn... okay, let's hope there's nothing good on this take, cos now it's deleted... ...nothing gets done for real till the sun goes down and the candles are lit and set up all round the recording room -the floor is a black mass of snaky wires, ashtrays, pedals... watch your step... but even if it's brand-new songs, merely two weeks old: Don't watch your fingers! Let it flow man, let it flow... ...Blood River, just a tiny youngster of a song by now, is going down on tape, and third time around it just feels so right, not like when it was Mountain or Every New Direction that were close to being painstaking chores, this is the golden moment, it's so fat and alive you can almost touch it.. fuck maaaan, nothing with your clothes on beats music! Forever > On to the tracks... Mountain One of the many songs that Anders came up with. There's nothing much to say about this one; he presented the chords, and we did our thing on top. [remembers] ...something is needed for the intro to Mountain. Bjarni and Ralph decide it's probably an acoustic guitar. Bjarni lays down one for the left channel, one for the right. Razor sharp and tighter than a neo-con war monger's asshole [but still with more freedom as a result]. Speaking of Witch This one's from Bo. It's the oldest in the set -the longest survivor of the new batch, so to speak. Another problem-free tune -all we really needed to do was play it. Black Seagull Henrik intended this one as a fast garage-pop tune, but Bo wanted it slower, and that's where it ended up... or down. To make it work, Henrik had to toy around with the arrangement a lot. The ending has been both chorus and bridge, but it worked out in the end. Kill City Lights Anders on the 4-track. Or Cubase, as it is these days. Where's the tape hiss? We miss it! Solvi Silver gets to play guitar solo in the outro... it sounds like the walls of Jericho & Berlin coming down. Control room: "OK, so the solo is in D, but do you know that we end up in A?" Solvi, happily defiant: "No!" [He then did another take where he knew the ending chord, and that take ended up on the album. But we're still debating whether that was really a wise move]. Later: What a glorious sight... It's Kill City Lights up on the monitors, lots of friends around, suddenly they are reeled in for a hand clap session [much to their surprise], but nevermind that... it's here you are, and here we go, no fuckin headphones, just the loud sound blaring out from the speakers and people lined up around two mikes right there in the room, banging their palms and making a joyful noise.... One Good Morning During overdubs: Henrik sitting in the dead of night, with the tamboura [thats the one that sounds like a sitar if you're not a classically schooled Indian musician] in his lap, tuning it with love, care, bits of folded paper and a great big fat smile on his face... Control room: "Aren't you playing a lot? I mean, that dzziing sound may become a bit too much if it's all over the song... How about just doing the choruses?" Henrik: "ummm... no, I have to hit it right there in the verse." Control room [thinking well, we can always take it out in the mix]: "uh.. Okay." In the end, nothing was removed from the mix. Henrik tried, once more, to make us play a fast and snappy garage pop tune. It ended up being two-thirds the initial tempo. There was, and still is, lots of discussion on this one. Ralph came up with a fuzz hookline for the intro, that ended up on the cutting room floor. Trust us to throw away a hit when it's given to us! Blood River Anders did a demo with the chords for verse, chorus and ending, and we worked out the middle part all together. This one was written after we'd done some of the more straight songs, and maaan, did we relish the chance to let it flow in the middle section! Every New Direction Nik wanted something hard changing into something mellow that just drifted off into eternity in the end. We had a surprisingly hard time arranging it, and changed the arrangement a bit after recording it. So make sure to come see the show. Believe We're mixing Believe, Anders is on his way to the studio in the train and text mesages: "the tambourine must be TOO LOUD". Then he rolls out the rock like only a Swede can do it. Nuff said! Too Late Too Loud Nik did the verse / chorus thing, didn't think it was On Trial, but recording deadlines are great for making you pull things out of the closet. Bo immediately came up with a guitar solo melody that had the chords built in. Morning Sun in Burg Herzberg Anders' riff and sorta arrangement? Yeah, probably something like that.... Going North Henrik and Anders put the song together up in the Swedish woods, and the rest of us insisted on completely misunderstanding the chord sequence. In the end H and A gave in to our version, and this is the result. On the album, it ended up sounding a lot more powerful in some parts - even frightening - than we thought it would. "Forever" is out on Bad Afro Records.