The Wild Beyond

The cover of Max’s new album.

THE WILD BEYOND

My son, Max, has just released his first album. In fact, it is a real record album, like the old days. Albums have made a come-back. And yes, that is Max’s eye staring at you from the cover. You can also find it in CD and mp3, (available on Itunes) depending on your technological savvy. The music is AMAZING! One critic said, “Overall, this debut outing for The Wild Beyond is a powerful rock ‘n roll record to take us into the 21st century! The Wild Beyond will fuel a new generation of rockers who will be able to fill the overgrown amphitheatre with enough blare to make even the most jaded ear bleed. High caliber, hypnotic drone/psych rock for the ultimate zone-out. – Highly recommended.” (Tony from The Dedicated Rocker Society/All Access Magazine.)

Here is what Max wrote about his musical process:

Reflex Driver began to take its current shape during the editing and mixing phase. I scrapped the mid-song jam we recorded as a band and began cutting and pasting choice moments from the session warm ups. I overdubbed several million layers of guitar. Kevin Corcoran slathered on the keys until we had two choirs, two orchestras, seven pianists, a pipe organ and some industrial padding all aimed at making this thing sound stupidly overblown. After all, it’s a song about masculinity as an illness. I think my favorite thematic element in the arrangement is the vocal harmony lifted from “She’s So Heavy.” Which is appropriate, I think, given the subject matter.

I tried to make each individual track overblown in its own way before mix down. The kick sound, for example, is made of five elements: the original recordings of Charles Goold playing the drum (recorded at close and far distances), a sampled kick, a triggered sine wave, and the triggered sine wave running through a distortion pedal. The sine-triggered-by-kick is a familiar hip-hop low-end method. It sounded like sh*t on Charles’ kick, because of the nuance in his playing. But I did it anyway, because Reflex Drivers only care about themselves. While forcing the sh*tty and synthetic low end through a distortion pedal and into the mix, it occurred to me that Reflex Drivers probably shouldn’t produce records. Reflex Drivers are a big problem in general and I didn’t want to be a Reflex Driver. I just wanted to go home. But I was already at home. There was no place to go.

Rock is not dead! Go to http://thewildbeyondmusic.com/ to listen to some cuts and to order a copy for the rockers in your world.