Ichabod and their musical adventure
You have read the CD review (well I hope you have) now read the interview. The band have recorded the new album "2012" which is has to be one of the must have CD's released this year and are hopefully embark on some touring to spread the word. Their unique blend of musical styles is a musical adventure to listen to and one that can leave you begging for more. You must check out the new album, here is the interview.
Greetings, How has life been treating the band lately?
Great! Thanks for asking... We're all busy with our jobs, but we all have our health and are able to work out life's inevitable frustrations through our music. It's cathartic like that.
One thing a lot of people wouldn't know is the band has been together for 10 years. Can you give the readers a little history of the band?
Oh boy...Um, I (Dave) started the band as a phoenix-rising-from-the-ashes sort of thing. A group I was in had just disbanded, so I took the songs I had written for that project and started Ichabod. Just before I had joined that project, Ken and I had been discussing getting back into "heavy" bands (he was doing nothing and I had been in a shoegazer/psych band for a long time) because we had both grown up playing in bands in the Boston metal/punk/hardcore scene. Therefore, it was only natural that I get Ken on board once Ichabod started to get off the ground. We went through a couple of lineup changes in the early days, but the current lineup has been together (Ken, myself, Phil & Greg) for about 8 of the 10 years, so it's been pretty cohesive.
The band has a very eclectic sound, covering a wide range of influences but how would you describe the bands sound?
Jeez...we get lumped into the stoner/doom category mostly, but I think that's primarily because people don't know where else to put us. Our sound is as equally influenced by hardcore, metal, spacerock, classic rock, shoegazer pop, deep psychedelic, punk/crust, improvisational, and ethnic/ambient music as it is by stoner/doom stuff. I usually tell people that once you boil away all of the adjectives with preconceived notions attached to them, we're just a rock band in the end.
How has things changed for the band musically over all these years and has your attitude changed much towards the scene in that time?
We've definitely progressed a lot as musicians, and I believe our songwriting is getting better all the time. It's also of note that when you play with the same dudes long enough, you develop an almost "psychic" bond where you know exactly where each other are going. It makes for lovely improv jams. As far as attitude towards the scene...what scene? I'll leave it at this; at least locally in Boston, there's "flavor of the month" shit that gets the big audiences, and then there are bands who've been chugging along for years whose existence people have ended up taking for granted. But don't take this as an indictment of hipsters or an indication of any bitterness on our part...it's just the business of music, and we're not in it for the business but rather for the art. Hopefully that doesn't make us sound pretentious, because we're not. We just love creating what we do.
I was excited to see you have done a version of "Pink Floyd's The Nile Song". How did the idea for that come about?
We all love Floyd and figured we could "Ichabodize" that song easier than most of their material, because it's already more edgy/heavy than a lot of their other stuff.
I will ask you some questions about the new album in a minute but what is your opinion on the older albums when you hear them now?
I love 'em. Each of us has a different perspective on this though...some members like the old stuff more than others. In general, it gets easier to appreciate a recording once you've been removed from it for a while. It ages like wine. When you're in the studio and have played and listened to the same tunes a gazillion times, you hear every minute flaw. Said flaws are amplified in your psyche a thousand fold because of the sheer number of times you've reviewed 'em, and you simply cannot stand to listen for a while. You walk away and come back to it months later when the metaphorical swelling has gone down, and that's when you begin to see the merit in what you've laid down.
The new album is going to called "2012". What is your thoughts on the prediction that the world will end very soon?
No one knows for sure what will happen or when "the end" will actually occur, or if it will. The Mayans didn't, the Christians don't, nor do the Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Mormons, etc. So Ichabod certainly doesn't lay claim to knowing the
trajectory or time table of the Apocalypse. What we do know however, is that if we humans continue living with blatant disregard of nature, fellow man, and a sense of personal spiritual well-being, we are indeed doomed. Whether it's vehicle will be disease, pestilence, war, cosmic cataclysm, etc., or a combination thereof, karma will indeed be a bitch.
So would you describe the album as a concept album or is there a theme that runs throughout the songs?
Ichabod has always been the "In Search Of" of bands. Our lyrical content and art/musical direction have always leaned toward having to do with metaphysical, occult, spiritual, paranormal, philosophical and personal growth themes. This album is the pinnacle of that; we cover UFO's, Yetis, the Ascended Masters, Jadoo, Mayan Prophecy, etc. It is a loose tribute to John Keel, who recently died. Readers, check out his books, especially "Jadoo"...I've come to think of our playing together as ritual of sorts, the creation of true magick.
Can you tell us anymore about the upcoming Ichabod project "Merrimack" ? That sounds like it could be a killer project!
Merrimack will be our "Tab" or "Jerusalem"...it's a long, long song, although it can be split into separate "movements" live. It's a very proggish opus that hearkens back to stuff like Uriah Heep and early Deep Purple, ala "Book of Taliesin". Lyrically Ken has set it up so that the use of local historical lore and imagery is metaphorical for universal life themes. Musically, it is a sonic representation of the physical characteristics of a river (rapids, calms, etc.)...
Back to the new album "2012", would you mind telling us about some of the songs and the recording process you went through to get these tracks together?
We tracked everything with Devin Charette at Mad Oak studios in Boston, Craig and Tim from Roadsaw's joint. Then we did additional mixing in Salem MA at God City, which is Kurt from Converge's studio.
Do you want to let everyone know how to get the new album?
I'm not absolutely certain as to who all of the distributors will be at this point, but CD Baby, Amazon, and Itunes are safe bets. Rootsucker Records' website has a purchase option as well.
What is on the calendar for live shows, i read you plan on doing as many as possible. Any US tours planned?
We have several New England/Eastern Seaboard gigs planned, but we hope to get on the road again by Summer at the latest. We've all expressed an extreme desire to go to Europe, so that's where we're hoping to appear. The deep South is another area we plan to appear soon, with any luck.
Do you ever think about how long the band will stay together or do you pretty much take it one week at a time?
Never plan anything too far in advance, because that's when you end up feeling let down when fate steps in. We are best of friends enjoying each others company and making music together. Those are things we hope remain constant, even if the form of doing so takes on different shapes over time.
Well I hope everyone takes notice of this band and the new album, I feel you have flown under the radar for too many people out there which is a real shame being the band is so good. Any last words for the readers?
Thank you so much! I'd like anyone reading this to just trust us as your sonic shamans who can lead you through your anthropogenic journey like no others!
