Howlin Rain play the Constellation Room March 7
Howlin Rain brings the vibe back to The Constellation Room March 7, this time in support of the new album, “Mansion Songs”, the first studio album following their departure from Rick Rubin and American Recordings.
“When I began this record, I most certainly hadn’t given up, but I was in a dark and trying place,” explains founder and front man, Ethan Miller, “I wanted the album to reflect a dignified despair. Often times that’s what art is; elegant sorrow, pushing through despair with some kind of dignity, in search of a reasonable justification of life.”
Miller talked to Concert Guide Live about damage, chance, chaos and more.
CGL: Have you previously played in Orange County, California?
EM: Yeah, I’ve played in OC many times over the last 15 years. It never looks like it’s going to be the most amazing place to play on paper but there is always an excitement bubbling beneath the surface.
That seems to do with a younger generation of music fans constantly rejuvenating the method of engagement with the music happening locally and the music of the outside world that are passing through. To be a person or a place that is more than initially meets the eye is a powerful thing.
CGL: What do you like about playing live?
EM: I love the physicality. I love the incredible exchange of energy between the crowd and performer. And I’ll admit that I like the larger than life, part animal, part man, part god character that a front man inhabits at the most heightened moments of performance.
CGL: The studio album, “The Russian Wilds” came out a couple of years ago. Tell us about the new one.
EM: The process is the opposite of the Russian Wilds. With TRW we rehearsed extensively before recording and then we gave fairly meticulous performances all down the line and created an album as close to perfection as I’ll probably ever make in my life.
With the new album I didn’t do a single session with a rehearsed musician. There were ZERO rehearsals and about half to three quarters of the musicians that played on the record I’d never even met. Some of them just came as session players on reputation and I’d never even really heard them play before. I let chaos, damage, change and loose swagger command the vibe of this record. “Vibe” being the key word, there is ZERO perfection on this album.
The first day of recording I kind of got cold feet and said to myself “what the fuck am I doing? This is a huge risk. I’m stepping into the studio and no one knows what’s going on. They’ve never heard a note and don’t know what to play. I’m the only one that knows what’s going on and I sure as hell don’t know what’s going on. What if I can’t lead the sessions? What do I do if nothing gets done because nobody knows anything?” But, of course, that night I stepped up and led the band and rode the chaos and chance and they were amazing.
That night I was high as a kite having pulled it off and the next morning I said to myself, “you took a risk and it paid off. Take another bigger one.” So I booked a weekend at a studio in LA and brought in some hot LA players I’d never met or heard and successfully lead them through another hayride of damage, chance and chaos to create unique sounding performances.
That one was a lot more of an expensive risk as I had to pay good money for the players and the studio was of course a bit more expensive than I was used to in the bay area but I needed to up the challenge to myself.
After that one was a success I made a note to myself in a journal to remember that the entire album process was going to be a series of decisions. At each choice there was going to be the safer one financially, artistically, logistically—and then the other side was risk that would throw all that into chaos and have a high risk of failure and loss but so far had produced a pattern of unique and rewarding results.
I vowed to always take the second choice on this recording, right down the line. Every single risk I took paid off for me to create something unique that I am both surprised and thrilled about. It may sound like a no-brainer to take risks when recording a rock album but actually the common theory is the opposite. Rehearse the material, be diligent with your studio time, try and minimize the chaos factors. If any of those elements get too far out of hand you can blow a quarter of your whole album budget stuck in a whirlpool of wrong direction for a long weekend. But that didn’t happen here. I trusted chance.
CGL: How would you describe Howlin Rain?
EM: It’s rock music with cosmic elements, fuzz and soul elements. I didn’t reinvent the wheel with Howlin Rain (no one really reinvents the wheel). I strive to be a unique voice and of authentic and unique musical character and not waste my talents trying to create a whole new musical genre.
It’s all the same 12 notes in western music. The trick is telling the ‘truth’ of the notes and the ‘truth’ of the words. That never gets old. It’s why we can listen to the same three chords over and over again and still hear a new profound piece of music based on the same old three chords we’ve been hearing for the last century and it’s something fresh and incredible to our hearts and ear. ’Truth’ of the music is the power.