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Blues Explosion.
The name Jon Spencer is gone from the title of the Blues Explosion, but the energetic front man still leads the rock and roll that spews from the latest album 'Damage' in his evangelical style: a style that they'll be bringing to the stage with the Big Day Out.
"It was something that Jon suggested," explains drummer Russell Simins of the trio's subtle but significant name change. "It is something that could have happened sooner. We have always been a band," he insists.
Simins, Spencer and other guitarist Judah Bauer formed met in 1991 and have been cutting it up ever since. Just prior to the release of the new album the Blues Explosion shifted to Sanctuary Records, home to a number of big names with a roster amid more mainstream rock than previous label Matador, where they were a heavyweight amongst the alternatives.
"There are big fans of the band," Simins says of his label mates which are as diverse as Fleetwood Mac, Megadeth and Tegan & Sara. "Even though it is a heavy roster, there are many people on it that we dig, and who dig the Blues Explosion."
One of those I couldn't help mentioning is Gene Simmons, a Queens, NY, lad just like Simins. "I have run into him a couple of times but have never really hung out with him." Simins says, a little cagey at my prompting. "We have crossed paths on a few social occasions."
Well, what is he like?
"Well, he is like what you think he is like, pretty matter of fact, pretty outwardly hedonistic." I momentarily ponder the current two degrees of separation between myself and Gene Simmons. Simins is, of course, more interested in discussing 'Damage'. I suggest there are a number of names one may not expect to see in the liner notes of a Blues Explosion album: DJ Shadow, David Holmes and Martina Topley-Bird, for example.
"I think DJ Shadow is very much like the sprit of the Blues Explosion. I think in his world he is pretty punk. We have known each other for a while, and have often tried to do something together, both being fans of each others music," explains Simins. "I think it has worked out with a lot of these people that they may do different things in their worlds respectively, but they are all coming from a punk rock old school, soul thing. They don't compromise the band."
This is certainly true. Shadow produces the fantastic, frenetic and funky Fed Up And Low Down, adding scratch and beat textures that exploit further those elements which have always existed in the Blues Explosion sound. The album still has plenty of straight up rock and roll, but also gets back to a lot of the soul and laid back parts exploded in earlier Blues Explosion albums such as 'Orange' (1994) and 'Mo Width' (1993).
Topley-Bird, best known as the vocal wonder from Tricky's first two albums, lends her other worldly chords to You Been My Baby, produced by Holmes. It is a soulful pine that becomes a crowded and chaotic howl, and again works seamlessly within the Blues Explosion aesthetic. "David Holmes brings out the more soulful qualities of the songs that we have written, he really taps into that and brings it out, because he is really a big soul fan too," Simins explains, matter-of-factly.
With the new material they will be even more of a rockin' spectacular when they perform live in February, and are sure to upstage many of the Big Day Out's new rock pretenders.
Narelle Walker
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'Damage' is out now through Sanctuary/BMG, and The Blues Explosion play at the Adelaide Big Day Out on Fri 4 Feb.
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