Rick Rude’s new EP features hard work on laid-back jams
Sure, Seacoast band Rick Rude sometimes is pigeonholed as a “slacker rock” band. And yes, singer and guitarist Ben Troy only plays with four strings on his guitar — two of the strings broke, he said, and he just never got around to replacing them.
Don’t let those details fool you, though. Rick Rude is anything but lazy, and this spring may be their biggest season yet. Their new EP, “Mind Cook,” dropped earlier this month (it’s their first vinyl release), and a March 17 album release show at Wrong Brain’s brand new space in Dover kicks off a six-date tour. And that’s not to mention the full-length album that they’re halfway finished recording.
“Mind Cook” is the latest step for a band that doesn’t stop evolving. It’s been three years since Rick Rude recorded their first album, “Heavyweights,” a jam-inspired record they made for the RPM Challenge. Since then, bassist Jordan Holtz said the band’s gotten more focused — sort of.
Rick Rude – Sap Live 3/5/16 at Paragon Viva from Nate Wentzell Media on Vimeo.
“Personally, ‘Mind Cook’ hits harder for me because it is our first release on vinyl and the songs are a bit more structured than our older releases,” said Holtz. “Instead of just creating at practice, we started writing on our own and bringing new song ideas to each other. It’s the same old sloppy, fun Rick Rude feel, but with new dimensions.”
In Rick Rude’s early days, Troy mainly wrote the songs and the lyrics. As the band grew and Holtz and guitarist Noah Lefebvre contributed more to the songwriting process, their sound matured.
“I guess (our music) sounds different because now there’s three songwriters and they’re all over the place,” said drummer Ryan Harrison, who created the cover art for “Mind Cook” and co-released it through his label, Salty Speakers. “If Noah’s writing a song, it’s gonna be real ‘pirate-y’ and have weird time signatures. If Ben writes a song, it’s gonna have a killer solo. He only plays with four strings, but it’s going to be extremely well-written. And Jordan’s got her style of writing, which is completely different. It’s really tame, but really badass.”
The EP, which was released in conjunction with Newmarket’s Cat Dead Details Later Records, consists of five original songs. The first two tracks, “Sap” and “54 TLOC” are reworked tunes from earlier split releases with local bands Kiss Concert and Comma. The original version of “Sap” was a lo-fi demo recorded on Troy’s cell phone; on the record, it’s evolved into an ambitious alternative rock anthem, and the band’s catchiest song to date.
“54 TLOC,” originally featuring Troy manically stuffing lyrics about his workday in between bursts of thrashing guitar, is now dressed in a more in-tune arrangement. Holtz takes the mic and slows down its pace, her melodic crooning professing everyday boredom in dreamy poetics.
It’s common for the Rick Rude crew to either re-record songs, or rewrite them entirely.
“We constantly revisit our stuff,” said Troy. “We’ll always be looking for new ways to approach what we do.”
Harrison agreed. “After a month or so of playing songs, we tend to try to write a couple new ones and we always dip back into our old tank of songs and just try to see if we can rework any of those songs,” he said. “It’s just a thing we do to change it up.”
Also on “Mind Cook” are “Stromboli” and the eponymous track. Both feature complex, mathy riffs that fluctuate between distortion and clean channels. Closing out the album is “Little Boy,” a cover of a song Troy and Lefebvre wrote for Tell Stories, their folk duo project.
Troy said there isn’t a theme to his lyrics, but there’s something there. “Stromboli” is only eight words long: “Short hair / soft cheese / bronze eyes / beef squeeze.” It seems puzzling on paper, but the song’s infectious chorus begs listeners to sing along.
“Lyrics have been coming from all directions, in many different moments and moods. I would venture to guess that there is some overlying theme, but that wasn’t the intention,” Troy said. “‘Stromboli’ is a song I wrote for my dog.”
“Mind Cook” was recorded over the course of a weekend at the Crawl Space in Dover by producer Alex Bourne. According to Troy, the band’s initial plan was to record new material a little at a time, but since they were on a roll, they pushed ahead and started work on a full-length album.
“We had recorded the first five (songs) for the (“Mind Cook”) EP with the intention of releasing several EPs, each with five or so songs,” said Troy. “The second set of five had a slightly different feel, and with plans already in place to record more, we figured releasing 10 as a full length would be the way to go.”
The March 17 gig at Wrong Brain HQ shows how far the band has come. Wrong Brain creator Sam Paolini booked Tell Stories for a show years ago, Troy said, and it’s fitting that Rick Rude celebrates their first vinyl release in the art collective’s new space. It’s partly a celebration, partly a tour kick-off, and partly a chance to get together with friends, according to the band.
“The release (show) is mainly for the EP, but it is more of an excuse for everyone to get together, hang out, and eat cake,” said Holtz.
Rick Rude performs at Wrong Brain HQ, Washington Street Mills, 1 Washington St., suite 459, Dover, with guests Ursula, Family Planning, and Vanishing DMC on Thursday, March 17 at 8 p.m. $5–$10 suggested donation. “Mind Cook” is available online at rickrudeparty.com.