Catching Up With Jeremy Lemos Of The High Confessions
By Jon Graef in Arts & Entertainment on Jul 13, 2011 4:20PM
Jeremy Lemos, bottom row left.
The High Confessions feature some of alt-rock and metal’s most well regarded musicians. Along with Lemos, most of them are based in Chicago: Local producer Sanford Parker (Nachtmystium, Minsk), solo artist and former Ministry member Chris Connelly. Drummer Steve Shelley (Sonic Youth) is based out of New York.
Last year, the quartet released Turning Lead Into Gold With The High Confessions on Relapse, the metal label home to fellow Chicago bruisers like Bloodiest and Indian. The record was acclaimed by Stereogum, who premiered a stream of the record around this time last year.
Because of its epic, caterwauling sound collages and snarling post-punk, we described Lead Into Gold as “manna from hell” and the “perfect soundtrack for your anti-summer jams.”
A follow-up is in the works, barring the busy schedules of all the participants, including Lemos, who is in Germany currently doing front-of-house mixing for Iron and Wine. “Sanford is so busy working, and I’m so busy working, I think [finishing the album] is going to be the next time I get a break from touring,” Lemos said. “Which I thought was going to be June, but … I mean, you can’t complain. I love being busy.”
Lemos is nothing if not busy. In addition to touring constantly, he’s plays the occasional show with ambient duo White/Light (who play with The Psychic Paramount and Implodes on July 20 at the Empty Bottle), and he’s also at work on demos for the third Disappears record.
In an email response to fact-checking, Lemos said the psychedelic rock band has booked studio time where they will “probably record version[s] of all the new songs” the band has.
And after that? More touring and The High Confessions.
Lemos says the group’s creative process is ego-free, improvisational and free of power struggles:
The way [The High Confessions] works, [we'll] walk into the studio and say, [cheerfully] “what should we do?” I’ll say, ’well, I’ve been really into this Talking Heads song lately.’ And then I’ll pick up a bass and play the bass line to that, and Steve will start playing some drums, Sanford picks out a couple of keyboards, then starts playing some stuff. Chris will hook up a couple of pedals and play something, and then we’ll jam on that for 20 minutes. We’ll go back in there, and go, ‘this section is good, that section is good, get rid of that.’ And we’ll cut it together. The way that we work is my dream way of making a record.”
That dream was almost a nightmare when the band first recorded. Two days before Shelley flew in for the group’s first sessions, Parker and Lemos didn’t have any material whatsoever.
“We spent the whole night recording this wall of feedback—guitars and synths and some acoustic instruments, just this huge wall of a chord, Sunn)))-style,” Lemos said. Lemos says he and Parker then played the cacophonous mix--for a track which ultimately didn't make Lead Into Gold--for Shelley, who reacted in an unexpected fashion.
Steve listens to it and says, ‘alright, I’m ready.’ And we’re, ‘ready for what?’ [Steve then says] ‘I’ll play on it.’ All of a sudden, there’s verses, there are choruses, there’s a bridge. He was just pulling rhythms out of nothing. … And Sanford and I are just bowling with laughter, saying, ‘How can he do that?” He made a song out of nothing. He finishes his take, and we go, ‘oh, it’s a song now.’ Chris then says, ‘I’ll try one’ … He had lyrics already written. He just started singing. And we’re like, ‘How can these people do this?’ We’re used to spending months writing and being picky in the studio, and these songs just appeared.
With any luck, more songs, and the second album, will appear sooner than later. In the meantime, catch Lemos with White/Light on July 20 at the Empty Bottle. Tickets are $8, and the 9:00 pm show is 21+.
Here's "The Listener" from The High Confessions: