Whatever your expectations might be for the new trio Sun and Sail Club — which is comprised of guitarist/vocalist Bob Balch (Fu Manchu), drummer Scott Reeder (also Fu Manchu) and bassist/recording engineer Scott Thomas Reeder (Kyuss/The Obsessed) — chances are the finished product of their debut album, Mannequin, will offer some level of surprise when it’s released early in November. The 31-minute first outing from the Balch-led outfit was constructed over a period of at least two years, as riffs began to pile up as a result of Balch taking inspiration from his work with PlayThisRiff.com, interviewing the likes of Death Angel and The Red Chord and beginning to reach beyond the sphere of what might even at their most expansive fit with Fu Manchu, whose riff-grooving aesthetic leaves room for periods of showing off their SoCal punk roots, but has essentially been set over the course of their 25-plus years.

And whether it’s the progressive ambience of “I’m Not Upside Down,” which is marked by Reeder‘s starts and stops on bass and atmospheric vocals, or on the more metallic “Whites of Your Eyes,” Mannequin immediately demonstrates that it’s well justified sonically as being separate from Balch‘s main group. What began as experiments in guitar technique and a drive on Balch‘s part to explore his instrument even as he continued to teach others how to better their own playing and interview other players for PlayThisRiff leaves a much different impression, parts like the opening “Lagrimas de Dios,” centerpiece “La Muerte de un Planeta” and closing “La Risa de Satanas” honing on solo-jazz composition while the use of vocoder on all vocals save for Reeder‘s on “I’m Not Upside Down” lends an experimental air to the album overall, also serving as a major uniting factor for the otherwise richly diverse material, ranging from thrash to more intricate and precise heavy metal.

It had been Balch‘s intent to hire out vocals for Sun and Sail Club initially — he likens the original idea to what Dave Grohl did with Probot, sending it out to different singers — but after laying down the original vocoder ideas in the studio with Reeder, who was not yet in the band, which was just the duo of Balch and the drumming Reeder (I know it’s confusing; there are two Scott Reeders, one on drums, one on bass; imagine how they feel), the decision was made to keep the vocoder parts. After the guitar and drums were on tape at Reeder‘s The Sanctuary studio, Reeder asked Balch who was playing bass and wound up taking the job himself, chipping away at the material over a series of months and sending the finished tracks to Balch in a process that the guitarist says made every week “like Christmas.”

In the interview that follows — the first for the new project — Balch discusses that recording situation and how Sun and Sail Club came to be from the ether of unplaced riffs exchanged between himself and his drummer, the possibility of doing live shows, how Sun and Sail Club, Fu Manchu and PlayThisRiff all tie together for him, a potential vinyl release for Mannequin and much more. The album is expected in early November through Satin Records.

The complete Q&A with Balch follows the jump. Please enjoy:

When you started PlayThisRiff, did you ever think you’d be taking inspiration from it?

That wasn’t really the initial reason I started it, but it just kind of happened that way, and some of it came from bands that I’d never even heard of. I have people that would make requests, like, “Hey, this band’s coming to San Diego, I know you’re based out of there, so if you could interview them it would be cool.” I’d interview them and come back and be like, “Shit, I’ve never really thought of playing the guitar in that way. So that kind of helped get a bunch of ideas together and stuff. That and just gear.

Interviewing people [about their] gear and everything, seeing everyone’s different approach. I definitely have learned a lot from doing the PlayThisRiff thing. There are bands that I grew up listening to as a kid. Like the band Death Angel – I went and interviewed that guy, came back and instantly wrote a song inspired by interviewing that dude. It was my own instinct, it just came out and I was like, “Oh shit,  there’s a song. Three minutes.”

But yeah, them, and there’s this band on there called The Red Chord. Their stuff’s really fast, but I was like, “Shit, that sounds really cool if I slow that down and make more of a groove out of it and kept the dissonance and the strange, creepy chords.”

When did you know this was turning into a band?

Well, I wouldn’t even say it’s that much of a band so much as a project. But yeah, I just had all these riffs and stuff and we were touring, Fu Manchu was touring, on In Search Of and The Action is Go, and in between tours, we all write riffs and come up with stuff for Fu Manchu. I write a bunch for Fu Manchu and I’d have things I bring to the table, but there’d be these other things that were organic and would just happen, and I’d be like, “Shit, this is pretty weird stuff. It wouldn’t be right for Fu Manchu, but I’d like to do something with it, because it’s kind of cool.”

Over time, I had just a shit-ton of ideas, and I came to the conclusion the other day looking at the stuff I’ve collected over two years, “Damn, there’s like five records here of this kind of stuff” (laughs). It’s pretty weird. So I just started sending Reeder stuff, our drummer, and going, “Hey man, what would you play to this? Just curious,” and over time it became apparent that we had enough ideas for a full-length record. Yeah, so we went to [Scott Thomas] Reeder’s studio in the desert to do the basic tracks.

Because I’d been out there before to interview him for PlayThisRiff, and I was trying to think of where to go to get this stuff done, and Reeder’s studio was totally affordable, and the fact that it’s Scott Reeder – I was thinking it’d be cool to have him play bass. Going out there, we were doing our tracks, and he’d seem into it and I’d go, “Dude, pick up the bass right now!” and he’d just laugh and I’d be like, “Okay never mind!” Then at the end of the day, he was like, “So who’s playing bass?” and I’m like, “Hopefully you are, I don’t know,” and he’s like, “Well, I could take a stab at it,” and I was shitting my pants about that.

So I came back and have been chipping away at this record since January. Every week or so, he’d send another track or so, “Here, I laid down bass to this one.” There’s one that, “Here’s one I did some vocals,” and everything he did was awesome. Every week was like Christmas. I’d open my email and be like, “Oh shit, this is awesome.”

When was the last piece for the album written? It’s been coming together over two years, you said?

Just because Fu Manchu keeps us pretty busy. And the other reason that I stretched it out from January was because I was funding the whole thing myself. So it was like, go track drums, and then come back, save some dough, go back, do the parts. All in all, it took like five days to do all the tracking and then another six days to mix and master, but I just spread that out over eight or nine months. But the last thing that was written was probably – yeah, around January. There’s a tune that’s on there that’s full-on like Death Angel-inspired tune, which if you heard it, you probably wouldn’t hear Death Angel in there –

Which song is that?

It’s a song called “Inside the Machine.” After interviewing Rob Cavestany from Death Angel, I was tripping out on how he really digs in on his chords with his palm muting. He really beats the shit out of his guitar. I’d never really heard that. On the records, you can’t really tell, but after filming him, I was like, “Oh shit, that’s rad. You really beat the crap out of your guitar.” So I wrote that one and we didn’t have any lyrics, so I did the lyrics like last minute. I guess that was the last one that was done.

I was thinking about asking a few people to sing on that one, because on the album it’s one of the main punk-inspired ones or thrash-inspired ones. It’s really fast, so I was like, “Shit, I don’t know how to sing on this with the vocoder, it’d be kind of weird,” but it just worked out.

Last thing I did was the vocals for that, so it’s really cool. Basically for that one, I’m a big fan of this record Animals by Pink Floyd. There’s this song on there that uses this minor-nine chord – I’m such a geek for knowing that shit – but when you hear it, you’ll be like, “Shit, that’s that Pink Floyd chord,” so I just do that all over the vocals. So you’ve got this thrashy stuff going on and then these Pink Floyd harmonies in the vocals. It’s a cool contrast.

I was listening to the record and trying to think of heavy bands using vocoder, and Cynic was the one that came to mind. The record they put out a few years back [2008’s Traced in Air].

Shit, I’ve never heard of them! Whoops (laughs).

They had some vocoder stuff but it’s not something you hear often and it’s such a specific sound. Was there a reason you went that route with the vocals?

Ultimately, with this record, I’d like to see it sell and whatever, but I do PlayThisRiff and I do Skype lessons for a living. I did all the stuff on guitar, because I had all these vocal ideas, but then I was thinking to myself, “It would be cool to keep it like this, because I never heard anything like this.” Then it’s super-guitar-oriented, and maybe I’ll get some more Skype students or PlayThisRiff subscribers or whatever.

But then we went out to Reeder’s studio and I was like, “I’m just gonna lay down a vocal idea,” and he turned around and was like, “That’s crazy, I’ve never heard anything like that. You should do all of it like that,” and I was like, “Alright, let’s do that. That’s cool.”

How was it working with Scott on drums for Sun and Sail Club as opposed to with Fu Manchu?

Reeder can do anything. It’s crazy. He’s really versatile. I would just send him a track. We really didn’t even get together. We got together like twice, but I would send him stuff through email and we’d get together and play the songs, but we’d both know the songs. So we’d get together for the first time and there was like this weird energy, like, “Woah, this is trippy.” Because, with Fu Manchu, we all get together and we all bring riffs to the table and discuss arrangements and things like that.

This one is like, I know Reeder’s busy and stuff and it’s kind of my thing, so I’ll just write the entire song and give it to him to play on it, and he emailed me back so we could both trip on it, then when we got together it was weird because it was like we had been playing those songs and we never had. It’s kind of a weird songwriting process, more like a project than a band. We never even played in a room with Reeder – the other Reeder – which is strange. Maybe one day we’ll all get together and play, do a couple shows or something, but it’s gonna be trippy to be all in the same room playing, because this wasn’t that way. Over time, we all just chipped away at it.

It’s an interesting process, because then the guitar and drums were done before the bass, right?

Yeah, which is kind of weird. And the basslines. I had stuff in mind that I kind of laid down for Reeder as guide tracks, but then he’d go back and put his own thing on it and I’d be like, “Wow, I never even thought of doing that.” What’s funny is there’s this song on there called “Hunted” that his bassline kind of followed the vocals and he never even heard the vocals. We kind of had the same idea about a melody that would fit on top of that, but he gave his bassline and I’m like, “Oh shit, that’s weird because that’s exactly what I had in mind vocally.” That’s kind of cool.

It’s a cool result and a weird way it came about.

Yeah, it’s definitely not the norm. With technology these days, it’s pretty easy. It’s kind of like that Probot record that Grohl did, where he just sent it out to singers. That’s kind of what I wanted to do, send out ProTools files to singers and be like, “Hey, you wanna sing on this?” and see what happens. Once I started doing the vocoder stuff, I felt weird ditching it, because a lot of the stuff – it’s all played on the guitar, it’s all chords and stuff – so it was kind of hard for me to give that up. It’s like if you write a bunch of riffs and give them to someone else and go, “Okay, here’s riffs, have fun!” No, those are mine. I’m keeping them.

Were you a little bit surprised the universe didn’t collapse when Scott Reeder met Scott Reeder?

(Laughs) Yeah, I made it a point to be there early so I could watch Reeder walk in, and I got to introduce them to each other. It was pretty awesome. “Reeder, here’s Reeder.” Yeah, that was funny. We did a Fu Manchu record a while back called Start the Machine, and we were gonna call it Tunnel Vision, and then Reeder came out with his solo record, TunnelVision Brilliance, and we were like, “Okay, that’s just way too close. We have a Reeder in the band, we can’t name the record Tunnel Vision.” I think we even had artwork around the Tunnel Vision theme and then we had to change it, like, shit. That stuff happens. But yeah, Reeder’s an insane bass player.

It was really cool having him engineer stuff and recording out there is super-mellow. It’s not like a regular studio. We do a lot of recording up in L.A. and shit, and just the traffic and everything’s…  I don’t know. Not really too hip on going up there to do stuff. It was nice to go out to the desert. You do a track and then you go outside and make goat noises at the goats like, “This is pretty trippy.”

You mentioned the possibility of maybe doing shows. Is that something you would consider?

Yeah, if there’s a demand. I’ve had a couple people ask. There’s the usual thing, “Come to Brazil!” on Facebook and stuff, but ultimately, Fu Manchu’s the main priority, because Reeder and I are playing in Fu Manchu. We’re writing new Fu Manchu stuff right now, and we’ll probably start touring on that next year, but I would be into it. The only thing that’s kind of difficult is the vocals are all done on guitar, so I’d have to get another guitar player.

I’ve got somebody in mind, people in mind, but it would be interesting, how I could pull it off. I’d have to get an A/B box and just have one line going straight into the P.A. to do the vocal box, and then other line to the amp to get my guitar when I’m not doing the vocoder stuff. I think it would be interesting. I think it would be fun. But as of right now, we don’t really have any plans or anything, but we’ll see what happens.

Get the album out first.

Yeah, that’s my main priority, getting it out, and then I’m trying to line up the vinyl release shortly after that.

Will you release the vinyl yourself?

I was talking to a guy last night. I’ve been working with a couple people. I’ll outsource it to somebody and maybe split the costs, so part of it would be my own. I’ll do all the mail order stuff from my garage, and then get someone else to handle the distribution/retail side of things, but definitely play a big part in it. I’ve never really put out a record that I’ve completely owned, so it’s going to be a refreshing change of pace to be more hands-on in that respect.

And you mentioned before that you’re giving lessons though PlayThisRiff over Skype. Do you have a sense of how everything is tied in? How does it all tie together for you?

It’s funny. A lot of the stuff that I’d write for Sun and Sail Club was kind of like stuff I’d be stoked on filming. When I went and interviewed Torche, and I checked out that guy’s setup, I was like, “Oh, that’s rad!” It felt like going to interview a band, it was like the same thing. I wanted each riff to be unique, like what would trip me out if I went and interviewed somebody? Just weird guitar stuff. So it made me kind of think out of the box, which would be a good thing if you’re into the riffs and stuff to do Skype lessons, then you’d trip out on them too. I’ve already had a few students ask about the clips that are online. There are a couple of them up already and people are tripping on them, so it’s pretty fun.

But yeah, all that stuff ties together, the PlayThisRiff thing. I teach a lot of the subscribers on Skype and everything. It’s fun, and teaching’s definitely made me a lot better at playing, because not even on Skype, I teach a lot of Fu Manchu fans, but for some reason, I teach a lot of people who don’t even know who Fu Manchu is. If they’ve seen the commercial, or what, I don’t know how they found me, but a lot of ragtime guys. It’s strange, but it’s keeping me on my feet and making me think about a lot of different music and being able to tie all that stuff together is kind of the Sun and Sail Club’s whole thing for me.

Is there something in particular that you’ve discovered that you enjoy playing more than you thought you would through doing PlayThisRiff?

Well, I’ve got one student that we did a lot of Jeff Beck stuff. Like the album Wired. A lot of old Jeff Beck licks. He’s got such a strange style of playing where there’s a lot of weird bends and stuff like that. I definitely lifted a lot of ideas from him, just geeking out on Jeff Beck stuff. I’ve got a lot of students who are into jazz as well, so just trying to figure out these old jazz records too.

A lot of that stuff I wouldn’t be able to use in Fu Manchu obviously and I wouldn’t expect to, but it’s cool to have another avenue to be like, “Here’s a heavy riff that has some weird jazz chord on top of it through the vocoder.” If you just heard the vocoder stuff, or the stuff played on the guitar without the vocoder, you’d be like, “Oh, it’s a jazz record,” but then once you stick it on top of something that’s weird and heavy, it kind of has a life of its own.

Sun and Sail Club Studio Footage

Sun and Sail Club on Thee Facebooks

PlayThisRiff.com

Tags: California, Mannequin, San Diego, Satin Records, Sun and Sail Club, Sun and Sail Club Mannequin

This entry was posted on Monday, September 30th, 2013 at 12:15 pm and is filed under Features. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.