On “Oh No” and “Man of the Moment”, Milbourn really lets it rip. Massive choruses, big hooks, and yes, crazed howling, dominate these songs. They’re fantastic.

On other tracks, like “Daisy” and “Darlin’”, the band’s tender side is revealed. “Daisy” sees them turn a quieter song into a giant anthem, and “Darlin’” sees them exploring a tender blues sound. The whole EP is pure rock and roll from start to finish. It’s refreshing to hear rock music this good.

In 2012, Goodbye June released their first record. They won a big-time award in 2014 that earned them attention at Interscope, where they signed earlier this year. This EP is their first since then, and like the sophomore album that will soon follow, it’s been purposefully focused on old-school, straight-forward rock and roll.

I could have told you that without reading the press release. Suffice it to say: they nailed it.

The title track, which is the last track on the EP, is a blues rock track with a massive chorus and a great hook. The songwriting is impeccable, too: There’s a huge, guitar-filled chorus that leads directly back into the verse, which gets more intricately layered the second time around. The song continually builds on itself.

Goodbye June knows what they’re doing here: this is intricate, quality songwriting. All the parts work together.

Danger in the Morning is one of the most promising EPs I’ve heard all year, and I’m looking forward to the eventual sophomore release (and major-label debut) from Goodbye June. If this EP is a sign of what’s to come, we’re all in for a treat.

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So it might be surprising, then, for you to learn that Kaleo is a distinctly Icelandic band equally inspired by the native folk music of their own country. Folk-inspired Blues tracks like “Way Down We Go” hint at this, but “Vor / Vaglaskógi” makes it pretty clear.

Still, it’s hard to guess their roots most of the time. Tracks like “Automobile” even celebrate North American traditions, like chasing after the perfect car (my European friends tell me that’s definitely not as much of a thing over there). And songs like “Glass House” sound nearly Springsteen-inspired.

You could be forgiven for assuming that Kaleo is the latest in a string of rock bands who want to emulate the fuzzy sound of American rock in the ’70s (blame Wolfmother for kickstarting that craze). But largely because of their distance from it, Kaleo is able to make all this work and feel somehow original.

I actually largely like how the band seems at a loss between who they are and who they want to sound like. That very identity crisis makes them feel more “authentic” than many of those throwback bands usually are.

One of the reason their music sounds so authentic is because of the production: Kaleo’s music uses a resonator to make some frequencies vibrate more than others. It’s a track that makes some ranges sound louder than others on a record. It also simulates that slightly washed-out fuzz sound of the ’70s without attempting to duplicate it in post-production, and it works perfectly.

A/B is guitar rock for people who miss Guitar Hero. It’s riff-heavy, filled with guitar solos, and generally just a ton of fun. I think the last couple tracks aren’t as well-balanced as the first half of the record, but there isn’t much to complain about on A/B — which is a ridiculously fun rock record from a band who’s going to accomplish great things.

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I just want to congratulate you The Last Days of Oakland; I think it’s phenomenal. Thank you very much.

I know your story, but in your own words, would you be able to share it for the readers who might now know who you are? Well, I was born in New England to a pretty big family of fourteen children. My parents moved us to Oakland when I was about twelve years old, and I hit the streets of Oakland and never really came back home. It was such a hotbed of culture and temptation and music and art, and I decided I didn’t want to come back home.

And then I became an artist myself, scored a huge record deal with Interscope Records, one of the biggest ever. Getting signed to Interscope really was the end creatively. I was in an environment that I didn’t know how to function under, in a corporate world.

About four years into it, I was involved in a car accident. I was in a coma for three weeks, and it destroyed my playing hand, my right hand. Upon that happening, I was finally released from my contract under Interscope and began the second phase of my life as a musician.

I became involved in music lessons, and getting my music into film. That was a way to make a living, and it was liberating that I could really create incarnations that could make a living.

I pretty much resigned from the idea of making music after about eight years. I moved back to Oakland in California, decided to become a farmer, grew a lot of weed… And other stuff, but mostly weed. I wanted to live the whole spectrum of being a human being. I wanted to see what it’s like to have a child, to try to create a family. And having a child returned me back to music.

For a few years, it was a slow walk back and it became my third life as a musician — Fantastic Negrito. And I decided to just keep playing in clubs and talking to labels. And a few years later, here I am. I’m in Baltimore — it’s pretty exciting.

I hope that sums it up in five minutes.

Yeah, that’s amazing, thanks. Back to your new record: The Last Days of Oakland is so great. I had trouble even describing it. To me, it’s genre-defying and a really eclectic brew of sounds. Can you share what inspired that? I think, really, what inspired it, is that I try to be truthful and not perform. I think that I was torn. I noticed there was a shift that was happening in every major city that I would go to. It seemed like the same thing was happening over and over again. The cities were unaffordable, black populations are leaving… It seemed that even people that grew up there, and the cities were their hometowns, now they’re facing the fact that, “Hey, this may be our hometown, but we can’t afford to live here.”

This is me focused — you don’t want to see me get eclectic!

And it felt like there was a huge disproportion, financially, between classes of people. It seemed bizarre. It seemed very acceptable to young people that worked multiple jobs just to pay the rent. I don’t think it’s very sustainable. I think that some of these cities had amazing things come out of them because of their accessibility for all people. And you had artists being able to live in the cities, and they were just shared, you know?

And I came up with The Last Days of Oakland because I grew up there, where this exact thing happened. It just made me delve into that as a songwriter, and that’s where I came up with the concept. It’s the last days of Oakland because it’s the last days of London, and Baltimore, and all these cities.

I think we’re witnessing a shift.

Do you think there’s a solution to that? Do you want people to take away from your record that there’s a solution to the problem? I think that, when you’re under attack, that you have to come together. And the way that I made The Last Days of Oakland was through a collective. I know that sounds like a real simple answer, but it’s actually good because you’re not taking all the risks, you’re not making all the decisions. Even the space that you’re creating music in, everyone is contributing — financially, creatively. It’s getting out of the “me” game. I used to be pretty big in it. I’m pretty self-absorbed too.

I’m a guy from the hip hop generation who just happens to be into black roots and blues.

It’s good to just give up control a little bit, and lean on other people, and let people lean on you. I feel like that’s the solution. I know it sounds really simple to people, but that’s exactly what I did and I’ve never felt better. When I went in and made the record, I even had to get past a few dudes… Even though I’m the producer, I’m writing songs like Hump Thru the Winter, or About a Bird, or Scary Woman, obviously. And I feel like you gotta get past a couple of them, in terms of sonically, where you’re going.

And it’s interesting, because I’m pretty eclectic. This is me focused — you don’t want to see me get eclectic! This is me trying to stay in this mode. I’m always picking from the garden of black roots music, and I’ve never wanted to do it the way that anybody else does it, and sound like anyone else. It was always my goal to try to sound as original as possible and take an approach that’s genuine and transparent.

That’s how I approached all the songwriting, and even the production. I was looking for space and rawness, and emptiness. You know, I’m a guy from the hip hop generation who just happens to be into black roots and blues. So I think I take that approach a little bit, but not too much. It’s a very fine line, and a multi-layered, interesting recipe, because you want to keep the general rawness of the Delta blues, which is really my biggest influence, but at the same time, you don’t want to do it the same way it’s been done before.

I think you did that really well. I get that from listening to the record. Oh, well, thanks! I tried. I had the collective to kick my ass when I didn’t stay true to it.

I wanted to ask you about your songwriting process, actually, because of your car accident, and how that damaged your playing hand. Did that change the way you play now? How does that shape the way you write? Well, I don’t think I was… I think I’m a pretty good writer, but I was never a great player. It’s funny because I could play, you know, “Oh look, I can play all those notes!” Especially on keyboard, which is really my instrument. I just started beating up on the guitar because I couldn’t walk around with a piano.

So I started playing the guitar more, and I had to adapt the way that I play, yes. But the concept of The Last Days of Oakland, and everything that I’ve tried to represent and talk about is, hey, if you’ve got bullshit, turn that into some good shit. Roll the good shit up and smoke it if you want. The point being that, yeah, that was some bullshit, and you have to adapt. In everything we do in this world, we’re going to have situations that aren’t favourable to us, and we have to learn to adapt just like the current situation with these major cities being so unaffordable to people. We’ve got to adapt. That’s how we’ll survive. I feel that way about songwriting and I feel that way about life.

That perspective — which is so evident in your music too — is that perspective all a result of the car accident? I think it’s just life. I was born, financially poor, with thirteen other siblings. From that day, I always learned to be positive about everything, and I know where I got it from. Just being the runaway, and streets, and surviving foster care. One thing led to another, and I always walked towards the light because I really had no choice.

If you’ve got bullshit, turn that into some good shit.

Well, you have a choice. But I always felt that way. The accident was just another hurdle to jump over. The record deal’s another hurdle to go over, and I’m happiest that now it’s useful to other people. And my failure is now music for the people, and I think that’s great. I’m happy to get out there every night, and lead all these enthusiastic people who are connected with the music.

I have two questions left for you. I usually ask about streaming services like Spotify, and Apple Music. I’ve been listening to your music for probably about two years — since your first EP came out as Fantastic Negrito. And I’ve listened to it on Rdio, Spotify, Apple Music, and your music kind of goes on and off those services from time to time. As an artist coming up in this streaming era, how do you feel about their business models? Ah, there’s no money in music. That’s a tough question because I haven’t made much money off downloads or streaming yet. I hear that it’s going to be amazing soon, but I didn’t get back into this to be famous or make a lot of money. I really did it for me, for the spirit, and for the health of the spirit, and for therapy — music is my therapy. I don’t know enough about streaming. There doesn’t seem to be that much money in it. The way I look at it is, this is the new model of the music business, and again, you just gotta find other ways.

But I’ve read articles that say streaming is going to bring the music business back. But I don’t know. I’m not well-versed enough. Maybe I should be.

It’s all speculation, right? Your answer is totally fair. I’ve heard people say it’s the future and I’ve heard people say it’s going to destroy them, so who knows? You know, it’s so good not to be thinking about that. In my view, I’m thinking about music. And there are ways to make money. Touring, and merch, people really support you on that. And licensing. I’ve done a lot of licensing. I did Empire, I did The Good Wife, I’ve done all these shows. Vampire Diaries. There are ways, man. There’s always a way. I don’t like thinking about how I can’t do things, so I never walk towards that. I just walk towards what can happen. Somebody try to stop me over here, and I just go to the other side. And again, maybe I need to know more about streaming, but I’ll tell you that there’s not much money at all in it.

I’d say your attitude is the healthiest out of everybody I’ve talked to. Well, good, I like that. It’s about the music man. I’ve learned so much about going out, taking my guitar, and letting people decide. When I did that, it changed my life. We debuted on Billboard at number four. You know, we’re not rocking with a record label, we’re just people who love music, and we want to make great music. We don’t care about hit records; we care about making great music. I think that’s where it’s at, and you can be really happy in that state.

Great. This is my last question for you, and then I’ll let you go. You’re on tour right now with Chris Cornell. Yeah!

What are you listening to on tour? What records do you have on rotation on the road? I got a chance to check out J Cole more. I remember hearing him in passing, and thinking, “Wow! That seems impressive.” But I finally got to really listen to him, and I really like what he’s doing.

I checked out a little bit of Chance the Rapper. Not much. I mean, I heard it passing, so I checked him out some. There’s another girl I just looked at from England. I just saw her on the Tiny Desk Concert. I didn’t catch her name, but she’s an English solo singer. We’ve been listening to some Nina Simone on the road, because how do you not listen to that?

Those are the spectrum right now. I’m rolling with the guys in the group, and they’ve got some stuff that, I don’t even know what it is, but it sounds really cool.

Well, thanks a lot for taking the time for this today, I appreciate it. And thanks for having me! Appreciate it, man.

Fantastic Negrito’s The Last Days of Oakland is available on Spotify, Apple Music, and iTunes.

The post An Interview With Fantastic Negrito appeared first on Unsung Sundays.

Much of the record is surprisingly different from what we’ve heard so far from Fantastic Negrito’s EPs. The song that will likely be most familiar to you is Lost in a Crowd, which was his previous single and a song that epitomized the style he’s already become known for: working man old-school roots rock.

The rest of the album is surprising, though. Working Poor is a fantastic introduction: Fantastic Negrito has always felt like blues rock for the under-privileged, but throughout The Last Days of Oakland, he elevates himself to singing songs about the black man’s plight. Working Poor fits that description perfectly.

The style is epitomized with The N***a Song and its prelude, What Do You Do (Interlude 1). Not unlike Kendrick Lamar, Fantastic Negrito is making music that is unaware of the injustice and violence towards black men. It’s stark, striking music that is as difficult to listen to as it is easy to enjoy.

In that sense, Fantastic Negrito feels like the Kendrick of blues rock and soul. He’s a black man who’s incredibly aware of the role race plays in his life and his music. Consequently, his music feels more important, essential even — and I think it is. The Last Days of Oakland is smart, meaningful, and important.

That’s not to say that Fantastic Negrito doesn’t have fun with his music. Hump Thru the Winter and Scary Woman both feel like lively music perfect for performance, particularly with Scary Woman’s impressive piano solo. It’s a contrast to his more politically aware work, but Fantastic Negrito pulls it off.

Nothing Without You is the most clichéd R&B track on the whole record, and it appears as the last song. It feels like the closest thing to a love song on the record, and after an album that feels both politically aware and nearly violent, it doesn’t fit. It’s a beautiful, tender song, but it sticks out like a sore thumb.

Perhaps it should be telling that Fantastic Negrito can ape so many styles. I can’t decide if he’s blues rock, R&B, or soul rock. But I know that his version of In the Pines is one of the blackest songs I’ve ever heard. It feels like slave music.

On Fantastic Negrito’s website, he shares his phenomenal story about a major label deal, a near fatal car accident, and a mangled hand. But he also calls himself “a man’s truth told in the form of black roots music” and “uncut realness.” Whatever genre you want to label it as, that’s an approach I can get behind. The Last Days of Oakland is absolutely essential listening.

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Baby Darling Dollface Honey does something few bands can do: it carves out an original niche in the blues rock genre that the band easily squeezes into. With big guitar riffs and blues-influenced guitar licks, the album feels as inspired by the riffage of The White Stripes as it does the guitar licks of Buddy Guy.

Death by Diamonds and Pearls is a great example of the band’s agility, as they construct a verse that feels jurassic in scope and slowly bring the song to an explosive bridge that’s so clearly influenced by the mayhem of The White Stripes that it could be called a cover track if it weren’t for the guitar solo that follows.

Light of the Morning, the album’s opener, is worth mentioning too: the opening, with nothing but vocal harmonies in tandem with a bluesy guitar lick, is more memorable than the best tracks from most bands. It’s at once Black Sabbath and Zeppelin rolled together all at once, but it has the levity of The Hives.

I Know What I Am has a trademark blues riff with some great call and response going on between the two vocalists. Despite its obvious influences, though, it never sounds anything less than fresh. It’d be a great live track too.

Almost every track on the record is worth listening to, and the band’s wide array of influences becomes more obvious as the album goes on. By the end of Bomb, some of their metal influences have become a little more obvious too. The song isn’t heavy in any traditionally “metal” way, but at the same time it’s experimenting with some of the genre’s guitar tricks.

When the band slows down, it becomes clear Band of Skulls can be very intimate too. Honest is a great track that would sit well on something like Led Zeppelin’s III. I love the guitar sound, but I’m also a big fan of those harmonies.

That intimacy is what made early Band of Skulls so good, though. It’s not just that they’re good songwriters (although they are). It’s that the band was able to carry that sense of intimacy even into its bigger, more explosive tracks. Blood is as emotionally raw and open as one could expect from a blues track (and it’s a particularly excellent track). It feels like the band is performing right in front of you. It’s not the production, but just the band playing a clear passion.

That sense of intimacy has been lost on their newest record, I think. It’s something I treasure, and something that makes the band’s debut stand out among the pack — even seven years later. Baby Darling Dollface Honey is one of the best debut albums in recent memory, and at this point, could be called a verifiable classic.

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The riffs are fantastic too: unearthly guitar riffs are taken straight from the blues rock playbook. Sometimes you swear you’ve heard the riff before — the boys in Black Pistol Fire might be paying a little too much attention to their idols.

Beyond the guitar licks, blues is in Black Pistol Fire’s soul. Morning Star is a song that sounds modern, with a great riff that feels as modern as it gets, but the lyrics tell a different story. Ripped straight from blues songs of old, vocalist Kevin McKeown sings about the devil causing him pain and refusing to let him go. Muddy Waters approves.

I find writing about Black Pistol Fire to be difficult, because their music isn’t innovative and there isn’t much about them that actively inspires good writing. To be clear, that doesn’t mean they’re a bad band (if they were, their music wouldn’t be featured on Unsung Sundays). It’s just because they’re not reinventing the genre.

But music this old-school can’t be reinvented; it can only be perfected. Every few years, there are new artists who hold up entire genres on their own. The White Stripes and The Black Keys previously held this position for blues-influenced garage rock. Now it feels like the genre is in flux, with no clear leader.

Black Pistol Fire is trying to become the genre’s crown wearer.

I don’t know if they’re going to be successful; these things aren’t easy to predict and often defy logic. But Black Pistol Fire is undoubtedly at the top of their game with Don’t Wake the Riot, which is likely their best record yet. They’re a contender for the genre’s throne, which is saying something, and a band I plan on watching for the next few years.

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The comparison to White Stripes (and in some ways, The Black Keys) is very apt: not unlike their predecessors, The Bonnevilles are a blues rock band with the aesthetic of a punk-influenced garage rock sound. And to top it all of, the band is a duo from Northern Ireland featuring a guitarist and a drummer (Chris McMullen).

The Whiskey Lingers is another track reminiscent of vintage White Stripes, particularly its smashing chorus. Raging guitar riffs, aggressive drum hits, and more bring it all together — but not before The Bonnevilles bust out a dark blues riff that lingers like that shot of whisky they sing about.

It illuminates the difference between The Bonnevilles and their predecessors: The Bonnevilles have a darker sound that feels more primal and bluesy than White Stripes ever did. McGibbon’s guitar tone is darker and bassier, and has more in common with Queens of the Stone Age than it does Black Keys.

And they don’t always sound as rock-inspired. The Electric Company and I’ve Come Too Far for Love to Die are both blues jammers, with little punk influence, and it’s clear that the band know the genre well.

And what’s more, it never sounds like they’re vying to be a clone — in fact, they don’t sound like a clone of White Stripes or Black Keys. The similarities sound coincidental, as if The Bonnevilles wrote a thesis paper on blues-influenced garage rock and came to similar conclusions on the genre independent of other influences.

All of that is to say, despite obvious influences, it’s hard to accuse The Bonnevilles of ripping anybody off. When all of their influences come together, it’s a rousing success: I Dreamt of the Dead and Learning to Cope are fantastic songs that scream to be witnessed in a live show.

If the album has any sore note, it’s the closing Who Do I Have to Kill to Get Out of Here?, which is too messy and lingers too long after the album’s previous momentum. It’s a single wrong note in what’s otherwise a sterling album from The Bonnesvilles, who make the case that rock is far from dead — it just needs a shot in the arm.

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Normally, sharing that sort of information is unnecessary for an album review, but in the case of White Bear, that’s a little different. That’s because White Bear sounds shockingly like a stadium-ready Rolling Stones record. And that’s not a bad thing.

Unlike their first album, The Temperance Movement really dials up the distortion on this record and lets it rip. Almost every track is filled with some sort of gnarly guitar riff. The band sounds like a more sincere, definitely-more-earnest version of Airborne. And the blues rock sound is still intact.

More than once, the band reminded me of Aerosmith. When the band steps out of the post-party, coffee-ridden chorus of Oh Lorraine and digs into the verse, vocalist Phil Campbell sounds like a possessed Steven Tyler. The blues rock riffs that Aerosmith and Rolling Stones frequently shared are alive and well in Battle Lines.

The Temperance Movement is a little more, well, modern, than their throwbacks though. On Modern Massacre, the band lets lose into a tune that would have sounded positively other-worldly forty years ago.

For the record, though, it’s a lot more than the music that’s similar. The guitar tones sound so similar to some of The Temperance Movement’s idols that it’s practically chilling. Every instrument just sounds undeniably — perhaps unapologetically — British (which is awesome, by the way).

None of this is to say that The Temperance Movement sounds like nothing more than a copycat. At the very least, they’re an earnest and sincere band who have almost accidentally followed the same route as bands like Rolling Stones and AC/DC: They got their start playing small and dirty pubs and bars, and eventually landed on a stadium tour. And laid-back blues rock doesn’t work in stadiums; you have to play louder rock and roll. So this is a very natural step for the band; it’s a logical progression.

This is what separates The Temperance Movement from many of their retro-sounding peers. They have a respect for the musicians that came before, they love that music, and the similarities in sounds are all a product of the environment they’re in. In other words, they’re not trying to be throwback for the sake of a buck (unlike their colleagues). They’re just doing it naturally.

I only hope they don’t make us wait another three years for their next record.

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What follows is a lesson in respecting the greats: offering tributes with subtle tonalities instead of full-out cover songs. The overtones are all there, and the band is still having a lot of fun, but Dan gives it just enough weight that it doesn’t feel like just a collection of singles.

In that way, the record feels like a celebration of the album as a timepiece of culture — very fitting for a band known for their bouncy and jangly records and a producer known for reviving the blues and seventies psychedelic rock. While I’m not sure that Tell Me I’m Pretty will ultimately go down as a classic among the stars, it might be Cage the Elephant’s best record.

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I’ve referenced old-school Black Keys a lot, because it’s one of the easiest ways to reference a sound people know. In this case, the comparison between JJ Grey & Mofro stands true, but it doesn’t imply the depth and world-weariness that JJ Grey & Mofro bring to their music. This sounds more like if Jerry Cantrell (of Alice and Chains fame) were to make a country record rock. It’s great, authentic stuff, and a ton of fun.

In that sense, there’s a trend going on right now in rock music to emulate that old-school blues rock sound that country crossed over into for a while. What the bands who are emulating these sounds lack is the experience. JJ Grey & Mofro have been around a long time — since the mid–1990s, in fact — and you can tell these guys have heard it all and they just want to make fun southern-influenced party rock.

Country Ghetto is a record that your Dad could listen to, but it’s also a record you could get in on. It’s more fun than many of the albums today’s imitators are putting out.

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