Black Stone Cherry'sChris Robertson took some time to chat withFull Metal Jackie the other night onLoudwire Nights! They talked about the band’s latest albumMagic Mountain, the importance of storytelling in their music and the moment they knew they had nailed their new record!
Check it out!
Chris, whats the biggest advantage to being an established band recording its fourth album and what not-so-positive aspects surprised you the most?
Everything about this process was good. I mean, we didnt have to do a lot of co-writes, we had to write the record and do everything like that on our own. When it came time to record, we worked with Joe Barresi. The thing about Joe is that he understands a band. A lot of times, when you get in the studio its all about the singer and the song and with Joe, it was all about, Well lets make this bass part cool. Lets make this drum part stand out, lets actually do this like a band rather than a singer-songwriter with four guys playing with him. That was the coolest thing for us. The fact that we got to go in there, like a band, and record and do it all to two-inch tape, the super old school method of doing things, it was awesome.
Musically, what was the most important goal you had for Magic Mountain? And, what was the high five each other moment when you knew you nailed it?
I think one of the coolest thing for us, any time we recorded an album, theres always been a computer screen running in front of us. With that you can go in and make everything perfect, say my guitar part is a little early, I can go in and slide those things over. For us, we always have been a very music-driven band. We always write music before we write lyrics. To be able to go in and record that music with no computer running, just the two-inch tape machine, you have to play the parts right. You cant go, Well, thats close enough. We can fix that. To go in and just play it and its almost like the coolest thing about this record, for me, is that theres a definite live vibe about it. Because it was recorded to tape, and we didnt go in and fix every little thing, we just recorded the songs and they came out as what they are.
Would your songs be such great stories if you didnt come from a cultural background of storytelling?
Absolutely not. The thing about us, were very fortunate in the fact that were from a small town. There really wasnt a music scene going on. We kind of got to do whatever we wanted, we didnt have to try to fit in to play bars. We didnt have to play Top 40 covers or the active rock hit list. We just got to go play our own songs. Weve played our own songs from day one. Storytelling is a big part of where were from. Yeah well embellish the stories to make them a little more interesting every time you tell them, but its just a part of the way of life. I think that has a lot to do with our songwriting and style of music all together. Look at Lynyrd Skynyrd. Theyre from the south and they sing about their songs everyone loves are about honesty and the stories in those songs.
Read the rest of the interview at Loudwire
