“The genesis of Hollows and Rounds came from my admiration of the baroque pop of the late sixties and seventies,” says Chris McDuffie of Whitejacket. While the former keyboardist for Elephant 6 leaders The Apple in stereo claims the influence of many obscure artists from the era, he cheerfully admits the obvious. “The Beatles are my first love. These days, I feel like indie types demand a certain literary seriousness from songwriters, but Paul McCartney’s example reminds me that a song doesn’t need to be absolutely sincere or lyrically sublime to succeed.”
After leaving The Apples, McDuffie returned to his native Chicago, taking a job at the now defunct Deagan marimba and vibraphone factory. His work on the line there gave him lots of time to think and plot a return to music on his own terms. Preparations for Hollows and Rounds were material as well as conceptual. With scraps of ebony and bits of wire smuggled back to his studio apartment from the Deagan factory, McDuffie constructed a nearly full-size, 77-key piano that remains integral to his writing process to this day and can be heard on almost every track on the album.
“I really tried to involve the piano whenever possible,” says McDuffie. “Piano is so important to the genre and period I was thinking about. Consider the Stones. They’re mostly rootsy and guitar driven, but Nicky Hopkins’s piano is absolutely essential to ‘Sympathy For The Devil’.” Brass arrangements were favored at the expense of strings and vocal harmonies are also key to the record’s sound. “Sometimes it got ridiculous,” he explains. “Almost all the vocal lines were doubled, so at times there’d be six to eight of me. I’m quite sure my neighbors could hear me singing.”
Artist:
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Download:
Whitejacket – "The Modern"
Album:
Hollows and Rounds will be independently released on April 3, 2012. Watch Whitejacket's website here for pre-order information.
