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Hang Out In Discovery Park With Brad
Reported by: gumbuoy - Tuesday, Sep 27, 2005. 11:31

Brad wasn’t always called Brad. They originally wanted to call themselves ‘Shame’, but when it turned out a man by the name of Brad Wilson had already used the band name, one thing lead to another. Brad are usually painted as Pearl Jam guitarist Stone Gossard’s side project, but since the release of their third album, Welcome To Discovery Park, the band has taken on a life of its own, and lead singer Shawn Smith recently spoke to FasterLouder about all things Brad, including which country has given the band the most success.

Brad are definitely an unusual musical project. They very rarely tour, and rarely release albums. “In fact,” says Smith, “the last time we played was at our drummer’s kid’s grade school. We don’t really play live much; I don’t really consider Brad to be a fully functioning band.” Brad was never even supposed to be a long term project. “It started out as a once-off thing, but then as we were recording the first album, we discovered it was really good, and then once it was finished, Epic heard it, and said they wanted to release it, and then it became a sort of stepping stone. No pun intended.”

Brad now have a new album out, Brad VS Satchel. Well, it's basically new. The album begins with a set of tracks which were originally recorded for the Brad album Welcome To Discovery Park, but didn’t make the final cut. The second half of the album are some tracks for a demo recording of a band named Satchel. The members of Satchel are exactly the same as Brad, except without Stone Gossard, so it’s understandable that the material sounds familiar, and works well with the Brad songs. To this end, the album is really two EPs stuck together, although when I mentioned this to Shawn, it was the first time he’d heard it described as such. “That’s the best description I’ve heard of it yet. That’s definitely it, it is two EPs together. It’s an extras record, a leftovers record.” So how did these tracks come together? “Our drummer (Regan Hagar) really liked the songs, so he came to me and asked if we could put them out. I didn’t see a problem, so I agreed, but it always his drive that was the motivation for releasing them.”

Of course, the obvious question regarding the reason for the Brad tracks not originally making the cut is asked, and answered with aplomb. “I wish they had been on there. We had recorded all the tracks for the album, and we were going all over the place, looking for someone to put it out. We’d been waiting for eight months, and we finally got someone to put it out, but they wanted to cut those tracks. I let them, it was my fuck-up, and the whole process got mucked up.” And were the tracks cleaned up, or re-recorded? “No, they are just the original takes/mixes. That’s true for the whole album.”

Having such a sporadic release schedule, and rarely touring, must have a negative effect on the radio play which the band receives, but here Smith reveals a delightful little piece of information. “Actually, Australia is really the only place where we get national airplay. Here in the States we’ve never got massive airplay, we’ve had singles which become local hits in certain areas, but never anything big.” Smith feels he knows why, too. “Australia has a really centralised population, and an awesome national radio station, (Triple J) which lots of people listen to, so that helps. Also, here in the States, our first album got squashed under a Pearl Jam album, which came out at the same time; it was their second album so it was a pretty big deal.”

Smith generally writes the songs for his projects, and plays a wide range of instruments, but he also gets the occasional helping hand. “I generally write on piano (self-taught), and I only know how to play the songs I’ve written, not other people’s songs. I like to write simple songs, which means I sometimes get stuck in a rut, so I bring other people in to help me write. We generally write our songs in the studio, I don’t bring songs in pre-written, but Stone does, the Brad songs written by him are usually things he has prepared which he brings in for us to play.”

Smith now has a new project, The Diamond Hand, and is about to release their debut album, Here Comes The Holy Rollers. “Its got a bit more variety to it, from groovier piano rock to r’n’b type rock, and the usual ballads. Plus we have a new Brad album ready to go, its been ready for the past two years.” And as for touring? “Well, I don’t know about any Brad tours, but I will be coming over there soon myself. It’s great, I’ve loved it the last few times I’ve been in your wonderful country.”

Listen to a couple of samples from The Diamond Hand.



j.

Thanks for the link. This sounds awesome. I'm going to have to go see them at Neumo's on the 23rd for sure now.

Awesome, thanks zeb. I'm listening to Breathe In right now and I like it quite a bit.

Listen for some new Shawn during the ESPN highlights over the weekend

C'mon, cough it up, choppers.

j.

I bumped into Shawn on my lunch break last night, he lives in the neighborhood I work in. He was coming out of a shipping place and had just mailed some new material to ESPN's production department

Shawn Smith is good.

Last time I saw him live, his guitarist was a black dude with a huge afro...kinda reminded me of Jimi Hendrix.

Shawn's getting a little gray in the beard

Brad Finishing Up Fourth Album
January 18, 2006, 11:00 AM ET
Greg Prato, N.Y.

On-again/off-again Seattle rock act Brad is close to finishing its fourth studio album. The set was recorded in 2003, after the group had returned from an Australian tour, and has a proposed title of "Best Friends." Guitarist Stone Gossard and drummer Regan Hagar are whittling down the material to album length, and are currently at 13 tracks.

"I would say it's maybe more delicate than the others," Hagar tells Billboard.com. "I think that it shows how we've all aged and mellowed. But I think it's got some really great Stone work in it -- we don't always get that from him. He has to write a lot for Pearl Jam, but for some reason, I felt that we got some really good Stone. It just seemed to blend really well with Shawn [Smith, singer/pianist]."

Several songs that should appear on "Best Friends" include "Every Whisper," "Low" (an MP3 of which can be found on Brad's Web site), "Without Regret," "Price of Love," "Believe in Yourself" and "Rush Hour."

"Some of them we played out a couple of times," explains Hagar. "The song 'Every Whisper' originally had Stone singing on it too, then we replaced it with Shawn, so it would be more continuous throughout the album. Stone's quite the singer nowadays."

"[Stone] also wrote a song called 'Holiday' that he's not sure of, but I really love and I think will be on the record," he continues. "'Without Regret' has I think Stone on drums, Shawn on guitar [and] I played slide guitar on it -- that's kind of rocking. 'Price of Love' might be the opener. 'Rush Hour' was written by [bassist] Mike Berg. That is very Satchel-like [a '90s band that featured Berg, Smith and Hagar] -- full chord, large, airy and big, but very loud. 'Low' is a bit of an odd number. Stone's playing bass and there's no guitar on it."

Although it's been nearly four years since Brad's last studio effort, 2002's 'Welcome to Discovery Park,' the group recently issued an outtakes set, "Brad vs. Satchel," via Hagar's Establishment Store site. "It's the band roughing out songs, and to me, that's a special quality that I love," he says. "I love demos. I like the finished, polished-up versions, but I like to go back to the old tapes and listen to what it sounds like to have four instruments playing in a room together, as opposed to four instruments, three background vocals [and] three keyboards over the top. I see 'Brad vs. Satchel' as a band in a room."

With Gossard busy on a new Pearl Jam studio album and tour and Smith fronting the new band the Diamond Hand, Hagar is still optimistic "Best Friends" will be out this year. "We thought about putting it out on Establishment Store, and I think that we will sooner than later if something doesn't happen," Hagar says. "I'd love to find some label that would put their arm around Shawn Smith and take on his records that the Establishment Store sells, and Brad. I'd love to have one home with an infrastructure that could take care of it."

We waited this long guys and you call it best friends. and its gonna be mellow. fuck!

NEW 'MALFUNKSHUN' PROJECT: (posted 5th October 2006)

Brad drummer Regan Hagar and Shawn have been in the studio working on an exciting new project together with Kevin Wood (Malfunkshun/Devilhead), Cory Kane (Satchel)...and Andrew Wood.

The band, tentatively called Subfunkshun, have eleven tracks including Never Proud, Another U, Duty Bound, He's a Mover, Morning, Love Child, My Love, Momument and This Worlds Pain. One other song called The Great One includes Brian Wood (Devilhead/Hater) and the last song is a beautiful arrangement of Andy's Mother Love Bone song, Man of Golden Words. The possible album title, ‘Friendship Ring’ comes from a lyric in the song ‘Morning’. All the lyrics were written by Andy between 1980 and 1984. Some words, like those to 'He's a Mover' were written by a 14 year old Andy.

The band are going back into the studio on the 17th and 18th of this month to do record some Malfunkshun tracks.

this is awesome,..i hope they record "until the ocean",..i...i like so much that song,

NEW ALBUM

The Diamond Hand April 1 2008

1. Here Come The Holy Rollers (Smith/Chichester)
2. Ring That Bell (Smith/Chichester)
3. At War (Smith/Chichester)
4. Losing Home (Smith/Lowe)
5. The Congregation (Smith/Chichester/Lowe)
6. Another Way To Fly (Smith/Lowe/Muraki)
7. Toss It In The Fire (Smith/Lowe/Hutchinson/Krusen)
8. Breathe In (Smith/Turner/Sawka)
9. Original Hymn (Smith/Chichester)
10. Back To Me (Smith/Chichester/Turner)
11. The White Queen (Smith/Lowe/Hutchinson/Krusen)
12. For Everyone To See (Smith/Lowe/Hutchinson/Krusen)

http://www.shawnsmith.co.uk/

I be going to see him in York come May, all being well. Saw Brad in 1998 in Oz and 2002 in Washington, DC and, although the tunes are good, the gigs aren't amazing. Just to hear that fucker sing is worthwhile, though.

I've seen him three times w/Brad and two of those times were amazing.

thanks for that, i just preordered it, and i was happy to see that 2 of his solo albums will be rereleased too, i always regretted not ordering them from the establishment store.

Is that Krusen as in Dave Krusen?

Yes, that is the Krusen.