This Boston-based group–with a three-lead-guitar attack–is the best instrumental band you’ve never heard of. Loaded with seasoned studio talent, the group evades categorization, moving gracefully from surf to lounge to alternative country in the laid-back Chet Atkins style to edgy White Stripes covers. In between, throw in some Moog-fueled sonic experiments for good measure. At the heart of it all is an affinity to garage-rock of the 1960s, and a clear love and respect for the greatest instrumentalists of the era like Booker T & the MGs, The Ventures, and Dick Dale & the Del-Tones. The group’s fourth CD in eight years, Instro-Tainment, comes out June 3. We recently caught up with ringleader/guitarist/producer of note Pete Weiss of Verdant Studio to get the 411 on a number of issues, including how they snagged ex-Velvet Undergrounder Doug Yule as a part-time Weisstronaut. We have no MP3’s here but the band is quite generous, offering a load of different tracks downloadable at its home page, Sonicbids, and its MySpace page.

I love the new record, congratulations. How long did it take you to make that thing? It’s been a couple years since the last one.
That’s a tough question. There were really productive spurts separated by long periods of time where we just had trouble getting everyone together in the same place at the same time. Then there was kind of a long delay in getting the artwork. It actually came together very quickly, we had kind of realized it had been at least two years since our last album and that we didn’t have any new material. So we challenged one another to write some new material in a short period of time.

Everyone rose to the occasion; every member of the band either wrote at least one song himself or participated in the writing process, which was a little bit different for us. Once the songs were assembled, we recorded them quickly, over two long weekends, and I mixed it all in my spare time, basically.

I’d noticed that, before, you’d written a lot of the tunes, and it seemed kinda like a Pete Weiss vehicle, at least from the outside looking in; this one’s a more collaborative effort.
Well, it’s kind of tough to generalize like that because I am sort of the benevolent dictator of the organization (laughs). I do get veto power, and sort of executive producer privileges. In the past it’s been more of mixed bag; I’ve had a handful of songs and then some of the other guys would have a song, or there would be a lot of co-writing, which makes it interesting. This one was a little less co-writing, and more like, just individual songs that came from individual guys. There certainly was collaboration on how to arrange them.

So this was your White Album.
(Laughs) I think so, yes. Or at least beige. (more…)