The polished Chronomonaut, which is likely to arouse the senses of fans of Ayreon’s folk meanderings and Pink Floyd’s lead guitar endeavours, feels a long way from Glass Hammer’s early material. “I was like, ‘If he says no, I’m not really quite sure what we’re going to do.’” “Matthew, in particular, was a case of where I kind of wrote that song hearing that voice in my head,” Babb adds. “I’m thrilled to death that they said yes,” Schendel says as he recalls working with the Discipline duo. Susie Bogdanowicz returned to provide some flighted vocals, while Discipline’s Matthew Parmenter and Chris Herin both guest on the record, too. Babb and Schendel brought demos in, with Aaron Raulston tracking drums and the pair then “adding the people where they needed to be added”. Later on in the day a “pop/industrial/goth” singer is due in to record, and it sounds as if the pair are going to try to do their bit for prog and gently push her towards a more experimental sound.Ĭhronomonaut was mainly recorded in this studio, with the group doing most of Of course, he’s a little crazy… but aren't we all?”īabb and Schendel are speaking down the line from their recording studio, which they co-run as their day jobs, during a break in sessions. From people like you to people like me, that just love the albums and stare at all the covers and read every lyric. He just kind of represents everybody at every level that’s involved in prog. “We made the whole thing a kind of a flip of the other album, and instead of wanting to time travel into the future, now he wants to go back to the past and try to live out the life of a prog rock god. “I thought enough time had gone by and enough things had happened in prog rock, mainly that a lot of the iconic musicians and writers and artists have passed away in the last few years, I thought, well, what would have happened to this character over time, what happens when he gets to his 40s or his 50s?” adds Babb. “When we did the original Chronometree album back in 2000, we kind of loosely based a character on the notion of, what if somebody really became convinced that the music was a direct communication to him?” “He was so deeply into his albums and the lyrics on the albums… I don’t know how much of it was real and how much of it was him putting things on for the sake of fun, but he took prog album lyrics and concept albums seriously to the point of conspiracy theories, and was finding hidden meanings and messages to himself. “There was a person who I knew probably back when I was in my 20s in the early 80s, who was a big rock fan and wanted to be a musician, but never quite found the right vehicle for that to happen,” recalls Schendel. The character, though, isn’t some lyrical flight of fancy from Glass Hammer, with the narrative surprisingly based somewhat on real life. The story of Tom cleverly pokes fun at prog rock and its many foibles and eccentricities, and it is perhaps about as ‘meta’ as you will get within these pages as it delves inside our beloved genre. Their latest Chronomonaut is more of the same melodic, symphonic prog rock, sprinkled with saxophone, that has one foot firmly planted back in the 1970s and 80s, and the other resolutely pointing forward. The group – guided by Babb and venerable sidekick, keyboardist/guitarist Fred Schendel – have been on a steady journey upwards since forming in 1992, valiantly conjuring up an impressive 18 studio albums. Glass Hammer, it seems, are always moving ahead.
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