Their debut album, Mannequin, is now available for digital download
By Noe Gutierrez
Cover and Photos By Chris Miller (Imagine Imagery)
Picture this; Chris Miller, the phenomenal photojournalist, and I are driving a long dirt road onto a sprawling horse property with acres of hills and valleys. We see both farm and wild animals as we continue the search for our human counterparts. We pull up to park and in the distance is a far-out oddity, a robot. This is a perfect manner in which to describe the band and sound that is Sun and Sail Club.
Chris and I were invited to witness a video shoot on the property of Scott Reeder for the song ‘Hunted’ off their debut album Mannequin, released on November 19, 2013 by Satin Records. Without revealing too much about the video, it’s directed by a Swede and in the end the robot kills the band. Sun and Sail Club includes in its ranks Bob Balch on guitar and vocoder (Fu Manchu), Scott Reeder on drums (Fu Manchu, Smile) and the “other” Scott Reeder on bass and production duties (ex-Kyuss, The Obsessed, ex-Unida).
I know what you’re thinking. That must be some kind of typo. There indeed are two Scott Reeder’s in Sun and Sail Club. This fact has been discussed within the band and if ever someone called out to either Reeder it is agreed that it is Balch who will respond accordingly. Reeder, the desert icon, respects his namesake, “I think with each of us it’s the “other” Scott Reeder,”
Balch jokes, “If you guys had the same middle name I’d probably just move to Mexico.” For the sake of confusion, we will refer to each Reeder with their respective roles.
Balch found the inspiration for the band name from an exclusive venue by the same name in Orange County that Balch could not get into. Once you listen to Mannequin you will find that it is not like anything you’ve ever heard. It’s no coincidence that there is a robot in their inaugural video. After hearing the album you feel as if you are riding a space ship fueled by dynamic rock and narrated by a cyborg. Balch has taken the giant leap for rock and introduced heavy music fans to the vocoder. This apparatus that reproduces human speech was used for musical applications as early as 1968. Reeder the bassist shares his take on the vocoder, “People relay the vocoder to electronica. I was sitting there when this guy did those parts and I took my headphones off as he was melding his clean guitar going straight into this box and filtering it through the construct of his voice. To me that is the most beautiful pure melding of sound. Aren’t our instruments supposed to speak? For that to be forming words is awesome. To me it’s refreshing not to have some guy not yelling in your face.”
Balch has no qualms about the lack of conventional vocals, “It’s an instrumental record. I think a lot of people get hung up on the idea of a front man and some guy who’s gonna help solve their problems and scream their pain away. I thought it would be a cool mix to take the top part of that and put it on the bottom part of something heavy and fucked up. The human element is stripped a little bit.”
Balch is no stranger to the vocoder. Fu Manchu used it once before in 2000 on a recording. “I love when bands poke at their fans. I wrote it to give to my guitar students. Here’s something weird for you.” For those who are concerned about using the vocoder exclusively, Balch admits there will likely be traditional vocals on the next album.
In determining a studio and producer to record Mannequin, Balch had only one preference; The Sanctuary, bassist Reeder’s acclaimed studio attached to his home. Balch also had a secondary reason he chose The Sanctuary; Scott Thomas Reeder the musician. Balch knew that if he could get Reeder to listen to the tracks he would consider recording bass parts on a song or two. I asked Reeder how long it took for him to think over performing on the record, “By the end of the first chorus,” he responded.
Reeder plays the bass left-handed ergo using a left-handed bass. However, he distinctively strings his basses upside down. In sitting with the band in the studio for this interview Reeder shared with us what he believed was a great time in his career. “Right now is capping off one of the favorite weeks of my life.” He had just returned the night before from The World Famous Whiskey A Go Go where Jake E. Lee’s Red Dragon Cartel performed. Reeder recorded the bass parts on the song “War Machine” from Red Dragon Cartel’s debut album. Earlier in the week Reeder was informed that the soundtrack to Sound City: Reel to Real received a Grammy nomination for Best Compilation Soundtrack for Visual Media. Reeder performs bass on the song “From Can to Can’t”. Corey Taylor, Dave Grohl and Rick Nielsen are also featured on that track. The song went to number one on rock radio charts in the U.S.
Reeder shares his dream like experience in participating in the soundtrack recording, “I got a text one night real late and I was asleep. Who the hell’s texting me this late? I look and it’s Dave Grohl. OH SHIT! He spelled it out and asked if I wanted to play on the soundtrack and I texted him back, FUCK YES! By the time I woke up in the morning I had the demo, and I listened to it as I was feeding the horses and imagined what lines I could weave in there. I was in the studio with him within a week. He already had Corey come in and do his parts and Rick Nielsen on a whole reel of tape. The first rock concert of my life was Cheap Trick. To get to play on a track with that Rick was insane. When I finally got to hear the final mix I was like HOLY SHIT! That was a pretty high pressure situation to walk into. They had cameras all over the place. I didn’t realize at the time but there were casino cameras in every corner of the room. When I finally got down to tracking they brought in a camera or two right in your face, Butch Vig next to you at the board and that Dave guy breathing down your neck. It was awesome. The pressure was good. I watch that video and you can see my hands shaking. I threw in some nods to Zeppelin with the bends and a nod to Cheap Trick with the octaves. There’s a Mary Poppins melody in there too. I am so thankful my Mom got to see this before she passed.”
As most of you should know Reeder played bass for Kyuss from 1992-1995. Reeder recollects the backing they received from Dave Grohl, “People might not have ever known about Kyuss if it wasn’t for that guy. When Nirvana was blowing up he was going into record stores and buying Blues For The Red Sun. We were on the road pushing that record. He would go in and buy every copy of the CD and he would give it out to people. He’d give it to press people and bands that led to a tour with Metallica. Then Metallica talks about Kyuss. Then I get to audition for Metallica. A lot of that goes back to Dave Grohl.”
Balch is originally from Orange County and now resides in San Diego. He is the creator of the website PlayThisRiff.com. Created in 2009, Balch interviews musicians like Megadeth and Exodus and provides subscribers lesson videos on how to play guitar. Beginner, intermediate and advanced players are all welcome. There are over 70 bands represented and over 2,000 lesson videos to watch. Balch also teaches private guitar lessons to all ages and levels.
In describing Balch, Reeder the drummer, who is also Balch’s band mate in Fu Manchu shares this, “Bob is kinda like this unsung weapon that Fu Manchu has because he can get on any stage with anybody and play anything at any time and kinda own the style.” Reeder the bassist continues the tribute to Balch, “Bob is the only rock guy that I’ve ever heard that can play stuff like my grandpa who is 98 years old. My grandpa is a great jazz guitarist. My grandpa would love this stuff.”
Reeder the drummer is also an avid music instructor. He teaches private drumming lessons to all ages and categories through the internet, in studio or in people’s homes six days a week. Reeder recalls his attraction to drumming, “My grandfather used to lay linoleum tile and hardwood flooring with these big tubs with glue in them. After they were emptied, my cousin and I would set up makeshift drum kits. I started taking lessons at age 7.” Reeder is voluntarily single, an avid outdoorsman and has a couple of dogs. His early trio band, Smile, are reuniting for some live shows and potentially new material.
I asked Reeder about his approach to performing, “I don’t like to over-rehearse. At a certain point you can rehearse a couple of times. If you do enough homework on your own and the quality of the people you play with kind of dictates your performance.”
Reeder is reveling in the production of Mannequin, “Sun & Sail Club is in a way an exercise for some of the most ridiculous riffs you can write and try and put drums to them. It is stylistically not contained to one style. When we do more recordings there will be a lot more variance. I want people to know it’s all over the map. You should not expect one particular thing.”
Reeder states that Fu Manchu are currently whittling down a bunch of songs. There is a live concert in the works in Orange County in February 2014. Two weeks after the show they will enter the studio to record an album that will be released in April, 2014. They also plan to release a second album towards the end of the year. 2015 is the 25th anniversary of Fu Manchu. They will commemorate this milestone by re-issuing their live album.
Sun and Sail Club are a blast of heavy and dark air to us rock fans that are looking to expand our heavy music palette. Once the vinyl record is available (January, 2014) there are plans to perform live in and around Southern California in early 2014. One of Balch’s guitar students once asked as he was climbing the stairs to his lesson, “It sounds like you’re killing fucking aliens up here, what are you doing?” Balch wants to “make something that you can’t compare to anything”. Reeder the bassist has not recorded a full length album in quite some time. With honor he shares his pride,“To crawl out from under my rock and be involved in something crazy like this, it feels good. I’m really proud to work with these guys. I would have been proud to just be the engineer recording this stuff. To get to play on it and play it live soon is exciting.”
Mannequin
01. Lagrimas De Dios
02. Held Down
03. Whites Of Your Eyes
04. Gang Justice
05. It’s All Your Fault
06. La Muerte De Un Planeta
07. I’m Not Upside Down
08. Season In Hell
09. Inside The Machine
10. Hunted
11. La Risa De Satanas
You can download the album Mannequin on:
iTunes
Amazon
Google Play
Bob Balch:
http://www.playthisriff.com
playthisriff@gmail.com
Scott Reeder (the Bassist):
scottreeder.com
