Meat Puppets have spoken about the making of their forthcoming album 'Lollipop'.
Signed to SST in the label's glorious mid 80s run, The Meat Puppets always stood apart from their peers. Mixing punk's energy with a more disparate sonic palette, albums such as 'Meat Puppets II' are enduringly influential.
Splitting up for almost a decade, The Meat Puppets returned with the new album 'Rise To Your Knees'. Released in 2007, the band's new material reflects their golden period but with a modern sensibility.
New album 'Lollipop (Megaforce)' follows in this tradition. Echoing that classic early sound, it continues to push forward. Singer Curt Kirkwood explains that none of the material was written before heading into the studio.
"This one here was an experiment in just viewing the parts as Tinkertoys, and seeing the little Tinkertoy circus that needed to be built, and putting it together simply like that," explains Kirkwood. "With just the band in the studio and the engineer, we didn't learn the songs - we just went in the studio, and went, 'OK, here's your part. Now play this good.' So we cut the stuff on acoustic guitar and drums first, and then built it."
Continuing, the songwriter reflected on the manner the album was recorded. "It's an interesting concept of a way to do something. It seems like it might be a stiff way to do something, by just putting it together a piece at a time like that. But I really enjoyed it. I think the overall sound of the way it came out is kind of a contradiction of the way it was recorded."
"To me, that's the coolest thing - to put something together like that, so you have the sum of the parts, and then the whole. The whole thing about the whole being greater than the sum of the parts. To force yourself to do it that way. We were able to keep track of the music."
Re-uniting with drummer Shandon Sahm, the three member Meat Puppets are looking ahead to the release and a full European tour. Details are scant, though this would be the first major European tour by the band in almost two decades.
The Meat Puppets are due to release 'Lollipop' on May 2nd.