FREAKONICA: The New Album

"There's definetely a new direction happening"--Johnny Temple

Introduction

As you may or may not know, Girls Against Boys have released a much-anticipated new album on new label Geffen June 2, called Freak*on*ica. Here you'll find all the info you need to know about it.

Time Schedule

The album is now out everywhere. It had been released in the US June 2, with the vinyl released on May 19. It was fully released in Europe May 19 as well. The commercial single for "Park Avenue" will be released June 8 in Europe, but will never be released in the US. There will, however, be a 7" released in the US and UK. The US 7" will be released on Johnny Temple's Akashic Records on clear vinyl and the UK 7" will be on Geffen on red vinyl. The album's first video, for "Park Avenue," has been shot by Nick Gordon (Roni Size's "Brown Paper Bag") in New York City in mid-May, and they have kicked off a world tour in Europe in late May, to be followed by a North American tour in July and August. "Park Avenue" has been heard on radio stations across the land. The band recorded the album in Seedy Underbelly Studios in Minneapolis from August to late October. Promo copies of both the album and "Park Avenue" have been sent out to various journalists, etc.

Press Release

"The Information" FREAK*ON*ICA was written and demoed just south of New York's Time Square during the Disneyfication of mid-town Manhattan. GVSB then got down at Seedy Underbelly in Minneapolis, MN, where they recorded with post-punk guru Nick Launay, whose credits include P.I.L., Killing Joke, Midnight Oil and The Birthday Party. GVSB turned Minneapolis into House of GVSB every Tuesday night while spinning the wax at the 400 Bar. Party people included members of Rage Against the Machine, Babes in Toyland, Nine Inch Nails, Soul Asylum, Wu-Tang Clan and featured surprise gigs by Brick Layer Cake, Arcwelder and a DJ dance party with Alec Empire of Atari Teenage Riot.

"The Entertainment" FREAK*ON*ICA recalls the apocalyptic "Venus Lux" vibe with new-found sonic grooves and beats propelling your ass into a millennial orbit. From the "disco-tortion" flavorings of "Park Avenue" and "Speedway" to the groove-filled "American Black Hole" and "Psycho Future" to the downright obscene "Roxy." FREAK*ON*ICA promises to keep all of their loyal fans thoroughly lubed, as well as satisfy all of the soon-to-be converts with the biggest GVSB ultra-rock sounds to date.

Songs

Here's the much-anticpated track-listing, with quotes from the press kit (scrapped song titles in parentheses):

Park Avenue (3:50): "plush streets...it's about everyone's own idea of fun...some people's ideas may be wholesome and others may be fucked up...booty shakin', limousine cruisin' rock song..."
Pleasurized (A Fly Rollin') (3:37): "manic drum rolling nightmare...slogans...hype seems like life and tastes like life...this song showcases the amazing rolling drum beat...pleasure is everything...maybe?"
Psycho Future (Code Depeche) (3:33): "politics is entertainment, baby..."
Black Hole (Cavanaugh) (4:17): "american black hole...life is just a ride...surfing a big fat groove..."
Roxy (4:20): "obscene nightclubbing track..."
One Firecracker (3:47): "one theme...the album was worked on literally next door to Times Square, which is currently undergoing a transformation from porno houses to Disney characters...a bizzare mix...do yourself insane...detonation style...one firecracker...wake me up inside..."
Speedway (3:44): "everything goes so fast...eyes move too slow to keep up with the speed of life...mixture of punk and disco elements..."
Exorcisto (3:56): "the most sample/loop heavy track on the album...a lot of California imagery...maybe a song about going to California and losing yourself in all the night time...palm trees...love song for California..."
Vogue Thing (Sgary Nubian) (3:54): "the fashion obsessed track...excellent example of the twisted groove of GVSB mzk...brand names being incorporated into a context where they seem alien or strange...advertisement speak...messing around with slogans like "Gucci forever"...but the song deals more with feeling inundated by advertising and accessorizing to the point of insanity."
Push The Fader (Heavy) (4:02): "one of the most straight forward songs on the record (like Rockets are Red from "Venus Lux")...push the fader...turn up the volume of everything...kind of like the GVSB version of The Spice Girls "Spice Up Your Life" track..."
Exile (4:20): "you figure it out..."
Cowboy's Orbit (4:05): "noise-groove-dance track championing the value of love in all styles...east coast...west coast...get your ass in orbit...come freak me out...sinister love groove...kind of sets the tone for something darker than an ordinary love track...bit on this record we had to use the word love at least once...it's a good word...listen carefully and you'll note that FREAK*ON*ICA comes from this track..."

Total album time: 47:25

"Park Avenue" will be the first "single," with a video to coincide with album's release. It has already been heard on at least 89X in Detroit. The video is being shot in mid-April by Nick Gordon, who also did Roni Size's "Brown Paper Bag." Here is a track listing of the promo copy of "Park Avenue":

Park Avenue
American White Dwarf (a remix of "American Black Hole" by DJ EJ)
450 Degrees of Boom Boom (a remix of "Speedway" by MC 450)
Get Your Ass In Orbit (a remix of "Cowboy's Orbit" by MC Loud)

"American White Dwarf" will appear as a bonus track on the Japanese version of Freak*on*ica.

Album Art

The artwork, which was done by Alexis, is finished. Promotional posters have popped up in record stores, with the artwork being described as "very digitized...very electronica." Here are a few of clickable thumbnails of the art on the vinyl version of Freak*on*ica and the promotional single of "Park Avenue":

Vinyl Front Vinyl Back Park Avenue Front Park Avenue Back

Here's a description of the artwork for the "Park Avenue" single, posted by Laura: "the art work is really cool. think dance bins. the front is in reds and yellows and black, and has a low shot of the front of a sports car with the skyline of nyc in the background. there are also pseudo-bar codes across the top. the back is mostly black. there is a pic on the band near the bottom left. the guys are all in black sitting on a muted pink sofa (think grandmas's house in the late 60's) against a muted pink wall. design and photos are credited to alexis, art (cruise) direction credited to their old pal steve raskin. band photo by terry richardson. on the back there is also a grab of the album cover. it has a similar feel to the single's art, but instead of reds and yellows, it is in blue, black and yellowish green. (at least that is what it looks like to me.) digital feel. GVSB in big block letters."

Nick Launay: The New Producer

GVSB is going with a different producer this time around (Ted Nicely has recorded the last three albums). Here's what Johnny had to say about him: "Sonically, his recordings are really interesting. He gets these really vibrant sounds from instruments and he knows how to work with rhythm-based bands, so we figured he'd be able to appreciate our sound." (courtesy of Addicted to Noise) Eli adds: "Choosing a producer for this record was very difficult. We weren't unhappy with Ted, we mostly wanted to try something different. We talked to a lot of producers, and looked at a lot of discographies, and Nick had the one with the most records that we liked." (courtesy of Allstar) Launay, who is from Australia, has quite a bit of experience: Midnight Oil, Talking Heads, The Birthday Party, Silverchair, Killing Joke, and Gang of Four, to name a few. "He's the only person other than Ted who made records we actually enjoyed," says Eli.

Geffen: The New Label

After more than three years and three major releases on indie label Touch And Go, GVSB decided to make the jump to a major label. Out of the many suitors, the band chose Geffen Records, mainly because they would be given complete creative control. This move has received mixed reactions among fans. It's the typical "sell-out" debate. Since the band, especially Johnny, have been very vocal about the evils of corporate labels, I'm sure they know what they're doing. Anyway, they'll be getting a lot more exposure on Geffen and should reach a much larger audience because of it. We will see how the label will market the band, although it seems that they would go for their "sexy" image.

Geffen, by the way, is the label of many respected and good artists: Nirvana, Counting Crows, Peter Gabriel, Sonic Youth, Southern Culture on the Skids, and Weezer, to name a few.

Some quotes:

"I think we got a pretty good deal. We basically played hardball because we didn't need Geffen. We didn't need any major label."--Johnny

"Now that we're on a major label, we are going to have all these business men breathing down our backs as well. So, it's a tense and serious process."--Johnny

"We're going to be trying to reach a bigger audience now that we're on a major label, but I'm not even that concerned with all that stuff. The better opportunity is being able to go to a studio a spend a ton of money to record. It's a situation we have never had before, being able to have more time in the studio, a lot more equipment, all that stuff."--Johnny

"We have a pretty strict separation between our creative side and our business side. Although the label occasionally tries to blur that line, we've been successful in keeping those sides separate. Our greatest fear with signing to a major label was that it would interfere with our creative process. I'm happy to say that it hasn't."--Eli

Electronic: The New Sound

"We always want to bring in new elements," says Temple, "and a lot of the material used to be very funky. This time instead of a lot of songs with two basses, we have these electronic noises and samples in most of the songs, which helps to push it in a new, funky direction."--From Addicted to Noise

Yes, it looks like the band may be giving up it's signiture double bass sound for the new album. They've been using all sorts of "funky" effects and samples while recording the new album, and considering that the band members love electronic music and that their weekly House of GVSB nights have been dance parties, it really shouldn't be much of a surprise. Adds Eli, "I like some of the electronic music. There's a lot of crap out there, as with any music movement. But some of what we've been listening to includes Fat Boy Slim, Thievery Corporation, Snooze, and the Bassbin Twins." (courtesy of Allstar) There's no way to really pinpoint the new "sound" without hearing any songs, so I suppose we'll find out.

Some more quotes:

"We loved making those songs, and I really like those songs. It would interesting if we were heading in that direction, but that was more of a weird thing we did"--Johnny, on the band's last release, "Disco Six Six." Eli later claimed that "Distracted (RVS#7)" is indictative of the band's new sound.

"It's kind of hard to describe. There's sort of a more electronic and more sample-driven component coming into it a little bit. But at the same time I was noticing when we played a couple of songs for the first time that they fit in very well with all the other music that we've done because it's still the four of us."--Johnny

"We start out with this really bass, low-end thing and we kinda put a lot of outher stuff on it, and it still kinda retains that essence of this low-end groove, which is where some of the darkness comes from."--Scott

"I'm playing a lot more keyboards on this album, but as usual, they're all going through distortion pedals. It's still GVSB."--Eli

"The music is not a departure at all from previous records. It's, simply put, the biggest sounding record the band has ever recorded. No true fan of GVSB will be dissapointed. That I can promise you."--GVSB's manager

Articles

As that release date comes ever closer, GVSB is once again getting some media attention. The articles so far:

Last Updated June 6

News	Tour	History	Discography
Lyrics	Tabs	Opinion	Mailing List
Articles	Images	Multimedia	Links

FREAK*ON*ICA: The New Album