Justin Hawkins interviewed Eric Nally for over an hour! I have yet to watch this, but I wanted to share:
What happened to this band? Such a positive trajectory through their first 4 albums and it’s been underproduced noise ever since. This coming from someone who was a humongous fan and traveled multiple states/cities to see them 6 times between 2006-2013
It all started with Gonzo IMO. You have a record produced by the legend himself, Steve Albini (RIP), you still have major label money (iirc - they were dropped after they made this), but there’s one thing you don’t have.. the songs. The songs simply underwhelm. This issue was rearing its head in Church with the second half being mostly a snooze fest but once they self released Gonzo in its underproduced mess (they chose to record this all in one room together playing and it sounds like it) - it became apparent that there was simply no gas left in the tank. They go on hiatus (makes sense) but when they decide to go come back.. they still don’t have the songs and even worse - they’re fully independent so they can’t afford top quality production either. They keep churning out records too and they’re all more mediocre than the other. I didn’t even realize a new one came out last month (lol) cause I’m so checked out with this band. They could have and should have gone the distance after their S/T masterpiece but jfc the missteps made since makes their return back to glory almost guaranteed to never happen. It’s a massive bummer.
Of all the recent albums this one is by far the worst. Even on songs where there is a decent section, it's ruined by some kind of weirdness or talking or something that comes right after. I don't get it, at all.
It took me a second to realize what was happening with the music in the new Peacemaker Season 2 trailer I wonder if they'll use Oh Lord within the actual show too. It's a long shot, but James Gunn did tease that they were using a new intro song for this season... edit: I totally forgot that "Welcome to the Church of Rock and Roll" was in S1 of Peacemaker too.
Now can James Gunn help fund an actual studio recording for their next album… wishful thinking but seriously this is awesome news
A friend and I had been debating if James Gunn was being all of Eric's involvement in Superman. We landed on composer David Fleming based on an IG post from Yvette Young. This disproves that!
I messaged a friend something very similar when I saw the news. Copy/paste: “Hopefully this inspires them to go back to making well-produced music again”
It will never not be crazy that they are his favorite band, it's just funny and surreal. I do wonder though, does he listen to the new stuff or just pre hiatus
He definitely gave a shoutout to their new album on IG when it dropped, but it seemed like more of a "support-this-band" gesture rather than an "I-love-this-album" gesture lol
I can't figure Nally out at all. Like, he seems to intentionally and OVERTLY "not want to be mainstream" with the recent Foxy music - but at the same time the dude does these giant Macklemore songs (and toured with him for over a year, I think?) and (to a much lesser extent) is sorta tied in with James Gunn and these big shows/movies.....it's kinda bizarre to me. I just want them to do another album like Self-Titled or Welcome to the Church.
I knew they had another album to release this year, I think it's definitely intentional that they saved this album launch until after their little pop with Superman/Peacemaker. No idea if it will have a more palatable production style, but I could see it.