Violent Femmes haven't released a new album since 2000's Freak Magnet, but having reunited in recent years, they gave fans some new material with this past Record Store Day's Happy New Year EP. Now, they're almost ready to release a new album.
Although the veteran folk-punk band haven't confirmed the details of the impending release, they have announced on Facebook that the album is nearly done. Last Friday (September 25), they revealed that they had just finished mixing at Boulder, CO's Altitude Recording Studio with producer John Agnello (Kurt Vile, Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr.). That's a photo from the mixing sessions above.
An update from yesterday (September 29) reveals that they're now mastering with Chris Gehringer at Sterling Sound in New York, NY. The band's collaborator John Kruth, who appears in the mastering photo, commented on Facebook, "You'll dig the new material — the band's sounding really good and there's a few unexpected twists and turns — I just happened to be wearing my red dragon shirt when they were mastering a wild song about dragon hunting!"
For many years, it seemed that this Violent Femmes reunion would never happen. In 2007, bassist Brian Ritchie sued frontman Gordon Gano over the band's music being licensed to Wendy's and said, "When you see dubious or in this case disgusting uses of our music you can thank the greed, insensitivity and poor taste of Gordon Gano, it is his karma that he lost his songwriting ability many years ago, probably due to his own lack of self-respect as his willingness to prostitute our songs demonstrates." As recently as 2010, Ritchie said that Gano had lost his songwriting ability.
Below, watch the recent video for the Happy New Year cut "Good for/at Nothing" below.
Although the veteran folk-punk band haven't confirmed the details of the impending release, they have announced on Facebook that the album is nearly done. Last Friday (September 25), they revealed that they had just finished mixing at Boulder, CO's Altitude Recording Studio with producer John Agnello (Kurt Vile, Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr.). That's a photo from the mixing sessions above.
An update from yesterday (September 29) reveals that they're now mastering with Chris Gehringer at Sterling Sound in New York, NY. The band's collaborator John Kruth, who appears in the mastering photo, commented on Facebook, "You'll dig the new material — the band's sounding really good and there's a few unexpected twists and turns — I just happened to be wearing my red dragon shirt when they were mastering a wild song about dragon hunting!"
For many years, it seemed that this Violent Femmes reunion would never happen. In 2007, bassist Brian Ritchie sued frontman Gordon Gano over the band's music being licensed to Wendy's and said, "When you see dubious or in this case disgusting uses of our music you can thank the greed, insensitivity and poor taste of Gordon Gano, it is his karma that he lost his songwriting ability many years ago, probably due to his own lack of self-respect as his willingness to prostitute our songs demonstrates." As recently as 2010, Ritchie said that Gano had lost his songwriting ability.
Below, watch the recent video for the Happy New Year cut "Good for/at Nothing" below.