Intro
Si l'on peut, de manière un peu simpliste, qualifier la musique du groupe The Wonder Years de 'pop punk pour grandes personnes', il ne fait néanmoins aucun doute que le sextuor possède une maturité musicale et lyrique qui l'élève au-dessus du style 'teen-rock' auquel le genre est associé.
"Je suppose que c'est un album un peu moins 'agressif' que nos albums précédents"
TWY sort maintenant son cinquième album No Closer To Heaven. C'est le premier disque que le groupe produit depuis que son album The Greatest Generation s'est retrouvé, dès sa toute première semaine de sortie en 2013, dans les Top 20 du Billboard 200. À en juger par le style plus lent et plus rigoureux du premier titre Cardinals, une variation musicale semble être ici à l'ordre du jour.
"Je suppose que c'est un album un peu moins 'agressif' que nos albums précédents", confirme Nick Steinborn, l'un des trois guitaristes-chanteurs de TWY avec Casey Cavaliere et Matt Brasch.
"Si c'est au beat de batterie 'punk' que vous faites référence, il me semble qu'il n'y que deux chansons de ce type", ajoute-t-il.
Good things come in threes
“Like, there are a few moments on the album where we have actual post-rock crescendos. Before, we’d have a bit of a battle with a solo part, where it would be like, ‘Oh, we need to cut that down, that’s way too long...’
"Now we’re at the stage where we say, ‘I really like what you’re doing, let’s go with that"
“But this time, we were in with Steve [Evetts, who produced this and TWY’s last two records] and he says, ‘You guys need to make this part longer...’ And it’s like, ‘C’mon man, what are you doing?!’”
But with three guitar players in a punk- rock band, how do they write in a way that isn’t a bit crowded?
“Well, it used to be like, I’d write a lead and Case or Matt would write a lead and we’d try to make it work together,” Nick says.
“Now we’re at the stage where we say, ‘I really like what you’re doing, let’s go with that,’ as opposed to trying to throw everything together and making it more complicated than it ever needed to be!”
EverTune converts
Gear-wise, a revolutionary new bit of kit made a definite impression on TWY’s guitar triumvirate.
"You can play as hard as you want to play, and it still stays in tune!"
“Casey and Matt ended up using a couple of guitars with the EverTune system. Steve got in an LTD EC-1000 from ESP, and we used that on a bunch of stuff. Brasch just fell in love with those things...
“I don’t know if it’s some weird robot-type thing or black magic or what, but it’s just crazy that you can play as hard as you want to play, and it still stays in tune!”
Finding Friedman
And as for amps, good fortune meant that the band were definitely travelling in style.
“Steve became friends with a guy in Hollywood who’s the A&R rep for Friedman amps, and he also met the guy who builds Morgan amps,” Nick enthuses.
"If you’ve never played one, you’re like, ‘How can this amp be $4,000?!’ But then you play it!"
“And they both just left a bunch of amps there! So, Matt ended up using a Friedman Brown Eye, and I used a Friedman Naked and a Morgan AC20.”
Playing through such high-end boutique kit must have been an awesome experience?
“It wasn’t really good for me, because now I want a $4,000 amplifier,” Nick laughs. “Because if you’ve never played one, you’re like, ‘How can this amp be $4,000?!’ But then you play it!”
No Closer To Heaven is released on 4 September on Hopeless Records