THE PRETTY RECKLESS singer Taylor Momsen spoke to U.K.’s Rock Sound about what it was like for her and her bandmate Ben Phillips (guitar) to take on co-production duties, along with Jonathan Wyman, on the group’s upcoming album, “Death By Rock And Roll”.
She said (see video below): “I think as a songwriter, at least for me, when I write a song, I hear it all in my head. So I think the job of a producer, at least for our band, has always been to help the artist guide what they’re hearing in their head and somehow figure out how to make that come out of the speakers. ‘Cause I hear everything. So then it’s just how do you physically make that happen. And that’s always a challenge. We pretty much just try everything — trial and error, trial and error, trial and error — until you get to a place where it starts to feel good, and then you expound upon that. So I think in a lot of ways, it felt like a very natural progression, ’cause it’s not something that I didn’t do before; I just didn’t have the weight of that title, I guess, if that makes sense.”
She continued: “I really try to not think of the outside world. When we’re making records, especially this one, I don’t think about other people hearing it, I don’t think about the release — that doesn’t even enter your brain, because all I’m focused on is just how can I make what’s in my head come out of the speakers. And I just want this to be the best thing I’ve made, ’cause that’s your goal. Every time you make an album, it’s to just better yourself as an artist and make something better than you previously have. And I really think that we did on this record — I think we really made something special.”
“Death By Rock And Roll” is the first THE PRETTY RECKLESS album to be made without the band’s longtime producer Kato Khandwala, who died in April 2018 from injuries sustained in a motorcycle accident.
“Death By Rock And Roll” will be released in early 2021 via Fearless Records in the U.S. and Century Media Records in the rest of the world.
Momsen recently confirmed in an interview that RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE guitarist Tom Morello guests on “Death By Rock And Roll”. Morello appears on a track called “And So It Went”.
Morello joins previously announced guests Kim Thayil and Matt Cameron from SOUNDGARDEN. The song with Cameron and Thayil, called “Only Love Can Save Me Now”, was recorded at Seattle’s legendary London Bridge Studios, where seminal LPs like PEARL JAM‘s “Ten” and SOUNDGARDEN‘s “Louder Than Love” were laid down.
