Classic Spins with Will of Redbait

Redbait

More and more I feel like Glacially Musical is losing the plot and really I have no clue what I am doing or what I'm trying to bring to the world. I don't know.

What I do know is that metal, pizza, tacos, and such and stuff like that there are awesome and it's important the people who make the soundtracks to our lives need to be singled out based on what pizza they listen to and which concept record they think is the best one.

Redbait has recently released their latest, Cages, which you should probably go check out, like right now.

Now let's talk music.

1. My favorite kind of album is the concept album. The Wall is my absolute favorite. Beyond the amazing songs, it has spectacular nostalgia for me. What's your favorite one and why?

Will (guitar): Concept albums and sci-fi stories go hand in hand for me.

I love all of Rush’s concept sides and long songs, Queensryche’s Operation Mindcrime, Fear Factory’s Obsolete, all that kind of stuff, but the one that’s been in my head the most lately is Vile Creature’s Cast of Static and Smoke from last year.

It’s an incredible piece of music, the cast of guest musicians is perfect, and the lyrics about sad robots and the terror of free will are right up my alley.

2. My very first album was Live Evil by Black Sabbath. Since then I've had a strong affinity for the live record, even if they're a bit fake. KISS set the bar with Alive!. Surely, it was fake, but it's got the best concert feel of any one.

Tell me about your favorite live record?

The first one I can remember getting into and probably still my favorite is Iron Maiden’s Live After Death, which was also my introduction to that band.

It’s a super tight performance by a hungry band still on their way up, and it’s got an energy that the studio albums can’t match; It’s the definitive version of pretty much every song on it for me. I don’t have much use for Winston Churchill but that “We shall never surrender speech” still gets me hype to hear some riffs.

Honorable mentions to Thin Lizzy’s Live & Dangerous which according to legend has very little live performance on it, and to Townes Van Zandt’s Live at the Old Quarter which is extremely live.

3. There are a great number of records I've turned to for my moods. What do you listen to when you're angry? Sad?

I don’t think I have a lot of records that I turn to for specific moods, although if I’m really down I’ve been known to wallow in the the first Counting Crows record or Joni Mitchell’s Blue, especially for a certain kind of winter mood.

The closest thing to mood music for me is maybe more inspirational stuff, like feeling distressed about the state of the world and the things friends are going to and needing some reassurance that things might be okay.

In the past year Svalbard’s It’s Hard to Have Hope and Dawn Ray’d’s The Unlawful Assembly have been the go to records for that kind of comfort, a reminder that people do care but we also have to work and fight to take care of each other.

4. One of my friends laughs at me, routinely, for loving the Misfit Toys of albums by major bands. Lulu by Metallica and Lou Reed, Carnival of Souls by Kiss, Diabolous En Musica by Slayer, etc.

What's the strange one that you love?

Funkadelic’s Hardcore Jollies was their first album for Warner Bros and was recorded during a time with a ton of member turnover, so it’s pretty scattered and doesn’t have anything like the cohesion they’d find on One Nation Under a Groove, but it’s an absolutely killer guitar record.

...noteworthy because it has a lot of both Eddie Hazel and Michael Hampton, trading solos on the title track and “Comin’ Round the Mountain.” Eddie’s playing on the live version of “Cosmic Slop” is worth the price alone, but there’s also a great Bernie Worrell keyboard workout on “Adolescent Funk.”

Underrated classic.

5. It's almost fashionable to release live versions of albums or re-record the old ones. King Diamond is releasing a concert with Abigail front to back. Roger Waters has done The Wall twice. Which ones do you have in your collection?

I don’t have a lot of these, if it’s a record I really love I feel like it’s hard to capture the magic a second time.

The standout for me is probably Rush doing Moving Pictures in full on the Time Machine tour. I got to see it live and it was pretty magical, so the live album is more about reliving that experience than replacing or renewing the studio version.

I got also to see Roger McGuinn and Chris Hillman of the Byrds reunite and perform all of Sweetheart of the Rodeo last year with Marty Stuart and his band backing them up.

That was a hugely important album for me and a collection of people I never thought I’d get to see on stage together. They haven’t released a recording of it so far, but I’d buy that in a heartbeat if they did.