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“We tried to spread the wings a little bit wider sonically, and I think there’s more hills and valleys and peaks… there’s some sensitive moments and there’s a lot of doom.” – Troy Van Leeuwen
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“It was more that it chose me,” explained guitarist Troy Van Leeuwen on his involvement with Gone is Gone. “My old friend Tony Hajjar, who I’ve known for thirteen years – we met on the road many times and toured together – he called me up a few years ago and we discussed making instrumental music for film trailers and visual art so the first session I did with him and Mike Zarin ended up being a song on our E.P called “Praying from the Danger”. It was just a natural progression from there. We kept making more and more music and every time we had time outside of our schedules we’d get together and make music. After that, both of those guys decided we should probably get somebody to sing on this and they both came up with Troy Sanders and I just happen to know him as well from touring and playing shows. So, I called him up immediately, hit him up and it was that simple. For the last three or four years, we just kept making music whenever we could and now we have two releases so we got a lot accomplished in a pretty short amount of time which I like. There’s not too much to over think that way.”
Coming from established and successful bands – Troy (Van Leeuwen) from Queens of the Stone Age, Tony from At the Drive In and Troy (Sanders) from Mastodon can make things difficult when it comes to cross referencing schedules, but one thing that can be both a benefit and a hindrance is the baggage –both musically and from public expectation. Fans of the respective bands have pre – existing ideas and expectations on what each member and therefore the new band should sound like, but Van Leeuwen says it is of vital importance that both the fans and the members of the band realize that Gone is Gone is its own entity.
“I can see where everyone’s influence play into the music,” he mused, “but as a sum of all its parts I believe this band is unique. I’ve learned things from these guys that I wouldn’t learn from other musicians I’ve played with and that’s the whole point is to create something unique and I think everyone’s trying to have a different expression with this without denying their identity. I can hear Troy’s voice and I think Mastodon too but that’s just because he does what he does so well and it’s his signature. The same with everyone else. Tony’s drumming is very energetic and Mike is just a great songscape master so I learned a lot from making these records.”
“Gone is Gone is a different project that we want to express certain things that we don’t normally get to do,” he continued. “I think this band is an example of what we want to… where we see our future, doing more score or underscore or sound interpretation. I think that this band has an aesthetic that is geared more towards that than maybe hard rock music. It’s indicative of us to play hardcore music, it’s just what we do, but we really are trying to make something that… I like to use Trent Reznor as an example. Nine Inch Nails is one thing but when he does movie scores and stuff like that you can see a different signature and I think that’s where we see ourselves going more in that direction since everything is kind of disposable these days and you’re trying to leave your mark. That is one way to do it as an artist involved with what you are doing and hoping to create something cool.”
While E.P’s are generally used for newer bands in an attempt to test the market for their music, with the pedigree of musicianship on offer in Gone is Gone it would have made just as much sense to release an album straight up but Van Leeuwen says that their self-titled E.P released earlier this year was more a natural progression for the band rather than a tactical ploy.
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“It just seemed like the first session that we did together ended up fitting together, so that’s what the E.P is,” he shrugged. “It’s the first attempt at what Gone is Gone is – it’s the lift off, the launch pad. “Echolocation” was all recorded within a month and a half the second time we kind of got together and those songs all seem to fit as well so each time we get together we come up with an album (laughs). It just seemed – especially with ‘Echolocation” – to line up and sequence with the right vibe.”
When “Echolocation” is released on January 6 it will be Gone is Gone’s second release within twelve months, with Van Leeuwen adamant that the musical progression will stand out despite the quick succession.
“I think we took a different approach on Echolocation,” he said. “We tried to spread the wings a little bit wider sonically and I think there’s more hills and valleys and peaks so I think the E.P was a kind of kick open the door thing – like a heavy forward flip – but Echolocation is a little more… I dunno… there’s some sensitive moments and there’s a lot of doom (laughs).”
Van Leeuwen says that as far as goals went with the album there was little set out, but pointed out that with the quality of musicians at the bands disposal there was never going to be an issue coming up with material.
“We all could have brought stuff to the table musically,” he said, “so it was just that general ‘I have these songs but I don’t know how to finish them, I don’t know where they go’ type thing so each of us would try to finish each other’s music and it just bloomed from there with no real expectations other that just let’s make music so we just kept carving at it and polishing it and making sure it grew together.”
Despite having tasted success with his other bands, especially Queens of the Stone Age, Van Leeuwen admits there is still a bit of trepidation about releasing new material from a new band to the public, especially when it is a little different to what is expected.
“You’re always putting yourself out there and there’s always a chance for people to… of course people are going to make comparisons and all that kind of stuff,” he said. “Some fans of our other respective bands might not like it and sometimes you hear that and think that sucks but this is just another expression of who I am and who everyone else in the band is so you put yourself out there and of course that’s what the nature of being an artist is. I’ve been pretty happy with everyone’s feedback so far so you take the good with the bad.”
Although admitting that finding time to tour with Gone is Gone due to the aforementioned scheduling conflicts, Van Leeuwen hints that Gone is Gone is not just a one off vanity project.
“We make music,” he stated simply.”That’s what we do when we get together. It’s fun and we enjoy it and there’s great chemistry there. We won’t do it as much as we want unfortunately which is the main problem. We don’t have schedules that allow going on tour and stuff like that so we have to get creative in the ways we take our music to the people so that’s another challenge and situation that we put ourselves into but it keeps it fresh. With our other respective bands we put out records and we tour and it can get syprical which is why we wanna do projects like this to try something new.”
Written by Kris Peters
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