Spiritu Culmination

Spiritu, an Albuquerque based rock band, is currently on tour in Europe.

The Daily Lobo has offered continue coverage of the band. Here is the Spiritu Collection.

Spiritu Part 5

by John D. Bess

Munchen, Germany - A few days into the tour and we finally got all the equipment dialed in right and all the jet lag out of our heads.

This allowed us to really settle in on stage and rock with a new sense of abandon. The result has been that the rest of the folks on this tour now know who we are. After the show in Switzerland, we went from being the opening band that the headliners and their crew tolerated, to being welcome members of the show.

The headliner's crew stopped being so surly and actually started helping us out and the other musicians have opened up to us and really made us feel a part of this tour.

Our guitarist, Chav, has found a kindred spirit in Clutch guitarist, Tim Sult. The two of them got acquainted in a Holland hash bar early on in the tour and found that they share a deep affinity for Gibson SGs and stinky Afghani plants. They've been bonding through the arduous task of smoking out Clutch's other band members in the upper deck of the tour bus.

Being surrounded by four bands' worth of musicians, a wealth of learning experiences and from technical to musical to professional topics, there is always someone dropping knowledg.

During a jam session with Clutch's drummer, Jean-Paul Gastier, I was hipped to the subtle intricacies to be found in a good drummer's left hand. He later schooled me on some professional aspects of making it in this business and gave me a lot of valuable advice on what we should do next in our career, how we should handle the next album, where we should tour next, etc.

Our drummer, Ken Hiner, and I have been spending driving time discussing the intricacies of rhythm section playing. As we were driving through the Swiss Alps jamming to some Charlie Parker, I taught him the differences in Latin rhythms, or claves, and he taught me how to count odd-time signatures.

I was so excited that night when for the first time, I was able to watch Clutch play and was actually able to figure out what time signature they were in.

Beyond the personal interactions, every night is another chance to watch these great bands and study what it is that makes them so damn good. How does that singer interact with the crowd? How do the drummers reach beyond the kit to connect with the crowd? Why did the bass player do that weird thing with his hair?

Playing for 600 people in Munich requires different skills than playing for 200 people in Phoenix. We've been filming our shows and watching them the next day, studying them the way football teams study game films - all in an effort to bring a bigger, better show every night.

You learn many valuable bits of information on tour: one is the difference between adapters and transformers. Not being clear on the difference, I managed to create my own smoke and pyrotechnics display. Unfortunately, it was during sound check, and it was my amplifier blowing up - quite an expensive and embarrassing lesson.

Life on the road has been worth the occasional catastrophe. Perhaps the most important thing I've learned thus far is to ask questions when I don't know - a lesson that it's never too late to learn.

Spiritu Part 4

by John D. Bess

When I first started playing bass, I knew this was what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.

Unfortunately, most artists learn that art doesn't pay. Still, we drive on, devoting our time outside of our so-called normal lives of jobs, school and families to creating.

It's a sickness, really. There is no cure for it. Much like alcoholism, the artistic bend requires those who have fallen under its spell to either create or go mad. Time spent in the normal world is filled with thoughts of new projects and hatching schemes to never have to work a real job ever again.

On this tour, we are sharing equipment and crew with Dozer, a heavy stoner-rock band from Sweden. This is the band's fifth tour of Europe, so their road manager is very experienced, though a bit of a hard ass. Well, I guess he has to be to keep all of these musicians and crew in line, nine of who are your standard drunken derelicts after the show.

Being in the opening bands, we have a lot of concerns that the headliners don't have to worry about. While the headliners have a large bus to ride and sleep in, we have to drive ourselves across Europe and sleep in hostels. When arriving at the club, we set up our own merchandise and equipment, and then while the headliners sound check we scramble through some foreign city trying to exchange traveler's cheques for Euros and trying to find a place to eat and send a quick e-mail back home.

Opening for some of your favorite bands is exhilarating, but frightening. It was weird to actually be hanging around backstage with people I've only seen on album covers and on Web sites. Here are these musicians who I respect, who have influenced my playing and who are now standing off to the side of the stage watching me play. It can really trip you up if you think about it too much.

For those of you who have never seen Clutch live, it is an amazing live band. The band members have really set the bar high and we are using this opportunity to learn from them and trying to match their level of intensity.

The shining gem in their crown is their drummer, John Paul Gastier, a kind-hearted guy with a vicious, fluid, swinging funk style. The highlight of the tour for me so far was getting to play a fifteen-minute funk/jazz/R&B jam with him last night.

At the time that I'm writing this we are driving to Milano, Italy. Five nights into the tour and everyone is starting to get their feet under them. Everyday my mind is consumed by the thought that I need to find a way to do this, and only this, from now on. Everyone in the band feels the same way. This morning, I got to have a long talk with J.P. about the nature and future of the music industry and he gave me some very valuable insight into what we should do next for our careers. This experience is like a graduate program in how to make a living playing music.

Reality is suspended on the road, or at least the reality that is created is better than anything back in the 9-to-5 world. A world that we all know awaits us at the end of this tour.

But I still have two more weeks to ignore that thought.

Spiritu Part 3

by John D. Bess

For the last two and a half years, I've lived a double life -- mild-mannered college student by day, groove-possessed rock monster by night.

But now my secret is out.

In spite of the glances from conservative peers and jaded comments to "grow up already," the unthinkable has happened. My little rock band from Albuquerque has been invited to tour Europe. That's right, my childhood rock-star fantasy is about to come true. But, the twin specters of Trial and Tribulation have already begun to grow on the horizon.

In the fall of 2000, I answered an ad in this very college paper from a heavy rock band looking for a bass player. I had two concerns as I drove to the audition. The ad stated influences from Black Sabbath to Kyuss to Jethro Tull.

At that time I already had a few years on my fellow freshmen and I didn't know of too many people younger than me who were into Sabbath and Tull. Honestly, I was afraid I was walking into some kind of mullet capped-recapturing-our-youth-last-vain-attempt-at-being-cool-situation.

Screw that. I'm not that old.

My second concern was actual musical ability. After playing for 15 years, I knew that some degree of talent and ability were necessary to get any band out of the local bars and onto the road. If these guys were young, could they play? Then it happened.

As I got out of my car at the audition, I heard the most deafening, crushing rock I'd heard in years. Before I even set foot in the room, I knew I had to be a part of the band that was making this music -- male pattern baldness be damned. That night SPIRITU was born.

The next two years were a whirlwind for the band. We began writing music and playing at local bars. We lost our rehearsal space, got a new one. We lost our drummer, got a new one.

But, we never gave up; we were determined to get our music out to the world. In the midst of all this, we managed to save enough money and write enough songs to make an album.

We were fortunate to be able to record with famed grunge producer Jack Endino, who has worked with Nirvana and Soundgarden, and be released by MeteorCity, a well-known stoner/heavy rock label.

In August of 2002, our record was released to great reviews in both the U.S. and Europe. One European rock magazine, Metal Hammer, was so impressed with us that they asked us to be a part of its Monster Groove Tour, with co-headliners Clutch and Spiritual Beggars.

But touring Europe when you're on a small indie label is a world of difference from the life of major label bands doing it. Tour items must be secured: flight cases, passports, cases of batteries and guitar strings, bus rentals, hotel reservations and work visas.

Small bands like ours have to pay for it all ourselves, while we go to school and work jobs -- jobs some of us will lose by leaving.

To commemorate the highs and lows of the event, I will journal my way through Europe. So stay tuned for the Daily Lobo's own version of "Almost Famous," and see what life on the road with a rock band is really like.

Spiritu Part 2

By Nathan Jaquez

he Daily Lobo sat down with core members of the local band Spiritu, lead singer Jadd Schickler, bassist John Bess and guitarist Chav, Tuesday to discuss its self-titled debut CD, as well as the band's past, present and future.

Unfortunately, Kenny Heiner, the band's drummer, was unavailable as he was out making the world a safer place for us all by installing home alarm systems.

Daily Lobo: For your first major CD you got to work with Jack Endino, who is a legend in many circles due his work with Nirvana, Soundgarden and Mudhoney.

What was it like working with a legend in the industry?

JB: It was cool. Jack was a mellow guy. He knew what he was doing, and knew music, past, present, you know, everything. It was very humbling.

Chav: It was taxing because we only had two days to record and one day for him to mix down. We drove up to Seattle - basically packed up, drove up there, got in the studio and came back. It was a lot of pressure to be in front of a guy like that.

It really put you in your place when you're trying to record an album and he's worked with all these great musicians.

JS: But he didn't have any big attitude or anything like that. He worked with all those bands before they were big.

JB: He just loves music, and that's the best thing. He just loves music and being in the studio.

Chav: And a great ear, the guy could hear everything, just every little tiny thing. It was like 'OK sorry I didn't mean to do that.'

JB: Another thing I really loved about Jack is that a lot of studios listen to everything through high-end monitors in this multi-million dollar studio and that's what they go by.

He based everything on how good is this going to sound through your crappy car-stereo, and how he could make this album sound great for everyone who is going to buy it.

DL: How do you write songs?

JB: We fight.

Chav: A good family brawl.

JB: Chav brings in a lot of riffs, he writes a lot of good stuff. Sometimes he'll have stuff that flows together and sometimes ... not long ago he brought in a whole song.

Chav: Yeah, but then it's always everyone [writing]. I may bring something to the table but by the time it's done, its like he has [Jadd] what he needs to be changed.

He [John] has what he has. Kenny has what he has. It doesn't ever stay the same. It's ripped apart until we all can agree that's what were going for, or that's what we want. It goes through many different drafts.

JS: Yeah, frustrating, piss-me-off drafts, but you have to be pretty thick-skinned in this band. You can't hold on to what you think your ideal is.

Everyone really serves the song. We try to make the best songs we can make, and sometimes that means playing something you may not want to play or playing a part twice as long as you think it needs to be. But it's all about the song in the end.

Chav: We just wonder because, you know, people who don't play a particular instrument chime in on what those instruments should sound like.

JS: Not just me! Are you kidding he's [Kenny] the one who pointed out the vocal melody problem the other day.

Chav: That's true.

JS: But I was like, okay, I can take it. Kenny doesn't sing, but if hears something that sounds weird with something I'm doing then he's damn right to tell me because I may not notice it otherwise. We all do that.

JB: And sometime it's like, "Yeah all right, it's fine."

JS: Three of us agree and one person is finally, "All right! Next!"

Chav: And we've also gotten to the complete end - finishing a song - only to play it for two more weeks and realize that the song is really not good enough. And we just drop it. We've dropped plenty of songs.

DL: When did you all know that music is what you wanted to do?

Chav: I've always been a fan of music since I was a little kid, and have always listened to music and loved it.

But I can't really think of anything in particular, other than being the only little kid at a grown-up party, that when they were all drinking upstairs sitting around, I was listening to Black Sabbath with all the adults and getting busted by my dad.

JB: I remember when I was 11, lying in bed listening to crappy pop radio of the 80's and always hearing the bass lines. And you know you always hear the same songs every single day on pop radio, so I would just memorize the bass lines.

And I knew that's what I wanted to do but it took a long time to convince my parents to buy one.

They got me a guitar and I nailed bass strings into it. Yeah, they bought me an acoustic guitar and I ripped all the strings off and nailed bass strings into the body.

DL: Wow, that's like a "MacGyver" bass, right there.

JB: Totally. I got in trouble for that, man.

Chav: Yeah! I would have been pissed.

JS: What the fuck? We buy you a new guitar and you nail bass string into it?

JB: I said I asked for a bass.

JS: Ungrateful little kid.

DL: What do you all think of the pop dominance going on right now, with Britney Spears and N'Sync?

Chav: Mmm, Britney Spears . . .

JB: With the volume off, mmmm. It's always going to go on. That's what makes pop popular. It's safe, it's easily accessible. I listened to it when I was young because I didn't know any better, but I'm sure if I was 11 listening to Black Sabbath my dad would have probably shot me.

But the difference is that pop crap even back then was at least played by musicians who wanted to write good music.

JS: Do Journey's pop songs fall into that category? Seriously?

JB: Yeah, old, old Journey when they turned that corner with the crappy Steve Perry.

It was still music, they were still playing music and it wasn't synthesizers, and stealing other people's beats, and having this formula of "if we put this with that we can sell six million copies in eight months and so therefore everything needs to fit this plan."

Chav: And it's got to be three-and-a-half minutes so they'll play it on the radio. Or else it's a lost cause. Which on our album there's like one song that's almost four minutes and that's it.

JB: And to that end, we're all getting liposuction and cheek implants.

DL: Oh, that ought to help you a lot. The big question for any band. Where do you see yourselves in five years?

Chav: In Britney Spears!

JB: I'll second that.

Chav: Still just playing music that I love, having a good time and rocking.

JS: Yeah, preferably playing for more people. But if not, oh well.

Chav: Bringing more people to good, heavy rock and roll like it should be. Just getting down.

JB: And convincing people that, one they don't need to take the crap that mainstream radio tries to shove down their throat, and two, that

The Strokes are not fucking rock and roll!

Spiritu's self-titled debut album is available through MeteorCity at www.StonerRock.com, and through its Web site at www.riffrock.com/spiritu.

Spiritu Part 1

By Marisa Demarco

Hulking and glacial, the riffs that move Spiritu's self-titled debut CD loom behind jagged vocals in typical "stoner-rock" fashion.

The album opens with a long, distorted note that suspends and gradually lands as a warm-sounding, circular riff, bits of rhythm gathering gradually underneath. This kind of slow build is a staple force behind the rest of the album.

On Spiritu, solid, sparse drumming, resonant guitar and bass and pissed-off lyrics combine to form a wash of sound that vibrates in the listeners chest cavity - if you're listening to it loudly enough.

With a compelling, southern-sounding drive, "Fat man in Thailand" is the strongest song on the album. On this track, almost Danzig-esque in its overall feel, the vocals are at their best.

Though the lyrics rarely deviate from what has become the norm for this style of music, much of what this album accomplishes is a throwback to the past - a time when plastic samples and ripped-off beats did not dominate mainstream rock.

This album may cause some serious nostalgia for those of you who spent your adolescence listening to Alice in Chains on the headphones you got for Christmas.

More accurately, Spiritu's grainy sound, and extended, wandering instrumental sections are reminiscent of bands like Black Sabbath and Nebula. A Tool comparison, though ambitious, is not entirely out of the question.

Overall, Spiritu's debut is representative of some of the best rock in Albuquerque.

Spiritu's CD release party will be at the Launchpad this Friday, Aug. 30.

Mother, Pimpin' Gin and The Friendly are also on the bill.