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To be honest, the thing I'm frustrated about at the moment is how people are more interested in what trainers [sneakers] a certain producer is wearing than the beats they're making. -Rich Machin |
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One touchstone for It's not how far is Nick Cave's brilliant 2004 studio effort, Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus. The albums share a similar lack of sentimentality, despite the subject matter, combined with zero nostalgia for genre norms.
 Soulsavers |
"I take that as a compliment. That album was an absolutely awesome album, and maybe subconsciously there was some influence to what we were doing. I certainly listened to it a lot while making our record," recalls Machin. "With Cave, he's one of the finest lyricists of our generation, perhaps the finest since [Bob] Dylan. He's one of the few musician-lyricists that's actually up there with Dylan Thomas. You don't need to buy the album. You could buy the book of the lyrics and it would be as fine as listening to the record."
Standing in for Cave's blessed croaking bark is former Screaming Trees leader Mark Lanegan, who sings lead on the majority of the set, sounding like nothing so much as a more well preserved Leonard Cohen channeling fallen spirits. Additional vocal help was provided by Will Oldham and P.W. Long, with live instrumental accents from Sanjukta Sen (tabla, bass, tanpura) and Oscar Martinez (lap steel).
"I saw Mark play with the Screaming Trees in '92 and I've been a fan of pretty much everything he's done, particularly his solo records. Whiskey For The Holy Ghost [Lanegan's wonderfully harrowing 1994 release] was the very first album I bought on CD when I finally got 'round to buying a CD player. Come 2003 we discovered we had a mutual friend and hooked up. [Mark] was into our first record," recounts Machin. "He sounds pretty good on everything he does. The only thing you have to do with Mark is give his voice space rather than be an egotistical producer trying to throw on a thousand gimmicks. Mark has a great voice and it needs to be allowed the space to really hit you. The only thing I wanted to do was let it breathe."
Besides their excellent originals the album includes a trio of brilliantly chosen cover tunes – Spain's "Spiritual," Neil Young's "Through My Sails" from 1975's Zuma and powerhouse closer, "No Expectations" from the Rolling Stones. "I love the Stones but even Keith would probably admit that huge bites of that song are from Robert Johnson. It just fit in pretty nicely," says Machin.
With crosses being nailed to the wall and moaning entreaties to Jesus, it's easy to see where less careful listeners might file this in the Christian Rock section, a thought that sends a chill up Machin's back.
"I've gotten a few scary MySpace messages from people who haven't quite figured it out. Weak-minded fools hear what they want to hear. Definitely, Creed is not an influence in any way, shape or form [laughs]. To be honest, if I actually thought anybody had our album and Creed in the same record collection I'd probably get a bit despondent."
JamBase | Spirit World
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