The Mother Hips To Release New Song & Cover Surprise Album

Longtime JamBase favorites The Mother Hips have a big day coming up on Friday. Not only will the band play the famed Troubadour with special guests and a first set featuring a cover of a legendary album, but they will also release the first taste of the group’s eagerly anticipated new album.

Friday’s show at the historic Los Angeles nightclub The Troubadour will find The Mother Hips joined by special guests Scheila Gonzalez (Zappa Plays Zappa) and Jason Crosby (Phil & Friends, GSW, Van Morrison). The band’s first set will find The Hips performing a surprise album in its entirety. As for now the only hint about the LP is that it’s from a “legendary rock n’ roll band.”

Those attending the show will also receive a sticker featuring a download code for “I Went In Hard,” The Mother Hips’ first new song since 2013’s Behind Beyond. “I Went In Hard” is the group’s first tune to address the paragliding accident that badly injured Hips’ singer-songwriting guitarist Tim Bluhm. “I wrote the music but didn’t have a set of lyrics that I was really feeling so I asked Tim to give it a shot,” explained the group’s other singer-songwriting guitarist Greg Loiacono. “He had lyrics that he’d been working on that were about his crash. He sang the new words and changed the melody and it turned out nicely.”

Bluhm added, “It’s very challenging to re-write a melody over an already-established one. After Greg asked me to try it, it took me a long time to get to a place where I could try. At that point I’d been pretty much confined to a hospital bed for four months. Writing about the mindset and the events that led to the physical state I was in made a lot of sense to me. The theme of leaving the Earth without dying is not new for me. It is apparent in The Sheets’ song ‘Long Journey of the Eye’ and the Hips’ tune ‘One Way Out.’ The difference is that in ‘I Went In Hard’ I finally actually succeeded, but only briefly, and with horrible consequences.”

The Mother Hips’ new album, which is due later this year, marks the studio debut of longtime touring bassist and former Frank Zappa band musical director Scott Thunes. “Scott was amazing in the studio – present, powerful, adaptable and open-minded,” said Bluhm. “It was a pleasure to see how well his ‘live’ energy translated to the recording studio.” Stay tuned for more details on the LP.