Glassjaw's first album in 15 years was supposed to be a surprise release, but unfortunately, a leaked Amazon listing ruined everything for the band. Material Control is still due out this Friday, but their initial plan was completely different. Glassjaw planned on sending out Material Control on flexi discs to fans completely unannounced and have the album get announced that way, but guitarist Justin Beck says in an interview with Noisey that got ruined by Amazon.
Well, the inspiration pre-the label fucking it up and putting it on Amazon and changing the course of how we always wanted to do it? It’s always [been about] just kind of rewarding fans who waited around and supported us, so we wanted it to be a gift. You send a thank you card to a cousin or Mazel Tov on your birthday or congratulations on a graduation.
Us sending the flexis out was literally a gesture of thank you for giving a shit—thank you for sticking around. I mean, it just echos punk rock of the past. I loved getting flexis. We love that the technology has evolved to the fact that you can now get a flexi instead of a postcard. Why not do that? And I think it sounds great, it’s a great way for people to hear the music.
Vocalist Daryl Palumbo also discusses working with The Dillinger Escape Plan drummer Billy Rymer on the album and how damn good he is. Palumbo also says George Reynolds of Mind Over Matter and ex-bassist Ariel Telford, who played in the band from 1995 to 1998, also took part in Material Control.
I think it’s probably the cleanest recording we’ve had as far as mental anguish. In the past, you’ve got to deal with people and desires and shit and I’ve said it a million times: It’s always been Justin and myself just spitting out our ideas. On this one, we really tapped into that and didn’t hurt anyone’s feelings, we just kind of went in and did it.
The music was written and done and we went in and showed Billy, and Billy was just a fucking beast and caught on really quick. He’s a professional. The whole process was really simple; I couldn’t imagine it being more simple than how we did it. We didn’t stay in the studio in Hollywood for three months, we didn’t camp out at the Oakwood apartments, we didn’t spread the recording over two years and lose the fire. It was just us from front to back maintaining the sound. I love it. I would never want to do it any other way again.
Pre-order Material Control here before its release on Friday.
