Bloomington-based The Something Brothers have been on a recording roll since re-forming in 2017.
The rock quintet that disbanded in the early 90s after relentlessly touring the country and flirting with major record labels just released a new 14-song CD that follows a COVID-era 60-song triple album titled "Flak."
Band members Scott Wilson and Edwin Pierce dropped by WGLT to talk with Jon Norton about the new release in this lightly edited interview.
WGLT: So how did you approach "Sharpen Up the Dynamite" following the release of an ambitious 3-disc CD?
Pierce: After the big "Flak," what word did he use … a 60-song extravaganza?
Yeah.
It was almost a ying and yang. Let's switch gears. Let's go upper tempo, faster, more classic track/break, track/break, track/break, keep it under 40 minutes. Ramones-esque style, try to keep them on the edge of their seat a faster ride. That's pretty much what we're going after.
Let's talk about some individual songs. You open with “Boston Kind of Smell.” So, you're wearing a (Boston) Red Sox hat, Scott. What's a Boston kind of smell?
(Laughter)
Wilson: Well, I'm not 100% sure.
Pierce: I think I know.
OK … Ed?
Pierce: I think, if I'm not mistaken, smell is one of your No. 1 triggering memories. So, when you’re like, oh, that sounds like my grandma's house, that smells like I remember that … I remember, I think is a pretty good trigger. And I think from the way Scott was describing it to me was, man, it smelled like I was in Boston for a while … it smelled like Boston.
Wilson: I spent the summer of 1980 in Boston, I went out there thinking I was going to take the world by storm, you know, it was my first venture out of the small town. And needless to say, I only spent a summer there because … you know …
Pierce: It ate you up.
Wilson: Yeah, it was like, a big city. You know, when I was in Boston, I was looking for something, looking for something new … change my life, you know, whatever. And I think that's basically what the song is about; there's something in the air, you know, something's gonna change and I'm looking forward to whatever's next. That sort of deal.
Which leads me to … lyrically, The Something Brothers, you've kind of always been this way, but this album is the same … you find interesting lyric ideas in things that are nontraditional.
Wilson: Oops, like, girls and cars and stuff?
Yeah, like not that.
Wilson: You know, we've been writing songs for so long, you start running out of ideas.
Pierce: I think we've started poking around with writing down single lines that are interesting. And you gather, gather, gather, gather, gather, and you kind of read through is like, yeah, that's a good line there, and maybe pull it to the side and then start working things around it.
So is that how “Nails are for Hammering” (from the album) came about?
(laughter)
Wilson: Actually, it is! I was watching some television show, you know, like, a rerun of "Kojak" or something. And somebody said that line. It's like when you're the one holding the hammer, everything's a nail and I thought OK, write that down and put that in the box. And the other thing … how do I how to work around that? And then then I just go into my trance, and then the next thing I know, there's a page of lyrics there.
Pierce: Also, you start doing the cadence of the way that things are laying out. So, even if it's written down a certain way, it's like it's not gonna quite work. So, you have to carve it in and change it around maybe one or two words, but the feeling or the original ideas there. You have just got to work it into the cadence.
“Super Lonely” (from the album). Superheroes should be super lonely. (laughter) Is that the lyric and I got it right?
Wilson: Well, it's more like, you might think I'm lonely, but I'm not. Basically, it's a superhero that decides this world is not really worth saving. I give up, I'm going back to my home planet. I'm going off to you know, my fortress of solitude. You know, if you're a Superman kind of dude. You know, it's like, Oh, aren't you gonna be all alone there? It's like hell no. But I'm not. You know, I'm super lonely!
Is there any of Scott Wilson in that?
Wilson: More than likely.
Pierce: There's always a little bit of those.
Wilson: And yeah, I had kind of gotten away from trying to be too autobiographical. John Lennon always was like, if he wrote a song you know, that's him speaking about what the way he's really feeling it. And I get this sometimes when my wife listens to some songs like, do you really feel that way? Like, it’s a character? I'm not writing about me. It's just the character.
I think it's interesting that so many albums out in the last five years, there's some theme behind it, right? It could be a breakup album, it could be a falling in love album, it could be a political album. There doesn't seem to be a lyrical theme that runs through this album.
Wilson: I mean, somebody was telling me that they thought a lot of it was dark. And I was like, I don't know about that. I never thought of that as being dark. And I was like if this is a dark record then I’m really screwed up.
(laughter)
It sounds like guys are having fun with it actually,
Pierce: Well, sure.
Wilson: It was … we were thinking like, OK, fast, short rock songs, you know, and (we) tried to be playful with a lot of the lyrical content.
Pierce: If you get back to the Stones or the Beatles, I don't think they ever had a theme going through a record ever. Yeah, and that's much more what we were doing on this one … just a peppy rock-pop song … keep it up. You know, our type of pop.
Wilson: We set out to make a traditional sort of … short songs, rock and roll record. That's it. It's like we're not going to do a weird record, we're gonna do just a straight-up rock record, but we found that we can't not make a weird record.
“Sharpen up the Dynamite” can be purchased on The Something Brothers website. Digital downloads can be found on their Bandcamp page.
