Is Glorious Babylon, the latest release from local rock legends Lord Fowl, a reflection of the past, a glimpse into the future, or a fresh take on rock ‘n’ roll right now? Believe it or not, it happens to be all three.
As the New Haven-based band released its third album, all the scheduled shows to promote it have been cancelled. But the music — according to vocalist and guitarist Vechel Jaynes — marches on.
“The good thing about 2020 is you don’t have to be in the same room to write music,” said Jaynes. “I can record my ideas and send them out to the rest of the guys. I’m sequestered here and making demos.”
The plan was in place to release Glorious Babylon album this spring, as it was recorded last year with Jaynes, Mike Pellegrino on vocals and guitar, Jon Conine on bass, and Michael Petrucci on drums. The release date was set for April with a tour to follow. The album came out. The tour, of course, didn’t happen.
“We had a record release show planned and tentative tour dates for early fall and now that’s done,” said Jaynes. The band’s last live show was December 2019 in New Hampshire, and its last live local show was almost a year ago at The State House.
“We were doing shows with no album out,” said Jaynes about last year’s dates. “That’s kind of a no-no, playing old songs and new songs not released yet.”
According to Jaynes, Lord Fowl generally does not play a lot of live shows in the area.
“We want people to say, ‘if those guys are playing that’s a special thing’ … especially in a small city,” like New Haven, “if you play every weekend people get bored. We like to keep it fresh.”
The band also plays dates throughout the Northeast, including Massachusetts, New Hampshire and New York.
“We’ve been around a decade and we finally cracked this Brooklyn following,” said Jaynes. “It’s hard there, but we get on some good shows.”
Karen Ponzio Photos
Lord Fowl performing at The State House in 2019.
Jaynes noted that Lord Fowl typically gets to play shows with many different types of bands. “It’s interesting being in a stoner rock band,” he said “because it’s a broad genre. Some are more sludge or gloom, some more hard rock or more punk, more trippy or more psyche. We even get asked to play doom fests a lot. People enjoy us and like our music” at those festivals, he said. “Somehow it fits.”
Although many are eager to label a band according to genre, Jaynes said Lord Fowl had one thing in mind when their band began: “Can we just play music like people used to rock out to in the seventies?”
When asked to recall when and how the band began, Jaynes asked, “where do you start counting?”
“I remember going over to Mike’s house and writing the first couple of songs,” he continued. “There were lots of ideas, lots of jamming, and a lot of whiskey: Gentlemen Jack, I believe. We wrote ‘Burn a Good Omen.’” That was around 2007. The band’s first album, Endless Dynamite, came out in 2008 and was put out by New Haven-based Fake Four, Inc. “We had no idea how to put it out or where to put it out,” said Jaynes. “I was hanging out with Ceschi” — Julio Ramos, owner of Fake Four Inc. — “and he said he would put it out.”
The band’s second album, Moon Queen, followed in 2012, and though Lord Fowl did not put out another until this year, it was more than worth the wait. Glorious Babylon lives up to the descriptor in its title. Each of its 10 songs burst with rock and groove, saturated with a distinct seventies sound that feels whiskey-soaked and wise, yet wonderfully fresh and necessary. Jaynes is proud of the record as well as its influences.
“I was born in the ‘70s and so were most of the band,” he said. “Some of my first memories are from then, whether it was my dad’s car or Star Wars or the music on the radio. A lot of it is comforting. It’s nostalgia.”
He first picked up a guitar at age 12, but who made him want to play music? “I can tell you exactly who it was,” he said. “It was Joan Jett and the Runaways. I heard a song on TV. You know exactly what song.”
Was it Cherry Bomb?
“Yes, everyone knows that song!” he said. “That was always on the radio: that and Cheap Trick, Queen, and lots of disco and soul music. Then there was my parents and Motown. That music was huge in my house growing up.”
The songwriting came about as it often does, while having fun and with a little help from other musical friends. “Most songwriters just fuck around, like when you’re little and write songs about a dog or something,” he said with a laugh. “Also, you get into a band and someone says, ‘hey you, you got any ideas?’ There’s no formula. I wish there was.”
He stopped and thought for a moment and then added, “Well, I went to Berklee for a bit” — Berklee School of Music in Boston — “and there are songwriting classes there. They break down, say, a Billy Joel song and teach you all the parts of it. There is a formula for writing hit music, but it’s not very interesting. I don’t think it is.”
Jaynes is always writing music and conferring with his bandmates about it, even as they are all in isolation due to Covid-19. “I’ve been writing a lot, especially the last two months” he said. “Sometimes I will record part of a song and email it to another band member. Sometimes I come in with a whole song, or even just come up with a title or one line of lyrics and give it to Mike.”
Either way, it looks like Lord Fowl may have the makings of a whole new album. “I’m pretty sure we’re going to have another one soon,” he said.
Glorious Babylon has already been well received, according to Jaynes. “I’ve read about 30 reviews and they’re pretty positive,” he said. “Overall they’ve been really good.”
The album was recorded at bassist Jon Conine’s BirdsEye Studios in West Haven. Jaynes noted that the band doing its own recording is an inevitability “when you have your own studio and your own in-house sound engineer” — by which he means himself.
Vechel Jaynes
Jaynes has been a sound engineer “for around six or seven years now” throughout many venues in New Haven, most recently at Three Sheets and The Cellar on Treadwell. He was also just starting to get into working sound for theater before the pandemic began.
“I was setting up to do The Wiz at Hillhouse, which got cancelled,” he said. “We didn’t even get done with rehearsals due to the virus. It was my first time doing sound in theater. Also, my mom taught at Hillhouse in the seventies, so I was pretty excited about it.”
This wasn’t Jaynes first theater experience though, having performed community theater in San Francisco years ago, playing Simon in a production of Jesus Christ Superstar. “I’m so seventies it hurts,” he said with a laugh.
Locally he noted that he was in a couple of plays at the Tune Inn years ago, and has been in “a million bands,” including hardcore and punk bands throughout the eighties. Lord Fowl “is it right now” for Jaynes.
And right now, Jaynes’s primary concern is writing music and making plans for the band for next year. “Our next show is in May 2021,” he said. “I can’t believe I’m booking shows more than a year in advance. We will definitely reschedule our album release dates for next year and tour. We need crowds of people, but it’s probably going to be a while.”
The band may do live streaming at some point, but for all the planning ahead as well as nostalgia Jaynes remains ever-present during the pandemic.
“I just want everyone to be safe” he said. Right now, he added, “I’m fine. Ask me how I am in a few months.”
Glorious Babylon is streaming on Spotify and is available for purchase on Bandcamp. More information about the band can be found on its Facebook page.
