This unlikely dynamic makes Walking Papers a pink slip youll actually be happy to get. Then again, very little about the self-titled debut from Seattles Walking Papers can be filed under expected. Its a record that largely eschews typical hard rock fare, opting instead for a blues rock that slinks and wafts as much as it crunches and blusters. Odd that a band catching positive ink as a hard rock super group would open the first entry in their discography with a relative whisper. This band is a very real thing I believe in.Tonight the stars will burn out, softly promises Jeff Angell on the subdued, slow-burning ∺lready Dead. “It’s a bunch of smart guys, and it’s really an honor to play with somebody whose words flow out like his. I think that’s my part in this, going forward,” he concludes. While Walking Papers isn’t a “noisy” album, live, notes McKagan, the band’s cinematic sounds are “dirtier in all the right places.” While ubiquitous bass player–a journalist, father, musician, and businessman–has a full plate, Walking Papers occupies a key role in his life, and the band already have enough strong material for album number two, where McKagan looks forward to “giving Jeff a safe place to express himself even further. Stunners include “The Butcher,” a spare, beautiful piano-based dirge, whose lyrical refrain, “Just when things can’t get no worse / That’s when they do, baby” is matched by melancholy musicality, while “Two Tickets and a Room” is the aural answer to “Leaving Las Vegas.” While “Leave Me in the Dark” has a U2 commercial-cool vibe, the other 10 tunes are more akin to the soundtrack of a Southern Gothic novel. “Barrett and I jammed in the ’90s, and we were like ‘Someday, dude…’ Here it all came together–Jeff and Barrett.”Īngell’s songs are dusky aural vignettes redolent of a life not always spent in the light. “I’ve always wanted to do something with Jeff and Barrett,” McKagan says. “He played with us, jammed, but I think it threw Slash a little for a loop with the baritone voice.”Ĭut to a decade later, where Angell’s leading a lineup much more suited to his Bukowski-like poetic lyrics, swampy-spare blues-rock stylings and resonant vocals. “I loved Jeff’s voice, and when VR was starting in 2003 he was one of the first guys I thought of,” McKagan recalls. See also: Life Advice From Alice in Chainsįor McKagan, who spent 12 years in Guns N’ Roses, but boasts a punk soul and has numerous diverse bands to his credit (Loaded, 10 Minute Warning, Neurotic Outsiders), joining Walking Papers is a dream finally realized. ![]() ![]() Pearl Jam’s Mike McCready plays on the self-titled album musician/producer Jack Endino (Skin Yard, Mudhoney) mixed the record. Those songs now have a home in the band Walking Papers, Angell’s sonorous voice and darkly captivating wordsmithing powerfully supported and augmented by McKagan, drummer Barrett Martin (Screaming Trees, Mad Season) and keyboardist Benjamin Anderson (The Missionary Position which also featured Angell). You could have seen him in a lot of phases, but he’s always had the songs.” “They had 200 songs and didn’t record one–and you would have seen drugs come in with the money they got. “You would have seen him in Post Stardom Depression and gone, ‘Fuck, he’s killer.’ You would have thought to yourself, ‘He should be the biggest thing in the world he should be the next Nick Cave or next Tom Waits.’ “You could have watched him get a big record deal with Interscope,” continues the bassist. “If you were in Seattle, you would have known 15 years ago what Jeff Angell was capable of,” begins Duff McKagan.
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