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Written by Glenn BurnSilver
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Thursday, 29 March 2007 |
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 Norma Jean’s latest album is built on a newfound emotional depth. That’s according to Norma Jean vocalist Cory Brandan anyway.
Poor guys, they must really be hurting. And as angry as a swarm of hornets.
Somewhere among the pounding musical assault of blitzkrieg drumming, scorching guitar lines, thunderous bass and screamo vocals is an emotional release worthy of the heartiest soul. The band’s most recent album, “Redeemer,” rides wave sets of musical bombast crashing over Brandan’s milk-curdling vocals. It is not surprising Brandan said making the album was akin to a group therapy session for this 6-year-old band.
“From beginning to end the whole process of writing and recording was very spontaneous,” Brandan explained during a phone interview from his Van Buren, Ark., home. “There wasn’t a lot of brain power. It was a lot more emotion-based. We worked with (producer) Russ Robinson and his goal was to reach in an pull out all the emotion behind the song. I mean he really dug in deep. Sometimes we would sit and talk for hours about the songs. … It really brought us closer together as a band in a totally different way.”
Group hugs were not part of the bonding process.
Instead, the band’s therapeutic release came in Robinson’s studio set in the dank, claustrophobic basement of his remote northern California home/studio where the nearest town was an hour away.
“The whole process was just insane,” Brandan said. “It was really intense.”
That process apparently made a difference and is helping others too. A number of the band’s MySpace friends credit Norma Jean with “saving my life,” and keeping them from harm’s way. It’s slightly ironic though, considering that on the band’s MySpace page is the saying, “Guns don’t kill people... Norma Jean kills people.” Still, the emotional connection is strong among their fans.
But can a band really have such an impact?
“That we can write a song in a dungeon somewhere and know that song might go out and touch someone emotionally, that’s amazing,” Brandan said. “We see and hear that and it kind of blows us away. That’s one of the most amazing things about being a musician, and I don’t want anything to ruin that. We don’t want someone to do something negative. All we can do is write about what we are going through, or have gone through, and hope someone can find something in that and relate to it.”
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TO GO TO THE SHOW
Norma Jean, with The Chariot, A Life Once Lost, The Handshake Murders
8 p.m. doors
Friday, March 30
Aggie Theatre
204 S. College Ave., Fort Collins
482.8300, www.aggietheatre.com
$30
myspace.com/normajean
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Small town livin’ ain’t easy
Even though Norma Jean vocalist Cory Brandan comes from a small town in Arkansas, going to the small town of Weed, Calif., to record the band’s latest album proved taxing.
“It was a one road town,” Brandan said. “I did get really tired of being there. People say when you are writing it’s good to get away by yourself, and that may be true. But I don’t know. When you are recording you are pretty isolated anyway. You hear the same thing over and over and over. You’re captive. You could be in the middle of L.A. But the nearest town was an hour away. We went there a lot.”
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Confusion reigns
“The End Of All Things Will Be Televised,” from Norma Jean’s new album is not about Anna Nicole Smith and the media hoopla surrounding her death, but it may as well be considering the media’s intrusion into almost everything these days.
“There are a lot of deceptive things going on and much of it comes from the media,” Brandan says. “People will believe anything if you edit it right. I watch the news and one channel says, “Oh this is bad,” and the next is like, “This is good.” I feel confused. I don’t feel like these guys are right and these guys are wrong. Most of the time I just feel confused.”
Glenn BurnSilver
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