Touching Greatness

The four members of the Provocative Whites are the kind of musicians
who started playing in rock bands because they couldn’t think of a
better way to pay tribute to the bands they love.

Their affection for bands like Nirvana, the Pixies and the Ramones
is so ingrained that when they get together to make music, it ends up
sounding like a genetic mutation of Nirvana, the Pixies and the
Ramones, grown in sandy desert soil and watered with beer—raspy,
hardened and raw, but all the better for it.

So when it came time to make their second record, the most logical
way to do it was with a guy who played a big part in creating the
records they love. For many independent bands, recording with your
dream engineer usually remains a dream—but the Provocative Whites
weren’t going to settle for that.

So in March of last year, they loaded themselves into a van and
headed for Chicago to record with the legendary Steve Albini.

“I’ve always wanted to do something with all of my idols, and touch
that somehow,” said guitarist Kane Flint. But it wasn’t until the band
was on tour in Seattle in 2006 that they realized that recording with
Albini could actually be a possibility.

“We were at my friend Mike’s house, and he was saying, ‘You know,
Steve Albini will record independent artists for a pretty reasonable
rate,'” said bassist Tadj Roi. “The stars were just aligning. From
then, it took one year of us thinking about it and talking about it,
and then probably a year of Kane getting in contact with him.”

Said Flint: “It was really strange to actually talk to him and see
that he was touchable.”

Although the rates were reasonable, it was still expensive. But when
it came down to it, Flint said, the band decided that they could either
go on tour and spend a lot of money having fun, or go on tour, spend a
lot of money having fun and come home with a new album recorded by one
of their all-time-favorite engineers.

“It’s a different level of the whole fucking industry, something you
don’t think you’ll be able to touch,” said drummer James Few.

The band got together enough money to fund three days at Albini’s
studio, where they recorded and mixed nine songs. The end result is
EVOLYM, a 30-minute whirlwind of rock complete with that Albini
sound: guitars that crunch to the point of destruction, drums that move
furniture and a crackling, analog feel that is about as close as one
can get to hearing the band perform live.

Albini didn’t even think that they could finish tracking in only
three days, the band remembered.

Said Few, “When we first got there, I was crushed, because he said,
‘I don’t think I’m going to be able to mix this for you guys. I’ll
engineer it, but I don’t think I’ll be able to mix it.’ I was like, ‘If
he doesn’t mix it, what’s the point of us being here?'”

But, explained guitarist and vocalist Mike Rowden, “We could play
that shit in our sleep, so it was no problem.”

Added Roi: “We were basically running through the record live, and
at that time, we were doing a lot of shows, so we were really road-worn
on those songs.”

So on that first day, they set up and pounded through the tracking,
playing each song in Albini’s studio. On the second day, the
Provocative Whites and Albini created the vocal tracks. And on the
third, they mixed.

And then they rested, for they saw what they had created, and said,
behold, this is good.

“It was so pure, passionate and real,” said Rowden. “We were
nervous; we were fucking scared; we were excited, and it almost felt
like … this was our one chance to do something great, and we all
stepped up to the fucking plate, and that’s why this fucking album is
great.”

Added Flint: “We bled on those tracks. It sounds like I was hoping
it would sound. It sounds like I imagined it would sound, and that’s
the first time out of everything that I’ve been involved in that that’s
happened.”

Since the recording of EVOLYM was such an emotionally charged
experience, the band was a bit apprehensive about releasing it. The
entire thing has been finished since June, after they took it to John
Golden in California for mastering.

“We wanted it to be amazing, and we thought it was amazing, and we
didn’t want to find out that it wasn’t,” explained Roi.

Also, as Flint explained, “The economy took a dump,” and some of
their funding dried up. They had printed a bunch of promotional
versions of the album to send to magazines for review and had been
planning on printing a “real” version and a vinyl version. But rather
than waiting for more money to appear, the band decided to go ahead and
release the promo copies of EVOLYM and see what happens. So far,
a few reviews have surfaced; one British online magazine, Unpeeled.net, even wrote, “Buy this now and
stop lying around, you lazy fuckers,” which the band thinks is amusing,
since the album is not actually for sale. (Since it’s technically for
promotional use only, they can’t sell the copies they have. Tucson fans
can “buy” it at their CD-release party on Saturday, April 25, though;
it’ll be free with the purchase of a T-shirt or other band merch.)

With this kind of feedback already trickling in, the band is
confident that exciting things are in store.

“I think we all came to this point now where we’re like, we
have to get these songs out. This album is our baby,” said
Flint. “I wanna spread this thing everywhere as much as I can. I’m so
proud of it.”

This article appears in Apr 23-29, 2009.