STRAPPING YOUNG LAD Guitarist Says The Group's New Album Sounds 'Completely Natural'

STRAPPING YOUNG LAD guitarist Jed Simon recently spoke to Blistering.com about the making of the group's latest CD, "Alien". A couple of excerpts from the interview follow:

On how he would describe the new album:

"It's pretty full-on. I guess that's a great way of describing 'Alien'! (Laughs) It's an album that takes a couple of listens to really get your head around, and that applies to me as well. Even after going through the whole writing/recording process, it still took me a while to sit back and objectively listen to it other than from an insider's point of view. I'm pretty happy with it actually. It just feels right. There's nothing forced about it, and it's completely natural. Everything about it is just right."

On why the group's cover of TOM JONES' 1965 hit "What's New Pussycat?" was dropped from "Alien":

"That song didn't fit into the sound of the album. Trust me, it wasn't even close. I don't know if it's ever going to appear anywhere because we didn't even finish it. It wasn't even like we finished recording it and then thought it wasn't good enough. We started tracking the guitars, and it was about halfway through the guitar tracking that we realised that it just wasn't happening. It didn't take long before we all turned to each other and said, 'This is fucking stupid!' We just kind of let it go right there. We just rehearsed it, laid down the drums, and got halfway through the guitars before realizing it sucked. We didn't even record a demo version of the song. It was gay! And that's no having a go at TOM JONES, because he is the fucking man. We love TOM JONES, but not one of his songs belongs on a STRAPPING YOUNG LAD album. There may have been some things done to the track afterwards after I was done with it, but as far as I know it was halfway through recording the guitars that the song was put to rest. Ii wasn't completed, but to be honest, some things could have been done to it since. I don't know because I live in Philadelphia, so I'm away a lot."

On the album's closing track, "Info Dump":

"You can skip right to the next question if you want! (Laughs) Can I have that as my answer? Whatever. Filler. I mean there's a lot going on there, but whatever. That doesn't do anything for me really. It's not a favorite of mine because I don't even consider it a song. I don't see the point. To give it credibility, it does kind of fit with what's going on in 'Alien', but it's too long. I've listened to it many times all the way through, and it does have a fucking load of stuff going on in it with a lot of things coming and going. It also has a very creepy vibe, but it's not something that I personally would have included on the album. I think everyone's got their own opinion on that one. It's just [Devin] Townsend doing his own thing. He may have had some stuff going on in his brain that he wanted to get out, and that was a suitable vehicle for him to get it out. That's all there is to it."

Read the entire interview at this location.