Korn‘s Jonathan Davis was so excited by ORGY that he created his own record label …
Emerging from the dramatic landscape of Iceland in 2006, classic rock trio The Vintage Caravan have forged themselves a reputation as one of the most mesmerising acts in vintage rock.
MORE: TROPHY EYES: The Dreamers And The Doers // ALPHA WOLF: … And Out Come The Breakdowns // OUTRIGHT: Don’t Holler Atcha Girl
REVIEWS: TROPHY EYES: The American Dream // AS IT IS: The Great Depression // PLINI: Sunhead // DORO: Forever Warriors, Forever United
Through their unique blend of classic influences, technical mastery, and atmospheric resonance, The Vintage Caravan has pushed the boundaries of classic rock to a new level with their forthcoming new album Gateways.
The Vintage Caravan released two albums in 2011 and 2012, The Vintage Caravan and Voyage, the latter of which especially raised the bar in the heavy classic rock scene, and Voyage was re-released in 2014 before their resoundingly successful third release Arrival in 2015. Now, with Gateways, one has to wonder how The Vintage Caravan will develop their unique version of vintage rock. “I’d say with the new one we just learned a lot from the older ones”, laughs Óskar Logi, The Vintage Caravan’s vocalist and guitarist. “We tried to make a blend of stuff we do, make it a bit more even, musically interesting, complex, in some parts simple, in others complex, keep the music … focus on the songwriting aspect more, focus on making the core of the material a good song, make it a good song and then decorate it more with complex stuff, not make that the main part, I think that was the one of the things we thought of a lot on the new album. We thought more about making room for the vocals on this album, than the others, because we write the music first then the lyrics, sometimes we would write something and its super complex, a lot of riffs, and there’s no place to put the vocals, so on this album we were really aware of that, maybe just more experienced on this one.”
The Vintage Caravan // “No matter what you do, people like to categorise things, I think it makes people feel more easy, and yeah, I don’t mind, in our opinions we just play rock and roll and you know, we play what we feel.” – Óskar Logi
In keeping with the classic rock vibe, The Vintage Caravan’s sound has definite influences from some of the great names in rock, such as Hendrix, Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin. As to what extent they have embraced these influences, Logi simply states, “No matter what you do, people like to categorise things, I think it makes people feel more easy, and yeah, I don’t mind, in our opinions we just play rock and roll and you know, we play what we feel.”
Speaking of feelings, there’s quite a range of moods on Gateways from psychedelic hedonism and uplifting cruisy tracks, to melancholic and wistful songs …”Yes, I’d say, there are quite a few different themes,” Logi agrees, “I’d say the first two songs are in a similar vein, more ‘good times’, the first song is a bit surreal, but then after … more personal stuff, because I normally don’t really write a lot of personal lyrics but on this album I opened up a bit more because I saw the reaction to one song we did called Innerverse that was on the last album [Arrival, 2015] that song was the most personal song I’d released at the time, and it got really good feedback, people were telling me it got them through some tough times and that which is like the ultimate compliment so I just started to delve a little deeper into personal matters, and that’s one of the themes, personal stuff.”
Within a few hours of setting up a bit and recording a little jam, and it sounded great just as it was. He has the magic touch for sure.
[ Óskar Logi ]
Lyrically, Gateways holds some beautiful messages. Regarding the poetic lyrics on the track Hidden Streams, Logi explains, “It’s a personal song, but its kind of masked, you can’t exactly tell what its about but for me its kind of a metaphor for emotions and feelings, using the Icelandic landscape. Like volcanic eruptions, everything can happen, ‘Hidden Streams’ for me means like some kind of [geological] fault or a feeling that you can’t push away, like a hidden stream somewhere.”
Expression is not only lyrical on Gateways. When discussing the soul searing soloing on All This Time, Logi recounted how this solo came to be, “Interesting story–we tried a few different … of course we record live … and the solo on that one didn’t really cut it, and then I wasn’t sure what direction to take it in and we did another overdub session where I did some solos and yeah it was okay, but like it wasn’t really there. Then during the last day, the last day of twenty days in the studio, we decided to try it again. I took my Gibson Les Paul Standard and plugged it into my 1969 Marshall Plexi 100w and turned it really up and I was just really feeling it that day and did around four takes, really good takes, that solo is a combination of three of them I think and that was all improvised, just me sitting in the control room and being in the right mind state, basically. I will probably stay true to the songs [playing live], but I try to keep it fresh every night, try to do something different every day.”
Recorded at Sundlaugen Studios in Iceland, Gateways is the result of a month of working with producer Ian Davenport, who Logi described as ‘super fun’. “I picked him up from the airport and I could tell right away he was a really chill, nice guy to work with, turned out to be correct, he is right on a lot of things, probably all the things, when we were in the studio, a very wise man, it was really good to have him on our side, on the first day, we were setting up, he was like ‘let’s just see how it sounds’, very raw, it just sounded like … ready. Within a few hours of setting up a bit and recording a little jam, and it sounded great just as it was. He has the magic touch for sure.”
Gateways is out 31st August 2018 via Nuclear Blast, pre-order here.
