Heavy Möther II: "I Knew That We Were Doing Some Pretty Cool Stuff, But I Just Didn't Realize How It Stuck Together So Well. It Was a True Collaboration of Ideas and Different Styles Coming Together"

One weekend, ten songs, one show—that's Heavy Möther II. An encapsulation of everything that's rock 'n' roll through a cross-generational lens and pure propulsion of primitive recording styles, the Montreal-meets-Midwest supergroup of sorts is comprised of vocalist Eddie Flowers (The Gizmos, Crawlspace, Heavy Mother), guitarists Craig Bell (Mirrors, Rocket From The Tombs, Saucers), Joe Chamandy (Retail Simps, Feeling Figures, Itchy Self), Kellen Baker (Good Flying Birds, Johnny Skin, Heavy Mother), Jordan Allen (Crazy Doberman), bassist Zack "Chode" Worcel (The Cowboys, Heavy Mother), and drummer Clarke Joyner (Heavy Mother, Circuit des Yeux). The ten songs of originals and covers which were recorded in Indiana will end up on a self-titled LP out February 14th on Total Punk Records (Retail Simps, Alien Nosejob, Itchy And The Nits). To examine more closely, I recently chatted with Flowers, Bell and Chamandy all about how one weekend of completely loose improvisation turned into a full-length album and mirroring it all for a single live performance last summer.

You all have such extraordinary resumes. What exactly brought you together one weekend to record these new songs as Heavy Möther II?

Joe Chamandy: From my standpoint, I was scheduled to be in Bloomington, IN for work as I had done two years previous, and hung out with Eddie in my downtime. I figured by adding a couple of days to my trip we could get together and play some music so I got in touch.

Eddie Flowers: Joe came down to Bloomington for some music-biz thing at Secretly and suggested we should try to record while he was in town. He wanted Craig to join us. I figured it made sense to use Heavy Mother for the project, so I brought in Chode, Clarke, and Kellen. Jordan helped set up the recording session and ended up jamming with some of us during the process.

Craig Bell: I remember Eddie approaching me in the spring about Joe coming over for work, so he suggested that we get together and do something. When June finally rolled around, it turned out being Heavy Mother plus me, Joe and Jordan. The night before we recorded, we jammed through some ideas we all had just to get something to work with. Joe and Kellen had some riffs and me and Eddie had written the song "Couchlock!" a month prior.

What kind of role did improvisation play during these recordings? 

JC: It played a big role. Any song ideas going in were skeletal or malleable. The songs were either written through improv or straight up improv over a skeletal framework captured in the moment, with the obvious exception of the covers. 

EF: There was a lot of improv. Joe had a few chords for one song—that became "Omnivore." I dug up some words from my stack of ideas. He and I each picked a cover song. The Troggs' "Night of the Long Grass" from Joe and New World Act II's "One Man's Love" from me. We had one writing session in Craig's basement with Joe and me; then a quick practice of sorts with Kellen, Clarke, and Chode. Craig and I also had one loose thing together. That's all we had planned going into Brandon Stacey's home studio in Indy. Three of the tracks were recorded with Jordan on guitar, Craig on bass, Joe on drums, and me on vocals while we were waiting for the arrival of Clarke, Chode, and Kellen. Those were "Red Blue Green," "Window in the Door," and "Foggy Notion." With the obvious exception of The Velvets cover, these were totally improvised except for the lyrics to "Window." The cover of Randy Newman's "Let's Burn Down the Cornfield" cemented the idea that something special was going on. We listened to it once on somebody's phone and just played it. I did have the lyrics written down, but hadn't decided to actually do the song till right before it was recorded. I was kind of blown away by how this stuff all came together over two days. It was even the perfect length for a full LP without us mapping that out in advance. No outtakes either—this was everything we did, not counting some false starts.

Are the album's ten songs all new ideas or were some of these originals and covers worked out in some way prior? 

EF: "Palmer's Odyssey" was a loose improv thing Heavy Mother had played a few times live. A jam piece called "The Inverted Pyramid." But I discarded the old lyrics for a scrambled bunch of words taken mostly from George Herbert Palmer's 1891 translation of Homer's The Odyssey. Likewise, "Foggy Notion" has often been the closing jam at Heavy Mother shows, but the abbreviated version here doesn't have any of the regular HM guys except for me. Other than that, none of this material had been done by us before.

The album’s first single “Omnivore” is out today. What further insight can you share about this toon?

EF: Joe had a loose idea for a song, and I added some lyrics I'd had for awhile. I can't remember what the lyrics specifically referred to, if anything.

JC: I brought the skeletal chords to this tune. It was the one thing I had prepared in advance, and the second thing Craig, Eddie and I jammed after Craig showed us "Couchlock!" the night before we got together in a larger configuration.

CB: It sounds like a cross between Mirrors and The Styrenes.

What's the story behind "Window In The Door"?

CB: It was the middle of the day Sunday and me and Jordan were just jamming waiting for whatever was next and I started playing this riff and Jordan and Joe started playing along and next thing you know, Brandon calls out and says, "Hey I got that all on tape, it sounded pretty good!" We were just killing time and it turned into a song.

EF: I brought these lyrics along just in case. I'd used them before on a 4-track recording I did with Will Staler of Purple 7 and ABC Gum back in 2017. You can find that on YouTube as "Window in My Door" by Eddie Flowers & Will Staler. Interestingly, after it was recorded and I was back in L.A.—this was before I moved to Bloomington in 2018—Will had ABC Gum guitarist Mark McWhirter overdub a bass part. I later formed Heavy Mother with Mark. The lyrics came about because I'd been talking to Will about these crazy trips I had in the 1980s on speed-laced LSD. During one, I was laying in bed tripping like crazy when a window seemed to form in my closed door, and one after another, these grotesque faces appeared staring at me through the door. Instead of being freaked out, I got off on it! The music from the original has nothing to do with the HMII take.

Joe, what made you want to cover The Troggs' "Night of The Long Grass"?

JC: It's a great song, with a sort of mystical bent from a kind of otherwise brutish band, I guess I surmised that might be in line with the DNA of the project.

I think the union of your unchained, street smarts rock 'n' roll comes out best on "Couchlock!" and "Heavy Burnout." How did these two come about? 

JC: "Heavy Burnout" is essentially the documentation of Kellen, Clark, Zack and me working out our chemistry while Craig, Jordan and Eddie got food and Brandon set the levels. It was like a songwriting workshop or something but completely unplanned, very organic and cool and probably greased the wheels for more difficult moments of figuring songs out in the next 48 hrs. Eddie wrote the lyrics after.

EF: I had an idea for a "Tequila"-style instrumental with vocal interjections. Craig came up with the music for that, which became "Couchlock!" For non-stoners out there, couch lock is a condition where you've imbibed so much high-quality bud that you feel stuck to your sofa. I first heard the expression among San Fernando Valley stoners in the late 1980s. "Heavy Burnout" was recorded by Joe, Kellen, Chode, and Clarke while I was getting Mexican food with Craig, Jordan, and our buddy Heff, who wrote the notes for the HMII LP insert. When we heard the spontaneous rocker on playback in Brandon's control room, I said to Craig it sounded like a Beach Boys hot-rod song. He suggested we call it "Heavy Burnout." I came up with some lyrics, assisted by some technical advice from gearhead Craig. My vocal was later recorded as an overdub in my Bloomington basement, along with some background vocals by Kellen, Clarke, and Chode on "Night of the Long Grass."

What were some of the highlights from the State Street Pub show you all did following the recordings?

CB: We recorded all day Saturday and most of Sunday. Then Sunday evening, we went over to State Street Pub to attempt what we had just done, but now in front of an audience. State Street is a very small and comfortable club to play and hangout. It's not like your typical punk rock bar that prides itself in being a shithole. There wasn't a big crowd or anything, but it was a lot of fun—pretty loose and wild. Eddie's friend Cliff [Morlan] had recorded the set from the crowd and gave it to Eddie. Eddie then sent it to Rich at Total Punk who liked it so much, he's releasing a limited cassette tape of the whole thing to go alongside the album.

EF: There will be a cassette-only release of that whole show from Total Punk simultaneous to the LP release. 50 copies total.

How would you compare what you've done with Heavy Möther II to your previous or other groups? 

EF: For me, it kind of was Heavy Mother PLUS, so just more of what I've already been doing. I spent thirty years doing my band Crawlspace in L.A., and a huge chunk of what we did was improvised, so this way of operating is very normal for me. I love not knowing exactly what direction things are going!

CB: You know, I, when it comes to getting down and working, everybody I've worked with over the years has been great and I've been really lucky to work with some tremendously talented people. I mean, if you wanna put them up next to each other, the only difference might be where you're recording versus who you're recording with because I've never felt that I've been in a situation where either I was out of my league or I was slumming. I always felt like we were all in there equally contributing and, and bringing something to the table. Be it Saucers, be it The Gizmos record I did, be it Rocket From The Tombs, it's all just great musicians all around. With Heavy Möther II, it was an amazing weekend. I had never done something like that. There were no set songs, just ideas that people had. We went in the space for three days, took ideas and put them together to make an album that actually holds together and flows real nice. It was all such an organic thing. We got in there and everybody knew what to do. I was blown away when I heard the rough mix, I just couldn't believe how good it all came out. I knew that we were doing some pretty cool stuff, but I just didn't realize how it stuck together so well. It was a true collaboration of ideas and different styles coming together. Everything just seemed to be the perfect storm at the moment. When you got a rhythm section with Chode and Clarke, you can do anything.

Eddie, how would you compare this LP to the Heavy Mother releases, Comical Uncertainty and the This Time Around LP?

EF: It's similar in some ways—but also very different! That's always my goal with whatever project I'm doing at any particular time: to not repeat myself too much. There are things that I love about bands like the Ramones, AC/DC, and Motorhead, but I always wondered how they could stand to do the same thing over and over and over year after year. Well, I guess it's about money in the case of those bands. Maybe lack of money is what keeps me always hungry for something else?

What are some future plans for Heavy Möther II?

EF: A lineup of HMII will be playing at the Total Punk Corporate Retreat in May. That'll be me, Joe, Craig, Kellen, and maybe Clarke joined by Grady Runyan, Scott Derr, and Christen McClellan Derr. Grady and Scott were in Monoshock and Liquorball. Grady also played in the last lineup of my old L.A. band Crawlspace. It should be pretty wild!

CB: Let's see where it goes, and let's see how long it can stay on the rails.

Heavy Möther II is out February 14th on Total Punk Records.