Willard Grant Conspiracy Gets Set to Let It Roll

Press release
Source: conqueroo / Cary Baker

It’s no secret that the Willard Grant Conspiracy, the loosely-knit collective (several collectives, actually, but we’ll get to that) from the surreal High Deserts of Southern California, is successful in Europe. So as singer/ringmaster Robert Fisher counts down the weeks to the American release of its forthcoming album, Let it Roll, the band is busily crossing the European continent.

But after the first of the year, all attention will be on winning the home turf. Let it Roll, recorded in Ljubljana, Slovenia, will be issued in the U.S. on February 27, 2007 on Dahlia Records/Reincarnate Music, distributed by Sony BMG. The album was recorded during a week-long break between dates in Italy and at Glitterhouse Records’ Orange Blossom Festival celebration in Germany. Fisher produced and Janez Krisaj engineered. Tracks were assembled in Holland at Enschede’s Studio Metro and mixed in New York with Charles Calello.

Already released in Europe, Let it Roll has received high marks from the British press: "Fisher has a voice that has all the gravity of a Cash, a Cohen or a Cale,” wrote Uncut. Mojo echoed, “WGC are reminiscent of The Band in all their gothic pomp.” And Time Out London noted, “The sound is epic, florid, grandiose; the mood dark; the achievement great.”

In making the record, Fisher wanted as live a sound as possible – coming off some of the band’s best tour dates ever. He also wanted to incorporate members of the various Willard Grant Conspiracy outposts throughout the world who hadn’t been able to play on previous recordings. To that end, the touring band  consisting of long time members Erik Van Loo (acoustic and electric bass), Tom King (drums and percussion), Jason Victor (electric and acoustic guitar) Josh Hillman (violin and viola), and Yuko Murata (piano and synthesizer) were joined in the studio by Chris Eckman (strange synth noises and keyboards) of the Walkabouts. The resulting tracks were added to by the band members unable to attend the sessions in Ljubljana during the following months in various places around the US. Adding their contributions were Dennis Cronin, Robert Lloyd, David Michael Curry, Mary Lorson, Steve Wynn, Linda Pitmon, John Dragonetti and Blake Hazard

The songs on Let it Roll were written by Robert Fisher since the release of  Willard Grant Conspiracy’s last album, Regard the End. The oldest of the songs, “Mary of the Angels,” was written for Regard the End but not recorded. Other songs like the title track “Let it Roll” and “Crush” feature a harder sound reminiscent of songs like “Go Jimmy Go” and “Get to heaven” on the band’s Mojave album.

The lead track, “From a Distant Shore,” is a humanist anti-war song based on a famous document from the American Civil War called the Sullivan Ballou Letter. This letter was written a few days before the writer’s demise at the Battle of Bull Run, and its prescience inspired the song.

Continuing a tradition that began with Regard the End’s “Rosalee,” a song written over the internet with Paige La Grone, Fisher tapped Steve Wynn to co-write lyrics on “Flying Low” during a late night internet collaboration. Wynn, along with Linda Pitmon (Steve Wynn and the Miracle Three, Golden Smog) and Mary Lorson (Saint Low, Madder Rose) sang backup in a long distance non collaboration that somehow meshed perfectly. Lorson and Esther Sprikkelman (The Nightblooms, Safe Home) added vocals to “Lady of the Snowline”. And back home in California, Robert Lloyd (John Wesley Harding, Kingsize Maybe) and Blake Hazard and John Dragonetti (The Submarines) lent their vocal and instrumental skills.

Last but not least, a rockin’ cover of Bob Dylan’s “Ballad of a Thin Man” rounds out the package. Recorded by request of Uncut magazine for a tribute to Highway 61 during the album recordings, it bookends the album.  

Of the process of recording Let it Roll, Fisher says: “I find myself humbled by the amazing talents that contribute to this record. Without these people – and without our audience who listen to the music, imbue it with their own experience and pass it along to their friends and help grow our audience, these recordings would not happen. Every time a new record is finished, I am left with a grateful understanding of the efforts and sacrifices that many people made to allow the songs to come to life.”

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