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Post by Admin on Jul 10, 2020 21:16:33 GMT
Don’t miss our heartfelt Q&A with Taylor Momsen of The Pretty Reckless, along with an encore presentation of her acoustic performance with Matt Cameron paying tribute to the late Chris Cornell, along with another acoustic performance of Death by Rock and Roll.
The Pretty Reckless: Q&A with Taylor Momsen
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Post by Admin on Jul 11, 2020 4:53:25 GMT
You might know her from the movie "The Grinch"—she played Cindy-Lou Who. You might know her from "Gossip Girl"—she played Jenny Humphrey. If you're a new fan, it means you know her as Taylor Momsen, lead singer for the rock band "The Pretty Reckless."
What you may not know, is that she's been living and working in Maine for years.
"I love Maine. I've been coming here for quite some time now, like since we formed the band because the band's all from New England," Momsen said. "So we rehearse up here. So I've been coming here since I was 15. It was about time I stopped staying in hotels and actually got a place. I love it. It's my favorite."
The Pretty Reckless formed in 2009, and released several albums that were well received. Five years later they released the number one smash hit "Heaven Knows" and the band has been crushing it ever since.
In 2018, tragedy struck. Their longtime engineer and producer Kato Khandwala died in a motorcycle accident. While they were still in mourning, they called Jonathan Wyman of the Halo Studio in Portland, and they went to work making the band's newest album "Death By Rock And Roll."
aylor says, "Jon just really helped. We were in a bit of a tumultuous state at the time. Certainly at the beginning of the recording process. And he was just so amazing at letting us just go through everything we had to go through to create the record that we did. Honestly, I can say we're so proud of it. We're so proud of how this work turned out, and in my humble opinion, it's the best record we've ever made."
Jon Wyman has been the recording engineer in Portland for more than 20 years. He's worked with many local musicians over those years, and he's recorded several national acts as well. His job is very complicated, but he makes it sound easy.
"My job is to make what Taylor is hearing in her head come through the speakers. That's the best way to describe it," Wyman said.
The Pretty Reckless should be on tour right now, where they were all set to promote "Death By Rock And Roll." They were planning to hit the road with rock heavy-hitters like Pearl Jam, The Foo Fighters, and Guns and Roses. But COVID-19 has forced the postponement of the tour, and the full album hasn't been released yet. However, you can hear the title track here:
Momsen says not being on the road means they "can't complete the circle." She says she can't wait to get out there and "bang drums, crank amps, and scream into microphones."
Until then, this rock star will hunker down and wait it out... here in Maine.
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Post by Admin on Jul 11, 2020 19:18:29 GMT
THE PRETTY RECKLESS singer Taylor Momsen, who has repeatedly named SOUNDGARDEN as one of her favorite bands, spoke to "Offstage With DWP" about the influence of the iconic Seattle alternative rock act on her music career and her songwriting approach. She said (see video below): "Their level of artistry and songwriting and musicianship is so above what I can even comprehend. It's so intricate, it's so detailed, it's so good and it's so smart that it takes a minute to understand SOUNDGARDEN. They're catchy, and everyone's heart the hits, but when you really investigate SOUNDGARDEN and get into it, it's like a religion — it's so in-depth and it's just superior to so much music that's out there. "I've based my whole career and identity off of THE BEATLES and SOUNDGARDEN. They're two bands that I put next to each other, and I know that might sound crazy to some people. But they're so important. There's very few bands, I think, that needed to exist, and SOUNDGARDEN is one of those bands that there'd be a hole in the music world without their records." Momsen also reflected on how the deaths of SOUNDGARDEN frontman Chris Cornell and longtime producer Kato Khandwala affected the making of THE PRETTY RECKLESS's new LP, "Death By Rock And Roll". Just days after Cornell's passing, Momsen, whose band was the opening act for SOUNDGARDEN's spring 2017 run of dates, paid tribute to the legendary singer by performing a cover of AUDIOSLAVE's "Like A Stone" at the Rock On The Range festival in Columbus, Ohio. "That was a cover that we'd been doing for years, just because I love singing the song, but it certainly took on a different meaning at that show," Taylor recalled. "I could barely get through it. It was probably not my greatest moment. I was not in a very good place to be public, 'cause after that, I canceled all touring. I needed some time to clear my head, to process what had happened, or attempt to, so I went home after that. I couldn't get on stage and pretend that I was okay and that I was happy to be there. To put on a show and put on façade, I wasn't capable of doing that. So I left and went dark for a while to try to regroup. And then, unfortunately, as I started to put the pieces back together, I got the phone call that Kato, our producer, had passed in a motorcycle accident. So that kind of put the nail in the coffin. Not to get super heavy here, but I fell down a hole into such depression, substance abuse and a hole of grief that I didn't know how to get out of it." "To make a very long story short, it took music, rock and roll, to save my life again," she explained. "I know it sounds super cliché, but it's entirely true, 'cause I had nothing — I had given up on everything. I didn't know if I wanted to do this anymore, I just thought, 'What's the point?' And I turned to music, 'cause music, in my entire life, has been the one thing that's never let me down — it's always been my friend; it's always been my salvation. And listening to the records that I loved turned into me wanting to write — not even wanting to write, it just kind of became this outpour of writing without really… I didn't have to try to write this record; I kind of just poured it out. And then that led to figuring out how to record this album. So there was a lot of baby steps in trying to heal, but without music, I don't know how I would have made it through." "Death By Rock And Roll", the fourth studio album from THE PRETTY RECKLESS, will likely arrive in early 2021. The LP will be released via Fearless Records in the U.S. and Century Media Records in the rest of the world. Momsen recently confirmed in an interview that RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE guitarist Tom Morello guests on "Death By Rock And Roll". Morello appears on a track called "And So It Went". Morello joins previously announced guests Kim Thayil and Matt Cameron from SOUNDGARDEN. The song with Cameron and Thayil, called "Only Love Can Save Me Now", was recorded at Seattle's legendary London Bridge Studios, where seminal LPs like PEARL JAM's "Ten" and SOUNDGARDEN's "Louder Than Love" were laid down.
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Post by Admin on Jul 14, 2020 19:07:22 GMT
The Pretty Reckless vocalist and former actress, Taylor Momsen, showed how she predicted these rough coronavirus days by sharing a new post on her official Instagram account and confused the fans’ minds. As you can see in the picture below, Taylor was inside the plane in Los Angeles and poses for the camera. She was wearing masks even though there was nothing in the last year and showed the importance of wearing a mask. http://instagram.com/p/CClreakDUqF While proving that she has predicted the coronavirus outbreak, Taylor also stated that she will be joining Marci Wiser’s radio show to talk about some rock and probably The Pretty Reckless’ newest album, ‘Death By Rock And Roll.’ Here is what Taylor Momsen captioned: “Los Angeles! Take a break at 1 pm PT and tune in to 95.5fm Klos to hear me and Marci Wiser talk rock! This is a picture from last time I went to LA about a year ago… Always wearing a mask!”
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