Here's the quick part:
Yes, Peregrine is going to record again. Probably this year. I know I've said that before, but we have a line up - while it's a logistically complicated one, it's also solid and dedicated. So recordings and probably a handful of shows, maybe a handful per year. No idea.
Either way, I've been working on stuff and I'm really eager to actually get it out there. And would really like to play some shows. Gnarly basements with awesome energy? Hopefully. If you happen to be reading this and have ideas of where we should be making things happen, let me know.
Agrarian Curse and the Green Scare benefit split turned ten last year, so I had planned on writing something up then, didn't get around to it. In the meantime, people have been asking questions about Peregrine - approaches, ideas, song writing questions - so I figure I'll try to blaze through some background info that hopefully is of interest to someone.
I have to say that there are a lot of things I would do differently now with recording these. Some minor, other technical, but I really love these two albums in particular. I know it's not cool to say, but I write music I like, so... fuck it, I like it! Ha.
Recording and gear info will be in asterisks, so if it means nothing to you, just cruise on through that part.
Anyways, here it goes. Looking forward to sharing new stuff, hopefully soon. I'm pretty damn amped on what's brewing right now.
For wildness,
KT
Lyrics are already posted, so I won't put them all up here. Click here for those.
Agrarian Curse CD
We recorded this, like the demo and the split, with Joel Hatstat in Athens, GA. Joel has always been awesome to work with and felt like another member of the band, possibly more consistent than many of the line ups that did exist!
I've had people ask me about song writing, so I'll do my best to incorporate that on the song-by-song run through. In general, my writing doesn't follow a lot of conventional ideas about style and format. You're talking to a guy who often has one word paragraphs.
Ultimately, what matters is - and I'm at a loss for good words on describing this - the "narrative arc" of each song, much like in writing. I approach them in pretty much the same ways. Some songs are more straight forward than others. Some are written around lyrics or concepts. Varies song to song. In the end, Peregrine gets away with pulling in a good bit of influences and still sounding true to itself even though songs like "The Final Act" and "Domesticator's Hand" are vastly different, but we would have them one or two songs apart in the set list and times and no one was going to bat an eye.
With the new stuff in the works, that's probably even truer.
Line up:
Me: guitar and vocals
Clem Adams: guitar and vocals
Daniel Shroyer: bass
Brian Switzer: drums
Intro track: Like many things, this was kind of done on the fly. It's pretty straight forward, some effects on it and then Clem and his Digitech Whammy DT for ambiance. If you ever want to mimic whale song, that's the trick. That pedal does that pretty amazingly.
Fun fact: John Zerzan was really amped to play Peregrine on Anarchy Radio. In what may have been an epic heckle, the first show he played anything on it, it was just the intro track. World class heckle right there.
Anatomy of the Machine:
This song will probably eternally be the opener. It covers a good bit of ground, has a lot of energy, plus there's a mosh riff early on, so if you're in a venue with horrible acoustics, that helps give a quick reset and adjust.
This one was pretty equal parts lyrically driven and musically, a bit of a Behemoth nod in ways. But the lyrics fit it well, at least in my opinion. In short, it's about the costs of technology. Has one of my favorite lines: "until we realize that the grid is the enemy." In the end, and doing the backing vocal track felt very right at the time.
Nerd notes: the chug pattern is a little iffy, mainly because Clem and I fought Brian a bit on the chug pattern. What I originally wrote was in some super weird time signature and, probably for the best, Brian pushed something more straightforward. Live, that was a good move. The pattern we ended up using though, when Brian did it on the double bass, my immediate response was, "that's DRI's Acid Rain." I have never been able to unhear it, but I hear it less.
Either way, the chug is a little sloppy because Clem and I were stubborn about succumbing. If you didn't hear it before, now you might. So, sorry...
Side note: huge fucking honor that Matt Moss of the epic and mighty Slugdge to bring up the lyrics to this song, and Peregrine in general, as an influence in a No Clean Singing interview. Slugdge are the best band on Earth right now and Matt is a musical genius, so truly a really great nod to get.
Why aren't you listening to Slugdge right now?
Okay, let's get fucking dorky, the rest of you can skip ahead here:
***
I forget what kit Brian had, but pretty positive he used Sabian cymbals and I know he used Iron Cobras. There was one broken Wuhan china cymbal that made it onto both recordings. Paired with a proper china, it just sounded better.
I used an ESP LTD H302 with Duncans (JB/59) and an MH400NT with EMGs (81/60). Worry not, no neck pickup was used or injured in the making of this album. My head was a 6505, but I got it in studio and hadn't tweaked it as much nor magically paired it with a TS9 or something similar. Wish I had. I used a Marshall 1960BV cab (300 watt version) and a Fender Bassman 2 x 15" cab.
Clem had an ESP LTD EC500 with EMGs (81/60) and a custom head that was basically a 300 watt Marshall. He used that with a Little Joe semi-ported 4x12 and 2x15.
Daniel used a Fender P Bass and had this dual Behringer head stack. I can't remember the details, but he had it dialed really amazingly for Behringer. I remember first hearing it and thinking it sounded dead on like Cliff's Master of Puppets bass tone.
So the things I would have changed come down to stupid ideas I had at the time, very punk thoughts. Like I would give myself one take on guitars, maybe two. I wanted it to be kind of raw, and guess what, it kind of is! But stubbornness can be pointless. Brian had recently recorded a Knife Trade demo (a really solid one at that) with one of my favorite guitarists, Ryan Knight. They had click tracks, drum replacement, and ran entire tracks just for pinch harmonics. Maybe in a weird way I was rebelling against that surgical precision?
Well, I went too far. I had dumb ideas, like using Fender soft picks to avoid and string attack or scratchy sounds. Quirks of youth. My playing could have been a lot tighter and the album could have sounded better, even with doing so few takes. Live and learn.
Guitar recording is two tracks each, Clem and I, but two cabs each time.
The vocals on this album are one thing I would do a bit differently. I went a little more shouty, just because I wanted to make the lyrics really clear. I would prefer more low to mid rangy, which is how they sounded live. The backing tracks in many places would have probably been fine alone. There's a degree of sloppiness with the layered vocals, not always in place. Might sound odd, but that's intentional. It's also a nod to Chris Colohan, Left for Dead has been a favorite band of mine since they were around and I liked that rawness and anger that came through with it.
So, there you have it.
***
Empire's Playground:
Still a favorite of mine. Has a few of my favorite riffs and lyrically it's a heavy hitter in my book. There are aspects of charting out areas that I wanted to cover in writing at this time that I hadn't fully gotten around to yet, so they were coming out in lyrics.
This song is all about the misfortune of colonizers succeeding in dragging the corpse of European power into the ocean and somehow managing to sustain that nightmare. I should mention that Peregrine kind of happened at a perfect time. In these years (2006-2010), I wasn't writing as much. I hit a bit of a rage plateau and anytime I sat down to really try to articulate and spell that out, it felt odd to have to explain such insane and massive things that were clearly just destroying the world.
This one was pretty lyrically driven in how it's written, probably one of the better examples of that too. The structure works well with the delivery, in my opinion at least.
So if you get stuck as a writer, my advice is to play in a death metal band and scream into a microphone a bunch. It works wonders. Fortunately, I got past that. My book, The Cull of Personality, is oddly like an extension of this song. The way it goes sometimes...
One of my other favorite lines: "The agrarian curse of insatiable need." Title, done.
Starvation's Servants:
I wrote this music in 1998/99. Originally more of a crusty, D-beat vibe in my head, but it works WAY better as a nearly straight forward grind song. It's also pretty straight forward in how it's written.
On a technical side, the mastering of this album is pretty awful. However, the way the double bass sounds insane in the finalized version really works with this song, at least I think so.
Lyrically, this is another one that was pretty foreboding: entirely about missionaries as agents of colonization, which is the theme of my current book-in-progress, Of Gods and Country. "Outstretched arms are what remains of people once connected with the living spirit. The wildness, the breath of the forest, intertwined through all that lives." Got a lot in this little blast feast!
Blood over Borders:
Okay, so I'm a bit mixed on this one over time. Sometimes I love it, sometimes I'm pretty meh about it. I'd say I like it enough, but it dropped from the set quickly once there were options. There are riffs that I love, but probably too many. There's the killtheslavemaster riff, which is so much easier to nail when you aren't using Fender thins! So head's up on that one, kids.
The riff at 1:30 is actually the first true Peregrine riff. Clem and I were messing around early on to kind of figure out exactly how it was going to go, that riff came up, then Clem moved it up five frets and boom, that's where it all clicked together. So I have a soft spot for it there for sure.
It's also one of the few songs where you get all the big hitter terms that pretty much never show up in lyrics: civilization, domestication, and agriculture. There are a couple songs that Clem has vocals on; this, When the Lights Go Out, and Amor Fati. We alternate and those were always some of my favorite parts of the set, but in hindsight, when he has to shout agriculture, I can see how it's not the best lyrical work, even though the point is solid.
Nerd note: okay, this one is a bit of a spoiler, as in it might spoil the way you hear this. Skip ahead if you don't want that:
***
There's a total fuck up in this track. The bass drum mic fell over about halfway through. We didn't notice it immediately, ended up setting up the drums again and then having to re-record some of the guitars too. It's a huge jump at 2:30, you can hear it because all of the sudden everything sounds better and the bass drum is super punchy.
Why we didn't re-record it? I have no idea. But Domesticator's Hand, Lights, and Amor were all recorded after, which is why they sound better. The cabs were mic'ed better too. Why we didn't redo more of it, I'll never know.
You might have thought you heard it, but there it is. Now you won't unhear it.
***
Domesticator's Hand:
I love this one. Brian wrote the drums and recorded them, making it a bit fucked up as his revenge for all the odd time signatures I had been throwing at him. Ended up being one of my favorite songs and a total ripper. I wrote the guitars by looping the drums and playing for two hours straight till I got it. It's possibly the only time I ever got sore from playing guitar in my life, but trem pick a grind song for two hours straight and it's bound to happen.
The title is straight up from Lewis Mumford, The Myth of the Machine, but can't remember if it's book one or two. It was the first track that I decided to do the high and low vocals on and that's when I went back and did the backing tracks for all the others too. This is always awesome to play live.
Recorded on a whim, but one of my favorite songs. Thanks for trying to throw me, Brian! He did say that during the double bass, sludgy riff section that he envisioned a solo. Wrong band, my friend. Wrong band.
Thirteen Days:
So this one was absolutely lyrically driven, but I don't know if I ever felt like it came across musically how I had hoped. I like the song, but I think it fell off the set list once the split came out pretty quickly. There are some riffs in it that I really love though.
Lyrically, this one is a super important one. It's a reference to Joe Kane's book, Savages. It's a really killer book, about the Huaorani of Ecuador and their struggles against oil companies. Ultimately, their ancestral lands were facing corporate takeover for what would amount to thirteen days worth of oil if it was just being used in the US at that time.
Unfortunately, it's an ongoing fight. Fortunately, the Huaorani have been having small victories and there have been documentaries made and more, but this remains a persistent and continuing issue. You should definitely be looking into it.
"What they've wrought is omnicide, what we've bought is ecocide. A blind complicity, inflicted wounds without relief."
I think this is the song that has some of the most His Hero is Gone influence mixed in. I'm totally fine with that and happy when people notice it too.
When the Lights Go Out:
This one was kind of a last minute thing, but in a weird way. Clem wrote this song, in a lot of ways it was kind of the first Savagist song (which Daniel and Clem are in). We had messed around with it for ages, but it didn't entirely fit. We were listening to a lot of At the Gates, then I wrote in the ATG opening/closing riff and the little Neurosis-ish break part and here we go. This one came together really well in the studio and we were all on the same page with it.
The lyrics are a bit more narrative than most of the other songs, but fits with what the song is dealing with: this post-civilization, feral world. What it might look like. How it might feel. With the ATG kind of closing, it works really well with the final lines:
"The past lies before us now. As we become the future primitive. The end of their days is the beginning of our lives. Freed from self-imposed restraints, the wanderers will re-arise."
This was always a great song to have in the set, it's really different from a lot of the other songs, but still works well. A really solid lead in for Amor Fati too. Retired it after moving from Georgia, wouldn't be right doing this song without Clem, but maybe in future shows the stars will align...
Amor Fati:
One of the first full Peregrine songs. Always a solid one to end a set with or the CD. Amor Fati is latin for "love of fate" and the song is about collapse. Lyrically and musically, the song is more abrupt in the beginning and easing into the end, meant to feel like the collapse and the realization of life after it.
Was always better with Clem and having the double vocals, gave it much more of a "finale" kind of feel to it. Unfortunate in some ways, because I've always felt like my vocals were most set in by the line, "loosens from around our necks," which, naturally is the beginning of the last song of the set. Sometimes things work that way though, no reason necessary.
End quote is from Alan Weisman's The World Without Us:
"No memorial will mark their burial, though the roots of cottonwoods, willows, and palms may occasionally make note of their presence. Only eons later, when old mountains have worn away and new ones risen, will young streams cutting fresh canyons through sediments reveal what once, briefly, went on here."
Banger of an ender.
Green Scare Benefit Split
I love these songs. Probably my three favorite in different ways. The influence of Frosty on this one is pretty massive in terms of the writing and approach, he's a hell of a drummer.
A few things about the split. Auryn approached us about it and it was an enthusiastic yes. Everyone in that band, short Geoff, is awesome, but Jared - who wrote the Auryn stuff and would later join Peregrine - is also one of my favorite people on Earth. I loved the Auryn stuff and in many ways still do.
However, turned out that Geoff from Auryn is a shit bag. He got called out for really shady behavior while he was drummer for the Crimethinc band, From the Depths. Everyone from Auryn was immediate and unquestionably done with him and involved in calling him out. I hate to think about him sullying the Auryn stuff, but he's on vocals, so it's kind of hard not to hear him. At some point, I'll probably end up doing a podcast about this and other shitty aspects of the punk world, but for now, it definitely puts a bit of a stink on this.
The benefit was for the Green Scare, but this wasn't a huge seller. I remember giving money and discs, but for the life of me I couldn't remember how much. Peregrine was most active at a weird time, we pressed CDs graciously because Andy Hurley and FC got behind us, which was awesome. But it was at that point (2008) where CDs were quickly going by the wayside. Vinyl would have been great, but the downloads were everywhere and they're still starting at $0 in our Bandcamp. There are positives and negatives to that, but getting people to buy a benefit CD when they don't want CDs is a pretty shitty way to raise funds.
So that means the most money that was raised was typically with benefits shows and things like that. I also had the Bandcamp redirected to Marius Mason or other eco-anarchist POWs, but again, not a ton of sales. I would hope that something in the future will be able to better raise money, but there's not a lot of money - even though there's a lot of cost - in playing music for 99% of bands out there.
Definitely raised awareness though. I came out of the 90s crust scene, so talking between songs was pretty much a given. We ended up playing a lot of bars and metal shows that are the antithesis to playing crowded and gnarly basements with other crust bands. But how that was received was always pretty damn awesome. There were some gigs we had that were late and people were trashed, I'd tone it down considerably and then I'd have people approach me after and ask why I didn't talk more. So I fixed that and talked regardless.
I'd use Reduced to Ashes as my main talking point for almost every show. That song is near and dear to me, so made the most sense and always the time to bring up the Green Scare, which in 2008-2010 was still very much a persistent threat. Had Will Potter talk at the last gig we played before unintended hiatus in 2011 I think? Great experience and gladly would have that more.
Anyways, I really love these songs.
Line up:
me: guitars, vocals and bass
Clem: guitars and bass
Tim "Frosty" Rowlands: drums
***
Recorded this one with Joel Hatstat too.
Gear: Frosty had, I believe, a Mapex birch mix kit. Sounded awesome, really solid projection. I don't remember his cymbals, but I remember Joel and I swapping around rides for a bit. Maybe snares too. DW 7000 or 9000 double bass pedals.
I believe I used the same guitars as Agrarian Curse, 6505+ instead of a 6505. I think I might have used the Marshall 1960BV with the Peavey 6505 4x12 cab too. I had two guitar tracks with both cabs, panned hard left/right. Clem had one track with his same two cabs panned towards the center. This album could have really benefited from a Tube Screamer of sorts. It's begging for one. Clem had the same head and guitar. Neck pickups did get used on Sacred Hunt.
Bass, I'll take the hit on this one, I wanted a looming overtone of low end. Nixed a lot of the playing sounds and attack... really taking the actual bass guitar out of the low end. Pretty dumb idea, but entirely mine. Sorry. I genuinely don't remember who played bass on which tracks really, I think we might have even split Sacred Hunt and then maybe I did Final Act and Clem did Reduced? Does it matter? Nope. Not at all.
***
Reduced to Ashes:
This was the banger. We'd get asked to play it twice often live and, in my opinion, it sounded even better live. The early riffs were based off of Frosty and I just pushing each other. I had an idea for what I wanted the song to sound like and then Frosty stepped it up and I'd have to match him. I love that. But this song is definitely fairly lyrically/thematically driven. By the time that dissonant octave riff comes back in the middle, it always felt like it was on.
Let's talk about that sample a minute.
The sample, in hindsight, is really long. Without any other knowledge, it's probably kind of weird too. BUT there was a thing, the FBI would try to fuck with me while Peregrine recorded. It kept happening. This strangely looming bullshit and that's when all of that peaked out. So it's funny for a Green Scare benefit to be recording with Green Scare realities, kind of, but not really.
The sample is based on a newscast from Erie, which is what's in the video for this song that's on youtube now. Back then, sites rarely hosted videos, so all I got was the script. It was this kind of cathartic moment to just mock these assholes and we - Joel, Clem and I - practically made a day of it when we were recording. It was like a minor victory.
We ended up recording this massive thing, it was minutes long, then just cut it down to what it is. Clem is doing the newscasters, and I'll take my Tony for impersonating Jeffrey Bloodworth as a Disney walrus. You're welcome. But yeah, in hindsight it's long and weird, but forgive us, for all the shit we were enduring (even having to cancel a NE tour with Auryn), it felt awesome to mock these assholes.
And to write this song: "Words that we cannot say, now turned to action."
That kind of sums it up. You can say things in lyrics you can't really say otherwise. At that time in particular, it was all in the air as to what could be considered inciting or provocation. So with hands feeling tied, that song really pushed it. I think the song has that feeling, and every time we played it live, this is the one that seemed to always hit the hardest.
I will say this, my vocals on it aren't great. I had a lung infection for almost a year and it hit me pretty hard. I had to take the vocals on these three tracks in two rounds. With Reduced, I didn't feel like I had my full range. I hear them as a little dry on the low side.
The Sacred Hunt Defiled:
First two minutes or so of this song are some of my favorite. I think the song is good, but those first two minutes I love. Now we maintain the reputation of being the first death metal band to pull samples from the anthropologist James Woodburn, but I really hope we aren't the last. That second sample is from the movie, The Hunted.
Lyrically, this is a complex one. Trying to tackle a lot with a massive nod to Paul Shepard and a huge acknowledgement of the plight the the hunter-gatherer Hadza as well. Here was a situation where one of the oldest and most egalitarian societies on Earth were losing access to their hunting grounds and rights to hunt simply so wealthy elites could fly in for guided trophy hunts. The ultimate in civilized paradox.
It's pretty ambitious and that determined the way it was written pretty considerably. We did have to stop playing it live. There's a riff at 1:45 which is the same riff but one guitar is playing it ascending and the other descending. I haven't had issues with vocals and playing, but that one is impossible. Takes a lot of concentration. It's only a couple of missed lines, but that kind of bothered me.
The Final Act:
Ahh, a big one.
So this one was always lyrically based. I actually had to fight to get it recorded really, I don't think anyone else could see what I was after until hearing it all together. Stylistically, it's a very different song. Most of it is almost sludgy really. I did shoot myself in the foot first, introducing the song to the rest of the band with the payoff blast riff section in the middle first. Always a favorite to play, but I think this is my best song writing to date. A big part of that is how it all ties together vocally and musically.
What we have here is that I wrote this song after my cousin killed herself. She was fucking awesome, just insanely sweet and loving and caring. Too much for this world. She went out in a very violent way and it was hugely impacting. She played the uklele and sang, "Over the Rainbow" was a favorite of hers, hence the sample. It's also a really depressing song, much like this one.
I wrote the lyrics after her funeral and recorded these last. Which was good because I did irreparable damage to my vocal cords on the backing track. I went pretty damn all out and that's one reason why it ended up going down in the mix a bit.
1:55-2 mins, "I wish I could take you there with me." That backing track line is me destroying my throat. But the song is about suicide, both passive and active. "With the gun to her head" is for my cousin. "The needle in his arm" is for my brother. There are others in there as well, but they were both a massive influence for this song.
"Drowning in this world they've created, unable to face another day. And now they've taken our own ability to carry on. But I would hope that you can find it in you to keep on fighting." There are a lot of emotions in this song, but it's all in the lyrics pretty clearly.
I'm glad I was able to talk everyone into recording it. Without vocals it's a much different song, but in my head, the vocals were always there. Once it was done, everyone was fully behind it, just took that convincing. So that's my writing tip, put it all on the line, if you really feel it vital, put it all together and let everyone see what you're talking about.
Unfortunately, this one was pulled in later tours and from some shows. Being so lyrically focused meant that it's vocally exhausting. Playing it on tour was really straining. Shows, fine. Tours, not so good. That said, shows instead of tours is what we're most likely going to do in the future, so good chance this might pop back up depending on how many new songs enter the set.
All told though, it is a great song to play live.
Seeds in Barren Fields split
You've Been Warned:
I'll be quick on this one. It's kind of shocking that it's the only vinyl we have at this point, but I kind of imagine that will change in time. Crimethinc CZ put it out and the whole process was a massive ordeal, nothing about this went easily or smooth.
Unfortunately, that's also true for the recording. I can't complain a ton, we recorded it for free, but it also sounds like we recorded it for free with a dude that didn't care much. All the wrong decisions were made, bad mic'ing, all of it. I really feel like this is a much better song than most people think just because the recording is flat and not good. No amount of mixing could fix the engineering mistakes that were made.
That's also unfortunate because the guitars, in the room, sounded fucking amazing. Mesa Dual Rec into the Marshall 1960BV and a Peavey block letter 5150 into matching 4x12 cab (they're not great cabs, but they work with the head). Nerds, prepare for heresy, both with Sonic Maximizers in the loop. Okay, think what you want. I don't care, it sounded absolutely monstrous in the room, but absolutely NONE of that translated into the recording.
We originally were going to record with Austin Lunn of Panopticon, which didn't turn out great either. Although in that recording you can feel the guitars a ton more and know that it sounded awesome in that room, even if the recording wasn't going to turn out great.
I think in time this song might get re-recorded, or maybe just left for what it is. I don't know.
The title is pretty self explanatory: "You've been warned" is again about collapse. The sample is from Michael Ruppert and his Collapse documentary. Seemed beyond fitting. Another one that was lyrically driven, though I do have to admit that I was a bit more heady about this. Kept adding parts and it's pretty complex and covers a lot of ground. Probably needlessly so. Another reason I'll probably just let it go with the sands of time. Bummer since the actual records (a bunch pressed half black/half green) are pretty rad.
But, there'll be more in the future...
