Maserati gears up to release Pyramid of the Sun, their first LP in three years. Recording started last summer, and shortly there after the band, and the indie scene it self, was devastated by the loss of Jerry Fuchs, Maserati’s drummer. Fuchs died in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, after falling down an elevator shaft.

Maserati picked up the pieces and continued to record Pyramid of the Sun, splicing and looping some of Jerry’s drumbeats to make up for the tracks he didn’t record. They are about to head out on a ten-day east coast tour, and on to Europe after that. Unfortunately, they won’t be making a stop in Florida

Coley Dennis, guitarist for Maserati, took some time to talk me about their latest release and the trials that came with creating it. Coley was incredibly kind, appreciative and open. His honesty and genuine character was refreshing.

Pyramid of the Sun will be out November 9th, but for now you can download the track “Oaxaca” here

REAX: Thanks for taking the time!
COLEY: Yeah! No problem.

REAX: How are you guys feeling about the release of Pyramid of the Sun? I’d imagine it’s a little bitter sweet.
COLEY: Yeah, I mean it was heavy but I think we’re all stoked about it. We definitely put more work into this than any other record and I think we’re all kind of ready for it to come out.

REAX: You put more work into it in what sense?
COLEY: I mean, there was a lot of emotion, and everything that goes along with that. It was a lot more labor than any other record we’ve been through. We had started recording last summer and we kind of had it halfway tracked. After Jerry passed we had to fly out to Austin to finish all the tracking we had started for the guitars and synths and bass and everything. And then, Justin Van Der Volgen mixed the record in New York, when we weren’t there, so we were sending a lot of files back and forth. So, with all of those extra steps it took a lot longer for us to wrap up everything because normally we’d just do a two week block when everyone’s in town and we’d just knock it all out at once. But this album was much more time consuming and labor intensive process than what we were used to.

REAX: I’ve only been able to listen to “Oaxaca”, the song you have up for download, and you guys seem to be on the same path that you have been. Is there anything notably different compared to your past release that is on the rest of the record that people haven’t heard yet?
COLEY: Yeah, I think the record as a whole, if you were to listen to it…we have definitely being going in this direction over the past two records for sure. Jerry was definitely pushing us towards a more up-tempo, kind of sequencer world as well and I think that definitely shows. We collaborated with Steve from Zombi, and he had a heavy hand in a few of the songs. I feel that it’s a progression that would be obvious to fans… I would think.

REAX: What kind of collaborating did you guys do with Steve Moore?
COLEY: We collaborated on two of the tracks. One of them we hadn’t had written but we had worked on after Jerry had passed and we knew we wanted Steve involved some how. So, we sent files back and forth and bounced ideas that way and he laid some sequencers and some syths and a drum machine on. And on another one we had the basic track in the studio for and we knew that his expertise would be valuable on that track, so, we sent that to him and we had him do some tracks on that one as well.

REAX: How many tracks is Jerry actually on?
COLEY: He played on five of the tracks. Well, actually, he didn’t like physically play on one of the tracks. We had taken a drum part that he had played at practice and looped it and wrote a song out of that. Another one of the songs, “Oaxaca”, the song that is available for download, that is a song that Steve worked on. We actually went back and cut out some of Jerry’s live drums from another song and put them on that one. So, he’s actually playing on that one though he didn’t physically play on the track, if that makes sense. His drums are the only drums on the record. There are no other drummers other than a drum machine.

REAX: Was it ever an option after Jerry passed that you guys would call it quits?
COLEY: Yeah, I guess it’s always an option. Our plan is, right now, we’re going to support the record and do this tour with Tony from Zombi coming on board. He was the most logical choice, because we knew we wanted to support this record and do what we could. We have this ten-day east coast tour that’s coming next month then we’re going to do three weeks in Europe in March, and after that we really can’t say what’s going to happen with the band, honestly. It’s going to be a regrouping, and kind of go from there. It’s still emotional for us to think about what we want to do, be we know that we’re taking one step at a time. You know, we want to support the record and we all know that is what Jerry would really want us to do. I think that every step we’ve done we’ve tried to…do wishes that we know he would want us to do, for sure.

REAX: So you guys have relatively short tour coming up, and I was going to ask if you guys were planning on doing another states tour, but I guess that’s undecided at this point.
COLEY: Yeah, there are no plans for any other states stuff. We basically wanted to do this because we knew the record was coming out. Our other guitarist, Matt, he has a full time job and doesn’t have a lot of vacation time, and we’re burning up all his vacation time to do this. And, I think, we didn’t want to bite of more than we could chew, you know, with not really knowing what is going to happen with the band and everything. We figured that the ten-day thing, I’ll be it fairly short, is still making some sort of presence for the record.

REAX: Give us a little insight into the song-writing process for you guys. It seems to me, given that there is no “singer-songwriter”, that the music would be written collectively.
COLEY: That’s pretty much exactly how it works. Its kind of split 50-50 I would say, where half the song ideas come from nuggets of jams; we might pick up on a riff or something that we like and then build a song around that. And the other half I would think would be Matt and I working together on guitar parts that we like and bouncing ideas back and forth, and then presenting that to the band and building ideas from there. I think that’s a crucial part in our song writing and our playing is Matt and I to be able to work out guitar intricacies and melodies and shit like that.

REAX: How do you guys get the tones that you do? You don’t play live with a synthesizer do you?
COLEY: We haven’t in the past just because there hasn’t been a heavy hand with that. This is really the first tour that we’re diving into that world live. So, we bought a sampler that has some of the samples of a couple of the sequences. We’re trying to do as much as of the live stuff as we can with the sequences and the synth. It’s kind of new challenge for us to, with that, and also bringing Tony on board and learning how to work with him; relearn some of these songs that we basically wrote in the studio. We’re on a little learning curve, learning how to play our own songs and be our own band (laughs).

REAX: Well then, how do you get those tones with your guitars? What do you use?
COLEY: Well, both main guitar rigs are kind of based around the high-watts, and then we both use Fender Twins to fill out the sound. As far as delays and stuff, the main delay that I use is a Electro-Harmonic 16 second delay, which they starting reissuing five or six years ago. It’s one that I know The Edge used a lot in the 80s. It’s the best sounding delay in a pedal, I think. If you can’t have an Echo Plex or a Space Echo on tour I think that it’s hands down the best sounding delay by a mile, in a pedal. That’s mainly what I revolved my sound around.

REAX: When I was digging around the internet doing some research before the interview, I found some video of you guys playing the Milestone in Charlotte, which is tagged from wall-to-wall by the likes of Bad Brains, Black Flag, and so on. Did you guys feel the good juju there?
COLEY: Yeah, totally. It’s a super historic venue. Every hardcore band in the 80s that mattered played there. That weekend was actually the 40th anniversary of that place. It’s definitely a landmark in rock history for sure.

REAX: If you guys do decide to do another states tour, you have a lot of fans down in Florida. I hope you can make it down!
COLEY: Yeah, I know, for sure. We’ve been down there, historically, as much as we could. We’re friends with the Mercury Program in Gainesville so, we always try to make it down. We’ve always had really good shows in Florida and I like getting down there. If it’s possible, if we do more stuff, we’ll definitely make it down there.