By re-signing with New York’s Tee Pee Records, Californian psychedelic rockers Nebula have completed a full circle that has taken over a decade to play out and seen guitarist/vocalist Eddie Glass run through several different line-ups of the band. As the main songwriter, Glass is joined by Karma To Burn drummer Rob Oswald, who joined following the departure of founding drummer Ruben Romano after the release of Apollo in 2006, and new bassist Tom Davies. The reinvigorated trio released their latest full-length, Heavy Psych, in July.
The Tee Pee version of Heavy Psych follows an EP of the same name put out by the band last year and featuring most of the same tracks. The difference is in three new songs included on the full-length edition and some shuffling of the track list, rerecorded parts, etc. What remains consistent between the two releases is Nebula’s stylistic swagger and “what you see is what you get” attitude, when of course what you see are a bunch of peyote-driven hallucinations, bright colors and weighty grooves.
Currently embroiled in a tour with The Entrance Band that will bring them to Santos in NYC on Aug. 22, Nebula are set to be on the road through October, heading to Europe after this U.S. run only to come back in time for CMJ. Not that touring is anything new to Nebula, who’ve basically been doing it since Glass left Fu Manchu in 1997, but the revitalized effort the band is putting into promoting the album is nothing if not a testament to the quality of the material therein.
Glass recently took some time out for the following phoner interview.
How has it been being back with Tee Pee Records, and how did signing with them again come about?
It’s been good. Tee Pee’s doing really good right now. They’re pressing vinyl now, so the new record’s out on vinyl and CD. It’s great. Right now they have a bunch of bands that are great, a lot of bands we can tour with and a lot of bands we can work with. It’s great. One big family of cool music?
What happened with [former label] Liquor and Poker?
We signed for two records and finished the two records and they just kind of faded away (laughs), like most labels do.
Are you thinking of this version of Heavy Psych as a reissue?
Well, we’ve got the three new songs on there. We remastered it—I don’t think we actually mastered it the first time. There was one song we changed the vocals on and we switched around some songs and did an edit on one song so it flows. It’s an extra 20 minutes of music and it flows. It’s cool.
When were the new songs recorded?
We recorded those just recently—January or February, maybe.
Were they recorded any differently?
We went to a different studio, a studio called The Pass here in L.A. It’s actually a pretty nice studio. It was a different studio, it’s cool. It’s all down on two inch tape.
The rest of the songs were digital?
Yeah, they were done in ProTools. It’s cool, you know. They both sound good, but it’s cool when you get a chance to do it on two inch tape, it sounds good to get that.
Can you really hear a difference when you listen back?
You know, you kind of could, but you have to really listen, I think. Some people think they can hear more than others. I don’t know. It’s just a little bit warmer on tape, but it’s basically the same. If you do a good job these days with ProTools, if you have it set up in the studio, you can hardly tell the difference.
