Ego Vs Id releases Taste on their brand new imprint Abattoir Records
:: Ego Vs Id ::
:: Rockin’ in a Winter Wonderland photo exhibit ::
:: George’s Food and Drink @ Boulder Theater ::
:: December 10 ::
By Fallon Anderson
Thanks to the boys of Boulder-based Ego Vs Id, rock and roll has again found a home in a town known for more laid back, exploratory genres.
With the drop of their first studio album Taste, which premiered to a sold-out crowd in Boulder late last month, the members of Ego Vs Id are celebrating an event that has been a long time in the making. Having been withdrawn from touring over the year-and-a-half it took to complete Taste, the band is ready to bring it’s record to life.
“It’s hard to have too much perspective, but I feel like the record is kind of a curveball,” said lead singer Nate Cook, when he and his bandmates sat down with The Marquee recently for an interview. “I haven’t heard anything that sounds like it. I love the fucking record. I listen to it sometimes and I give myself goose bumps.”
Crediting bands such as Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds with having a major influence on Taste, the record is far from a simple homage to their muses. Sure, no band would be who they are without artistic influences, but Ego Vs Id took it upon themselves to create something that drips originality and drowns all expectations. “At the very, very, most base level, [it’s] the idea that you can take something that occurred to you five years ago in a basement in Ontario and take it to a stage in Boulder, Colorado and have a meaningful relationship with a stranger,” Cook said. “The big thing, too, though, the music at the end of the day — that’s the balls. We’ve been doing it now for three years and it’s been serious. I put on 20 pounds and lost a fiancé. It’s been heaven and hell.”
Truly a band that intertwines genres while sticking to their rock roots, these boys etch every angle of emotion into their songs, and it comes through with such sincerity, it caused Boulder Weekly entertainment editor Dale Bridges to gush over them, “They’re desperate, they’re starving, they’re heartbroken, they’re drunk — but they’re great, damn it. They’re my band,” he recently wrote.
But they almost weren’t Bridges’ band. In fact, they almost weren’t anyone’s band. Last Memorial Day, the band was heading to the mountains for a weekend of writing tracks, when they had a very serious accident. Shortly after the accident, in an e-mail conversation, Stiefel explained: “We were heading south on 93 almost to Golden around 64th and some fucking asshole, who was wasted, passed us heading south at like 90 miles an hour and went head on into a car headed north. I saw the fucker pass us and saw him heading toward a car and knew there was gonna be a head on. It was amazingly surreal. Too much so. Anyways, once they hit we were toast. One of the cars in the head-on went like a missile and smashed the fuck out of us. And then, before I could even say ‘what the fuck,’ we smashed again into a ditch. There were about 10 or 12 people who stopped their cars and helped and were really heroes — really, really heroes,” Stiefel wrote.
That accident had a lasting effect on the band and its members. Drummer Brian Dillon was seriously injured in the accident and while he plays on the record, he has removed himself from touring with the group, deciding instead to stay off the road and out of a tour van.
Taking over Dillon’s spot is drummer Nick Cobbett, who has, according to the core members, seemlessly filled the shoes, without necessarily replacing him.
“We know we have potential when we play,” bassist/vocalist Jesse Parmet told The Marquee. “When we just get in a room together, those are some of the most amazing moments.”
The room they got together in for Taste was the North Boulder studio of Skytrail Productions, who have recorded String Cheese Incident, Ben Taylor, Maceo Parker and Brian Nebbens of Big Head Todd, among others. With some tasty vintage gear supplied by Nick Forster (eTown, Hot Rize), the band laid down the tracks with Chris Wright at the helm. The band is credited as a co-producer with Wright on the album.
With Taste, Ego Vs Id also set their sights high when it came to the logistics of being an up-and-coming band. The boys created their own label, Abattoir Records, for this release because they said they wanted their output to be personal in the sense that they know what the fans are getting.
Of course, a big part of what fans are getting goes way beyond the studio and onto the stage, and the band says that when everything aligns properly, they’re an unstoppable force in the live setting. “When we’re on, we’re fucking on because of our relationship together,” Stiefel said.
:: Ego Vs Id ::
:: Rockin’ in a Winter Wonderland photo exhibit ::
:: George’s Food and Drink @ Boulder Theater ::
:: December 10 ::
Recommended if you Like:
• Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
• Wilco
• Margot and the Nuclear So and Sos
