If you ever get a chance to talk to guitarist Larry Parypa about the recent return of his legendary Tacoma, WA, garage rock band The Sonics, it quickly becomes evident how awestruck he is getting to play with his bandmates after all these years. The band, which broke up in 1969, inexplicitly made a return to the stage about seven years ago with plenty of energy and swagger to spare.
Best known for introducing a sense of danger and chaos to rock and roll in the ’60s, The Sonics have picked up where they left off, energized by new generations of fans, some even extending into punk and grunge rock. On March 31, their improvable return came full circle when they release their first studio album since 1967, This is The Sonics.
This is The Sonics was recorded at Soundhouse Studios in Seattle with producer Jim Diamond of Ghetto Recorders Diamond and released on their own Tacoma-based label Revox Records. Diamond, who previously worked with the similar-minded bands like The White Stripes and Electric Six, helped the band recapture their fiery energy and quick fire rock and roll attack. So much so that the finished product doesn’t feel out of place when placed with 1965’s Here Are the Sonics and 1966’s Boom.
The album also marks the in studio reunion of original members Jerry Roslie (keyboards, vocals), Parypa (guitar, vocals) and Rob Lind (sax, harmonica, vocals). Bassist Freddie Dennis (the Kingsmen, the Liverpool Five) and drummer Dusty Watson (Dick Dale, Agent Orange) round out the lineup and add a hard-charging rhythm section. We caught up with Parypa to talk about what the release means and the influence his band continues to have.
What finally got the band back in the studio to record a new album?
It’s because everyone kept asking for it, especially promoters. And we just didn’t do it. We kept saying for the last seven years, we kept telling people, “Yeah we’re going to go to the studio” and put out some more songs but we actually never did it. And finally we decided that if we’re going to keep telling people we’re going to do this we really should try to do it. And we did. So we spent four days in the studio recording 14 songs. They sound like the old stuff did, with the same intensity and recorded it in mono instead of stereo. Now we’re just waiting to see how people feel about the stuff.
Was there any nervousness about how you’d sound after all this time?
No, not really, because the guys from the original Sonics, we hadn’t really talked much in 40 years and none of us really played music. When we got done playing with The Sonics, we thought we were done. We were not great instrumentalists back in the ’60s and we didn’t play from that point onward, so when we got back together again it was like we took off on where we were before. We didn’t get to be great jazz musicians or something so the songs sound and feel like they did then and that was comfortable for us.
How do you feel about playing shows with new material now?
I like it. I like the mix and blend of playing our newer songs that we’ve written or covered in our own way with some of the old stuff. When we play live we play most of our songs that seem to be most popular. So probably what we’re going to do now is extend our set now so we can put in some of the new ones.
Why do you think the core of this band has been able to come back successfully after all these years?
We ask ourselves that. I was talking to Jerry, our vocalist, a couple weeks ago, and we were both saying, “How would we have ever guessed that we’d be playing music again and not only playing music again, not just locally but worldwide.” There’s way I could have forecasted that. It’s still hard to believe that that’s the case. Fifty years later you put out an album, I don’t know if anybody waited 50 years to put an album out. That’s just really hard to contemplate and that we play places and generally fill out the rooms. And the audience…we thought the audience would be old, older people from the ’60s. But it’s not. It’s mostly people in their 20s and 30s. Didn’t expect that either.
I would imagine a lot of the bands that the younger people like have been influenced by The Sonics in some way.
Apparently so. That’s what we’re always told. And we play the same way now. When you say that there’s a band coming to town and they have an influence on different styles of music but they’re close to 70 years old, my first thought would be, “Yeah I gotta see this. Maybe they can stand up but can they play with any energy?” And we think we do. We think it’s just as energetic as it used to be and the bands that perform with us tell us that. So again, I never would have thought I’d be that age and still be out there playing rock and roll.
What’s it like having Freddie and Dusty with the band? How have they affected the existing chemistry?
They’re both just great players and have a feel for the same thing that we do. If we’re going to play something, we want to play it with as much power as we can. And Freddie is just a screamer in terms of his vocals so it’s really nice to have somebody next to you that can attack the music the way he does.
The band recorded at Soundhouse Studios in Seattle. How did that venue affect things?
Jack Endino, he’s an engineer there. He’s the one that did Nirvana’s stuff early on. The way we did it, we probably could have done it in somebody’s bathroom. But we didn’t utilize all the digitalization effects and overdubbing and all that stuff. We all as a band tracked simultaneously and went back and if we decided to do a solo or fill or something and we would put that in there. But very simple, pretty much like we did in the ’60s. It was just back in the ’60s there were only two tracks for awhile and they had to do a lot of ping-ponging with that stuff I think.
The album was record in mono. Why do you think that’s better?
I’m guessing to some extent but that was determined by Jim Diamond, who was the producer. I think as we were going along he thought it would sound more authentic in mono. But I think he was thinking too that if you’re listening to it on a iPod or cell phone or something, stereo just doesn’t sound as good as mono coming through. And I think that played into it.
The band’s early recordings are very raw and live sounding. Can you about deciding to go in that direction as opposed to updating the sound?
It was “Do we want to venture out and play songs in a way that’s more current, by using more tracks and more effects and different songs?,” or “Do we want to try to go back and replicate where we were before?,” where we left off, a little simple and basic. And I think we made the right decision. Let’s just go in there and play the way we feel it, like we’d play the old stuff versus trying to sound updated or trying to sound like we’re better at our craft individually than we actually are. So I think it sounds like it did back then and feels that way.
But I think the songs are a little more up-tempo. Back in the ’60s when people would go to a show they went there to dance. There were dance halls and so people came there to dance. So you’d want to produce a beat that they could dance to. Now, of course, people don’t dance. They just stand there so you can actually move it faster and not be concerned if they can dance to it or not.
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