!!!’s new Warp album, “Myth Takes,” has only been out since early March, but the group is already “keen to get back to the studio,” multi-instrumentalist John Pugh tells Billboard.com.
“I’d like to at least do some new versions of songs from this record,” he explains. “I don’t know if you’d call them remixes, though. We’ve been playing around with this thing on tour where we took the last kind of rave-up instrumental break from ‘Bend Over Beethoven’ and developed it into its own little entity that’s really stripped down and a completely different texture for the band.
“I’m keen to turn that into a proper 12-inch for DJs to use,” he continues. “We think it could be a little treat for people who have been hanging out with ‘Myth Takes’ for awhile and know the record. And then maybe some other songs will come out while we’re in doing that.”
!!! may find it hard to find time for a studio trip, however. The octet is touring North America through late May and then heads over to Europe for a series of gigs and festivals before returning to play Lollapalooza on Aug. 5 in Chicago. And Pugh, who’s getting married during a June break from the tour, says!!! does not tend to be prolific on the road.
“We haven’t figured out the right way to write on the road,” he says. “Dealing with Europe, especially, is like going to another planet, and there’s a lot of driving and not a lot of down time where you can sit with the band and some instruments and just jam, which is what we really like to do a lot. So we probably have to wait until we can get back to an environment where we can just hole up in a room together again.”
That said, nobody in the band is complaining about having to play live. “We kind of struggle to find a way to make every show something where we feel a connection to the audience and feed of fit in a way,” Pugh says. “We’re not there just to look pretty and pose and play our songs perfectly every night. We’re there to have a party with you and turn it into a visceral experience more than, ‘Let’s go watch this band like we watch TV at home.’ We require engagement.”
