Chris Baio interview: Vampire Weekend star opens up on new solo album Dead Hand Control
| Published date | 29 January 2021 |
| Publication title | Daily Star: Web Edition Articles (England) |
While he delves into deeper subjects like death and nukes – Dead Hand is a rumoured Soviet missile system and Dead Hand Control is a legal strategy for who controls your will after your death – the thread that runs through its eclectic 8 tracks is one of optimism.
It sees him tackle ideas of selflessness, the impact of how you treat others, and how, at the heart of everything, the soul reigns supreme.
“I knew Dead Hand was this rumoured nuclear system that would nuke America. It got me thinking ‘what could I control as an individual if some kind of nuclear disaster had happened in my country’”, Baio told Daily Star Online. “I was trying to figure out what my place is in the world, what I can control, how I am to the people in my life, the people in my community, how I am to friends, and all that kind of stuff.”
Sonically, Dead Hand Control is Baio at his creative, experimental best. From the outset with opener Dead Hand Control, an acoustic-driven track that explodes into a breathtaking techno crescendo backed by choir vocals, the record twists through everything from catchy indie-pop, art-rock, funk and electro, all recorded at sessions split between Damon Albarn’s 13 Studios in London and Baio’s own C+C Music Factory in Los Angeles.
It’s all backed by a stellar cast of collaborators, too, including his long-time guitarist George Hume, US State Department Jazz Ambassador Robby Sinclair, Future Classic’s Buzzy Lee, and Vampire Weekend touring member Greta Morgan.
The album’s most poignant inclusion is the hopeful, nine-minute closer O.M.W – a sprawling ballad he co-penned with fellow Vampire Weekend member Ezra Koenig that saw its foundations formed nine years ago.
“It’s the first time I’ve ever put a song on one of my records that I didn’t write entirely myself” Baio adds.
“I wanted the last song on the record to feel obviously like it was the last song. You truly couldn’t put it anywhere else on this record. I like records that do that. That’s what the track is ultimately.”
Daily Star Online’s Rory McKeown sat down with him to talk about Dead Hand Control’s creation and influences, lockdown life, living in London, and what’s on the horizon.
Hi Chris. How are you 2020 was a crazy year for everyone. How was your experience of it and how have you embraced 2021 so far
“I would feel most people would say this. It’s been unlike any other year in my life. I’ve been staying home, staying safe and all that stuff. I feel that I am in a very lucky position and have been in a lucky position. I would have started writing this record Dead Hand Control in the summer of 2018. It would have finished recording, making sure all the vocals are right, every sound is right, as far as my main creative work when I make a record, possibly a year ago today.
“I was on tour with Vampire Weekend. I came home from this Australian tour and did the last bit of recording in January. A full year ago. I had essentially a finished record. I thought I was going to be touring a lot more with Vampire Weekend over the course of last year. That didn’t happen.
“The first four months of the pandemic I did absolutely nothing. I followed the news obsessively. I became an amateur epidemiologist, which I think a lot of us have done. I feel lucky not just in the fact that I can stay home and I don’t need to go out into the world and make money in the immediate now, that’s a very privileged position to be in, but also the fact that I finished a record meant I had no desire to be writing new music.
“No matter what, if I had been travelling around, I wouldn’t have written new music. When I finish a record, the last thing I want to do is work on something new. I talk to a lot of musician friends, a lot of songwriter friends, and they’ve said it’s been very very difficult to find something you want to write a song about, or feel like there’s something that drives you to make new music, when everybody is sitting at home. For a large percentage of us, life has been on pause essentially for a year.
“The record got mixed by Lars Stalfors, who works with St Vincent, Still Woozy and Cold War Kids. It was an interesting experience. I would sit alone in my studio and he’d be alone in his studio. I would click on a link and would hear the mix he was making. I really liked it. It’s the kind of thing you can see staying after everyone’s been vaccinated and the pandemic’s over because being in a room where you understand how everything sounds and hearing what a mix is, it’s really nice. Having bits of work to do with the record, having to get it mixed, having to make some videos, do some art, that has been what’s occupied me for the last six months. It’s a part of putting out the record that I love. How the album cover looks is the listener’s first impression of a record before they hear a sound of it. That element is a little bit decreased in the streaming era but it’s still super important.
“I shot a little video at home in Los Angeles in December during the second stay at home order. That came out last week. I’ve been lucky in the sense that I had a...
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