Galea invites you to Theo’s Drive-In
From the ashes of Texas power trio Tellus arises Galea – the brainchild of Tellus husband and wife team Chris and Mary Howell. The pair, along with the drumming and production assistance of former Galactic Cowboy Alan Doss, just release their new CD – Theo’s Drive-In – on their own Coffee Monster Music label. The 14-track disc is chalk full of great, straight-ahead rockers fueled by Chris’ howling guitars and Mary’s full, yet haunting vocal delivery. WTDP? had a chance to talk with Chris about making the new record, husband/wife songwriting dynamic and his geekiness over gear.
WTDP?: How long did it take to make Theo’s Drive-In a reality?
CH: Well, the short answer would be approximately nine months (in many respects it was like giving birth to a baby!) – that is we began tracking in June of 2008 and released the record last month (April 2009). In actuality it was a much longer process that was delayed several times. We were actually looking to begin recording in early 2007 but tragically Mary’s mom became ill in September of 2006 and was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Shortly afterward she moved in with us so that we could take care of her, which we did until her death in August of 2007. This was a very difficult time for us but in many ways it actually helped shape the album. We both feel that the stress of that experience helped refine and forge some of the material on the record as several of the songs were written during that time, and others were arranged differently such that we are much happier with them now. Incidentally the song entitled ‘Departure’ was written shortly after the death of Mary’s mom and is somewhat of an homage to her; the album is dedicated in her memory.
WTDP?: How did you come to work with Alan Doss on the project?
CH: Mary and I used to be in a band called Tellus, and Alan produced the first Tellus album. A friend of ours had put us in touch with an engineer at a studio in Houston where we were wanting to record. We sent him a demo and asked if he’d be interested in working with us. It turns out that this engineer, Ryan Birsinger, was also recording the Galactic Cowboys album ‘Machine Fish’. Ryan liked our stuff and wanted to know if we would be interested in having Alan produce it and we said sure thing! So, we went down to Houston and recorded the first Tellus album (Stand By) while the Galactic Cowboys were taking a break during their Machine Fish sessions. They were all so cool and helpful to us; Wally even let me borrow some of his gear (a Fulltone Deja-Vibe proto-type as well as his Egnater modified Marshall head) for the recording and I am eternally grateful to him for that. So, when it came time for us to work on the new Galea record, our first thoughts turned once again to Alan because we had had such a great experience with him in the past. This turned out to be an excellent choice because Alan is an amazing musician and a very talented engineer, the evidence of which you can hear on the new record! Alan engineered, mixed and mastered the record as well as performed all of the drums on it for us. Oh yeah, he also did some pedal steel on one track!
WTDP?: How does the songwriting process for Galea work? Do you write all the music and Mary provides lyrics or is it more collaborative?
CH: It’s fairly collaborative; we’ve been writing songs together for a long time and in many respects each song goes through a unique writing process, but generally speaking it works something like this. Typically I start working out guitar parts by myself when I’m practicing and if I hear something I like I’ll record it so that I don’t forget (if I still like it a few weeks later then it’s probably going to become a song). I would say that most of the songs on this record originated from parts that I collected over time, although some were in fact written right before we went in the studio. During the writing process I will put down a rough arrangement of some stuff that I’ve been working on and show it to Mary who hears the song that is trying to form. I’m more inclined to come up with parts or riffs but Mary is better at putting them together. This is kind of indicative of our personalities as I tend to be obsessed with details and she is more of a big picture person. There are exceptions to this process of course as I made quite a few lyrical contributions on the new record and Mary added several musical parts of her own which made the songs a lot better. She also writes most of the lyrics and the vocal melodies and arrangements. It’s funny though, I usually wind up naming the songs!
WTDP?: ‘Lift Me Up’ is my favorite tune on the new album. What’s the story behind that one?
CH: I like that one a lot too. It’s actually one of the older songs on the album in terms of when I wrote the guitar parts for it – I had the opening arpeggio in my head for a long time, which kind of repeats as a verse throughout the song. The chorus was worked out a while back as well but the bridge section was written right before we went in to the studio and underwent several re-writes before we got it where it needed to be. I think that song has one of my favorite solos on the record as well – if you listen carefully you can hear the presence of a FoxRox Octron which gives it a lot of harmonic overtones and some nasty fuzz!
Lyrically the song deals with the all too common human tendency to become paralyzed by or mired in the past. There’s this phrase that we heard somewhere: “dead at 30, buried at 70.” In other words, some people die long before they are buried. The numbers are somewhat arbitrary, but the meaning is this: there is a temptation to get to a certain point in life where you stop growing, stop pushing yourself and you just coast, kind of giving up on your dreams or your passions or maybe pursuing that which you think is truly important. You sort of become disillusioned because you realize some things don’t turn out like you planned. Lift Me Up is kind of a prayer to be ‘resurrected,’ to not be buried by life and all of its distractions, or the regrets or frustrations you may have about the past. It’s kind of an exhortation to everyone to keep going, to do what you need to do to stay focused and pursue that which makes life worth living. For us a large part of that is making music, so perhaps we’re kind of preaching to ourselves before anyone else!
Galea – Lift Me Up
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WTDP?: Give me a run down of your live rig… pedals, amps, guitars, etc… What is your current number one guitar?
CH: These days I am using a Bogner Shiva as my primary live amplifier. I have a Mesa Boogie Tremoverb as a back up. Unless we are playing a large venue, I will usually run the single head mono into either a Bogner closed back 2×12, or a Mesa Boogie 4×12, and sometimes both if there’s room! The Shiva sounds great and it’s very loud so I’ll often use a THD Hot Plate to attenuate the volume.
The pedalboard changes constantly but I’m currently using the following, and yes I do use every single pedal in a typical show: Dunlop Limited Edition Crybaby Wah (modded by Analogman), Xotic RC Booster, Xotic BB Preamp, MXR ’74 Reissue Phase 90, FoxRox Octron, Line 6 DL4, TC Electronic Nova Delay, TC Electronic SCF, Sweet Sound Ultra Vibe, EHX Polychorus, Analogman Analog Delay (600 ms) and a Boss TU-2. Additionally the Polychorus, Ultra Vibe, Nova Delay, SCF, and tuner are all in separate bypass loops because they are either not true bypass or they’re too noisy by themselves – this keeps things quiet live and helps preserve the tone I’m going for. The Analogman delay is in the effects loop of the amp, everything else is out front.
I typically use two guitars live: Bubba, a 2006 Fender Telecaster with stock pickups and Tigger, a 1995 Les Paul Classic with Seymour Duncan JB and ’59 pickups in the bridge and neck respectively. Tigger is my main guitar. Other guitars that I use to record are an ’83 Fender Elite Stratocaster, a 2001 Gibson ES-135, and some Gibson acoustics.
WTDP?: If money was no object is there a pedal and/or amp you’d love to add to your set-up?
CH: Well, how much time do you have? Seriously, there seems to be a new pedal coming out every week that I’d love to try so that’s just an ongoing obsession. Amps are also a bottomless pit for me and I change them out regularly although right now I’m happy with the Bogner. Honestly, I’d really like to have one of the Alex Lifeson Gibson ES-355 guitars that came out last year, not only because they are so cool but because he’s probably my favorite guitarist of all time and the main reason I ever picked up the guitar. I actually got to meet him once briefly and that was a real thrill.
WTDP?: What does the rest of 2009 hold for Galea?
CH: Well we just released our new album and we are very excited about it – it’s by far the best stuff we have ever written and the quality of the recording and production is truly great in my opinion! So we’re going to spend a lot of time playing out in support of the album; in fact we’re trying to organize a mini-tour of the southwest where we could hit Dallas, Austin, Houston, OKC and Louisiana this summer. We are currently shooting some videos for a couple of tracks on the album as well. I’m sure by the end of the year we will start thinking about recording again, so I wouldn’t be surprised if we are in the studio sometime next year.
Theo’s Drive in is available via iTunes, CDBaby and Lala… or through the band’s website musicbygalea.com.
