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Ken Andrews’s Year of the Rabbit
BY SEAN RICHARDSON
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During their three-album run in the 1990s, LA’s Failure wowed rock tastemakers with their raucous hybrid of grunge and dream pop, and they toured in Lollapalooza and with Tool, but they broke up at the end of the decade without ever transcending cult-favorite status. A few years later, frontman Ken Andrews resurfaced with the more pop-oriented solo project On, whose one major-label disc was a commercial disaster. A notorious studio rat ever since the Failure days, he’s rebounded from that setback by racking up an impressive list of producing, engineering, and mixing credits on hit albums by the likes of the Tenacious D and Pete Yorn. But he hasn’t forgotten how to rock — the homonymous Elektra debut by his new band Year of the Rabbit (whose first headlining tour arrives at Axis next Friday) hits as hard as anything by celebrated Failure fans Foo Fighters and Cave In. The first single, "Rabbit Hole," is a surrealistic pop song with a stormy undertow and an explosive chorus that ought to show neo-grunge upstarts like Revis and Shinedown who’s boss. Year of the Rabbit’s line-up is rounded out by guitarist Jeff Garber, bassist Solomon Snyder, and drummer Tim Dow, all Midwest alterna-rock veterans who went to LA to create the band. Checking in from the road, Andrews says that On touring drummer Dow is the man who made it happen. "Tim just kept nudging me like, ‘You need to keep going, man. Let’s do a rock band.’ He kept planting these seeds, and it kept making sense to me. Then he found Jeff, whom I flew out from Chicago, and we jammed with him for a few days. That sort of sealed the deal right there, because as soon as we got together, a pretty noticeable sound started to develop." The crux of that sound is the devilish guitar interplay between Andrews and Garber — just listen to the standout rockers "Vaporize" and "River." "The funny thing is, this record is not as layered as it sounds," Andrews insists. "There’s never a time when there’s three guitar parts going on. Somehow, when the two different guitar sounds we have blend, they just make one ball of sound. Early on, we were experimenting with different amps, who’s going to play what kind of guitars, what kind of pick-ups — we wanted to have a new sound for this band. When we found the sound on the record, we just instantly were like, ‘Wow, that sounds cool.’ It sounds almost orchestral, it’s so dense." Year of the Rabbit hasn’t put an end to studio gigs for Andrews, whose work can be heard on forthcoming albums by B.R.M.C. and newcomer Charlotte Martin. "It is a coincidence that this band is being launched probably at the peak of my production career so far. This band is my priority, and I’m fitting in the producing and mixing around it. It’s cool, I’m kind of a workaholic. Last night we had a really great show in Seattle. It’s very satisfying to be back on a live stage plugging into big guitar amps and just letting it rip, you know? It’s nice to get back into the visceral side of rock." Year of the Rabbit perform next Friday, August 8, at Axis, 13 Lansdowne Street; call (617) 262-2437.
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