IMPERIAL WAX are back with a brand new video which they're premiering with Vive Le Rock!
'Less I Need' is a first taste from the band's new album Tranquilliser, the long-awaited follow-up to Gastwerk Saboteurs from 2019.
Imperial Wax were formed in 2018 by guitarist Pete Greenway, drummer Keiron Melling and bassist Dave Spurr from the last and longest-serving line-up of The Fall, together with singer/guitatist Sam Curran from Leeds punks Black Pudding, with another Black Pudding member Shane Standrill replacing Spurr following the release of their debut.
“'Less I Need' was the first song written for the new album,” explains Curran. “The initial intention for the song was to simplify our writing format and concentrate more on one solid foundational groove and build upon that, rather than overloading the song with different parts, which in the end evidently went out the window. It was Keiron’s idea to constantly change keys, which worked really well. It gave the song much more drive and purpose. The key changes were not planned out and probably technically incorrect to a trained musical ear. Wherever the hand landed on the guitar neck was where the key change went, which helped create that jarring unpredictable nature to the song.
“The actual chorus and eventual title of the song came as a total accident. I couldn’t come up anything good for the chorus, so while playing song with the band I just sang gobbledygook whenever it got to that part. That gobbledygook eventually refined itself and started sounding like words but was never anything proper. When recording the demos and listening back someone asked ‘What do you say during the chorus? Is it less I need?’ I said, 'It is now'.”
Set for release on 9 February, Tranquilliser is available to pre-order from Bandcamp.