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STEREOLITHIC
Over the past 14 years, multi-platinum rock group 311 has taken to celebrating March 11th ("311 Day") with
an epic, celebratory arena show that draws fans from around the world. This year, for the first time, it’s also
the occasion of a new 311 album release (new 311 on 3/11!). Enter STEREOLITHIC, the group’s 11th album,
featuring 15 new songs.
Don’t be surprised if 311 fans rabidly discuss whether to hail the collection as a return to signature-sound
form or a stylistically diverse breakthrough. True to its twin-tone name, STEREOLITHIC manages to be both.
With their signature hybrid sound, tracks like “Five of Everything,” “Make It Rough,” “Sand Dollars” and
“Showdown” are sure to excite the 311 faithful. Meanwhile the band continues to challenge itself and
evolve into new musical territories to keep it fresh for themselves and their loyal fans.
“I stay excited about new frontiers in music, and there are always new things to try and new styles to
explore,” says lead vocalist/guitarist Nick Hexum. “It’s a big step forward, and songs like ‘Friday Afternoon,’
‘Made in the Shade’ and ‘Tranquility’ are all getting into new territory. I wanted to make sure we were
covering new ground, and I think we definitely achieved that.” And yet, for all that desire to keep it fresh, “I
don’t think we really have anything to prove. We had the experience in the ‘90s of making our own musical
revolution, combining rock, rap and reggae and kind of starting a whole genre of music. Being such an
underground phenomenon, there was so much excitement at our early shows, that eventually it came a
time when people were vibrating when we came on stage.” That’s the kind of unbroken you don’t want to
fix, however vital the urge to tinker may be for a band halfway into its third decade.
One sign of familiarity for longtime fans will be the return of Scotch Ralston to the producer’s chair, who last
sat there for 1997's Transistor and 1999’s Soundsytem. “It’d been 13 years since we recorded with Scotch,
although we did ask him to come back and mix our live shows a few years ago,” Hexum says. “He had been
off working with other bands like Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeroes. He knows us so well, it really was a
perfect fit. I have to admit that I wanted to make sure that he was going to shake things up enough, the way
a new producer might. But any doubt I had about falling into a comfort zone just went out the window,
because he came up with so many great, fresh ideas.”
Having reunited with the band after such a long time away, Ralston decided to go “hard-drive gold-mining”
and look through some of the song ideas 311 had left on the digital cutting-room floor. “Scotch found three
or four old demos that hadn’t really panned out for one reason or another and advocated for those songs,
so a lot of credit goes to him for dusting off the opener, ‘Ebb and Flow, as well as ‘The Call’ and ‘Tranquility’
– songs that were started for older albums that just didn’t get completed. He would say, ‘Well, if we cut this
part and try this melody here, this could be an amazing song,’ and suddenly these orphans got to be given a
really good home.”
The vast majority of the 15 tracks, of course, were struck up from scratch, and the band quickly found a fine
balance. “I’m always advocating having as broad of a spectrum as possible,” says Hexum. “But I think that
the band in general does like more up-tempo stuff, so we pretty much gravitated toward those songs that
are going to be better for dancing and rocking the crowd live.” The challenge with STEREOLITHIC was to see
whether the band could substantially up the sonic diversity so that each of the 15 tracks sounded
substantially different from the last. Mission accomplished. “I think that the biggest thing for me is knowing
that we have had a real kind of explosion of creativity, and that there’s more eclectic things on this album
than we’ve had in a while,” Hexum exults. “We all pushed ourselves to find new sounds and new territory.”
Bassist P-Nut adds, “We collaborated more on this album than on any other."
The lyrical duties expanded this time around, too, with SA Martinez, P-Nut and producer Ralston all joining
Hexum in what he calls “the writing committee.” “More and more, the lyrics are being written by the
group,” Hexum announces. “The whole process has moved more and more collaborative. People have heard
what I think a lot over the years,” he laughs, “and now to hear more voices expressing themselves keeps it
fresh.” That’s not to say that STEREOLITHIC doesn’t also include some of Hexum’s most personal writing, like
the closing “Tranquility,” which he describes as “a very emotional song for me that digs deep to some core
emotions about learning to face fears. It touches a nerve, I think, that only a few of our songs have gotten to
before.”
Musically, the song that left Hexum most excited was “Friday Afternoon.” “I’ve periodically written a few
epics, which is what we call songs that go into a lot of different movements and tempos and feels. They
usually start really chill and get into some crazy finale. This one was very much in the spirit of ‘Let’s not have
the standard song structure but keep going into some new sections’ – something I learned from analyzing
Beatles songs like ‘Happiness is a Warm Gun.’ Scotch wanted to clip one little section out of ‘Friday
Afternoon,’ but I kept firm and said, ‘We don’t need to cut anything there. It’s only four minutes! For an
epic, that’s short.’”
Part of why STEREOLITHIC is able to maintain such a strong sense of purpose and direction, even with all
these crucial quirks incorporated, is that some of the members have done solo or side projects recently and
been able to get some of their even farther-flung ideas out of their systems there. Martinez released a
project with Ghostwolf and Hexum toured into early 2014 behind his album with The Nick Hexum Quintet.
“It takes the pressure off 311,” he says, “because if there’s something that’s not working there that I like,
then it’s no problem because I can go and try to work it out elsewhere. I don’t know if the side projects had
anything to do with it, but STEREOLITHIC was really easy to make and a harmonious experience.”
What is the secret of harmoniousness, after 24 years together with an intact lineup — something very few
other platinum-level rock acts can claim? “You have to be ready to not get your way, and you have to listen
and be flexible,” Hexum says. “That’s one good thing about having an odd number of band members: At the
very worst it’s going to come down to a 3-to-2 vote, where two people will just have to suck it up and accept
it. If we were a four-man band, what happens if it’s 2-to-2?”
Fortunately, thanks to a lack of attrition, they haven’t had to find out, and 311 have continued to be a model
of how unity starts at home. It doesn’t end there, of course, as the band continues to headline a multi-act
Unity Tour every summer. Every other year, the band hosts their 311 Caribbean Cruise, with the next
scheduled for 2015. But the Unity Tour “is our mainstay and our prime time,” Hexum says. “It’s like the song
‘Sunset in July’ says… if the sun is setting and it’s July, 311 is on tour... And now it’s just fun to see our fan
base expanding to multiple generations, and everything from older people to college age, high school, kids
with their folks. I mean, that’s what we’ve always been about, bringing people together. So I love having
such a wide demographic.”
"Now as our lifestyles change, we just keep it as honest as possible. And we still really have this fire when
we play live. But I think that having family and the experience that comes along with that gives a real
expansion of stuff to write about. There’s no greater, more rewarding thing in the world for me than raising
kids. It’s just a wealth of inspiration.” Hexum also found himself being inspired to write this time around
about the effects of technology on socialization. “It’s not political in nature, but there are some key lyrics
about technology kind of separating people: ‘I’m seeing your face in the screen/I feel your attention
divided.’ It’s just about how people will sit at a restaurant, everyone with their faces in their phones, not
even talking to each other. At the same time, certain sides of technology bring us all together. Certainly tons
of fans have met each other through our online community, so that’s a really positive side of it.”
311 certainly aren’t being shy about taking advantage of the digital revolution with their distribution model
for STEREOLITHIC. The album marks their first truly independent effort since their earliest days in Nebraska,
and they’ve partnered with INgrooves for distribution and PledgeMusic for a value-added pre-order
campaign (that includes access to exclusive content and a prize drawing of over 100 prizes - including Tim
Mahoney's guitar).
“It’s just so nice that INgrooves gives you a menu of services they provide, and you pick what’s important:
‘We want to advertise here; we want to spend this much on that,’ so it lets you feel very much a part of it.
Before you would just have your fingers crossed and hope the label did a good job, and now you have tons
of input. It’s kind of a full-time job that a musician has now to keep up with the trends and different
distribution models.
“Back in 1990, when I was sort of our sole employee, putting out tapes around Omaha, I’d be hitting up all
the record stores a couple of weeks later to see how many we’d sold, with the stuff on consignment,”
Hexum recalls, in a rare moment of waxing nostalgic. “This is a lot easier than that, but it’s really the Wild
West in terms of figuring it out. Everything is digital, but we have to remember that a lot of our fans really
do want the CD or vinyl to hold. I give props to our management for staying up on innovative ways to get
the word out, but the real thanks always goes to our incredible fans.” Vocalist / DJ, SA Martinez concurs
with “I know our fans are going to relish this record. Musically it's a bit of everything we are known for, and
that includes unexpected twists and turns. We’re proud to have STEREOLITHIC in our discography. A huge
Thank You to all of our fans for giving us the ability to do what we do. The journey continues.“
And that’s the 411 on 311 in 2014.
www.311.com