Vancouver’s
Pride Tiger is four guys linked by a record collection, a real record
collection, as in vinyl, and a shared love of music from the seventies.
On their self-titled debut for EMI Music Canada, produced, engineered and mixed
by Matt Hyde (Slayer, Monster Magnet, Fu Manchu), they modernize the glorious
70’s rock style, resulting in 13 songs that are powerful, sweaty, hooky,
suitably head-banging — and one big party. No need to dress up or wash your
hair. Songs like “Let It Go,” Long Way Down,” “What It Is,” “Fill Me In” and
“Forget Everything” are all that’s needed.
See, three of the band members — drummer/vocalist Matt Wood and guitarists Bob
Froese and Sunny Dhak — used to be in highly respected, still-going-strong
metal act 3 Inches of Blood, but something wasn’t ringing true for them. “I
just felt like it wasn’t gonna be it for me,” says Wood. “I really loved that
band and loved those guys, but it wasn’t fulfilling enough playing in a heavy
metal band.”
Froese and Dhak first met Wood when he played in Goatsblood and they all lived
together in a “crazy old dirty punk house.” It was there that they marveled
over each other’s record collections. “I don’t even listen to CDs,” says Wood.
“As you can tell, there are not many people like us around. We started trading
records. ‘Have you heard of this band?’ Then, we were like, ‘We gotta start a
band.’ We needed a …
Vancouver’s
Pride Tiger is four guys linked by a record collection, a real record
collection, as in vinyl, and a shared love of music from the seventies.
On their self-titled debut for EMI Music Canada, produced, engineered and mixed
by Matt Hyde (Slayer, Monster Magnet, Fu Manchu), they modernize the glorious
70’s rock style, resulting in 13 songs that are powerful, sweaty, hooky,
suitably head-banging — and one big party. No need to dress up or wash your
hair. Songs like “Let It Go,” Long Way Down,” “What It Is,” “Fill Me In” and
“Forget Everything” are all that’s needed.
See, three of the band members — drummer/vocalist Matt Wood and guitarists Bob
Froese and Sunny Dhak — used to be in highly respected, still-going-strong
metal act 3 Inches of Blood, but something wasn’t ringing true for them. “I
just felt like it wasn’t gonna be it for me,” says Wood. “I really loved that
band and loved those guys, but it wasn’t fulfilling enough playing in a heavy
metal band.”
Froese and Dhak first met Wood when he played in Goatsblood and they all lived
together in a “crazy old dirty punk house.” It was there that they marveled
over each other’s record collections. “I don’t even listen to CDs,” says Wood.
“As you can tell, there are not many people like us around. We started trading
records. ‘Have you heard of this band?’ Then, we were like, ‘We gotta start a
band.’ We needed a bass player and they had a friend, Mike (Payette), who was
in this band called S.T.R.E.E.T.S. and we started to get together over at our house.
We’d just stand around and drink and talk records.”
They also wrote music. Dhak emerged as the main songwriter. They were going to
add a singer, but couldn’t find one, so Wood stepped in — or sat in. He didn’t
plan on relinquishing the drums.
Doing double duty behind the kit, Wood had to learn where to place the vocal so
that it didn’t get lost in the music or didn’t trip him up as he played. “I
just call it cheating. You just have to map out where you’re going to sing
‘cause sometimes it’s impossible to sing over certain things. I think it made
for something that’s original. No one else is writing the vocal lines and the
melodies, so I started off doing what I could do well while I was playing. It’s
really not that hard, just takes extra practice.”
Dhak says he didn’t adjust his writing style to accommodate a drummer who
sings. ““I don’t really think about that. He’s pretty competent at being able
to do both things at the same time. I try and write around vocal melodies, so
I’ll write a lead line that I think is like a vocal melody, and then I’ll write
a rhythm behind it and I’ll leave the lead out, and usually the vocals ended up
sounding similar to that.”
In 2004, Pride Tiger started playing parties, particularly at Bloodstone Press,
the screenprinting company that they ran. Soon, they added local shows which
drew line-ups outside. A year ago, as they disentangled themselves from their
other bands, they cut a nine-song, self-produced CD (yes, CD, not vinyl LP)
called Wood, Dhak, Froese, Payette, that included the gem “White Witch Woman
Blues.”
As word spread of Pride Tiger and industry interest was raised, they continued
to write songs in their beloved seventies vein and also took a detour to NXNE
in June to showcase. By the summer, the band signed with EMI Music Canada and did
a day’s worth of phone calls with producers to source out the best fit for its
major label debut.
“Right off the bat, he had good criticism,” recalls Wood. “He wanted me to sing
more. A lot of stuff that’s written is Sunny’s. He’s an excellent guitar player
and his parts are jam-packed and we needed to dumb it down a bit, make stuff
that I could sing over. So Matt said, ‘We’ve got to get you singing and we’ve
got to simplify some things.’”
Starting in mid-October, Pride Tiger spent two months with Hyde in Los Angeles at Sunset
Lodge studio. There were seven songs — including “56 Days,” “Fill Me In,” and
“Long Way Down” — the band hadn’t finished or even rehearsed and had to hammer
into shape there. Hyde was instrumental at helping trim and arrange the songs.
“I felt really good about that because it’s basically just constructive
criticism,” says Dhak. “He pushes you to do the best you can do, so I like
that. He knows a lot about music theory, so that really helped out. I’m an ear
player, but he’s trained and he’s a guitar player as well. He owns all these
old vintage guitars, like 50s Gibsons and 60s Les Pauls and brought a
semi-truck full of gear.”
Wood says he started pushing himself lyrically. “The seven new songs are stuff
that’s gone on with me the past year. I had a good inspired period.”
While “White Witch Woman Blues” might be a fun song, Wood has moved away from
that now. “Long Way Down” is a piece about a friend of the band "that took
a wrong turn” and “56 Days” is about wanting to get home after being on the
road for a long time.
“The craziest stuff we’ve got is probably a few of Sonny’s acoustic pieces,
like the instrumental song ‘Wizard’s Council’ which is another jam of his,”
says Wood. “Long Way Down” also ventures into an acoustic atmospheric
instrumental three-quarters of the way through.
Now that the album is finished, Pride Tiger is loading into a van, touring
across Canada and into the U.S. But
they’ve lived in a “crazy old dirty punk house” together, then in an L.A. suite for two
months, so 18 months in a van shouldn’t be a problem.
