The Dillinger Escape Plan‘s Ben Weinman, Omar Rodriguez-Lopez of Bosnian Rainbows (also ex-At The Drive-In/The Mars Volta) and Michael Shuman from the Queens Of The Stone Age are just some of the collaborators tapped for Kimbra‘s upcoming new album. Weinman and Kimbra‘s collaboration shouldn’t be much of a surprise. Kimbra recently told fasterlouder.com.au of their work together:
“Ben Weinman first approached me about music. I’d been a huge fan and I never thought I’d end up working with him but Ben is super interested in new music and in pop music. He put out the feelers for us to hang out and look at making some music together. We sketched out a few ideas that we wrote together and I’d send him stuff – “Hey, do you want to put down a guitar part on this? I’d love to get your perspective on this.”
- Advertisement -That’s the thing; I know when I give something to Ben Weinman I’m going to get something that I could never think of myself or that no other guitarist could think of because he has such a unique perspective on rhythm. He’s fascinated by Latin rhythms and he can break down the riffs. He’ll draw them out for me on a table, but then he has to be able to write them out for the band. That’s another thing; you can think up the parts but then you have to find a way to get everyone to play your crazy timing. He works with rhythm and ways of working around a melody that you wouldn’t expect.
A song that might have more traditional instruments and my vocal and then with him coming in there that injects something totally opposed and that to me is something that takes the song up that notch in terms of timelessness. You keep coming back to that track to hear “that moment”. I want to have moments like that all over the record and that only happens when you have personality players.
People who when they come on the scene of the song. From the word go you know an Omar part – “it’s Omar Rodríguez” – you can hear his personality, you can hear his guitar tones. At The Drive-In is slightly jagged aggression to the parts, but it’s his voice. It’s so exciting to be working with people who are going to take your songs to a place that you couldn’t have done with your grandest ideas. You need their specific take and it makes you look at things differently as well.”
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