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New England Music News

Rock and roles

Late March, 2005, Allston: Ironlung is in the parking lot of Mad Oak Studios, a large man stranded in the midafternoon, wearing flip-flops, standing in a desert of cigarette butts, asphalt, despair. His eyes are whirling. His beard has the look of a destroyed mattress. Next to him is Andrew Schneider, the producer, equally gray-faced and smoke-saturated. These are the dregs of the Jaggernaut sessions, after days of sleeplessness and work. Drums, bass and guitar have all been recorded; it remains only for Ironlung to lay down his vocals and Scissorfight’s fifth full-length album will approach completion. But there’s a problem — it’s this track “Dynamite” — the outro needs something — and he’s run out of words . . .

Back inside the studio, a big dozy pitbull called Brady, later credited in the CD liner notes as “sonic consultant,” is infusing the couch with bored-dog smell. Drinks are taken, and Ironlung starts pacing, nodding and mumbling a half-finished verse: “Who’s got the dynamite . . . who wants to fucking go . . . TNT . . . insanity . . . ” (His lyrics are often in this vein — a sort of grand surrealistic menacing.) He brandishes an A4 pad of notes: scrawled images, threats and slogans, in upper case. “CLOSE QUARTERS HUNTING . . . FLORIDA PANTHERS HAVE NO TESTICLES.” One phrase seems to suggest itself: “THE GONG OF LUNACY.” It has a ring to it, an appropriateness. It also rhymes with “TNT.” Brady the pitbull shifts on the couch, sending up another waft of canine ennui. Ironlung begins to rant: “Who’s got the TNT? . . . the gong of luna-cy. . . who’s gonna pass the flame?” Schneider watches him carefully. “So,” he at last suggests, “shall we do it?”

One year later almost to the day, Scissorfight’s singer/lyricist is on the phone from his home on the Outer Cape, contemplating an early-morning fog bank that has gathered offshore and speaking through the mellow cycles of his breakfast cigarette. “What you saw in the studio that time, it’s not all that pretty, is it? You see there’s a man there that’s struggling with something, but that’s the way it is. In that process a vibration or an atmosphere is created. I mean, with me and Andrew, that was me being Klaus Kinski to his Werner Herzog. I’m playing my role and he’s doing his, there’s a chemical thing going on, and you obviously can’t do that unless you know each other pretty well. Andrew . . . he guides, he endures, you know? Ha!”