When the first batches of shows at Roadrunner were starting to trickle out a few months back, our pulse quickened to see The Brian Jonestown Massacre were hitting the Brighton venue on April 1, and bringing Mercury Rev along for the ride. We’re still not entirely sure this isn’t an elaborate April Fool’s prank, but legitimacy comes through in both the ticket on-sale page and a new track, out today (March 25), from Anton Newcombe and his merry crew of musical misfits.
The fresh tune is called “The Real,” a tumbling psychedelic romper that makes it feel like spring has finally arrived. This psychedelic cruiser is the opening track to Brian Jonestown Massacre’s forthcoming 19th studio album, the wonderfully named Fire Doesn’t Grow On Trees, due out June 24 on Newcombe’s own label A Recordings.
Here’s what the frontman, songwriter, composer, studio owner, multi-instrumentalist, producer, engineer, and force of nature has to say about it: “When you are compelled to do the right thing, when you live by some internal code, and you don’t shy away from standing up to and in the face of adversity or against the mob or the man no matter what that might mean to ‘your fame or prospects’, it’s doing the right thing… for some it might be taking a knee, or even a baton or bullet. That’s a fire inside you, and it doesn’t grow on trees. I create my own culture because it is what I need and what I feel isn’t being provided. It doesn’t exist unless I participate.”
With that in mind, looks like Roadrunner has a new grand opening date.