Living Colour guitarist Vernon Reid says his band is bringing something new to the musical realm of next year’s mammoth Soundwave festival.
Since Living Colour's early days as poster boys for late ‘80s hard rock music, the group have evolved from their MTV roots to produce music which appropriates aspects of rock, metal, jazz and blues. “We bring a sense of constant wonder and experimentation. We play with a hard rock/ metal format, we also have a funk element and a certain amount of improvisation is part of it. Blues and gospel is also an element, certainly different kinds of sounds.
“Doug Wimbish plays these crazy sounds on the bass and I guarantee that nobody else is going to have the kinds of sounds that he makes. We're gonna have a crazy time [at Soundwave],” Reid explains.
Living Colour released their last record, 'The Chair In The Door Way', in 2009. This album saw the band continue experimenting with genre-crossing music styles. Vernon says that Living Colour will apply similar methods to their new album, which they're planning to release in 2014.
“I hope to have a real moment to connect to the music and to create the unexpected ... You know, we've been really shaking up our sound. We're kind of thinking about reverse engineering the blues. Some of the things have a very blues type of vibe but other things are a lot darker with dark, heavy vibes. Where we're gonna end up... I'm not quite sure because we're early in the process so it's going to be interesting.”
While Living Colour may not know exactly what genre-defying direction they'll be taking with album number six, they do know what they plan to bring to Soundwave next year.
“[We're excited to] come back and connect, to see other great bands. The last time I was there we played at a festival in Adelaide and that was a lot of fun. We've been wanting to come back and I think that it's great to be doing the Soundwave Festival because it's sort of a bit like Lollapalooza was in America, and we had such a great time doing that so we're really looking forward to that kind of show!”
Written by Nik Wylie
Living Colour play Soundwave Festival
Sat Feb 22 — RNA Showgrounds (Brisbane)Sun Feb 23 — Olympic Park (Sydney)
Fri Feb 28 — Flemington Racecourse (Melbourne)
Sat Mar 01 — Bonython Park (Adelaide)
Mon Mar 03 — Claremont Showgrounds (Perth)
