more from
Sacred Bones Records
We’ve updated our Terms of Use to reflect our new entity name and address. You can review the changes here.
We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.

Gadzooks Vol. 1

by Caleb Landry Jones

/
  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card

      $7 USD  or more

     

  • Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    Includes unlimited streaming of Gadzooks Vol. 1 via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 4 days
    Purchasable with gift card

      $19 USD or more 

     

  • Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    Includes unlimited streaming of Gadzooks Vol. 1 via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 4 days
    Purchasable with gift card

      $21 USD or more 

     

  • Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    ***Deluxe Edition version: Edition of 300 copies, pressed on red and blue splatter color vinyl, available by mail-order only. Comes with a zine insert featuring hand written lyrics and a small collection of art created by Caleb during the process of writing and recording the album. ONE PER PERSON LIMIT.***

    Includes unlimited streaming of Gadzooks Vol. 1 via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 4 days
    2 remaining
    Purchasable with gift card

      $27 USD or more 

     

  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    Includes unlimited streaming of Gadzooks Vol. 1 via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 2 days
    4 remaining
    Purchasable with gift card

      $13 USD or more 

     

  • Gadzooks Vol 1. T-Shirt + Red LP Bundle
    Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    Includes unlimited streaming of Gadzooks Vol. 1 via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

    Sold Out

  • Gadzooks Vol. 1 T-Shirt
    T-Shirt/Shirt

    Sold Out

1.
Never Wet 01:33
2.
3.
The Loon 03:01 video
4.
Bogie 03:09 video
5.
Gloria 00:38
6.
California 04:49
7.
8.
9.

about

Caleb Landry Jones is a continual creator. The Texan born star found fame as an actor – you’ll recognise him from key roles in X-Men: First Class, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, amongst others – but music is perhaps his first love, and his source of greatest comfort. A chance encounter with famed auteur Jim Jarmusch brought him into the orbit of Sacred Bones, and the stalwart independent released Caleb’s 2020 debut album ‘The Mother Stone’. Psychedelic in a defiantly non-retro way, this indulgent, freewheeling trip won critical acclaim, but masked a secret – he’d already finished another album.

Filming alongside Tom Hanks in dystopian themed Finch, Caleb found himself writing during those long evenings after the shoot in locations across New Mexico, idling away his hours by focussing on creativity. “I need it,” he says. “I’ve tried working without it. On one acting job, I intentionally didn’t bring a guitar to try and do it without music… but that didn’t last long. I need to create something – it could be a drawing, it could be a song – because otherwise I feel like I’m wasting time. Which is something I do plenty of on my own!”


With his creative faculties burning, Caleb knew he had to get straight back into the studio when filming stopped. Linking with the same cast who formed ‘The Mother Stone’, he resumed his partnership with producer Nic Jodoin, based out of the elegant Valentine Recording Studio in Los Angeles. A studio steeped in history – everyone from Bing Crosby to Frank Zappa worked there – he interrupted mixing sessions for his own debut album in order to focus on something different.

“I knew I could make something a little more focussed, and less difficult. And this became an experiment,” he explains. “We wanted to do something we hadn't done on the last one and also get a slightly different sound.”

New album ‘Gadzooks Vol. 1’ exists in a completely different realm from Caleb’s debut album. Ranging from spider-like wisps of neo-psychedelia through to vast swathes of synthetic chords, it’s a record that moves from joy to despair, from horror to glib humour. “‘The Mother Stone’ was so open to me, and it went to a lot of places, and it never came back to those places. And I wanted to just keep going,” he says. “I wanted to make something that made me smile and giggle!”

Working 18 hour days at Valentine Recording Studio – “oh boy, it’s immaculate!” – Caleb brought his vision into focus. Producer Nic Jodoin was key to the process – the pair’s relationship was deepened by their experiences on his debut. “I mean, technically, he’s a genius,” Caleb gushes. “I think we were able to trust each other more on things and go down the rabbit hole faster. We had more faith in ourselves.”

“But more importantly, I think it's his attitude. He’s always wanting to push himself, for me to push myself, and we're both wanting to make something that we haven't made before.”

They’ve definitely succeeded. ‘Gadzooks Vol. 1’ is unlike anything you’ve heard before – comparisons range from Skip Spence’s fractured masterpiece ‘Oar’ through to skewed troubadour Robyn Hitchcock, via John Lennon’s black moods on ‘The White Album’ and Frank Zappa’s caustic surrealism. Recording to tape, Caleb would hack away at each take, re-assembling the songs like Escher diagrams. “It's like when you're swimming in the pool,” he smiles, “and you're doing a bit of butterfly, and then that gets old after a while. So then you start doing breaststroke, and then that gets old after a while. I think it's just a reaction from the place where we were before.”

Opener ‘Never Wet’ scarcely stumbles over the one minute mark, yet it feels like a battery overloaded with electricity, sparking and flashing with incendiary ideas, close to the point of explosion. “I think if I said what it was about, I get in a lot of trouble!” he laughs. “I guess it’s an inside joke.”

‘Yesterday Wil Come’ is little more than strummed notes and a mantra-like vocal line, half-laughing itself into ego death. “I actually didn't realise what the lyrics were,” he comments, “until I was playing it for my mom in the studio!”


Amid the chaos and confusion, however, certain themes and motifs recur. Like dreams, for instance – “I don’t think you can trust someone who doesn’t dream” – or the reaches of religion. Brought up in Texas, Caleb Landry Jones was smothered in Christianity during his childhood, until uncovering The Beatles fostered his free-thinking individuality. ‘Never Wet’ contains oblique Christ references, while ‘Bogie’ – “The old woman rushes my faith… you let me live this lie” – is the closest Caleb comes to some form of renunciation. “There’s a lot of meaning there,” is all he’ll say on that one. “It’s pretty self-induced.”


He's the first to admit that there’s a child-like element to his studio inquisitiveness. “I am very influenced by the music I heard when I was a kid,” he admits. “But I’m also influenced by the rules of comedy, because they apply to music, too. It’s the same. I think they core align very, very well.”

Some parts of the album were written years ago, and some were constructed on the hoof in the studio. ‘California’ for instance, was penned during the recent bushfires, and it’s a meditation on the Golden State. “I came to California obsessed with making movies, but most of the people involved in making those movies had died,” he says. “I found very quickly that it was unlike anything I'd expected. And then it grew to be something greater than I could have expected as well.”

Album finale ‘This Won’t Come Back’ is perhaps Caleb’s finest moment to date, a bravura statement from a free spirit. Spending hours alone in the studio with a Prophet keyboard, he constructs something truly original, breathtaking in its sheer daring. “I was obsessed with this idea of letting go, and to just not have a plan,” he recalls. “I really wanted to finish the record this way. I needed to get away from song structures, and bar measures, and just see if my music worked without those things.”

Part of a flood-tide of creativity – as its title suggests, a second half to this album is already on the horizon – ‘Gadzooks Vol. 1’ is thrilling, shocking, and wonderfully entertaining. Each song starts and finishes in entirely unique places, often totally divorced from each other. “I'm trying to write something very simple,” he says. “And it gets really abstract because I don’t know any other way.”

Right now he’s living in Bushwick, New York - “long story short, I’m actually living in a bar!” – seeing out the pandemic, waiting for roles to come in and songs to appear. “It’s champagne problems!” he laughs. “I’m always writing. Always.”

He smiles and finishes: “I do this all the time. It’s a craft.”

credits

released September 24, 2021

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

Caleb Landry Jones Los Angeles, California

contact / help

Contact Caleb Landry Jones

Streaming and
Download help

Redeem code

Report this album or account

If you like Caleb Landry Jones, you may also like: