I’ve never been more prepared for recording a record in my life. I’d say this third record was a bit more of a communal writing experience than the first two – more people chimed in on this one. “It took three years for me to find a permanent lineup, and in the three years since then we’ve really grown together,” says Stein. Produced by Jim Eno of Spoon and with the endorsement of the aforementioned Followill family of Kings of Leon, Butter serves as a coming out album of sorts for the Nashville rock quartet – a debut Stein’s been waiting for since the inception of the band six years ago. Whatever it was about rap or Celtic crooning, the weirdness worked, as the wall of noise Butter delivers is a roughly 34-minute barrage of furious riffs and driving anthems that come together in a solid, straightforward body of sound. It made me feel really weird, so I went back to Enya’s greatest hits with a fresh pair of ears and turned it up really loud.” I wanted to hear something that was totally unattached.
“Rock and roll is our first love,” says Stein, “but I was trying to listen to stuff that was still getting me off. Lil Wayne, ‘70s soul and Enya: this is the “weird shit” Jonas Stein of Turbo Fruits was listening to while writing and recording Butter, their forthcoming record and the latest release on Serpents and Snakes, the label founded and maintained by Kings of Leon.
