By Jonathan McNamara
Shiny Toy Guns keyboardist Jeremy Dawson fiddles with a bit of plastic as he graciously subjects himself to a few questions courtesy of New Times. The band just finished their initial sound check and though they won’t hit the stage for a few hours, roadies and Martini Ranch staff are scurrying about in preparation. Hopefully it will go better than last night’s tour opener in Vegas.
See more shots from the concert in our Shiny Toy Guns slideshow.
“The first show was last night and half the gear went down. We literally had to walk off,” says Shiny Toy Guns’ Jeremy Dawson. “And it’s Vegas so nobody cared, but we walked off that stage and we just like ‘oh god.’”
Dawson depicts it as a hectic first night thanks to the equipment trouble, starting a brand new tour and the addition of new Shiny Toy Guns vocalist and bass player Sisily Treasure, but try to convince any of the audience members at Martini Ranch that the band was feeling stressed and you’d be making a hard sell. Shiny Toy Guns rocked the hell right out of their second gig leaving the audience chanting “STG” and several fans singing their favorite tracks right over Muse’s “Knights of Cydonia” as they wandered out into the Scottsdale streets.
Pulling heavily from 2006’s We Are Pilots Shiny Toy Guns covered all their hits including “Le Disko,” “You are the One” and “Rainy Monday,” but it was “Richochet” the first single from the upcoming album Season of Poison that set the room on fire. The song sounds like a bit of a departure from the dance music-leaning first album, but Dawson wants fans to relax.
“Richochet is the only song on the album that sounds like that. Listen to the record. The keyword is patience.”
So what does the album sound like?
“Season of Poison is a crash collision of circa late ‘70s analog synthesis and face-melting stoner rock,” Dawson said. Instead of a dance beat which the band relied heavily upon for We Are Pilots, Season of Poison will call upon tribal rhythms, Dawson said. “We’ve moved more into the deep, darker side of electronic music. And really pushing on riff-driven stoner rock and somehow colliding that together sonically. That’s what Season of Poison sounds like.”
Dawson added that the album has a “very serious, epic dynamic” which lead to the band to ghost title their songs to keep from “collapsing into a world of tragedy and seriousness.” “Richochet” was ghost-titled “Nudity” with other Season of Poison tracks ghost-titled “Biggins,” “Shittles,” and “Golden Shower.”
“It keeps that crap off the internet too,” Dawson said. “No one’s going to download Shiny Toy Guns' ‘Golden Showers.’”
For those fans feeling a little apprehensive about a new female vocalist, let me put your worries to rest. Not only did Sisily Treasure sound fantastic during the gig, she was instrumental to the recording of the album.
“The second she got off the plane, she was involved in the music,” Dawson said. In fact, she wrote the lyrics and melody for “Richochet.”
“For the first time ever…cause Chad and I write everything, we have someone who can do that. Weight can be shuffled down to three in the dynamic process of writing,” Dawson said.
If last night’s performance is any indication, that’s a good move for this future-forward, electronic rock band. Fans and the uninitiated alike will know when Season of Poison hits stores on November 4.
Check out "Richochet" on myspace.com/shinytoyguns
