LOS ANGELES (Top 40 Charts/ Greg Lisher Official Website) - Greg Lisher may be best known for his signature guitar sounds with the groundbreaking alternative rock band Camper Van Beethoven, but as the accomplished artist proves on his remarkable second full-length solo album, Trains Change, he has a wealth of talent that goes well beyond just that of a lead guitarist.
Prior to the upcoming June celebrations surrounding Camper Van Beethoven's 25th anniversary as a band (with a 2-CD set of greatest hits & studio rarities to be released, along with a special anniversary performance at The Fillmore in San Francisco slated for June 28th), Lisher will be releasing Trains Change on April 22, 2008. With the shifting paradigms of how music is manufactured, distributed and promoted in today's rapidly-changing industry, the musician realized the time was right to start his own Chiseled Out label imprint to release this effort. "I felt like I was ready to explore that part of the business," he states, "...starting my own label, learning how to do things on my own, being more in control."
As the material on his new album attests, the business side of things isn't all he's more in control of now. "My first solo record, Handed Down the Wire, was more of a collection of songs from two different recording sessions that were done five years apart. Trains Change is more of an album of songs, more cohesive. Also, a lot more time, energy and money were spent to get what I really wanted."
This thirteen-track collection, produced by Chris Xefos (Phantom Tollbooth / King Missile), finds Lisher, along with the familiar faces and sounds from fellow CVB members Victor Krummenacher, David Immergluck and Jonathan Segel, along with drummer Michael Urbano, mining through the vast landscape of American music, while still retaining just enough eclecticism from both Camper Van Beethoven and Lisher's other CVB offshoot band, Monks of Doom (with Chris Pederson, Krummenacher and Immergluck) to keep fans of both acts happy. While he states that most of the songs' stories are based on fictional characters, he also alludes that there's at least a bit of himself in some of the songs.
While the Northern California-based musician incorporates three remarkable instrumentals throughout the album (the sunny folk of "Irish Sea Song," along with the introspective melancholy of "Foals On The Flipside" and the energetic title track, which -with its prog-rock meets jazz-fusion approach picks up where Jeff Beck's Blow By Blow left off back in '75), he also injects many other arresting sounds and influences into this highly-textured mix. "All I Want," "Television" and the closing "Handed Down The Wire" are all expertly crafted pop songs that prove Lisher's salt as not only a songwriter and musician, but talented vocalist as well, while "Southern Depression" and the spacious "Utah" showcase the stinging leads that this guitarist has been known for worldwide over the last 25 years.
"Making records for me is always an exercise, trying different things, seeing what works, seeing what doesn't, trying to get better at the craft of songwriting. I enjoy being in a band, but I enjoy doing solo work too. I always want to do both."
