Live at Rolling Stone: The Von Bondies Rock “Chancer” and “Pale Bride”
The Von Bondies recently hit up Rolling Stone‘s studios to perform acoustic versions of two songs off their five-years-in-the-making new album Love, Hate and Then There’s You. ” ‘Chancer’ was written with the idea of me dancing to Pulp,” singer-guitarist Jason Stollsteimer says of the LP’s third track, featured in the video above. “I wanted to write a danceable song, and it made me want to dance.”
So why the long layoff since the band’s last album, Pawn Shoppe Heart and its hit “C’mon C’mon”? “We were on a different label that we begged to get off of, they wouldn’t let us go,” Stollsteimer explains. “It took us three years just to get off the label. We got total control this time. Album title, album cover. We have a gun on the album cover, which is hard to pull off when most labels are afraid of Walmart not selling it. But we had no idea if Walmart would even sell our record, that wasn’t our main goal.”
The time off allowed Stollsteimer to sit back and let his band members write some tunes. “There was a year when I stopped writing and Don [Blum, drummer] started. He hadn’t written songs for his 13 years playing drums in bands,” Stollsteimer says. “He picked up where I left off. He wrote riffs that I turned into songs. He helped me because I was stuck.” The result is an album that’s “more song-oriented” than its predecessor.
As for their song “Pale Bride,” which you can watch after the jump, Stollsteimer says, “We wrote that song two years ago. It wasn’t about marriage or anything, but right after we recorded that I got divorced. I didn’t mean anything about that, but now I guess its kind of ironic.”
The Detroit rockers are on the road now and for the next eight months to promote Love, Hate, so check the tour dates below to see when they’ll be in your area.
February 13 – Toronto, ON @ Horseshoe Tavern
February 15 – Montreal, QC @ Les Saints
February 16 – New York, NY @ Mercury Lounge
February 17 – Vienna, VA @ Jammin Java
February 18 – Philadelphia, PA @ The Khyber
February 20 – Cleveland Heights, OH @ Grog Shop
February 21 – Ann Arbor, MI @ The Blind Pig
February 22 – Toledo, OH @ Mickey Finns
March 8 – Seattle, WA @ Neumos
March 9 – Portland, OR @ Doug Fir Lounge
March 10 – Victoria, BC @ Lucky Bar
March 13 – San Francisco, CA @ Bottom of the Hill
March 14 – West Hollywood, CA @ The Roxy
March 28 – Detroit, MI @ St. Andrews Hall