Story: If Broken Gold’s previous release, Recovery Journal (Volcom), was about getting knocked down and learning how to get back up again, and their new follow-up, Residency at Hundo Beach (End Sounds), is about taking those first few crucial steps once you’re back on your feet.
Singer, songwriter, and guitarist Ian MacDougall is the gas pedal that pushes Broken Gold forward. He came to the attention of punk fans far and wide when he joined up with Texas punk heroes the Riverboat Gamblers as a guitar player fresh out of high school, making his first recorded appearance with the band on their 2006 album, To The Confusion of Our Enemies (Volcom). MacDougall remains a Gambler to this day, but he’s always had other modes of musical expression on his mind as well.
"I’ve always been demoing," says MacDougall, "and it wasn’t for anything particular, I just always liked doing home recording." That penchant for DIY music making was part of the impetus for Broken Gold. "I had all these songs that did not fit with the Gamblers," he explains, "songs that were a little slower and a little more like what I was listening to personally at the time…and then it kind of evolved into having more of a spacey guitar sound and was perhaps a little darker."
The band started small; their first gig was a house show at the home of their bass player, Patrick Lillard, another Gamblers refugee. "He was over touring [with the Gamblers]," explains MacDougall, "and so we originally decided, ‘Well, let’s just do something for fun without the mounting pressure.’" It didn’t take long before Broken Gold started taking recording seriously, releasing a seven-inch on the Good Friends label at the tail end of 2008 with the trio of MacDougall, Lillard, and drummer Rich Cali. Cali bartended at the restaurant where MacDougall worked when he was putting the band together. "We immediately became great friends," says MacDougall, "and imagine my surprise when I found out he was a drummer." Originally from Asbury Park, NJ, Cali is also a visual artist, who created the cover for the new record. "He has a lot of input in the band, especially when it comes to the artwork and aesthetic of this new project," says MacDougall.
Not too long after that, MacDougall went through an unexpected, life-changing experience. "I was in a bad car accident where I got hit by a truck," he remembers. "It took a year away from me, where I had to deal with recuperating." By the time MacDougall had recovered sufficiently for the band to begin working again, the opportunity arose to make another single, this time for SoCal-based Volcom Entertainment. The company offered Broken Gold a micro-budget, only intending for them to cut a couple of tracks; the enterprising, industrious Texans slipped into a small studio and squeezed out an entire album for the same amount. Recovery Journal was heavily informed by MacDougall’s recent trauma.
"As lame as it sounds, it was kind of like a diary put to music," he says, "dealing with the accident and the recovery afterwards, the painkiller addiction that happened afterwards, and thinking ‘I’m not gonna be able to play guitar again.’ I was just really inspired at that point when we got asked to do that record. It gave me hope that things would be okay again."
Having already delved into such a deep emotional place for Broken Gold’s debut album, MacDougall was uniquely positioned, creatively speaking, when it came time to record a follow-up record for Austin label End Sounds. "I was trying to get away from just writing about the fucked-up shit that had happened to me," he admits. "With this new batch -- not that it’s all light-hearted -- I just tried not to make it so autobiographical. I tried to not make it completely crystal-clear and in a broader sense to leave it somewhat up to interpretation."
The result was Residency at Hundo Beach. According to MacDougall, the quirky title is "a little bit of an inside joke," but the six-song EP is also the musical equivalent of what happens after the credits roll on the triumphant conclusion to some movie about an underdog beating the odds to come out on top. After the crowd files out of the theater, the film’s protagonist still has to get on with his life, and that’s pretty much where Hundo Beach is coming from, in the wake of Recovery Journal’s rise-from-the-ashes theme.
"It’s more focused," assesses MacDougall, "and it has the addition of Ben Lance, our other guitar player. The first album was recorded as a three-piece. Ben doesn’t play like I do, I’m used to playing in punk bands, and strumming and downstrokes; he’s got more of a pretty, frilly thing, he does more textures and soundscapes. We got to practice and work stuff out with two guitars in the writing stage. He comes from a completely different angle than I do and plays things totally different than I would. We had a lot of material to go through and choose from this time around too. I had all these demos -- we had about 40 different songs that were considered for the release."
After an extensive process of elimination, the band pared down the track list to the true essentials, and each track represents both a continuation of the sound that got Broken Gold off the ground and an ongoing evolution. The lush, sweeping guitar sounds of opening track "Teeth" hint at MacDougall’s admiration for classic U.K. shoegaze bands. "It’s got a very Manchester kind of vibe," he allows, "laid back…but really f-ing loud." The plangent, mid-tempo "Life of the Machine" and closing cut "Shoulder" share some of that Swervedriver-comes-to-Austin feel as well. But the pealing guitars and breathless vocals of "Green Grass" speak loudly of Broken Gold’s continuing fascination with ‘80s Minneapolis, while hints of post-Big Star power pop are sprinkled throughout Hundo Beach like bread crumbs dropped along the trail on a long trip to help you find your way back to your home base.
Of course it didn’t hurt a bit to have producer/engineer Stuart Sikes (White Stripes, Reigning Sound, Walkmen, Cat Power) on hand to help realize Broken Gold’s sonic vision. "He’s an awesome producer and engineer," says MacDougall. "I like to experiment with guitar sounds and make things sound a little more interesting than just ‘Standard Rock Guitar Sound,’ and he’s really into that as well. He was there right from the beginning wanting to hear the material and helping us sift through the songs. When it came time to record, the process was very relaxed and cool and he knew where we coming from and how to get the best out of us and the songs."
Gazing into the rearview mirror at the creation of Residency at Hundo Beach, MacDougall confesses, "I’m really, really excited about it. Most bands want to make a record that they would listen to if they could get outside the whole thing, and I think we got pretty close to that with this. "
