April 20th, 2008 "Bombastic Meat Bats
By Maya Dawn Henderson
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How would you describe the music of Chad Smith’s Bombastic Meatbats to the uninitiated? Progressive-jazzy-blues? Funkedelic-prog-rock? Or perhaps,"cheeky blues.” For people who loath the categorization of musical styles ~ this band is the perfect example as to why. In mid-April, at Life, a retro club on Wilshire, they proceeded to launch a full-blast, all-fronts attack on the senses. As soon as they hit the first chords, there was this amazing music pouring into the room with all the force of a tidal wave. The melodies of their opener, 'Oops, I Spilled My Beer' were slapping me upside my head and drowning me with their perfection. Who the hell did these guys think they were anyway? And just what kind of a name for a band was the Bombastic Meatbats?!
A super-group of extremely gifted instrumentalists, the Bombastic Meatbats are; Red Hot Chili Pepper’s drummer, Chad Smith, guitar-hero Jeff Kollman, multi-faceted keyboardist, Ed Roth, and motor-city-man on bass, Kevin Chown. Introduced from working together on rock legend and former Deep Purple bassist, Glenn Hughes’ 2003 release, ‘Songs In the Key of Rock’, forming The Meatbats happened accidentally. Chad, Jeff and Ed would warm up by jamming to some Jeff Beck sounding stuff. Chad suggested they put their own kick ass instrumental group together, and the next they knew, they were recording in his Malibu home. They brought in Kevin Chown (Uncle Kracker) the day of recording and nailed five songs in two days. It was the easiest time any of them ever had laying down an album. They play live in the studio, not to a click track, very “old school,”and they play off each other. When asked what the secret was to having it all come together so easily, Ed answered, “Everyone listens and everyone plays the right notes.”
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The Bombastic Meatbats made their inaugural performance at this year’s NAMM show. The band’s recent success has been as flowing and effortless as the making of their debut album, Meet The Meatbats, that’sdue out this fall. They just returned from a short tour in Japan, playing six sold out shows. The fan reception was so overwhelming they had to cut the after show signings after an hour each night.
Seeing them live, I assure you, you will be blown away. I mean, it's powerful, the music is physical ~ you feel it in your spine ~ and spines were certainly reverberating. They played a tune called Big Feet that was concise, yet so soulful. Jeff extricated himself with stunning and cogent guitar work playing the tune, Lola. There’s no doubt there is a strong Jeff Beck influence to this music, but I like the fact that the Bombastic Meatbats let people know about their influences, rather than just saying, ‘we landed and came up with this sound.’ Their influences are actually as diverse as their backgrounds, everything from Billy Preston to Led Zeppelin.
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They played Into The Floyd and Roller Girl. These songs both carried a distinct melody line, cleanly played against contrasting musical and rhythmic backgrounds. Chad Smith is a super-spirited, intuitive drummer and he will drive the song to a point of furious intensity. Ed Roth’s lucid, jazzy piano sound serves as a most effective contrast to all the mayhem and brutality that surrounds it. He is brilliant with space. They played their most popular song, Need Strange, where band entered the wild abandoned terrain of some fantastic prog-jazz-rock, bouncing off each other as the song came to a frenzied climax.
In my opinion, the Bombastic Meatbat's talents as players and arrangers will ensure their success and the progression of their musical ideas. An array of musical flavors; classic rock, old school funk and 70’s R&B, vintage fusion and even a bit of oriental infused. It’s funky, melodic, and compositional… truly bombastic. Check them out for yourself at www.myspace.com/bombasticmeatbats
Maya Dawn Henderson~