NO PANE, NO GAIN
Hurricanes and pandemics couldn’t keep Glass Hammer from releasing the heaviest and most diverse album of their career. Co-founder Steve Babb tells Prog why the band decided to step into the world of swords and sorcery for Dreaming City.
Words: Dom Lawson Images: Julie Babb
Fred Schendel and Steve Babb: making waves.
If this year has proved anything, it’s that making plans is an absolute mug’s game. That’s been particularly true for musicians all over the planet, most of whose touring and promotional escapades have been abruptly curtailed. You have to feel for Glass Hammer, in particular. The Tennessee prog veterans have been enjoying a strong run of creative form in recent times and these DIY underdogs are more popular than ever, so the release of new album Dreaming City should have been a walk in the progressive park, followed by a noisily attended lap of honour. Unfortunately, Mother Nature had other ideas. Coinciding almost perfectly with the album’s release, brutal tornadoes tore through Glass Hammer’s home town of Chattanooga in mid-April, decimating miles of homes and businesses and injuring 19 people.
So when Prog enquires how things are going for the band’s core duo of Steve Babb and Fred Schendel, not to mention their families, we’re mainly checking that they’re all still in one piece. Fortunately, the answer is yes.
“We were lucky. We’re all okay. One big tree came down from our neighbour’s yard and took out our fence, but that’s about it,” Babb reveals with an audible grimace. “The storm was 1,500 yards wide, and we were supposedly right on the outside of it. But if you drive about three minutes across the freeway, it’s like a bomb went off. It’s a 20-mile long path, where all these beautiful homes were, and there’s just nothing there. I didn’t want to complain about it too much, but it happened right on release day. So it was like, ‘Oh my gosh, now what?’”