STRUTS
LIVE AND DANGEROUS!
The Struts are Britain’s fastest-rising hard rock band, and for their new album Strange Days, they’ve pulled in some A-list guest stars including members of Rage Against The Machine, Def Leppard and The Strokes – and Robbie Williams. It was also recorded pretty much live in the studio, and as guitarist Adam Slack says, “It’s the most guitar-y album we’ve done!”
Words: Jonny Scaramanga
Strange days The Struts, with guitarist Adam Slack (second left).
In 2020, a lot of musicians have had a lot of time on their hands, but for The Struts, ten days was all it took to cut one of the best rock records of the year. “It was essentially recorded live,” says guitarist Adam Slack of the band’s third album Strange Days, for which they decamped to producer John Levine’s home studio. And as Slack explains, it was a very different experience to making their 2018 breakthrough record Young & Dangerous.
“Usually, in the past, I’ve done like twenty guitar tracks, harmonies galore and all that,” he says. “But this time there’s one guitar track on every song, all one live take. I did some overdubs but I didn’t go crazy. John felt we should try and make it sound as much as you can like a live band. We didn’t even double‐track. John added a tiny delay panned on the other side from the main guitar. He said that’s cooler because it’s what they would have done in the 70s.”