RANTS

Appleton
(Wisconsin) Post-Crescent:
Posted Mar. 28, 2002

Leghounds making the most of their time in the studio

By Steven Hyden
Post-Crescent staff writer

If the Leghounds broke up tomorrow, they could still tell their grandkids that they rocked CBGB’s once upon a time.

The Sheboygan power trio played the New York City club made famous by the Ramones, Talking Heads and Blondie during an impromptu East coast tour three years ago.

“Nobody knew who we were, so we just kind of went and said we want to play places elsewhere and see how it goes,” guitarist Drew Fredrichsen said during a recent phone interview. “The reception was really good, especially in New York. That turned out really well. We got asked back but we haven’t been back there again because we really haven’t had anything to go back there with.”

Now the Leghounds have a whole bunch of material with which to storm the Big Apple and elsewhere. The black-shirt-and-white-tie clad rock combo, which also includes bassist Eric Mahnke and drummer Shawn Thiel, just released a self-titled CD on Bulge Records out of Green Bay (owned and operated by Rev. Norb of Boris the Sprinkler fame), and a 7-inch, “XOXO,” on the German label Alien Snatch! Records.

In the can are two more full-length CDs Fredrichsen expects to be out within a year. That’s 36 songs ready for mass consumption, which is more than most area bands probably have in their entire catalog.

The ’Hounds laid down tracks for the CDs during a marathon three-and-a-half day session in October at Simple Studios in Green Bay. Justin Perkins of Neenah’s Yesterday’s Kids oversaw the session, and “pretty much me and him were in there every second of the recording,” Fredrichsen said.

The zany idea to record the band’s freshman, sophomore, and junior releases at one time came from Norb, who actually had a somewhat reasonable justification for the brainstorm.

“He said, ‘Well, you know, instead of having people say their first album sounds so much better than their second album, that sort of thing, why have people even have something to compare them to? We’ll just do them all at once,’” Fredrichsen said.

“The first CD covers a lot of our older stuff,” he added. “It’s not a discography, but it does kind of go in order, as far as stuff we’ve been playing for a while … The later two records are ones that people that have seen us for a while will like better just because they haven’t heard those songs as much.”

“XOXO,” also recorded by Perkins, is Fredrichsen’s personal favorite, especially the Ramones-like leadoff track, “Prisoner of Love.”

“It’s just a very easy, listenable tempo,” he said. “I’m a big fan of the 7-inch, actually.”

A lover of ’50s and ’60s rock ’n’ roll, Fredrichsen has an early rocker’s work ethic. Not content with a mere four releases in one year, he’s already itching to write more songs.

“I always want to do something else or something better, like write another song,” he said. “I don’t think you go through a week without trying to mess around with something … You want to get your songs out so that way you can make other ones that are just as good, if not better. You always want to try to outdo yourself.”

To find out how to get the Leghounds’ music, go online at www.angelfire.com/rock/theleghounds.