David Dewese and Jerry James, the friends that make records as the Foxymorons, met at church camp when they were in high school. They discovered they had an affinity for noisy, primitive rock bands. Since they both played rudimentary guitar, they thought about starting a band. Eventually, the duo honed its chops and began writing and recording. Although they’d never played live, their debut album, Calcutta, got stellar reviews in Pitchfork and Paste. As soon as it was out, Dewese moved to Nashville to play in an alt-country band. James stayed in Texas. They’ve maintained a long-distance collaboration ever since. New LP Fake Yoga has elements drawn from country and pop music, including Beach Boys-flavored harmonies, but the album is dominated by their distorted, almost metallic guitar work. James and Dewese will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our new feature on them.
James: Will Johnson is a creative tour-de-force. Will is an Austin-based singer/songwriter and the former frontman of the late, great North Texas band Centro-matic. He’s an incredibly prolific and fine songwriter, a charismatic performer, and a dude with kind smile and a big heart. (Will was kind enough to sit behind the drumkit on our new record.) We’ve known him for darn near 20 years now. Lamentably, his great band Centro-matic called it a day last winter. (And if you don’t know them and you like loud, rapturous guitar-driven rock that will make the hair stand up on the back of your neck, it would serve you well to investigate that band’s back catalog post-haste.) In a more just, decent world, Will Johnson would be rich and famous and playing the big stages across America. For now, we’ll have to settle for witnessing the career of a great artist in his prime. His new record is called Swan City Vampires, and if you’ve got a good head on your shoulders, you will seek it out and/or search the World Wide Web so that you can find out how you can see him on his spring Living Room Tour. He’s as good as it gets.
Video after the jump.
