ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT, AUG. 14, 2003
By Steve Newton
While preparing to interview Nebula guitarist-vocalist Eddie Glass, I honed in on his band’s Web site and came across a 1998 write-up from a concert at the Tattoo Bar in Forth Worth, Texas. In it, a reviewer named Jeff Downing raved that “Eddie Glass tore out riffs from his vintage SG like [Tony] Iommi after eating [Jimi] Hendrix’s acid.” Naturally, when Glass calls from his home in the Echo Park area of L.A., I have to ask him if—as a member of the stoner-rock contingent that includes Queens of the Stone Age, Kyuss, and his former group, Fu Manchu—he actually would eat Hendrix’s acid. (Every experienced journalist knows that asking the stupidest questions often gets the best answers.)
“Well, I don’t consider myself as a stoner-rock artist,” Glass replies. “I think the whole stoner-rock movement is a cool movement, of course, but I don’t think any artist is gonna be like, ‘Yeah, that’s what I am.’ I mean, if you drink beer when you play music, does that make you a beer rocker?”
Good point. And having done exactly that, I hereby proclaim myself a dedicated, dyed-in-the-wool beer rocker! But getting back to my original stupid question: would Glass eat Hendrix’s acid, or not? “I’m sure it’s pretty old by now,” he says of the guitar legend’s psychedelic stash, “so it’s probably not any good. It doesn’t get better with age, you know.”
Another good point. In fact, this Glass guy is full of them. He uses his trusty Gibson SG to make several more on Nebula’s forthcoming CD, Atomic Ritual, scheduled for release next month on the new Liquor and Poker label. The trio will be previewing songs from that Sabbath-meets-the-blues disc when it plays the Brickyard next Sunday (August 24) as part of a coheadlining North American tour with fellow L.A. rock act the Bellrays.
Though Atomic Ritual won’t be out yet, Glass notes that on its current jaunt the group will be selling a limited-edition vinyl seven-inch featuring two tracks from the upcoming album, plus a live studio jam of the title track and “Instant Gratification”, a song off its 2001 Sub Pop release, Charged. “Vinyl’s good,” Glass contends. “We rerelease our records on vinyl still. It’s cool to have it, like, in a big size. CDs have lost some of the soul, it feels like.”
The live jam on the seven-inch marks the recording debut of Nebula bassist Dennis Wilson, a “fuckin’ awesome player” who joined Glass and drummer Ruben Romano after original member Mark Abshire hung up the four-string. “I think he got a good job here in L.A. and decided to make it easy on himself, financially,” the 32-year-old Glass relates. “I mean, it’s a real commitment, man, to go out on the road and struggle. There’s a lotta people who wish they could do it, but if they got slapped with the actual reality of doin’ it, I don’t think they could really handle it.”