Rock trio Oysterhead is hoping to mount its first tour since 2001 later this year, drummer Stewart Copeland said during a teleconference with journalists today (June 6). As previously reported, the group, which also features guitarist Trey Anastasio and bassist Les Claypool, will return to live duty later this month at the Bonnaroo festival in Manchester, Tenn.
Oysterhead’s lone album, “The Grand Pecking Order,” was released in 2001 by Elektra. The trio spent Memorial Day weekend rehearsing at Claypool’s California home in preparation for Bonnaroo.
“The plan was always to be an intermittent band and come down from the mountain every five years or so,” Copeland said. “It’s a shoot from the hip sort of thing – not tour, album, tour, album. We come together when we goddamn feel like it. [But] the Bonnaroo invitation came at the right moment. As soon as the three of us are together, all kinds of stuff starts to happen.”
Copeland is thrilled that playing with Oysterhead exposes him not only to different audiences but unique approaches to his craft. “In my world you have to have a song and you play songs and a set list, for that matter,” he said. “We actually do have songs and lyrics [but] we use those songs to leap out from. It’s a whole new thing for me to get that buzz from an audience that’s expecting a brand new piece of music. If we reach those pinnacles, reach those surges, that will enliven the bus ride back to Nashville!”
In related news, Copeland revealed that his documentary “Everyone Stares,” culled from home movies shot during the Police’s heyday, will play on Showtime in August and then arrive on DVD a month later via Universal Music Enterprises.
The DVD will include extra material such as backstage footage with “a different vibe,” according to Copeland. “You can see [guitarist] Andy [Summers] scowling at me. It’s band life that I didn’t have room for in the movie.” “Everyone Stares” will also be screened during Bonnaroo.
Source billboard.com.
