Turbo Fruits
Location: Nashville, TN
Websites:
Bio: With just guitar, bass & drums, the Turbo Fruits make raw, loud, fun and inspired rock & roll, that makes old geezers like us think ... (more)
back to the glory days of the Replacements and Mudhoney. 21-year-old (egad!) Jonas Stein seems to have more than a few 50s, 60s & 70s records in his collection. Originally a drummer, he picked up guitar and founded Be Your Own Pet at the ripe old age of 16. The kid's already phenomenal on the instrument and a formidable songwriter, and I'll bet my 7" single collection that he'll be the Be Your Own Pet member that makes music for a long long time…
The late, great Be Your Own Pet (2004-2008) were born in a Nashville garage, put out two tremendous records, made some crazy-ass videos, threw up all over the world and got in trouble for saying nasty stuff about The Kooks live on the radio. Members of BYOP are pretty tight-lipped about their sudden breakup. Jonas quotes his very wise mom: "The flame that burns twice as bright, burns only half as long…"
Amidst all the hoopla and high-jinx, hard-working Jonas recorded the first Turbo Fruits record as a side project in 2007 and played occasional gigs and house parties with whatever friends wanted to get in the van and sleep on floors.
Unexpectedly, the first Turbo Fruits album garnered even better reviews than press darlings Be Your Own Pet (see below). "Volcano," a crazed ditty inspired by an electric bong of the same name, was a minor sensation on the evening shows on Radio 1. Turbo Fruits played Reading & Leeds Festivals and then Jonas resumed duty with BYOP until last year's band split.
The new album, Echo Kid was recorded on analog tape at Welcome To 1979 studio in Nashville, Tennessee by Jeremy Ferguson who recorded both Be Your Own Pet albums and both Turbo Fruits albums. "Jeremy is a secret weapon -- he's recorded 60 albums in the past two years, but no one knows him outside of Nashville" says Jonas. "Because of the country music boom in the 70s & 80s, Nashville is full of amazing cheap studios in people's houses with vintage equipment. I love recording on tape without a computer - we performed harder because it's harder to cheat."
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