Dillinger Escape Plan guitarist Ben Weinman has a side project called, Giraffe Tongue Orchestra. Mastodon guitarist Brent Hinds is involved, and originally Jane’s Addiction bassist Eric Avery and Mars Volta drummer Jon Theodore were involved, too.
But now according to an interview that Weinman did with SiriusXM’s Jose Mangin, the band’s drummer is now Thomas Pridgen, also from the Mars Volta, and bassist Pete Griffin, who played with Zappa Plays Zappa and Dethklok. On vocals? Actress and musician Juliette Lewis:
“That’s right, me and her have become pretty close friends and she’s amazing, obviously I’m a huge fan of her work as an actress and many years ago I saw her band Juliette and the Licks play and like most people I was pretty skeptical. I’m like, “Oh another actress or actor that has a band, like vanity project blah, blah, blah.” So I went into the show and I basically saw somebody that gave 110%. By the end of the show she was drenched in sweat, she was throwing herself into the crowd, and when I thought about it I saw this person putting all her energy and spirit into this music, I thought this was almost more real that most bands because she doesn’t need this. She doesn’t need to be playing in front of 500 people on this shitty ugly club, you know? She’s a successful actress–she did a 9-minute-long acting scene with Robert DeNiro for god sakes. And here she is by choice in a grungy club with a dirty toilet just putting everything into it, so when we were thinking about singers and people to collaborate, all of a sudden I was like “You know what? I think that could be cool.” So I reached out to her and we started working together and it’s been really cool.”
Weinman didn’t 100% commit to saying Lewis is a full time member, saying “we have some other people singing as well, I don’t want to get into it because there are some interesting surprises, but we’ll see.” Weinman did say a Giraffe Tongue Orchestra album should be out this year, and will be released on his own Party Smasher Inc. label.
(via ThePRP)
