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"It was important to me to make sure that it didn't sound like the first record," Ours mastermind Jimmy Gnecco says of Precious, his second album, which hits stores this week. "Where the first record took years of re-evaluating things and writing new parts and then re-arranging them, this one was basically, 'OK, let's capture a moment in time and not be too precious about it.'"
The New Jersey-born and bred Gnecco achieved his goal with Precious; the follow-up to the critically acclaimed Distorted Lullabies is more aggressive and gripping. "We wanted to reach out and grab people," he says. "With the last record, I wanted it to seep into your pores the more you listened to it. Sonically, tonally, we wanted this one to grab you right away, or at least feel the tension of it right from the jump, from the sound of the guitars on [the opening track] 'Kill the Band.'"
Because of the first album's success, this time around Gnecco was faced with deadlines he hadn't previously had to deal with, but that pressure actually helped the process. "Emotionally I couldn't even imagine spending another year making a record," he says. "I'd written a lot of the songs long before we went into the studio . . . so I certainly didn't feel rushed or like we just threw it together."
Helping to keep everything together was producer Ethan Johns (Ryan Adams, Counting Crows), who took the reins for Precious (Steve Lillywhite produced Distorted Lullabies). "Ethan came into the picture because during the first record I brought up his dad [Glyn Johns of the Rolling Stones, the Who and the Clash fame], and how maybe he could produce our record. My A&R guy said, 'I don't know if Ethan's dad is still making records' -- which he is, by the way -- 'but he's got a really talented son named Ethan who lives in L.A., and maybe you'd want to meet with him.'"
Gnecco is celebrating the album's release by hitting the road with the Wallflowers, on the heels of some recent dates with the Cult. The two bands don't have much in common, but Gnecco -- who also toured with Australia's Powderfinger and Pete Yorn -- is used to that. "Years ago playing in New Jersey, struggling to find the right place to play and never feeling like we fit in no matter where we went, we kind of came to the conclusion that there's a good chance that we're never going to fit in," he says. "We just do our thing and hopefully the honesty of what we're doing translates to sixteen-year-olds covered in eyeliner and then to the same people who would go and see the Wallflowers."
STEVE BALTIN
(November 4, 2002)