(RockAndMetal.com) (05/18/05)

Edited By Michael Bennett

NEW YORK, NY, USA - New York City's MORNINGWOOD will release their self-titled debut album via Capitol Records on August 2nd.

The band, fronted by 23-year-old tempest Chantal Claret, made their reputation in the city's clubs with a bumping, grinding frenzy of a live show and instant anthems like 'Take Off Your Clothes,' a dictate that some of their fans have been known to take literally.

Morningwood was born when Claret met Pedro Yanowitz (who had played drums for The Wallflowers, Natalie Merchant and Money Mark before turning to the bass) at a birthday party for Sean Lennon at the historic Dakota in 2001.

"Sean spontaneously asked everyone to take turns singing him a birthday song on the spot," remembers Yanowitz.

"There were great songwriters in the room like Rufus and Martha Wainwright."

"And when it was Chantal's turn, I thought she'd pass because she doesn't play an instrument, but she launched into a song she wrote when she was sixteen with no accompaniment, and her voice just blew everyone away."

"You could hear a pin drop. I was hooked, and Morningwood was born that night."

The newly christened duo immediately began writing songs together, and were soon joined by former Cibo Matto drummer John Paul Keenon O.

Guitarist and vocalist Richard Steel, who is originally from Leeds but has lived in New York for ten years (many of them spent as a guitarist for Spacehog), was the last to join the band.

On November 13th, 2003 the current incarnation of Morningwood played their first show together at Piano's in New York City's lower east side.

After becoming the stuff of local legend for their off-the-wall live shows -- which always provoke a lot of bumping, grinding and dancing, both onstage and off -- Morningwood were spontaneously added to a showcase for Capitol Records executives, where they proceeded to completely wipe the stage with the intended headliners, and soon found themselves signing a recording deal with the label.

Ceaselessly inspired by the insanity of their home city but dying to get away from the endless distraction of living in it, the band was eager to record their debut elsewhere.

That's when famed producer Gil Norton called to invite the band to London.

Norton, who rarely works with new bands (but who has been responsible for masterworks by everybody from Echo And The Bunnymen to The Pixies to Foo Fighters) got a hold of Morningwood's demos, and reached out to the band directly to produce their debut album.

The band moved to England to record at London's Rak Studios, and in a house adjacent to the studio the band holed up for three months and created their self-titled debut record.

"There were no girlfriends, no boyfriends, no family - it was like summer camp, except with analogue equipment and Gil Norton," says Claret.

Most of the material used for the album was already written by Claret and Yanowitz by the time they got to the studio, but new contributions from Richard Steel and John Paul Keenon O. and a new sonic hugeness courtesy of Gil Norton turned the songs into bigger animals altogether.

For instance, the song 'Jetsetter' was born via a phone call in which Yanowitz, who was on tour in Texas, played a riff for Claret in London.

She wrote the first line after waking up in the middle of night with the riff in her head, and they finished it the next time they were together in New York.

'Take Off Your Clothes' was the first song the band recorded together.

Yanowitz worked on the song for a month, and Claret had the vocals nailed down in an hour.

"I just started singing, and it was done in two takes," she recalls, adding that this is one of the tracks she finds to be most easily misinterpreted.

"People think I'm joking, but it really is a love song."

"When you're so hot for someone and every time you see them you just want to take off their clothes."

"It's an 'I heart, your body - we don't need to talk' - song."

It's no surprise that the finished product is an unabashed party album - a spiked punch bowl of decadent Sunset Strip swagger (i.e. Guns N' Roses, Motley Crue), stadium Hard Rock with Bubblegum hooks (i.e. Van Halen, AC/DC), popped-up New Wave (i.e. The Cars, The Knack) and that knowing cheekiness that only a female Rock star can pull off (i.e. Joan Jett, Hole).

Songs like 'Nu Rock' and 'Body 21' literally erupt out of the speakers - as catchy as they are searing.

'Take Off Your Clothes,' which Morningwood fans have been known to take literally at live shows, reflects the band's unabashed sense of fun.

'Nth Degree' is a convertible top-down, Summer love song and a call to the dancefloor that can not be denied.

And throughout the album, the band take daring hairpin turns with their dynamics.

For example, 'Jetsetter' in particular goes from flirty whisper to epic Hard Rock stomp in the blink of an eye, before lovingly destroying everything in its path.

And now that the album's been completed, the band have returned to their first love - playing live and loud.

"You have to really love both extremes - recording is really never moving and being in a hole and playing live is moving every second and never stopping.

"If you love both of those extremes, this is like the best job in the world," says Claret.

The band's live show is also even more unhinged than their debut album promises.

Claret declares that, for Morningwood, "the entertainment factor is huge. Every night we have to win, win the crowd."

"We capture an attitude, that 'balls-to-the-wall' feeling, you just don't hear very much in New York these days."

"At one time, there was a grittiness here with the local bands -- a passion and an energy of sorts -- but now it seems pretty 'safe.'"

Yanowitz adds that "it is one of our band's missions to try to get as many people as possible to start their own bands."

"I mean, there have been a lot of girls that we've seen after shows that have been like 'I'm gonna start a band,' and that's just the most amazing thing for us to hear."

For a band self-described as "a monster truck rally having tantric sex with a Bond girl," Morningwood take their fun very seriously.

"Morningwood" Track Listing:

1. Nu Rock
2. Televisor
3. Nth Degree
4. Jetsetter
5. Take Off Your Clothes
6. Body 21
7. Easy
8. Babysitter
9. New York Girls
10. Everybody Rules
11. Ride The Lights

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