The reason that Delta Spirit recorded a brand new EP is that they are extremely skilled at faking their songs for a music video.
“Basically, our label paid us to go back up to the studio where we recorded, to capture us pretending to record,” says singer Matt Vasquez. “It was like, ‘We’ll pay for a weekend, and we’ll pay an engineer to show up and it will look so real.’ And it was so real that it took an hour to lip sync all that bulls— and then we decided to record an EP.” The five songs that make up “Waits Room” continue through the same valley of the shadow they explored in “History from Below,” the album they released in June. To listen to the lyrics of these songs, the words that Vasquez sings most are about heaven and hell. “I’ve had a long road to agnosticism, and it’s been a good one and a really healthy one,” says Vasquez.
Stops along that road have included being raised in a church, being kicked out of that church, spending time in cults and returning to the church after a bad acid trip before leaving again to come to his own conclusions. “For my life, every day is another day of learning less bulls—, and still trying to hold onto some aspects of spirituality,” he says. “I believe there’s a spirituality to mankind.”
‘Really insane and hard to swallow’
It’s Vasquez’s search for spirituality in humanity that seems to both propel Delta Spirit into their more rocking moments as well as anchor them in more contemplative tones.
“The Ballad of Vitaly” is based on a true account of a Russian man who exacted revenge on an airline controller for causing the death of his wife and children when two airplanes collided over Germany.
“I had a Russian mail-order-bride neighbor for a time and I played it for her and she cried,” Vasquez says of the song. “Because for her and for a lot of Russians, this was pretty much a 9/11 situation. I mean, imagine if that happened to Americans; a bunch of American children flying to go study in Spain and then [a man who is pulling a double-shift and] working too hard accidentally runs another airplane into another airplane. And then to have that airline snuff out the story completely and not prosecute the people responsible for that, that’s really insane, and hard to swallow.”
Delta Spirit
Friday, 7 p.m.
The Paradise
967 Comm. Ave., Boston
$17, 18+, 800-745-3000
www.livenation.com
Other shows this weekend
Brandon Flowers
Friday
House of Blues
B-Flo promises this solo thing is more of the Phil Collins variety than it is of the Bjork sort, and that he’ll return to his Killers again. Based on his current look, if Flowers pulls a David Lee Roth, the band could consider recruiting Ricky Martin for a 20-year replacement.
‘The Nutcracker’
Friday through Dec. 31
The Opera House
“The Nutcracker” is the world’s most performed ballet. How could it not be? Every ballet company worth its salt performs it during the holiday season. In fact, it’s the only ballet many people EVER see. So artists, if you really want immortality, not just for your work but your entire art form, make a holiday-themed piece. With giant rats!
