Jerry Cantrell Reimagines I Want Blood For Spoken Word Series

12-06-2024

(Speakeasy) Jerry Cantrell's recently released album, I Want Blood, is being reimagined as a spoken-word series, with new versions of the album tracks debuting every Thursday, and featuring video animations by Boy Tillekens. The first installment is for "Vilified," and can be streamed now.

In a recent episode of the Lipps Service podcast, Cantrell shared how the spoken-word pieces came to be: "I wanted to do something special, try to do something cool, and I've never done a spoken word recitation of the lyrics, and I thought it might be kind of cool to have it on the B-side of 'Vilified.' I recorded it, and it sounded cool. I thought maybe it needs some music or something, and I was sitting there with Maxwell Urasky, my demo partner. He's a really talented musician, and he said 'Let me mess around with it for a night.' He came back the next day with that piece of music, and it sounded killer. I brought it in to Joe Barresi and he said, 'Man, you should do this with all of them.'

So I sent it out to my friends, and they hadn't heard the songs, which I thought was really cool. I got this creative stew going of sending the lyrics out to people, having them come up with the music, and sending it back. We ended up with nine pieces of really interesting takes on the lyrics, but the music is done by creative partners of mine, and it has nothing to do with the real music, so it is truly a standalone piece."

Additional collaborators on the project include Barresi, Greg Puciato (Better Lovers, The Black Queen), Roy Mayorga (Ministry), Gil Sharone (Stolen Babies, Team Sleep), Rani Sharone (Stolen Babies), George Adrian (The Maybirds), composer Vincent Jones, and producer Michael Rozon.

The spoken-word version of "Vilified" arrives as Cantrell heads out on his first tour supporting the critically-acclaimed album, I Want Blood. The five-week tour kicks off on Jan.31 in Niagara Falls, with Filter opening on all dates.