Bryan Beller Reimagines Pre-The Aristocrats Album 'Thanks In Advance'

08-04-2025

(Glass Onyon) Bassist Bryan Beller - widely known for anchoring The Aristocrats (Beller + Guthrie Govan/gtr + Marco Minnemann/dr), Joe Satriani, Dethklok, Steve Vai and Mike Keneally - revisits and reimagines parts of his last solo album before both the birth of The Aristocrats and his seminal work Scenes From The Flood (2019), with the remix EP Calm Before The Storm.

Releasing digitally, it focuses on three compositions that represent the core journey of Beller's 2008 release Thanks In Advance. Those songs - "Greasy Wheel", "Cave Dweller" and "Love Terror Adrenaline/Break Through" - also all contain Aristocratic lineage of some kind, which makes for an interesting look back.

"In the very first gig with Guthrie Govan and Marco Minnemann at the NAMM show in 2011," says Beller, "we each brought two solo compositions for a six-song set. Those songs ended up on our 2012 live album, so lots of folks heard the live trio arrangements of those pieces. Meanwhile I was a very young and inexperienced producer back in 2008, and while I was proud of the studio versions of those tunes at the time, I recently thought, 'Man, I'd like another crack at mixing those. I think there's more there.' Also, 2008 is a million years ago in today's 'forever now' culture, and there's probably people out there who don't even know this stuff exists. So why not reintroduce it with a fresh take?"

Beller once again called upon sonic sherpa Forrester Savell (Karnivool, Bear McCreary) to remix the three tunes. After mixing Scenes From The Flood and the latest Aristocrats album DUCK (2024), Savell was clearly the right choice to set the soundstage for a new experience.

With "Greasy Wheel" and "Cave Dweller" appearing on The Aristocrats' Boing, We'll Do It Live (2012), "Love Terror Adrenaline" contained a unique marker in Beller's solo catalog: It's the only work featuring then-future Aristocrats drummer Marco Minnemann.

"'Love Terror Adrenaline/Break Through' was an intensely complex and emotionally charged 10-minute piece," Beller explains, "about experiencing and getting beyond a panic attack caused by all sorts of inner demons. I wanted the song to reflect that struggle, and it's a beast. I didn't know Marco that well back then, but I'd played a couple of gigs with him for ex-Frank Zappa guitarist Mike Keneally. There was an intensity and aggression in the way Marco tackled the most difficult passages that instinctively felt right to me. So I brought both Marco and Mike onto this nightmare piece, and they really did incredible things with it."

The EP also features performances by drummers Joe Travers (Zappa Plays Zappa, Eric Johnson) and Toss Panos (Michael Landau, Larry Carlton); guitarists Rick Musallam (Ben Taylor, Carly Simon) and Griff Peters (John Mayer, Billie Myers); and keyboardist Jeff Babko (Jimmy Kimmel Live, Steely Dan, Sheryl Crow).

The title Calm Before The Storm references Beller's own personal journey at the time, an emotional whipsaw over several years. "I moved to Nashville in 2006 and started working on 'Thanks In Advance' right away. The album's story chaotically worked towards a calm and peaceful vibe in the end, symbolized by the 'Break Through' moment after eight minutes of terrorized adrenaline. That's where I left the narrative, sitting in a space of optimism and gratitude. Then, life went on and...well, a lot of things happened. And The Aristocrats suddenly exploded out of nowhere a couple of years later."

"Then, in 2013 my marriage failed and I moved from Nashville back to Los Angeles, with a somewhat infamous stop at a crazypants gas station in Texas occurring along the way. I also learned some things about both myself and human nature that were not exactly aligned with my original 'Thanks In Advance' vibes. Working through that cognitive dissonance was the origin of Scenes From The Flood, even though it took six more years to bring it to fruition. And the very first idea for that album was 'The Storm', a metaphor for what had swept through my life.

"So the calm moment before everything went nuts - that's where this EP ends. And I thought the material it took to get there deserved a fresh look."

Track Listing:
1. Greasy Wheel
2. Cave Dweller
3. Love Terror Adrenaline/Break Through