A new Margot & the Nuclear So and So’s album is being made, but the band’s personnel is significantly different than the lineup that recorded 2008’s “Animal!/Not Animal” projects.
Vocalist-guitarist Richard Edwards, bass player Tyler Watkins and multi-instrumentalist Erik Kang are holdovers, presently recording in Chicago.
Performances Friday at the Vogue and Saturday at Bloomington’s Buskirk-Chumley Theater will mark an exit for the following band members:
- Andy Fry, guitarist and co-founder of the band with Edwards.
- Chris Fry, drummer and key contributor to the band’s video documentation and album art (which has been painted by Chris’ girlfriend, Stacy Novak). Chris and Andy are brothers.
- Emily Watkins, keyboard player and vocalist — a female counterpoint for Edwards’ singing. (Ashley White sang in Edwards’ pre-Margot band, Archer Avenue, and Katie Todd is working on the new recordings after her cameo appearances on “Animal!/Not Animal”). Emily and Tyler are not related.
- Casey Tennis, percussionist and energetic focal point during Margot shows.
- Hubert Glover, trumpet player featured on signature Margot tunes “Quiet As a Mouse” and “Vampires in Blue Dresses.”
Edwards characterized the departures as voluntary.
“If you tour and do this stuff, you’re kind of in a vacuum for three or four years,” said Edwards, who’s an expectant father for the first time. “It seems like everybody, including myself, had to have that extended moment where you have to re-fall in love with what you’ve been doing or you have to move on from it for the time being.”
Major-label Epic Records issued “Animal!/Not Animal,” and the company is committed to the follow-up.
“(The new songs are) much louder and more aggressive in general, but the quiet moments are much more bare,” Edwards said. “No strings or horns. Fun times.”
The new members of the Margot recording unit are keyboard player Cameron McGill (an accomplished Chicago-based solo artist), drummer Brian Deck (producer for “Animal!/Not Animal”) and guitarist Ron Kwasman (who’s overseen greening and recycling efforts for the band Phish).
If the lineup shuffling is the end of an era, Edwards talks in terms of punctuating it with a comma rather than a period.
“I don’t think anything is final,” he said. “It’s just going to be more in and out in terms of membership. I don’t see myself not playing with Andy or Chris or Emily or anybody again.”
