Pelican performs tonight at Spanish Moon – Guitarist Trevor de Brauw discusses ‘dark energy’ of Forever Becoming
Pelican, a Chicago instrumental hard rock band, pounded the pavement for years, making a name for itself with relentless touring and a trio of acclaimed albums, beginning with 2005’s Fire In Our Throats Will Beckon the Thaw.
The band performs at Spanish Moon tonight with Coliseum and Red Shield.
Until 2009, guitarist Trevor de Brauw says the band was a full-time job. Then, Pelican almost fell apart.
“[2009] was the point when we stopped playing and started developing home lives,” he says. “The pressure was off in a sense. It was a matter of taking our time and developing things slowly. In all of [the band members’] lives, we were having cycles of things winding down.”
de Brauw and the band lived their 20s on the road. By the time the band’s album What We All Come to Need was released in 2009, the members had grown into the wear and tear of touring life and were well into their 30s. During downtime, it was easy for the band to get hung up on negative energy, he says.
Drummer Larry Herweg insisted the band keep recording during late 2011, telling the members the fans were waiting for a follow-up.
“All of us were kind of like, ‘Whatever,’ then he recorded the drum tracks for songs and sent it to us as if to say, ‘You guys have to do it,'” de Brauw says. “In the process of making this EP, [Herweg] was instrumental in getting the band started again. It turned into this new creative energy. It was no longer about wrapping things up. That was the point at which we were excited and ready to start writing a new album.”
However, founding member/guitarist Laurent Schroeder-Lebec “didn’t feel the creative fire anymore,” de Brauw says.
“[Schroeder-Lebec] told us he wasn’t going to hold us back,” he says. “We were so energetic. We had spent so much time away that we were ready to go for it again.”
After the amicable split with Schroeder-Lebec, Pelican turned inward, brought in touring guitarist Dallas Thomas, and started channeling its negativity into positive energy.
The result is this year’s Forever Becoming, Pelican’s loudest and angriest album to date.
“It’s a record about coming to terms with mortality,” he says. “During the path to recognizing that one’s own time is temporary, there is a lot of beauty lined within that darkness. This record has a very dark energy to it. It’s expressing how we’re coming to terms with that darkness.”
Doors for tonight’s performance open at 7 p.m. The show starts at 8 p.m. Tickets are $15 online.
