In seven years, Nashville’s raucous garage-rawk royalty Turbo Fruits have upgraded like car models: increasingly streamlined without losing their power. Their 2007 debut’s supernova of thrashing tempos and crashing snares has been slowing down and growing up, injecting 2009’s Echo Kid and 2012’s Butter with strains of other genres like punk blues and satire (“Mama’s Mad ‘Cos I Fried My Brain”), following a similar trajectory to neighbors and former labelmates Kings of Leon.
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For their fourth record, No Control, frontman Jonas Stein decided to separate from KoL’s label Serpents & Snakes to self-finance the record, preferring to have creative control rather than take up the label’s suggestion to record with Nashville songwriters. It’s out April 20 with, of course, Turbo Fruits-branded rolling papers in the deluxe limited edition.
When the band’s album funds ran dry, the Black Keys’ Patrick Carney stepped in to finish a couple of tracks in his studio. “Turbo Fruits are one of my favorite bands from Nashville, and they are also some of my favorite people from Nashville,” he says. “I’m excited about their new album and glad they let me help out in making some of it.”
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The first listen off No Control, “The Way I Want You,” is a song about the sex, drugs, and rock and roll-fueled demolition of a relationship, and it reaches new levels of sophistication for the Turbo Fruits. Short and bittersweet, the song’s simple, catchy titular refrain, slightly hoarse vocal overlay, and unmissably Strokes-ian guitar lines seem to reflect a sobered Stein, who had a lot of thoughts to share on the subject.
“A lot of the lyrical content (both the song and the album) is about a relationship not working out,” he tells Billboard. “The lyrics are simple but heartfelt — about heartache and heartbreak. This song idea came to me at an unexpected moment, working on my family’s farm. I jumped off the tractor and ran inside, grabbed my guitar and recorded a rough idea on my voice memos app on my phone. Kingsley [Brock, guitarist] later helped me flesh it out — he knew what I was going through and really honed in on my feelings. He’s been my friend since childhood and can read my brain better than anyone.
“It’s funny because the song didn’t originally make the finished album, but Patrick [Carney] insisted we try it again. We had run out of money so he recorded it at his house and hired an engineer. He did that for a couple songs and they turned out great and we love them. We owe him big time.”
Check out the tracklist below, and check ’em out live if you’re going to South by Southwest this year. You won’t be disappointed.
No Control Tracklist:
1. Show Me Something Real
2. The Way I Want You
3. Don’t Let Me Break Your Heart Again
4. Favorite Girl
5. Need To Know
6. Don’t Change
7. No Reason To Stay
8. Friends
9. Blow These Clouds
10. Worry About You
11. Big Brother