Michael Ciravolo’s Beauty In Chaos is celebrating the release of the first single ‘The Delicate Balance of All Things’ featuring The Missions’ Wayne Hussey off it’s soon to be released new album The Storm Before The Calm. The single is also accompanied by a video that was filmed and directed by Vicente Cordero, edited by Leslie Gladney, and produced by Industrialism Films. This will be the third full length album from Beauty In Chaos which hinges on a more dark and brooding edge this time in it’s ever growing evolution and changing cast of industry luminaries. Michael was kind enough to answer a few questions for Torched on the new single and video release. The album is set to be released some time in early 2020.
You just released ‘The Delicate Balance of All Things’ featuring The Mission’s Wayne Hussey, the first single off your forthcoming album The Storm Before The Calm.. What was the inspiration behind this hauntingly deep track?
When I sat down to start writing ideas for the new record, I knew I wanted it to be a bit darker and starker than ‘finding beauty in chaos’. Something more ‘linear’ and without the emphasis on the standard ‘grand’ choruses. I had been diving back into my old vinyl… ‘first and last and always’ ‘pornography’, and ‘disintegration’. To me, those records have always evoked a feeling, even a temperature. Playing ‘Disintegration’ to me always made the room feel a bit colder. The first three ideas started with me sequestering myself alone in the tracking room of our SAINTinLA Studio with a guitar, bass and a drum machine. I think there was also a bunch of effect pedals and red wine in attendance, too! 🙂 “The Delicate Balance’ music had its genesis there. A drum beat blasting thru the SVT bass amp and me playing the main minor-key guitar riff that appears throughout. I sent Wayne all three of the ideas that started here, and he gravitated towards the track that became “the delicate balance of all things”. The other two ideas have also morphed and blossomed into songs that will appear on the next album, with the cleaver titles ‘idea #1’ and ‘idea #2’ replaced with “The Outside” and “Almost Pure”.
The video for ‘The Delicate Balance of All Things’ features an assortment of deep and somewhat darker imagery… What was your inspiration behind the visuals here?
Unlike the previous six videos, this is one that I had no clear idea in my head going into it. When Wayne came to Los Angeles in August to shoot the “20th Century Boy” and “The Long Goodbye” videos, he brought the rough track of ‘TDBOAT’. When we finished filming the beach scenes for “The Long Goodbye”, Wayne was the one that actually suggested we go back to the studio and film him singing so I had it in case I wanted to do a video later. So, the idea was really built around the shots of him in the studio. The band scene at the end during the outro solo was easy, but the rest had to be filled in with some of the overlaid images and the shot vignettes we shot. I think Wayne’s lyrics and tone of his voice guided where we should go with it. I think we managed to pull together another cool video that is unique from each of the others. This is always my goal going into them, as the videos are, at least for now, the ‘face’ of BIC. Hats off again to Vicente Cordero and Leslie Gladney of Industrialism Films for making this happen.
The ‘horsehead guy’ made another appearance in the new video for ‘The Delicate Balance of All Things’.. is this perhaps the band’s new mascot?
What can I say, I always loved Mr. Horse from the Ren & Stimpy cartoons! The first appearance of the ‘horsehead guy’ was in our “Look Up” video. The mask had been lying around for years as it belonged to my daughter. I stumbled across it as we were looking for props. I thought it might add to ‘dream like’ vibe of that video, especially with Tish’s lyrics being about our family. He appeared again in “20th Century Boy”. You can see the look of shock (or is it ‘what have I got myself into?” on both Rolan and Wayne’s faces when the horsehead guy appears, as I did not tell them prior. My bad 🙂 When we were filming ‘TDBOAT’, we planned to shoot Michael Rozon behind the console, but he got sick that day, so I had to call an audible and the ever opportunistic horsehead guy stepped in! So, I guess appearing in three videos, it is a bit of a running joke… just to add a bit of levity. We do plan a few more videos for ‘the storm before the calm’, and I do have the horsehead guy’s number at the ready 🙂
What was it like working with Wayne again for this new song and video?
He’s always been one of my favorite singers and lyricists, and to call him a friend is a true Blessing. I honestly didn’t think he was going to say yes to being on the record this time, as I knew he had just finished the grueling task of writing his ‘Salad Daze’ autobiography AND was prepping of his massive European solo tour. I went for broke and asked him to come to LA for not one, but two videos AND to co-write a new song. Thankfully, he immediately said yes to the videos … as being on record and film with a Bolan sealed that deal! As for the song, he said he was ‘out of words’ but to send it over. To my surprise, he said one of the tracks really resonated with him and he would give it a go. He mentioned he had the phrase ‘the delicate balance of all things’ kicking around in his head and he was going to see where it took him. A few days later I got his vocal tracks! To me, this is now on my list of one of the many truly great Wayne Hussey songs. “when my heart beats for the very last time I will think only of you” is a great, moving lyric. I really love our ‘au revoir’ version of ‘the long goodbye’, but this one might just surpass it. Over some red wine, he said that he had been holding the phrase ‘the delicate balance of all things’ as a possible title for a Mission record and he might still use it. I said I was ok with that 🙂
Have you ever entertained the idea of possibly touring with BIC?
That’s a tough one. When we first set out to record ‘FBIC’, I never approached it was the idea of performing it live. The logistics of the multiple singers and the complexity of the sheer amount of parts on each song is a bit daunting. As we began compiling the massive undertaking of ‘beauty re-envisioned’, my idle mind began missing performing, especially since I was no longer playing shows with Human Drama or GLJ. I became looking more serious at the how and where of bringing BIC to the stage. I even took it to the point of talking with a couple of goth-festivals, and even dropped the bug in Mr. Hussey’s ear about the possibility of BIC as support on some of next years Mission shows. Then we jumped into this new record, one that I initially planned to be a 3-4 song EP. In typical BIC fashion it grew to 6 songs, with a strong possibility of a 7th to be added to the CD version. Finishing the album, along with our daughters being home for the holidays, and the Mission tour being much earlier in the year than I thought, have put the LIVE idea a bit on the back-burner. Short answer long, I really would like to see this happen, I just want it to be great if it can happen.
Is there anything else that you would like to share that I may have missed? Thank you for taking the time for Torched!
I sincerely appreciate the fact that Torched has fully supported Beauty In Chaos since the beginning! I am blessed that the BIC family continues to grow, and I do hope everyone will continue to follow us as this journey continues and evolves. I am truly excited about what we’ve created with ‘the storm before the calm’ and I hope it becomes a record that conveys a ‘mode’ to everyone. I really hope that everyone that listens to BIC also does a deep dive into the individual works of the singers that are involved.
Beauty In Chaos a masterfully curated musical endeavor by Michael Ciravolo, who is not only an outstanding and well respected musician, engineer and producer in his own right but also the President and CEO of Schecter Guitar Research. His project brings together some of the most iconic names in the music world which includes, Wayne Hussey (The Mission), Simon Gallup (The Cure), Michael Aston (Gene Love Jezebel), Robin Zander, Michael Rozon, Kevin Haskins (Love And Rockets), John Fryer and Al Jourgensen (Ministry), to name a few.
Beauty In Chaos’ new full length album The Storm Before The Calm will be released early this year via 33.3 Music Collective. The new album along with the two previous albums released to date, will be available at http://www.beautyinchaosmusic.com/music-store and Bandcamp.
CREDITS
Wayne Hussey – vocals
Michael Ciravolo – guitars, bass, textures
Michael Rozon – bass, synth
Dirk Doucette – drums
Written by Wayne Hussey and Michael Ciravolo
Recorded, mixed and produced by Michael Rozon
Additional recording by Wayne Hussey
Video produced by Industrialism Films
Video filmed by Vicente Cordero
Video edited by Leslie Gladney
VIDEO BAND
Wayne Hussey – vocals
Michael Ciravolo – guitar
Tish Ciravolo – bass , justice lady
Dirk Doucette – drums
horsehead guy – ???
All images courtesy of Beauty In Chaos
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