The Hempsteadys, an eclectic 11-piece punk/ska/reggae band from New London, play tracks from “El Amor De Los Muertos” at the Space in Hamden on Wednesday, Dec. 9, where they’ll open for hard-partying troubadour Andrew W.K.
Very little about the Hempsteadys, an eclectic 11-piece punk/ska/reggae band from New London, is easily contained.
Membership has typically been fluid; keyboardists, horn players and vocalists came and went — at least initially — while singer Andy Carey, drummer Matt Covey and others settled into place. There was an unspoken open-door policy.
“We didn’t set out with any goals,” Covey says. “We just wanted to explore the idea.”
After a three-song EP (“The Fox”) and a collection of rarities and demos (“Couldn’t Get It Up”) the Hempsteadys just released a debut album, “El Amor De Los Muertos,” on Rich Martin’s Telegraph Recording Company.
But rather than simply round up songs the band’s been playing live in recent years, Carey floated a unifying concept, involving B-movie monsters, Blaxploitation films and a song, “Teen Wolf 2012”; the Hempsteady hive mind took over from there.
“[Carey] had a loose plot, and we continued to game it out every practice,” says Covey. “We’d come up with new ideas to fill out the story, and it sort of took shape with Andy as the lead creative thinker. But whoever was present would be throwing out ideas about how certain characters would be connected.”
The Hempsteadys play tracks from “El Amor De Los Muertos” at the Space in Hamden on Wednesday, Dec. 9, where they’ll open for hard-partying troubadour Andrew W.K.
Carey and Covey once played in a band called Hand Grenade Serenade. Years ago, they got booked on an Asbestos Records showcase, opening for L.A. punk/reggae band the Aggrolites.
“They blew the roof off the place,” Covey says. “There was a long floor, and the singer parted the crowd and did a giant, running slide. It was electric. We decided that we needed to form a reggae band after that.”
Several of the musical ideas on “El Amor” existed, in skeletal form, before the idea was fully formed. “Half or more of the songs were written from scratch with the idea already in mind,” Covey says, while others were needed to fill out the plot. New band members, when they joined the Hempsteadys, immediately grappled with the idea. “They’d realize there was a hole that needed to be addressed, and that would take the form of a song that we’d then write.”
On “El Amor,” there are songs about wizards and astral planes (“The Wizards Manifesto,” a sort of spoken-word introduction to the whole collection, over a pair of repeating mid-tempo vamps), mummies (“Pharoah,” a fortified dose of rapid-fire ska and surf-rock guitar figures) and legendary actor Bela Lugosi (“Bela Lugosi’s Ghost,” equal parts NOLA funk and reggae-rock).
To deal with such blatantly (and comically) evil forces, Carey and company come equipped: bassist Shaun Burgundy leaves giant holes on “Black Belt Has a Posse,” a streetwise, swaggering instrumental, around a trio of darting guitars. “Black Belt Bones” starts with a sinister, minutelong guitar intro that’s equal parts “Hotel California” and spaghetti-Western soundtrack, before launching into an Afrobeat groove and gang-shouted chorus: “Don’t raise your hand to Black Belt Bones.” Charles Bronson shows up (“Charles Mutha F**K*N’ Big Blunt Bronson”).
Most surprising, however, is the album’s closer, “My Heart Is Yours,” a slow, waltz-time Northern soul number, with Carey’s gravelly voice surrounded by stop-time horn figures, arpeggiated guitars and a phaser-zapped electric piano.
“El Amor” was recorded at Carl Franklin’s Pwop Studios in New London, where Covey, who also played drums for the Suicide Dolls, has worked with Franklin on several projects (including previous Hempsteadys EPs). N.M.E. the Illest, one of the most widely known hip-hop artists in the state, recently joined the Hempsteadys as a second lead vocalist and hype-man.
The Hempsteadys typically play two or three shows a month.
“It’s hard to mobilize a band of this size, regardless of how close it is to where we live,” Covey says. “It really pays, especially with a band like this that can be a mess-slash-total spectacle, to be wary of how much you’re playing in a specific area. It’s trickier to be busier than that.”
The band doesn’t tour often, but that might change.
“When you have a lot of members, not everybody is ready to go,” Covey says. “For about a year now, this has been the only time that every member of the band is on the same page. … It’s working out nicely now, which helped us finish the record and make it as good as it is, but it also makes it easier for us to explore that next step.”
Getting involved with Telegraph, Covey says, was a big part of that strategy.
“We need to have these other things in place,” Covey says. “Sometimes when you’re a power trio, you can just hit the road and things take care of themselves. For us, we want to make sure the record has some legs before we hit the road.”
THE HEMPSTEADYS open for Andrew W.K. at the Space in Hamden on Wednesday, Dec. 9. Doors open at 7 p.m. Tickets are $23 to $25. Information: thespacect.com.
