San Francisco emo rock band Taxes are sharing their new track, “Foie Gras & Sancerre,” and you can check it out right here at New Noise.
The track is the band’s most recent offering from their upcoming album, Retirement Home, set for release on November 4 of this year. According to Taxes’ Robby Cronholm, the record took nearly six years to finish. Cronholm recounts the early days of the the recording process, when the band’s producer Ryan Williams asked if he’d like to record at Dave Grohl’s Studio 606.
“The teenager in me died and went to heaven,” Cronholm says.
There was one last song to track, “Foie Gras & Sancerre,” and Williams asked Cronholm if he’d like to go to Tommy Lee’s private studio. As someone who grew up obsessed with hair metal, it was an immediate yes from Cronholm; he says he showed up, tracked guitars, screamed into the microphone, and Tommy even pulled up with his Rolls Royce and flashed Cronholm the metal sign.
“The afterlife has nothing on this,” Cronholm says.
“I never made it. Lord knows, I tried; I did my best and it wasn’t quite good enough. Do I sound bitter? I am not. Not even a little. I was in a band in the ’90s. A good band, even. We were called ‘crumb,’ and decades later, a new band would steal our name, throwing unimaginable shade our way because as everyone fucking knows, the very first rule of naming a band is a quick Google search to see if a band already exists with the same name. We put out two major label releases and toured extensively and still, they went ahead and called themselves ‘Crumb.’ Worse still, they’re quite popular. So much for Googling my band from the ’90s. Unbelievable. I’m like the Rodney Dangerfield of rock… I get no respect. Do I sound bitter? Don’t answer that.”
Cronholm concludes, “So, in summation, I suppose this song is an examination of two possible paths. One is a road littered with critical and commercial success, with chart-topping singles and world tours, a mighty Peregrine Falcon of Rock taking the world in its claws and devouring it. The other, the course I charted, is littered with dead pigeons and happy accidents. I am finally old enough and tired enough to actually stop, take in the scenery, savor the small victories, bend down to collect a few feathers, and then, finally, add them to my cap. Somehow, that’s enough.”
Stream “Foi Gras & Sancerre” here:
For more from Taxes, find them on Facebook, Instagram, and their official website.
Photo courtesy of Nina Jordan
