Lightning Bolt is an American

noise rock Noise rock (sometimes called noise punk) is a noise music, noise-oriented style of experimental rock that spun off from punk rock in the 1980s. Drawing on movements such as minimal music, minimalism, industrial music, and New York hardcore, a ...

duo from

Providence, Rhode Island Providence () is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Rhode Island, most populous city of the U.S. state of Rhode Island. The county seat of Providence County, Rhode Island, Providence County, it is o ...

, composed of Brian Chippendale on

drums The drum is a member of the percussion instrument, percussion group of musical instruments. In the Hornbostel–Sachs classification system, it is a membranophones, membranophone. Drums consist of at least one Acoustic membrane, membrane, c ...

and

vocals Singing is the art of creating music with the voice. It is the oldest form of musical expression, and the human voice can be considered the first musical instrument. The definition of singing varies across sources. Some sources define sing ...

and Brian Gibson on

bass guitar The bass guitar (), also known as the electric bass guitar, electric bass, or simply the bass, is the lowest-pitched member of the guitar family. It is similar in appearance and construction to an Electric guitar, electric but with a longer nec ...

. The band met and formed in 1994 as students of the

Rhode Island School of Design The Rhode Island School of Design (RISD , pronounced "Riz-D") is a private art and design school in Providence, Rhode Island. The school was founded as a coeducational institution in 1877 by Helen Adelia Rowe Metcalf, who sought to increase th ...

. Lightning Bolt were listed 8th in

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

's Artists of the Decade 2000–09. Lightning Bolt are known for their guerrilla-style live performances, where they typically play on the ground rather than a stage, with the crowd gathered around them. The band's sound is typically loud and aggressive, though the group cites composers

Philip Glass Philip Glass (born January 31, 1937) is an American composer and pianist. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential composers of the late 20th century. Glass's work has been associated with minimal music, minimalism, being built up fr ...

and

Sun Ra Le Sony'r Ra (born Herman Poole Blount, May 22, 1914 – May 30, 1993), better known as Sun Ra, was an American jazz composer, bandleader, piano and synthesizer player, and poet known for his experimental music, "cosmic" philosophy, prolific ou ...

as compositional influences.

History

The band formed while Chippendale and Gibson attended the

, and Chippendale had heard about "a new kid who was a whiz on the

." The two formed Lightning Bolt, with Brian Chippendale on

, Brian Gibson on

, and with Hisham Bharoocha on

guitar The guitar is a stringed musical instrument that is usually fretted (with Fretless guitar, some exceptions) and typically has six or Twelve-string guitar, twelve strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming ...

and

joining the group after their first show. Bharoocha left the group in 1996 to continue with another RISD band that would eventually become

Black Dice Black Dice is an American experimental noise music band based in Brooklyn, New York and consisting of brothers Bjorn and Eric Copeland along with Aaron Warren. Formed in 1997, the group was initially inspired by hardcore and noise rock, but s ...

, and Chippendale took over vocal duties. The only officially released music with Bharoocha was a track on the ''Repopulation Program'' compilation. For the first few years, Lightning Bolt was primarily an improvisational band, touring the United States for months at a time and "just playing". The concept of writing songs and recording an album didn't occur to the band until 1997, when Ben McOsker, founder of

Load Records Load Records was an American experimental music-oriented independent record label based out of Providence, Rhode Island. "Load Records might possibly be in possession of the world's most challenging record roster," writes Mark Hensch of Thrash Pi ...

, approached the duo. During these formative years, Chippendale and his freshman-year college roommate Matt Brinkman began to set up Fort Thunder, a disused warehouse space in the Olneyville district of Providence. The space eventually came to house a number of local avant-garde artists and musicians, including Brian Ralph as well as Lightning Bolt. The band's first full-length album was a self-titled vinyl record on the

label. The album was initially released in a limited edition pressing of 750 copies, and a 50-minute companion cassette titled "Zone" was released later. In 1999 the album was re-released on CD, including "Zone" as bonus tracks and alternative cover art. Lightning Bolt's second full-length album was '' Ride the Skies'', released in 2001, followed by '' Wonderful Rainbow'' in 2003. The band starred in the 2003 tour-DVD '' The Power of Salad'' directed by Peter Glantz and Nick Noe. Lightning Bolt have also performed in DVD compilations such as ''Pick a Winner'' (2004) and ''Sleep When You are Dead'' by performance artists Mighty Robot (2007). Rumors have persisted concerning the release of an improvisational album entitled ''Frenzy''. A post on Lightning Bolt's official website in early 2004 read "The next Lightning Bolt album, Frenzy, is currently in the works over at Load Records. It is expected to be available at the end of the summer." No official word has since been released. In 2005, Lightning Bolt released '' Hypermagic Mountain'', their most critically acclaimed album to date. In 2006, Lightning Bolt was deported from Japan days after they arrived to continue their tour from the UK. Band members were detained on arrival on the grounds that they did not have work permits. Their official appeal was rejected after 48 hours, and they were deported back to the United States. In 2009, their album '' Earthly Delights'' was released on Load Records. In 2012, their first EP '' Oblivion Hunter'' was released on Load Records. The EP is a collection of unreleased material recorded in 2008. On March 9, 2015, the group's full length '' Fantasy Empire'' became available to stream via NPR's First Listen. The accompanying writeup praised the increased clarity and fidelity of the recording, as compared to their earlier work, citing as a parallel example "... the scene in The Wizard Of Oz where a sepia tone gives way to Technicolor; it opens up new vistas to the sound, while giving the band an opportunity to exhibit more involved musicianship." It was released on the Thrill Jockey label on March 25, 2015. On October 11, 2019, the group released their seventh studio album '' Sonic Citadel'' on ''

Thrill Jockey Thrill Jockey is an American independent record label established by former Atlantic Records A&R representative Bettina Richards and based in Chicago. History Richards started the label in 1992 with $35,000 of family and personal capital, while ...

''.

Musical and lyrical style

The band's music takes cues from Japanese

bands such as

Boredoms Boredoms () (later known as V∞redoms) is a rock band from Osaka, Japan formed in 1986. The band's sound is often referred to as noise rock, or sometimes Japanoise (Japan's noise music scene), though their more recent records have moved towar ...

and

Ruins Ruins () are the remains of a civilization's architecture. The term refers to formerly intact structures that have fallen into a state of partial or total disrepair over time due to a variety of factors, such as lack of maintenance, deliberate ...

, although composers

and

are acknowledged influences. The band's sound consists of Chippendale's frenetic drumming, his usually incomprehensible vocals, and Gibson's rhythmic bass guitar – an example of which is the song "13 Monsters", where Chippendale sings a playground style counting chant through heavy distortion over the instrumentals of his drums and Gibson's bass guitar. As for the band's genre, Brian Gibson is quoted as saying, "I hate, hate, hate the category "noise-punk" I really don't like being labeled with two words that have so much baggage. It's gross." As the group's vocalist, Chippendale eschews a conventional microphone, instead using the type of microphone built into a household telephone receiver, held in his mouth or attached to a mask, which is then run through an effects processor to further alter the sound. Chippendale has also used a KMD 8021 Drum Exciter, a simple drum-

synth A synthesizer (also synthesiser or synth) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis a ...

module, triggered by the bass drum. Gibson plays his

tuned to

cello The violoncello ( , ), commonly abbreviated as cello ( ), is a middle pitched bowed (sometimes pizzicato, plucked and occasionally col legno, hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually intonation (music), tuned i ...

standard tuning, in intervals of fifths (C G D A), using a

banjo The banjo is a stringed instrument with a thin membrane stretched over a frame or cavity to form a resonator. The membrane is typically circular, and in modern forms is usually made of plastic, where early membranes were made of animal skin. ...

string for the high A. He used this four-string setup for several years, but has recently been seen using a five-string setup, tuned to C G D A E, with banjo strings for the A and E. Gibson also uses several effects pedals, including overdrive pedals, an octaver, a delay pedal, and a whammy pedal ( pitch shifter). Like many noise rock bands, Lightning Bolt mostly plays extremely loud, aggressive music. In the film '' The Power of Salad'', Gibson attributes much of their success to volume:

We used to get more negative reactions when edidn't have as loud of stuff. It's just, be super loud and you're all set. (laughs) The rock and roll has been revealed. I do feel that that's the message – if there's any message, that's what it is. This is kinda what we do to keep ourselves excited these days. In ''these'' days – everyone knows what I'm talking about. (laughs)

The band have reportedly never been fans of the studio recording process. When they recorded five tracks for their eponymous debut album released in 1999, they discarded four of them and replaced them with lo-fidelity tracks recorded at various live shows from 1997 and 1998. However, their following two albums, '' Ride the Skies'' and '' Wonderful Rainbow'', were recorded more traditionally in a studio. For '' Hypermagic Mountain'', half the tracks were recorded in studio, while the rest were performed and recorded in a house direct to a 2-track DAT master tape, where the audio engineer was unable to tell exactly how the final result would sound. Since the band has only two members and two instruments, their sound has a somewhat limited range, though this is often noted as a positive thing. In one interview, Gibson states that his experiences in Lightning Bolt "has showed imthe power of an extremely limited palette." Lightning Bolt's lyrics, when decipherable, are generally tongue-in-cheek, covering such topics as fairy tales, heavy metal clichés, terrorism, anarchy, and superheroes. They delve occasionally into more political subjects, such as the anti- Bush "Dead Cowboy" from ''Hypermagic Mountain''.

Live performances

Lightning Bolt are known for their so-called "

guerrilla gig A guerrilla gig is a type of concert performed in a non-traditional setting or arranged in an unusual fashion. It became associated with punk rock, and noise rock bands in UK and the United States during the early to mid-2000s. Bands who perform a ...

s", preferring to play on the floor of the venue rather than the stage, creating a tight circle of spectators around the band. They have also been known to start playing only a few seconds after the opening band finishes, often taking the audience by surprise. In 2004, Lightning Bolt played on the doorstep of radio DJ

John Peel John Robert Parker Ravenscroft (30 August 1939 – 25 October 2004), better known as John Peel, was an English radio presenter and journalist. He was the longest-serving of the original disc jockeys on BBC Radio 1, broadcasting regularly from ...

's chalet at noon during the

All Tomorrow's Parties "All Tomorrow's Parties" is a song by the Velvet Underground and Nico, written by Lou Reed and released as the band's debut single in 1966. The song is from their 1967 debut studio album, ''The Velvet Underground & Nico''. Inspiration for the so ...

festival, about which neighbor

Steve Albini Steven Frank Albini (; July 22, 1962 – May 7, 2024) was an American musician and audio engineer. He founded and fronted the influential post-hardcore and noise rock bands Big Black (1981–1987), Rapeman (1987–1989) and Shellac (band), ...

Shellac Shellac () is a resin secreted by the female Kerria lacca, lac bug on trees in the forests of India and Thailand. Chemically, it is mainly composed of aleuritic acid, jalaric acid, shellolic acid, and other natural waxes. It is processed and s ...

and

Big Black Big Black was an American punk rock band from Evanston, Illinois, active from 1981 to 1987. Founded first as a solo project by singer and guitarist Steve Albini, the band became a trio with an initial lineup that included guitarist Santiago Dur ...

commented "Best alarm clock I've ever had." They have also staged concerts in kitchens, on sidewalks, and in parking lots.

Members

;Present :* Brian Chippendale – drums (1994–present), vocals (1996–present) :* Brian Gibson – bass guitar (1994–present) ;Former :* Hisham Bharoocha – vocals, drums, effects (1994–1996)

Discography

;Albums * '' Lightning Bolt'' (1999) * '' Ride the Skies'' (2001) * '' Wonderful Rainbow'' (2003) * '' Hypermagic Mountain'' (2005) * '' Earthly Delights'' (2009) * '' Fantasy Empire'' (2015) * '' Sonic Citadel'' (2019)

References

External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Lightning Bolt Lightning Bolt (band) albums American noise rock music groups Musical duos from Rhode Island American rock music duos Rhode Island School of Design alumni in music Musical groups from Providence, Rhode Island Musical groups established in 1994 1994 establishments in Rhode Island Load Records artists Thrill Jockey artists