A major piece came out about Umphrey’s McGee today, in Rolling Stone, which detailed the jam band’s trip to the famous Abbey Road studios in London. Written by RS veteran David Fricke, the article reveals that the band plan to release the Abbey Road session as The London Session, which will hit the shelves on April 7th via Nothing Too Fancy Music.
The session took place on June 18th, 2014, inside the famous Studio Two of Abbey Road, where the Beatles recorded from 1962 through 1970. The new album will be a mixture of new originals, rearranged familiar UM tunes, and one cover – “I Want You (She’s So Heavy).” The famous Beatles song from Abbey Road is in the band’s repertoire, coming out in live setlists every now and then, but the band was embarrassed to play it at the famous studio.
“We initially bagged the idea… We’re going to start a Beatles song and the engineers there will be like, ‘Really, you’re going to do this?,'” said Brendan Bayliss, but they did it anyway. He adds, “If we don’t play it wrong, it crushes. And we nailed it.”
Listen to it below:
The album will also include acoustic versions of “No Diablo” and “Cut the Cable” from their recently released Similar Skin, as well as “Glory,” “Eat” and “Out of Order,” three familiar tunes that had never found their way onto a release. Additionally, two brand new songs, “Bad Friday” and “Comma Later” will appear on The London Session.
Bayliss spoke about how proud he was of the result and the band itself. It gave him “a sense of legitimacy [he] didn’t have before.” He continued, saying, “This is something no one can take from me. And it gives us confidence moving forward, writing new songs. Any studio experience after this… will be so much less stressful.”
Keep up with the current Umphrey’s McGee tour with our Tour Log!