If you walked through downtown Edinburgh in February – and stopped to tip the three buskers funking it up in sub-zero temperatures – then you’ll already know High Fade’s Twice As Nice.
“There’s people who probably unsuspectingly heard three-quarters of the new album,” reflects frontman/guitarist Harry Valentino. “Busking is still our secret weapon, and Scotland is the best place to do it. It’s freezing. None of these people have bought a ticket. They have zero investment. But the video of us busking the first single, Swamp, got almost a million views.”
If the Scottish trio’s street-level work ethic hasn’t changed since we met them on debut album Life’s Too Fast, their musical modus operandi certainly has. Back then, in 2024, High Fade felt like a band grabbing at genres as they pelted by in a shopping cart (a dash of Primus and Chili Peppers funk, spliced with Phish’s epic jams and Rush-sized ambition). “It would take you an entire week, all day, 24/7,” agrees the frontman, “to actually listen through one of my Spotify playlists.”
Now, Valentino says, he, Oliver Sentance (bass) and Heath Campbell (drums) have streamlined their sound. “Don’t get me wrong; I love Life's Too Fast, but the songs were trying to be 10 different things at once. Some people have said this one is more punk-funk. I'm singing a lot more on this album too, whereas before vocals were an afterthought.”
Tracking last December, Nashville’s East Iris Studios didn’t know what had hit it. “We were the loudest thing recorded there in a while,” beams Valentino of the hell he raised with his Suhr Modern T, Marshall JMP and Hughes & Kettner GrandMeister Deluxe 40.
“Graeme [Young], our engineer, is very Scottish. He’d give us proper abuse through the talkback mic: ‘Lads, go for a cigarette. It's not getting any better.’ You know, straight-up savagery. ‘That was the worst take I’ve ever heard.’ But for us, it really works. We cut nine songs in two days.”
Of these, Valentino cites warp-speed wig-out The Fly as the most challenging (“I'll watch a video back and I'm like, ‘Jesus, that was rapid…’”), and Sick of Myself as the wildest tone.
“We plugged a Zakk Wylde MXR Overdrive, Wampler Ego Compressor and TC Electronic Sub ‘N’ Up into a Neve preamp, then DI’d it straight into the desk and turned it up full. It sounds outrageous. We were falling about the studio floor laughing when I was playing. People started coming into the control room, like, ‘What is going on with these three guys? It's an absolute racket!’”
Luxury studios might be a nice vacation, but High Fade know where they belong. Look out for the great white hope of funk-punk, coming to a rain-lashed street near you.
- Twice As Nice is released May 8 on RPN Records.
