311 headlines California Roots: Carolina Sessions festival

If 311 had one plan of action going into the making of its current album, “Stereolithic,” it was not to have a game plan.

“Our manager was trying to get us to sit down and talk about what kind of an album we wanted to make,” singer Nick Hexum said in a recent phone interview. “I remember (drummer) Chad (Sexton) saying ‘Don’t try and do that. We’re going to get in there and we’re going to write songs. It’s best if there are no rules and we just let it come out.’ So I wouldn’t say there was any real like mission statement except to do the best album that we can.”

But the band knew one thing that would make “Stereolithic” a different kind of album project was its choice of producer. Instead of bringing in a big name to produce, the group chose Scotch Ralston, who for most of 311’s three-decade career had served as the band’s live sound engineer.

Hexum and his bandmates – Sexton, SA Martinez (vocals/deejay), Tim Mahoney (guitar) and P-Nut (bass) – got more than they bargained for with Ralston, who in addition to producing the album became closely involved in the songwriting for “Stereolithic.”

Having a new person in the songwriting mix brought some new dimensions to the songs, particularly in the lyrics.

“One characteristic I can pinpoint of Scotch’s is he has some clever wordplay that I don’t necessarily know what it means, but it’s interesting wordplay,” Hexum said. “A song like ‘Made In The Shade’ ... he wrote more than half of the lyrics on that. And to me, it’s a lot of imagery, and then you have to kind of look further into it to even glean a message from it, where my stuff might be a little more obvious.”

Ralston also helped add to the number of songs being written by band members by doing something the group calls “gold mining.”

“He would go through the hard drives of old demos that we had and be like ‘You guys really have something here,’” Hexum said. “Then he would suggest a melody. I think that really helped us have a bigger output. Having 15 songs (instead of 10 or 12) was because of having that extra voice.”

The music that emerged on “Stereolithic” continues the recent trend of 311 weighting its albums toward rocking – yet melodic – material.

Songs like “Five of Everything,” “First Dimension,” “The Great Divide” and “Ebb and Flow” are driven by gritty guitar riffs and hard-hitting drums.

The album gets some variety from tunes such as “Sand Dollars” (with its quirky guitar tone and grooving rhythm), “Friday Afternoon” (a tranquil ballad that segues into an edgier finish) and “Tranquility” (a ballad with a soothing melody balanced by just a bit of guitar grit).

The emphasis toward harder-hitting material has partly been a product of considering the types of songs that work well in concert.

“It (the live show) does influence what we’re doing when we’re pre-producing and writing songs, like ‘Oh this is going to rock a crowd,’” Hexum said. “Then we also just want to have some departures from the obvious things that are going to rock a crowd. So it is something we keep in mind, but we don’t want a whole album of all rockers. That would just be too linear.”

Hexum said it’s hard to say which band members favor certain types of songs because each member’s musical leanings can change and the band members tend to influence each other musically. But in general, Hexum said, he’s usually the band member pushing for, as he put it, the “more melodic, chill moments.”

“Coming up with the departures (from the rocking songs) is probably, for me, the most freeing and fun part,” he said. “To come up with songs like ‘Friday Afternoon,’ this really trippy epic journey, or something like ‘Tranquility,’ which feels like a real new sound for us, that for me is the most exciting.”

Overall, Hexum said, 311 has grown more collaborative as time has gone on – at least with the songwriting.

Recording, however, has become more of a separate process. That was especially true of “Stereolithic.” Where the band had recorded together at its studio facility, the Hive, for recent albums, the new CD came together in a variety of locations.

“The collaboration really occurs in the pre-production and writing, where we all are together at the Hive, getting in there and rehearsing and making suggestions and trying different structures of songs,” Hexum said. “Then once that’s set in stone and you get just like a decent working demo, then it’s kind of up to everybody to record their parts on their own. And yeah, that is changing. The songwriting process gets more collaborative, but I guess the recording process now has become more separate because we all have our own (ideas) of how we want it. I like (recording) my stuff by myself, where there’s no pressure and I can work on it until it’s done and there’s no clock ticking that I have to worry about. It feels very freeing that way.”

The band’s working methods may have evolved, but it seems clear that 311 has made a lot of good choices with its music over a career that has passed the quarter-century mark.

Formed in 1992 in Omaha, Neb., the group enjoyed a gradual build in popularity as it released early rap-rock oriented albums like “Music” (1993) and “Grassroots” (1994). Then came a first breakthrough with the 1995 self-titled CD (also known as The Blue Album), which featured the No. 1 modern rock single, “Down,” and a top five modern rock hit, “All Mixed Up.”

Another hit, “Come Original,” arrived in 1999 on the group’s fifth album, “Soundsystem,” and the group’s career hit a new peak in 2003 with the release of its seventh album, “Evolver.” It featured a top five modern rock hit, “Creatures (For A While),” followed by a No. 1 modern rock single, “Love Song,” which was a cover of a song by the Cure.

After releasing the 2005 album, “Don’t Tread On Me,” the band went on a hiatus. The group then returned with two albums that Hexum considers to be among the strongest in the 311 catalog, “2009’s “Uplifter” and 2011’s “Universal Pulse,” before returning with “Stereolithic” last year.

With such a large album catalog, 311 has plenty of song choices for its concerts. And even if the band’s Carolina Sessions Festival set has to be shorter than 311’s usual two hours or more headlining shows, Hexum feels the band will still give fans a well-rounded show.

“I think it’s going to be just a nice even balance,” Hexum said of 311’s set lists. “We make a fresh set list (for each show) after sound check. We get together and have a full band meeting and just hammer out the (set) list. I guess it’s always tricky to find the right balance between classics, new songs, some for first-time fans who want to hear some hits. So we just find the right blend and it’s a mixture of all five guys voicing their opinions to make that.”

This story was originally published September 29, 2015 at 7:54 AM with the headline "311 headlines California Roots: Carolina Sessions festival."