Premiere: The Shrine, ‘Never More Than Now’ (ftr. Keith Morris)

Kevin Bronson on January 13th, 2016

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The Shrine play hard, work hard, live hard and … did we mention play hard? The Venice Beach-based trio, our frontrunners to face charges of Assault With a Deadly Riff, return next week with a new slab of old-school psychedelic heaviness, “Rare Breed.” The band — singer-guitarist Josh Landau, bassist Courtland Murphy and drummer Jeff Murray — made the record with producer Dave Jerden (Alice in Chains, Jane’s Addiction, Social Distortion, the Offspring), and, to quote their pretty-apt description, it’s “pure California Jam ’74 meets Suicidal skate rock being force-fed the brown acid by Charles Manson.”

Keith Morris, with his lyrical revisions to The Shrine's song (Photo courtsy of the band)

Keith Morris, with his lyrical revisions to The Shrine’s song (Photo courtesy of the band)

Stashed on the 13-song album as a bonus track is the gem “Never More Than Now,” which guests the legendary Keith Morris. It’s a slice of synchronicity that made Landau giddy. “I ran into him in a diner in Los Feliz and ended up talking to him for a while,” Landau says. “I had seen the Circle Jerks when I was 15 and recently had seen him reform Flag at The Moose Lodge. I learned how to play guitar to the records he’s made. Hell, as a teenager I learned how to walk, talk, skateboard, and not get laid to them also.

“I told him we had this short new song, ‘Never More Than Now’ and we’d love to have him sing it. He showed up in Venice at our studio with a couple changes he wanted to make of the lyrics. He already had written them out big on two pieces of white paper he taped together. He only did two takes. On the second take he did the middle breakdown section in this deadpan way that’s exactly what I think of when I think his voice on the Flag and Jerks records. Old-school L.A. punk and Mar Vista local Dave Jones was engineering it. He managed to get Keith back from beyond in the red where the console would explode to only partially in the red. The word raw totally nails it. Keith went straight to full throttle right away no warm-up. Two takes, that’s it. He said it was cool to use for something we were putting out ourselves. Forever stoked to have and listen to this. The day Keith Morris recorded with us in my parents’ garage in Venice.”

||| Stream: “Never More Than Now”