Track By Track: Jonathan Rado, 'For Who the Bell Tolls For'

Jonathan Rado Unpacks the Wonders of His New Album, For Who the Bell Tolls For

If you came up on rock ‘n’ roll in the early-to-mid-2010s, then I’m sure a band called Foxygen was crucial in shaping your taste at the time, too. Glam rock revivalism has been alive and well for as long as I’ve been alive, but Foxygen co-founder Jonathan Rado remains one of the most important contemporary figures in the genre. It’s been 10 years since he last made a solo record (Law and Order), but For Who the Bell Tolls For, in all of its retro, charming glory, feels like a first impression through and through.

Here, Rado abandons the instrumental compartmentalization he was responsible for in Foxygen by singing, shredding and composing larger-than-life pop-rock hits that sound as good as any other revivalist record in the last 10+ years. A particularly great standout track,”Easier,” was written in service to the late Richard Swift, and it endures as one of the best-sounding singles of 2023 altogether. Then there’s “Blue Moon,” packed with a melody that conjures an amalgam of David Bowie’s “Sorrow” and Randy & The Rainbows’ “Denise.” It works on every level, as Rado weaves in and out of garage rock familiarities and doo-wop pop bliss.

Sure, this track and this album sounds like it could’ve come out in 1971. But, it also sounds deftly tethered to this moment in time. Whenever a record can achieve that sort of dichotomy, I’m always floored. For Who the Bell Tolls For is Jonathan Rado at his best, as he proves time and time again that so few folks in this business have as strong of a hold on the Great American Songbook as he does.

“For Who The Bells Toll For”

Concept: Repeat Repeat Repeat

This song started as a 2018 jam with my friend Evan Laffer, who now hosts the Jokermen podcast. It was a long 13-minute jam with me on piano and Evan on drums. A few minutes into the jam, I stumbled onto these chords and, for weeks after, I would play them around the house—it felt like the beginning of something new for me, so I decided it would be the first song on my new record. The next year, in 2019, I recorded the song live with Brian and Michael D’Addario from the Lemon Twigs on a dueling double drum set. We got an amazing eight-minute backing track and the repeating “Oh you see I am running” part. I intended to cut it down but, over the next few months, I kept adding things and writing more parts. Felt cool to open the album with a seven-plus-minute hypnotic wave.

“Don’t Wait Too Long”

Concept: “A Single” “Pop Song”

I made a demo of this song really quickly in 2018. It had mumble lyrics, but the general structure and melody. I had been listening to Tom Waits’ “Downtown Train” and a lot of Springsteen. It ended up sounding a little more Hall & Oates—all good! I like albums to have a “catchy single” as track two, so I just decided to roll with that as a concept and try to keep the lyrics and structure very simple.

“Easier”

Concept: “What would Swift would do?”

A tribute in every single way to my dear departed friend Richard Swift, whose passing looms over this whole album. One late night, I was alone at the studio and I started playing this little ragtime riff that reminded me of swift. I then hit record on the voice memo and sketched out the entire song in one go. It was so rare and surprising—I remember when I got to the chorus, the “you made it easier” part, I started crying, which has never happened to me while writing a song before. Swift used to constantly say, whenever we were working, that it was “too easy” (or “2EZ” in text). I really took that to heart and adapted that ideology over the years. Making music really doesn’t need to be that complicated. When recording the song, I tried in every way to replicate his exact style and limited myself to using only instruments I knew were in his studio.

“Blue Moon”

Concept: “Start with a Toy”

Started on this Casio keyboard—one of the little preset beats and basslines. I then recorded it with me on organ, Kane Richotte on drums and my friend Brad Oberhofer—who helped with almost every song on this album—playing an acoustic piano sent through a Marshall stack. It was a real simple, quick recording session and the vocal hook came really quick. I then took the song to Andrew Sarlo’s house and he suggested we add some metallic snare drum hits, which we did. Later, me and Drew Erickson piled on a bunch of mallet instruments. Lyrically, it grapples with the concept of death lol.

“Farther Away”

Concept: “Blindfold Drums”

I was trying to experiment with new ways to write a song. I started this song with only a drum track from Kane Richotte. I told him to play to any song in his head and give me six minutes of drums. He proceeded to lay down the drum track exactly as you hear it. I still don’t know what song he was playing to in his head, and I doubt Kane remembers either. I then built the entire track and arrangement based on his fairly unpredictable drum track—Kane’s drumming massively informed the structure, all I did was emphasize all the hits he gave me with notes! This is another song where I wrote the melody and lyrics while driving around and improvising over the instrumental.

“Walk Away”

Concept: “Recycle”

I made an instrumental album called “if I did it” by thebible.pdf. One of those songs called “Palms Sunset” became the basis for “Walk Away.” The original version was a little aimless, so I worked on it a little bit and got this strange, trancelike groove. It also seemed to be a nice sibling to the title track, in its repetitiveness. I recorded this live, piano and vocal with Kane on drums and Cary singer on bass. Taylor Plenn laid down a series of sax takes and I weaved them all together. Was never able to beat the scratch vocal on this one. Always intended to write a second verse but just couldn’t beat the scratch vocal.

“Yer Funeral”

Concept: “Wrap It Up”

I mixed the album at Electric Lady in New York. I ended up scrapping a ton of songs from the album at the last minute, and it didn’t really feel like there was a proper conclusion. The last day of mixing, around 2 AM, I started playing these sad chords on a little chord organ. The Lemon Twigs were at the studio so we decided to record it! I played the organ, Brian played piano and Mike played vibraphone live—and then we overdubbed some bass and Brian did some lovely slide guitar and we called it a day! I brought the tape back to LA and mixed it live running it through my custom “Radotronics(tm)” rig.

Jonathan Rado’s For Who the Bell Tolls For is out now. Read our review of the album here.

Jonathan Rado Unpacks the Wonders of His New Album, For Who the Bell Tolls For

The glam-pop modernist and Foxygen co-founder breaks down all seven songs.