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Herzog Releases 'Me Vs. You,' First Album in Five Years

Herzog cover art for "Me Vs. You" [artwork: Stephe DK]

Local rockers in the band Herzog are adjusting to life changes.

Not just grey hairs, but specifically raising children. 

For the band, it means changes to their way of touring, recording and songwriting.

Herzog [photo: Dan Price of Suzuran Photography]

After Herzog's chief songwriter Tony Vorrell had kids and started taking them to play groups, he began meeting other parents with very different backgrounds.

"Your kids want to be with the other kids. So you've got to talk to every parent and find out what their story is and that's what fed some of [my] songwriting," Vorrell said.

For instance the song "No Place is Safe Forever" came from discussions with parents who are themselves immigrants, which gave Vorrell a new perspective.

"That made me real happy because that's a whole new lens I wouldn't have had before having kids," Vorrell said.

Herzog's Nick Tolar and Tony Vorrell [photo: ideastream]

Herzog frontman Nick Tolar came up with the title for the new album ,"Me Vs. You."  The cover art is inspired by bandmate Dan Price's nighttime photo of a beach in Iceland.

"When you see a beach at night it's ominous," Tolar said.  "I was just struck by it as a creepy, cool image."

Tolar then came up with the idea to add a man discovering a treasure chest on the beach with another man sneaking up behind him with a cinder block to steal the treasure away.

Herzog cover art for "Me Vs. You" [artwork: Stephe DK ]

"Once I had that image things got less narrow and I started to think about the idea of "Me Vs. You," just like everywhere in society and in life," Tolar said.

While Tolar and the rest of Herzog take the stage to spotlight the new album, Vorrell will be singing from the sidelines because he's the only non-performing member of the band.

Working as the band's chief songwriter it's a comparable situation to a playwright watching his work performed onstage by actors.

"I'm impressed by how much the band understands the lyrical content," Vorrell said.  "They dig into things, they can read into the feeling of a song and really recreate the emotions that I'm writing with their instruments."

Herzoghosts a record release party for "Me Vs. You" Friday night at the Happy Dog.

 

 

 

 

 

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Herzog’s Nick Tolar on @herxog new album cover “Me Vs. You” on @exit_stencil_recordings which drops Friday night @happydogcleveland For more visit applause.ideastream.org

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Dave DeOreo is coordinating producer for Ideastream Public Media’s arts and culture team.