F  L  A  U  N  T

 Photo by Asal Shahindoust Amongst psychotropic cacti, Cory Hanson recorded his new album _Pale Horse Rider_, out April 16th via [Drag City](https://www.youtube.com/c/dragcity/videos), and releases the title track’s music video today. The guitarist and frontman of the Los Angeles-based band Wand decided to take a simpler approach to the instrumentals in his second solo record.  Hanson and his brother Casey Hanson collaborated on the music videos for “Angeles” and “Paper Fog.” Casey is behind the animation for “Angeles.” All of the new videos have unique visuals paired with his melodic new songs. The album is lyric focused and Hanson calls it “the best thing he has ever done.” _Flaunt_ got the chance to speak to Hanson about his upcoming album and experience of recording in the middle of the desert.   Photo by Asal Shahindoust **I heard your album was recorded a little bit differently than your first solo project, _The Unborn Capitalist from Limbo_, could you tell me a little bit about the creative process behind it?** I wanted to do something remotely, away from a studio. Me and my friend Robert Cody who is in Wand with me, put together some gear and went out to Landers, in California to this house that's really in the middle of nowhere. The house is surrounded by psychotropic cacti, the kind of cacti you can break down into Mescaline, or other cactus drugs. Basically, they’re like 7 to 8 feet tall and there were lots of those around. It was a really nice, peaceful place to make a record and the house had these big panoramic windows so you could watch the sunset and there were no distractions, nothing really going on.  **When writing songs for this album did you have a specific genre or theme in mind that you wanted to focus on, or did it all come together in a more organic fashion?** I felt like it was pretty organic, I definitely don’t like to force things creatively. The great thing about this project is that I’m the principal songwriter so it’s really up to me when I’m really feeling like I’ve got something that’s substantial to make a record out of. I think I could take a long time writing this stuff and I did, and there’s a pretty substantial gap between this new record and my last solo record. Mostly because I’ve been making a lot of other records with other bands but it became clear to me early on in writing that I wanted to do something with really simple chord progressions, these kinds of rudimentary things anybody could play. And to be rooted in country, western music, or folk music traditions, less in rock or jazz music and other styles I've been messing around with. That way I could have a pretty solid and simple foundation to focus on lyrics, which were more of the central focus of this record as opposed to other records I've done. **When it comes to the lyrics are the songs standalone or do they connectively tell a story for you?** They all come from the same narrative place. They share qualities in each other but they are all pretty independent of each other and could exist on their own. That was the idea, I wanted to take a similar kind of atmosphere and have the record have that atmosphere but sort of have that be the force of gravity in that record and have everything else just kind of exist on its own. I don’t like constructing things too much because when you're sequencing a record in the end the shapes that come out of it are like maybe side A is 17 minutes long and has 5 tracks and then side B is 21 minutes long and it has 3 tracks because two of the songs are 8 minutes. There’s a lot of different decisions you can make, it’s sort of smashing things together and seeing what comes out. **Tell me about your new song “Pale Horse Rider”!**  That’s probably the oldest song on the record it became a jumping-off point for me stylistically in terms of what I wanted to explore. I think it all started when I was just looking at a Tarot card of this skeletal horseman and there were these body parts coming out of the ground like they were being harvested. And then I just sort of had this moment where I was like, I could really write a song about this that felt personal but didn’t have to be explicitly personal. Everybody is having to deal with this, we’re all sort of growing and at a certain point we get harvested by a person on a horse, and that’s inescapable and you can’t really buy your way out of it.  Photo by Asal Shahindoust **In collaborating with your brother for “Angeles” and “Paper Fog” what was the process behind it? Do you guys usually collaborate?**   We’ve collaborated on some Wand videos that turned out really great. We get into a rhythm very quickly so it’s really fun to work on stuff. With the “Angeles” video and the “Paper Fog” video and everything we’ve been doing together, it’s been really great to be able to bounce ideas off each other because it’s the closest thing to bouncing ideas off of myself. But he is also very much more technically able than I am and has a better eye for lining up shots and creating space and finding these really interesting ways of shooting. If it was up to me it would look a lot shittier and not be as interesting of a finished product. He does a great job and it allows me a feeling of security in knowing that I can have pretty outlandish ideas or really let things flow creatively and he’s very interested and excited about realizing those so they go all kinds of places.  **You’ve been mixing a lot of alternative comedy visual mediums in your projects lately, is there a specific reason or have you just gotten more into it lately?** I think my sense of humor might be the most developed part of my personality. I don’t really consider myself a great writer but I think I have a pretty good sense of humor I’ve been developing since I was a very small child and was absolutely like a class clown, an attention whore of all types. It felt like a natural progression to go into and when it comes to promoting records if it’s taken seriously, just like writing, it zaps all the fun out of everything. A lot of records can arise DOA like oh I get it this is a serious thing you're releasing it’s a new record. But if you can be playful about it it's a lot more fun and interesting. The record has some heavier themes than I've had in other records but also it’s a lot lighter to me and a lot less personal and so I feel like it can kind of withstand it. Basically, I just wanna see how much of a shitshow I can create around it and will endure it, and I think it will because the record itself is the best thing I've done thus far. It should be fine.  **Has the time in quarantine made you focus more on your art or has it been harder for you? Especially when it comes to collaboration!** For collaboration, it’s been pretty rough! There are a few silver linings, I did a track with Bill Callahan and Bonnie Prince Billy but that was a blind date collaboration, I’ve never met either of them. In terms of traditional collaboration it’s been pretty tough but in terms of having time for musical reflection, like the real raw time that isn’t being sub divided by a bunch of different tasks and things that happen when things are in non-COVID mode it’s been really great to have time to allow my creative interests to do other things that are not just touring. I just spent a lot of time touring and it's great being on the road and playing shows but you don’t have the security to be able to experiment safely in a private circumstance that you could maybe come up with some things that are probably more interesting. I’ve written more during this time in COVID than I have ever before.  **Anything else to add?** The musicians that played on the record deserve credit because they did such a phenomenal job. Tyler Nuffer played steel, which is in every single track. I think he is a really incredible steel player and musician in general. And then Evan Backer played drums and bass and piano, he kind of built the skeleton of the record with me in a lot of ways.  Photo by Asal Shahindoust