Southern California rock group is known as General Ed. is back with another hard-hitting track titled “Rain on Magnolia”. As the group grew from a trio to a rocking quartet, General Ed. draws influences from 60’s rock/folk, 70’s and 80’s hard rock, 90’s alt-rock, all while providing soulful bluesy elements creating their unique take on rock and roll. Their latest hit “Rain on Magnolia” provides face-melting guitar riffs and powerful grunge elements making their sound all the more wholesome and raw. All while incorporating groundbreaking bass lines and cohesive drum patterns, “Rain on Magnolia” brings new meaning to timeless rock.
The track opens with invigorating power chords through the distorted electric guitar, bringing forward the likes of rock icons like Neil Young, Jimi Hendrix, and The Rolling Stones. As the initial downbeat is met with a throbbing bassline and whopping drums, we really get a glimpse of General Ed.’s finely-tuned aesthetic. About halfway through the exciting track, a groovy bass solo is at the forefront and is gradually met with an earsplitting electric guitar solo and impeccable tempo changes on the drums. From the groups soaring vocals to thrilling instrumentation, we’re anticipating what will come next from the well-oiled machine that is General Ed.
Listen to “Rain on Magnolia”, here.
Hey General Ed! Welcome to BuzzMusic! We’re loving your hard-hitting sound and gripping instrumentation on your track “Rain on Magnolia”. Could you expand on what General Ed.’s creative process was like behind the song?
Thank you so much for listening to our music! We really appreciate BuzzMusic for supporting upcoming and local artists. Our creative process is pretty simple but we take a lot of time working live as a band developing our songs. Usually, me and my brother Gabriel bring a chord progression, a guitar riff, and some lyrics to the rest of the band and we kind of just jam it out and see what feels good. With “Rain on Magnolia” in particular, Gabriel had a really cool riff and chord progression and he brought them to the rest of the band and we just jammed it out. Anthony brought an awesome bassline and Jorge brought in ideas for the rhythm and breakdowns of the songs, and I worked on a melody while Gabriel and I decided on the guitar parts. We just kept practicing the song and jamming together for months, adding new ideas and fixing arrangements that didn’t quite work until we were happy with the song.
You’ve mentioned that your band's name “General Ed.” is an ode to providing your listeners with a general education of rock and roll and its history. Who are some major musical influences for General Ed., and how have they made an impact on your band’s sound?
Some of our biggest influences would include musical artists and bands from the mid 20th century to the present day. So the genres are mostly Classic, Hard, and Alternative rock, with Rhythm and Blues, Funk, and even the Indie genre. We love artists such as Twin Peaks, White Reaper, Mac DeMarco, Nat King Cole, Sydney Bechet, FIDLAR, BB. King, Boston, Aerosmith, Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, The Black Keys, The Beatles, Three Dog Night, Soundgarden, Stevie Ray Vaughan, The Raconteurs, The White Stripes, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Pearl Jam and so on. Really a mix of modern-day indie, old school, Jazz and 90s funk/alternative.
Your track “Rain on Magnolia” provides a variety of complex tempo changes and shifts in instrumentation. What made General Ed. want to serve something more exciting and entertaining, rather than one tempo and predictable transitions?
“Rain on Magnolia” started off as a pretty simple and straight forward song with a riff and some verses, but Gabriel wanted to do something different for the guitar solo section by trying to switch up the atmosphere of the song. When we tried this idea out with the whole band, Rain on Magnolia evolved into a project where we wanted to further our musicianship by experimenting with gradual changes in tempo that would transition into dynamics. By doing this, we were able to introduce different sounds in the same song. There's a small hint of funk and groove during the interlude breakdown while the rest of the song features a heavy blues-rock impression. We decided to do a whole musical breakdown that built up from just drums and bass together to an all-out in-your-face guitar solo jam session. We tried to make the song fun and exciting, and even though the song ended up over 6 minutes long, we feel like there’s not a boring moment.
General Ed. clearly has a well-crafted approach when creating effective rock music. We’re there any challenges the group faced when writing “Rain on Magnolia”? How does General Ed. face adversity when it presents itself?
The biggest challenge when making “Rain on Magnolia” was probably getting down the tempo change and funky breakdown as well as perfecting the guitar solo and jam session section of the song. This song was a very cooperative project and a lot of practice and patience went into this song. We made sure to get outside opinions on the musical arrangements and we even performed it several times at our shows before recording it to see how the audience would respond to the song. We do face some adversity as a band and we feel like our genre of music is a little under-appreciated in our local music scene. Sometimes it can be difficult for us to book certain shows and build up a larger audience when our music is so different from the rest of the local bands, but we do all of this because we love making rock and roll music together and having fun in the process. We absolutely love and appreciate all of our fans and supporters, and we’re super grateful for the opportunities we have to make music together.
What can we expect to see from you throughout 2020?
unfortunately, nothing is certain in 2020 with the COVID-19 Virus putting a halt on everyone’s ways of life, so what’s truly important right now is staying safe and healthy while practicing the necessary precautions and social-distancing. We do still plan on releasing a couple more singles in the near future as well as writing and developing new songs together and start playing shows again once it’s safe. For now, we have our new EP, “River Canyon”, streaming on all platforms.