Car Seat Headrest announces ‘The Scholars’, a bold new rock opera that marks not only a new chapter for the band, but also a spiritual rebirth and the band’s first studio album in five years. The album is due out May 2 via Matador Records/Beggars.
Set on the fictional college campus of Parnassus University, the songs on ‘The Scholars‘ are populated by students and faculty whose struggles provide a loose narrative about life, death and rebirth. The album’s first single is the 11-minute ‘Gethsemane’. Of the accompanying character piece, the band says:
“Rosa studies at the medical school of Parnassus University. After an experience bringing a medically deceased patient back to life, she begins to regain powers suppressed since childhood, of healing others by absorbing their pain. Each night, instead of dreams, she encounters the raw pain and stories of the souls she touches throughout the day. Reality blurs, and she finds herself taken deep into secret facilities buried beneath the medical school, where ancient beings that covertly reign over the college bring forth their dark plans.”
The band’s rebirth didn’t come without difficulty. In May 2020, Car Seat Headrest released their experimental, beat-driven album Making a Door Less Open just as the world was going into lockdown. This led to a long period of forced inactivity. When they were finally able to tour in 2022, they were surprised and delighted to find that their audience was younger than ever. The production-heavy Masquerade tour presented its own challenges as the band pushed the boundaries of their abilities. “It felt like a very technically challenging set because we had spent so many years doing this loud, fast, dirty rock music,” says Katz. “And now we’re doing this more precise, large production type of set. Eventually, it came together, and then we all got sick.”
Both Katz and Toledo contracted COVID-19, forcing Car Seat Headrest to cancel their remaining shows and recuperate. Katz was bedridden for two weeks, while Toledo had a much longer period of illness and discovered he had a histamine imbalance, forcing him to make major changes to his diet. “There’s a part of me who’s still a kid who likes a sick day from school. You get to lay around and contemplate the details of life.” He began delving into meditation practices, first through various apps and later into Chan meditation and schools of Buddhism. This eventually led to a “dedication to following spiritual practices,” which influenced the album.
He grew up as a Presbyterian, but now refuses to label himself or adhere to strict definitions of faith. “I think that one of the big blessings I’ve been given is that I never saw the institution of church as being the place that holds God,” he says. “When you look at the history of the Christian Church, it is always constantly breaking open and shattering and giving rise to new forms. Whether you call it spirituality or not, I can’t help but see that in society nowadays with queer culture, with the furry culture, with the bonding together of youth for something that is more than what we knew and what we grew up with.”
Inspired by a questionable poem by “Archbishop Guillermo Guadalupe del Toledo” and featuring character designs by Toledo’s friend, the comic book artist Cate Wurtz, the album’s first half focuses on the deep yearning and spiritual crisis of the “Scholars,” who range from the tormented and doubting young playwright Beolco to Devereaux, a figure born into a religiously conservative family who desperately seeks higher guidance. The second half contains a series of epic pieces about the struggle between the defenders of the classic texts “and the young person who doesn’t care about the canon, who is going to tear all of that up, basically,” says Toledo. “And so within this one campus, there becomes a war.”
From Shakespeare to Mozart to classical opera, Toledo drew inspiration from the classics when writing the lyrics and story of “The Scholars,” while the music carefully draws from classic rock operas like The Who’s “Tommy” and David Bowie’s “Ziggy Stardust.” “One thing that can be a struggle with rock operas is that the individual songs kind of get sacrificed for the flow of the plot,” Toledo notes. “I didn’t want to sacrifice that to make a very fluid narrative. And so this is sort of a middle ground where each song can be a character and it’s like each one is coming out on center stage and they have their song and dance.”
Self-produced by Toledo and recorded largely analogue, ‘The Scholars‘ is, according to Ives, “definitely the most bottom up of any project that we’ve done.” Toledo encouraged him to take charge of the album’s guitar work and sound design. “I’ve started nerding out a lot more in the last couple of years about designing sounds more deliberately, rather than just using your lucky gear and hoping for the best. It was really rewarding, being able to sculpt things a lot more specifically, and being able to layer things in more of a dense way and have more of an active design role in how things come across more than any previous album.”
Tracklist ‘The Scholars’
1. CCF (I’m Gonna Stay With You)
2. Devereaux
3. Lady Gay Approximately
4. The Catastrophe (Good Luck With That, Man)
5. Equals
6. Gethsemane
7. Reality
8. Planet Desperation
9. True/False Lover
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