Primitive Ring Unleash ‘Lies From The Other Side’ from Upcoming Self-Titled Debut
Primitive Ring don’t ease you in, and ‘Lies From The Other Side’ makes that clear within seconds.
The new single, out now via In The Red Records, is the latest cut from their self-titled debut, arriving May 15. The video for the single was directed by Jernny Baumert, with animation and edits from Arturo Baston. The record itself was tracked in December 2025 at The Station House in Echo Park, with Mark Rains behind the boards. It features eleven tracks, running just under 42 minutes, with each member adding their own kind of flavour.
This project formed quickly… Bert Hoover and Charles Moothart started it in late 2024, pulling in Jon Modaff on drums, and by the following year they had already released a run of 7-inches across labels like Greenway, In The Red Records, Reverberation Appreciation Society, and Fuzz Club UK.
The album itself, instead, plays like a series of ideas sparking off each other. “This is something we all share, and we must remind one another how electric humanity can be.”
They hit the road this week, joining Ty Segall for a West Coast run that feels like a natural fit. After that, they loop through a string of club dates and festival stops, including Mosswood Meltdown and Sonic Blast in Portugal, before settling into a residency of sorts at Zebulon in Los Angeles.
“What would Lemmy do?”
With ‘Lies From The Other Side’ already in motion from the first second, did it come out of a jam, or was it something you kept reshaping over time until it felt right?
‘Lies From The Other Side’ was reshaped a couple of times, but it was always a direct song. We knew we wanted the main riff to sound like Motörhead. We wanted it to pack a punch, and we wanted it to warrant revisits. I had written the two main riffs separately, and bringing them together unlocked the rest of the song. The “chorus” shaped the intro, and the bridge/solo was written in answer to the question, “What would Lemmy do?” It took some tweaking to get it to feel right, but once the vocals were in the mix, we knew it was best to keep things streamlined.
Could you talk a bit about how Primitive Ring first came together, and what the initial spark or idea behind the band was? Does that original impulse still run through this new album?
Primitive Ring came together because we all wanted a new creative, collaborative outlet. Bert and I had been discussing a shared frustration with the state of independent touring, and our worlds were seemingly colliding organically. Jon has been playing with Bert for some time, and that’s how I met him. Once we were all in conversation, it was the logical choice that it would be the three of us starting this new project. Bert had already booked some recording time with our friend Eric Bauer, so we jumped on the opportunity to write a couple of songs and see what came next.
What does your gear setup look like these days, and has it changed at all while working on the record or playing these songs live?
Well, my guitar rig has been fairly similar for some time. Last year, I filled in on guitar for Iggy Pop for a couple of months, which forced me to level up and get a pedalboard with a few extra bells and whistles. But the main rig has been a 1965 non-reverse Firebird into a 4×10 Music Man for many years. I still use the Fuzz War as my main fuzz, I’ve fallen in love with my Silk Tone overdrive pedal, and I use two different delays to create different landscapes. The wah is now in heavy rotation. There are a couple of other effects I use sparingly as of late, but it is mostly the ones just mentioned.
When you were at The Station House back in December, did it feel like you were building the record piece by piece, or more like trying to keep up with something that was already unfolding on its own?
We spent a lot of time mapping out the album. We recorded demos of each song beforehand. We knew the running order of the album and all of that. We certainly wanted the feeling of the record, compared to our demos, to be more in the pocket, but we had mapped out the entire album before going into the studio. That is the only way to really record and mix a full album in a 10 day period.
Could you share a bit more about the making of the album overall, how the songs came together, and how much was planned versus discovered in the moment?
Most of the creative output of this band has been on the go. Some of the songs had been in the works since the beginning of 2025, and some were written closer to the time of recording. Each song has a different story behind it. Some were written with all three of us in the room working on parts. Some were written with just me and Bert spending time one on one. And a couple were written mostly by either me or Bert alone, then brought to the table to sort out how the band would perform them together. We put pressure on ourselves to complete an album by the end of 2025 because we really wanted to get the band off the ground. We are all excited about this project and what the future holds.
You’ve released a run of 7”s on different labels leading up to this LP. Did those songs feed into the album in any way, or do you see them as separate snapshots from the same period?
The 7″s and the album are all part of the same “story,” so to speak. We consciously chose to let the singles stand alone since they are what introduced people to the band. So musically, they stand alone in that way. But they are all connected in that we were working on all of these songs over the same time frame. Of course, like I said, some of the album came later, but still a bulk of the riffs and ideas were being tossed around early in the process. So yeah, they are all like different limbs on the same tree, if that makes sense.
Heading out with Ty Segall right as the record drops must shift things a bit. Have the songs already started to change in a live setting, do they stretch out, get rougher, or take on a different shape in front of people?
At the time of this interview, we have not played a lot of these songs in front of people yet. But I can say that in rehearsing them, they are really fun to play. I think our set is going to be really fun, and it is going to shift a lot over the next year. We have a lot of music to choose from as a relatively new band, and we are excited to play all of it.
And on a lighter note, when you are stuck in the van between cities, what is actually getting played, or is it a constant battle over the aux?
This band has not really spent much time in the van together. We have all certainly spent a lot of time on the road collectively, but this album will mark the beginning of this chapter for all of us.
Klemen Breznikar
Primitive Ring Instagram /Bandcamp
In The Red Records Website / Facebook / Instagram / YouTube / Bandcamp
