L.A. Rock Duo Movie Club Call on Members of Foo Fighters, David Bowie and P!NK for New Song

A lot of musicians have been forced to be at home owing to the ongoing pandemic, but bands like Los Angeles’ Movie Club have clearly found a silver lining. For their gloomy new track “Rainshadow,” drummer Jessamyn Violet and guitarist Vince Cuneo called on friends Rami Jaffee (keyboardist for Foo Fighters), violinist Jessy Greene (part of pop artist P!NK’s troupe) and seasoned bassist Tim Lefebvre (David Bowie, The Black Crowes and previously part of blues group Tedeschi Trucks Band).

Violet says, “It was an unexpected upside to the pandemic that these touring giants were available to contribute to the track. Tim was supposed to be on tour with Black Crowes, Rami was supposed to be on tour with the Foo Fighters, Jessy had just come off of the P!NK tour. We were thrilled to have their voices in the mix.” Movie Club first connected with Jaffee and Greene at a pre-gig for erstwhile music festival California Jam in 2018, while Cuneo met Lefebvre at one of the latter’s gig at a local jazz club.

The duo mention that Lefebvre has worked on a total of three tracks on their upcoming full-length album Black Flamingo, which releases on November 27th. While the song “Thunder” is also out, this album follows their early 2020 release Man O’ War. “Rainshadow,” for its part, was written keeping in mind just how rarely the neighborhood of Venice Beach in Los Angeles receives rain. Cuneo points out that they were influenced by Funkadelic’s seminal 1971 track “Maggot Brain” to craft the foreboding, cinematic track.

Violet adds about how it rains about five nights a year in their area, which meant they were likely to use a “magical atmosphere” to craft a song. “We began to play a dark, dramatic song to match the storm around us. It was as if we were materializing the mood into music. We rushed to record the jam in the Voice Notes app before it evaporated, immediately naming it ‘Rainshadow’ as we’d recently learned about real rain shadows existing in Hawaii,” the drummer says.

While they’ve gathered a heavy-hitter list of artists to feature on this song, Movie Club does have a longer wish list of dream collaborators. Cuneo picks John Dwyer (from experimental rock act Osees, previously Thee Oh Sees) on guitar and avant/jazz-funk keyboardist John Medeski. Violet, meanwhile, counts in alt act Khruangbin‘s bassist Laura Lee Ochoa and singer-songwriter Ty Segall on drums. “Any takers on that show? Hey… A band can dream,” she adds.

Listen to “Rainshadow” below. Stream on Apple Music, Spotify and JioSaavn.