Cork Set To Pull Out The Stops With Debut Album, Tour

06/18/1999 7:00 PM, Yahoo! Music
Craig Rosen

(6/18/99, 4 p.m. PDT) - Barely 18 months after forming for a handful of live gigs late in 1997, Cork, the new rock outfit featuring former Spin Doctors guitarist and songwriter Eric Schenkman and Mountain drummer/ songwriter Corky Laing, is set to release its debut album, Speed Of Thought.

Due out on Tuesday (June 22), the album also features former Jimi Hendrix Experience bassist Noel Redding, who happens to have introduced the pair.

"Noel introduced us, basically, and I said, 'Well sh-t, why don't we get together and play some gigs?" Laing told LAUNCH from his home in Canada. "I booked about 10 dates in the New England area in, I think, Christmas of '97, and it went really well. We played Connecticut, Philadelphia, New York, Toronto, and Quebec. We had a great time, and people were showing up because they were curious. We just called it Cork, featuring Noel, Eric, and myself."

Though the group's setlist was originally made up of songs from its members' former groups, it wasn't long before Schenkman and Laing found themselves working up some new material together.

"We went in, and we played the feels that we really loved with each other from when we had jammed," Laing said. "It wasn't like, 'Well, let's write a song about...' F--k that. We said, 'Okay, what's your favorite feel?' Of course, the feel would bring out the moods, and the moods would bring out the words. It wasn't tough. We were inspired by that, and hence the name of the album, Speed Of Thought. We were really working on the edge of everything, and we wouldn't let anything get away that we loved. We taped everything, so we didn't leave a spark behind. Then we took all the sparks and made a fire."

With its first album now in the can, Laing said the group will be hitting the road for a tour this summer with Redding in tow. As for the future, the Mountain man said he and Schenkman are looking forward to forging ahead together musically for some time to come.

"Absolutely," he said. "Definitely. Eric and I have so many plans in terms of building this. We're really getting along. We don't ever work together; we play together.

"I'm not just puttin' this on," he added. "I've been playing with Leslie [West], and I work with Ian Hunter and a lot of people, and they're all great players. But Eric sort of brings out this vitality, and I'm very happy to feel that way...Quite frankly, I don't know why or how it all works in the scheme of things. I'm just happy that it's happening right now."

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-- Stephen Peters

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