What happens when the Black Lips flee India and find themselves holed up in a house in Berlin with King Khan and Mark ‘BBQ’ Sultan for a few days? They make a gospel record, that’s what. Jared Swilley told us all about it.

“It’s called the Almighty Defenders. We went to Germany – we weren’t expecting to be there but we booked our tickets from India and were in Berlin 8 or 9 hours later.

“We wanted to record just a single and do a couple of songs. When we got there we started recording, and BBQ had a song, and King Kahn wrote one, and we just decided to do a whole album because everyone was having a lot of fun. It was like all of us jammed in this house, and BBQ was staying there, and his daughter has just started playing violin this year so she played violin on one of the songs. We’ve been listening to a lot of gospel music lately, and the whole album is kind of like that. We did 11 or 12 songs, already finished the artwork and now we’ve just got to find a label to put it out on (it’s out on Vice on September 22 -Ed).

“I’m really happy with it. I like it more than the record we just made (the Black Lips’ 200 Million Thousand -Ed) because it’s kind of sloppy and done really fast. But I love imperfections. It was like the happiest week of my life. Berlin is a second home to us. Making an album can be kind of stressful sometimes but we didn’t give a shit about this one, it was just for us, and it turned in to an album out of nowhere. When I do that it makes me really happy.

“It’s like a gospel record, but minus the Jesus.”

To hear the Almighty Defenders’ ‘Bow Down and Die’ click here. They are on MySpaz here.

They say so here.

As you can see bass player Tommy Dean loves us the most.

We caught up with the guys in London’s legendary Crobar after their blistering, blood drenched industry showcase at the 100 Club last night. We’ve got a real treat of a feature on everyone’s favourite Norwegian rock deviants in the next issue of the zine. Sweet.

Thanks to Hydar for the photo – www.dewachi.com.