Supergroup BNQT Unveil Album Details, Release ‘Restart’ Single

BNQT, the new band featuring Midlake frontman Eric Pulido alongside Grandaddy’s Jason Lytle, Band of Horses’ Ben Bridwell, Franz Ferdinand’s Alex Kapranos, Travis’ Fran Healy and fellow Midlake members McKenzie Smith, Joey McClellan and Jesse Chandler, will release its debut LP this spring.

Volume 1, due April 28 through Dualtone/Bella Union, offers fans their first full-length peek at the all-star group Pulido has jokingly referred to as a "poor man's" version of the Traveling Wilburys — the late '80s supergroup that united Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Jeff Lynne, Roy Orbison, and Tom Petty. The record has been finished since at least December 2015, when the project was first announced, with them going by the name of Banquet.

Of course, as evidenced by Volume 1's leadoff single, "Restart" — which you can stream via the audio embed below — BNQT sound nothing like the Wilburys. Each of the band's five singers wrote and contributed lead vocals to a pair of songs on the 10-track set, with the Midlake members doing instrumental duty; to mitigate the scheduling difficulties inherent in tying together this type of project, a number of the tracks were pieced together by file transfer and finished off at Midlake's Texas studio. The results, promise a press release, are "full of surprises, a collection that feels oddly familiar and attractively alien."

"That's what art is about for me," adds Pulido. "Creating with other people that you love and appreciate."

BNQT, Volume 1 Track Listing
1. "Restart"
2. "Unlikely Force"
3. "100 Million Miles"
4. "Mind of a Man"
5. "Hey Banana"
6. "Real Love"
7. "Failing at Feeling"
8. "L.A. on My Mind"
9. "Tara"
10. "Fighting the World"

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