TCB

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TO RUSSIA MY HOMELAND

Coinciding with the Russian release of 2005's Worlds Apart, Austin noisemongers ...Trail of Dead spent Easter weekend as ambassadors to Moscow, where they stayed in a hotel built by German POWs and encountered a warmer than expected reception. "I guess they don't have many bands coming over there," figures singer/guitarist Conrad Keely, who laughs that ELO's original lineup played the same club a few days later. Their experience ran contrary to what Buzz Osborne of the Melvins and Fantomas told them earlier that week in Vienna. "We all went over there expecting the absolute worst," Keely says. "We thought it was going to be totally dangerous and seedy, and nothing happened." Even the famously forbidding Russian weather was less than frigid. "I brought scarves and a coat, and I was frankly overdressed," chuckles Keely. The band toured the Kremlin, but Red Square was closed for Easter, so they couldn't view Joseph Stalin's remains. "You can see his corpse, and his hand is connected to a little motor, so it kind of salutes you," shivers Keely. Once back in the States, Trail of Dead immediately resumed putting in long hours in their Mob House studio finishing up their next album. "It's coming out pretty wacky," Keely says.