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Song & Video Premiere: Hey Zeus cruise the lightning of saints in ‘Richard The Elder’

In a town where no one wears a halo, the good word of rock has been spoken by Boston powderkeg Hey Zeus. “We have come that they might have rock, and that they might have it more abundantly. We are the good shepherds: the good shepherds giveth our rock for the sheep.”

And on a Monday morning at the start of another shitty New England summer, the rock of saints is just what we need. This morning Vanyaland is eager to premiere the new video and single from Hey Zeus, another in-your-face guitar rock throwdown that dances within the suddenly creamy center of everyone’s usual riff-roaring classic rock and “Oh that’s the shit these days” jawbreaker. It’s called “Richard The Elder”, and you can watch it via YouTube below and/or download it for the nice price of free over at their Bandcamp.

And fitting for Hey Zeus — which features members of White Dynomite, Lamont, Goddamn Draculas, Motherboar, and one pool-float-loving Ken Cmar — the video is a live clip, capturing the band doing what it does best.

“We’ve tried many recording approaches with Hey Zeus and have learned that we sound best, and have the best time, when we can all be in the same room with our amps and instruments — even vocals — tracking everything live, like they used to make recordings,” says frontman Bice Nathan. “We’ve got some old dudes in the band who pine for those times, and we like making things difficult, so we set up just like we would live, an amp on either side of the kit, vocals in the middle, no isolation… It ends up being more raw and real sounding this way-and much more fun to record-which is why we play rock and roll, right?”

“Richard The Elder”, the song, Nathan explains, is about ridding the evils of the world that take female form and appear hellbent on destruction. It’s a personal tale for him, but the rather dark, somewhat Puritan subject matter — “This witch will burn, but not at the stake-and you can’t stop her heart from beating,” he sings/screams — can’t stop Hey Zeus from delivering the rock.

“It is very important to us that we have a good time-and show people a good time,” Nathan adds. “We want to be the most fun and most energetic band on any bill. We try not to take it all too seriously.”

That good time will be evident July 15 at O’Brien’s Pub in Allston, when Hey Zeus play with Black Helicopter and Wolfsmyth. The rest of their summer is sprinkled with New England dates, and you can scan all of those after the video jump.

FLYER Hey Zeus