Bask on Pouring Their Souls Into Hopeful LP After Hurricane Helene
Self-help charlatans, fitness freaks, and corporate advertisers will have you believe that “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” But those blustering boobs typically omit a rather critical part of the equation: Often times, the most trying challenges in life befall us when we least expect it, before we have the time to steel ourselves in preparation for such trials and tribulations. It’s why sucker punches are strictly prohibited in every imaginable form of a so-called “fair fight.”
Psych-rock outfit Bask learned this lesson by facing a challenge that no one should have to face: a devastating natural disaster—specifically, the deadliest hurricane to hit the U.S. mainland in almost two decades. Hurricane Helene obliterated the band’s rehearsal space when it ripped through their hometown of Asheville, North Carolina, in September of last year. Fortunately, the band members didn’t suffer devastating physical injuries that threatened to put a halt to their careers, as kindred spirits Baroness experienced in an unforgettably devastating bus crash in 2012.
Bask certainly had their work cut out for themselves as they tried bouncing back from their own horrific twist of fate. The band relied on charitable donations from a GoFundMe campaign they launched to replace gear and rehearsal space furniture they lost in the flood. But during a March check-in with Bask, longtime friends Zeb Camp (guitar/vocals) and Scott Middleton (drums) already had perspective on overcoming what could quaintly be referred to as an “adversity.”
“We can’t complain too much,” Middleton said at the time. “A lot of people had it way worse than us.”
Take a wild guess as to what happened next. While Bask didn’t have much new material at the time, their increased strength as human beings who didn’t give in to despair or self-pity propelled them to generate their boldest batch of songs—and in surprisingly short order. A mere five months after Camp admitted hat they didn’t have “a ton of new music,” Bask stunningly released their eight-track fourth album, The Turning.
It’s now early June, and we check in with members of the band again to make sure they’re not putting one over on us. They aren’t, and we’re agog when guitarist Ray Worth says, “We had to cancel a trip to Europe, and delay the mixing and mastering schedule. It was a pain in the ass, but luckily the label (Season of Mist) understood, and let us put our lives and homes back together, and deliver the album when we could.”
In other words, hurricane schmuricane—to an extent. Relaying our disbelief at Bask’s feat with a bit more insistence, Camp elucidates that recovering from Helene assigned a sense of focus for the band to complete The Turning. Dealing with the post-traumatic stress took additional work.
“There are so many emotions tied up in the record, in between the (devastation) and community loss and then seeing community growth and everyone bonding back together,” he shares. “When we actually finished the album and had the final product in our hands, it was mentally unnerving in a very healthy way. It was even borderline therapeutic.”
When all is said and done, Bask are in the unique position of having created not just another full-length record but a reaffirmation of their fortitude and ability to overcome hardship while keeping the receptacle of their creative and emotional expression intact.
Just like a much wiser person than this writer once stated in what is one of the more astute axioms about the human spirit: “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”
The Bad Penny (beta) 
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