Steve Molitz and Clay Parnell walk into Relix’s New York office at noon on a Wednesday, sporting jeans and solid-colored T-shirts. Neither their clothing nor their demeanor immediately sets them apart from the casually dressed staff and interns milling about but, somehow, their rockstar presence is quickly detected.

“We’re here for an interview,” Molitz says to the room with a grin.

The duo are here to discuss Accelerator, Particle’s first studio record in 14 years and first with their new, permanent lineup after several personnel changes. Though Particle has never completely disappeared, both the quartet’s studio record and redesigned roster signal that the group is out to reclaim the “Particle People” following Molitz and company first cultivated around the turn of the millennium. As the band’s founding keyboardist and longtime lynchpin, Molitz is the more visibly animated of the two, but both band members are keenly aware of how monumental this release is for a group that’s been radio silent for too long.

Periodically tucking his shoulder-length hair behind his ear, Molitz kicks off the conversation by dissecting electro-rock number/album opener “Wire,” explaining that it was an “obvious choice” to start Accelerator with such a high-energy cut—what better way to relaunch Particle, than to pick up where they left off?

“It was our way of saying, ‘Alright. We’re here, we mean business and we’re having too much fun to keep this track for later in the record,’” he says.

Despite some touring over the last few years, it’s been a while since Particle hit the jam scene with such vigor. The original quartet coalesced in Los Angeles in 2000 but were dealt a blow almost immediately when founding guitarist Dave Simmons passed away shortly after.
The band soldiered on with new guitarist Charlie Hitchcock and were the breakout act at the inaugural Bonnaroo in 2002, thanks, in part, to a surprise all-night set. They released their debut album Launchpad in 2004, and alongside bands like STS9, the Disco Biscuits, The New Deal and Lake Trout, they were quickly classified as one of the early-aughts’ livetronica pioneers.

As the years passed, the band gradually dissolved—they parted ways with Hitchcock in 2005 and replaced him with guitarists Ben Combe and, for a few months, Scott Metzger, who would later go on to serve as a key part of Joe Russo’s Almost Dead.

Around the same time, Molitz and drummer Darren Pujalet shifted their attention to the Grateful Dead world, touring with Phil Lesh and Mickey Hart, respectively. (Molitz was part of one of the longest running versions of Phil Lesh & Friends and participated in some of the bassist’s freest electronic experiments in recent years.) Molitz also clocked in time with Rich Robinson’s band, collaborated with The Doors’ Robby Krieger and honed in on a parallel career as a soundtrack composer. Particle continued to play a mix of headlining and festival dates, but it was clear that their individual interests had started to drift elsewhere.

In late 2013, Pujalet and original bassist Eric Gould stepped down to spend more time with family and pursue other projects. Molitz crafted a new lineup featuring Parnell, Combe and drummer Brandon Draper, though guitarist Michael Daum and drummer Kito Bovenschulte eventually replaced the latter two players.

Molitz proudly calls “Wire” a bridge between “old Particle and new Particle,” an encapsulation of “the best parts of Launchpad: the tempo, the driving energy and the intensity of the solos. It’s in-your-face. It blows your hair back while you’re listening.” Understandably, after such a long recording hiatus, Molitz and company wanted to start this new chapter with a bang. The goal of Accelerator is not only to showcase the keen musicianship of this refashioned quartet, but also to reinstate Particle as jamtronica torchbearers ( just in case anyone forgot).

“The trend right now is that people are making music that’s more chill, that’s more laid back,” Molitz adds. “That’s definitely a tangible trait that’s going on now. But, this record proudly flies in the face of that. That’s where our rock-and-roll roots and spirit shine. It’s like, ‘This is the way the wind’s blowing? We’re gonna turn right into it and hit it hard in our own way.’ I think it’s true to the Particle spirit.”

From the nearly 11-minute psychedelic title track, “Accelerator,” to the three-minute punchy party tune “Heist,” it’s exciting to hear Particle reignite their creative flame and immortalize their new formula on a formal LP. Along with a couple of studios in New Jersey, Molitz cites Applehead Recording in Woodstock, N.Y., as Accelerator’s primary birthplace.

While Midtown Manhattan bustles 11 stories below Relix’s conference room, Molitz’s mind drifts to the idyllic setting that served as the LP’s creative backdrop. The keyboardist currently lives in New York City with his wife and two young children, and the rustic environment was a nice break from his urban rehearsal space.

He describes Applehead’s renovated barn-turned-recording space’s gorgeous wooden beams; Parnell jumps in to mention how the studio’s stockpile of vintage equipment and remote geography acted as unexpected complements to Particle’s sci-fi tendencies.

“We’re all city guys, so it was a completely different vibe,” Parnell says. “Bringing all our electronic craziness into that environment was such a great contrast that enabled us to focus and dig deep.” Mother Nature managed to add to the creative process as well. Freezing temperatures, rain, snowstorms and a variety of animals housed on the 17-acre property made for a unique recording experience.

“When you listen to this album, you can feel the air in the room moving. You can feel that tactile feedback,” Molitz says, raising his hands to mimic the sonic depth. At one point, to capture the right kind of reverb, the band took a pre-recorded guitar solo and blasted it through Applehead’s vintage Neve console, tube amps and PA system. In Molitz’s words, there’s a certain “charm” to running digital performances through analog gear, and that unlikely marriage of sounds is a recurring theme throughout the album. “All the natural reverb, the 30-foot high ceiling, the warmth, the history of the wood and even the weather; when you capture that, you bottle that authentic sound. You can hear it and feel it when you’re listening to the album. It’s tangible.”

Molitz and Parnell are also quick to mention how simpatico the entire process was, with each member of the band supplying their own ideas and collaborating with one another. “It was almost like we were all adding our individual little pieces to the puzzle to create this bigger picture,” Molitz adds. “It was just a really special working environment. It was a magical time that captured the spirit of this album and our motivation and inspiration: everybody, all cylinders firing, working together to create this album. I look back on that as such a special thing—all of us in the same place creating together.”

As the members of Particle discuss Accelerator, the idea of feeling comes up time and time again. In a moment of nostalgia, Parnell recalls when he first crossed paths with Particle. He was still touring with experimental jamtronica act Brothers Past, but watching Particle perform was a revelation: “We were sharing a bill with Particle in Minneapolis, at the Cabooze,” he says. “The stage at that venue juts into the audience in an interesting way. And I thought, ‘Wow, you can’t even tell where the audience ends and the band begins.’ And that’s a nice metaphor, I think, for this scene as a whole. It reminded me what the scene was about: energy going both ways.”

Somewhere between Particle 1.0 and 2.0: Molitz, Parnell, Daum, Bovenschulte (l-r)

When Molitz looks back on his more lengthy history with the band, he notes that Particle has always been fueled by their fans. The music is at its best when there isn’t a wall between the stage and the audience. Shifting his attention to the nine originals that make up Accelerator, the band is eager to experience how these fresh tunes shift and evolve in the live space. “These songs from the new album can’t exist in a vacuum,” Molitz says. “They need the audience to light them up.”

As they start bringing Accelerator to more fans, Molitz points to the title track as one of the record’s most dynamic offerings. In a feat of creative sound engineering, the studio version starts with an actual field recording of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN Laboratories on the Franco-Swiss border. “When you hear that little whizzing and whirring sound that’s spinning around your head, being panned in the audio field, that is the sound of the world’s largest particle accelerator,” Molitz grins. Yet, as proud as the keyboardist is of the studio take, “Accelerator” has truly blossomed onstage. “There’s just a feeling of fulfillment that you get from planting a creative seed, nurturing it, having it come to fruition and then enjoying the fruits of those labors,” Molitz adds. “The fruit tastes sweeter when you create it yourself.”

But don’t expect too many ballads onstage. True to form, Particle want to get their “Particle People” out on the dance floor. And with this newly forged quartet, their energy levels are at an all-time high. “For some reason, when we pick up our instruments and get onstage with each other, it’s like, ‘Alright! Let’s pour some gasoline on the fire, turn it up to 11 and let’s rock! Let’s do this!’” Molitz laughs. “So even when we’re playing electronic music, there’s always a certain amount of unpredictability to it. We like things a little bit rough around the edges. It’s like a solar flare: You never know when you’re gonna get an explosion.”

Molitz’s passion for Particle is evident, and despite his success scoring video games and collaborating with Lesh and Robinson, he always finds a way back to his band. When asked what sets Particle apart from his other endeavors, he takes a pause to gather his thoughts. “There’s a freedom of expression that I get playing Particle music,” he finally says. “It allows my truest artistic voice to be spoken. It’s like speaking multiple languages. You might be fluent in French, but when you tell a story in your native tongue of English, you can communicate with more passion.”

Parnell—who, in addition to Brothers Past, has projects like Let’s Danza and Bio Diesel on his résumé—still goes back to that energy exchange he first felt in Minneapolis. “There’s a certain amount of energy and flow when Particle is hitting it,” he explains. “When the four of us are all reading each other’s minds and bringing our own palette to it, there’s nothing else quite like it.”

Yet the question still remains: Should fans view this as an entirely new chapter for Particle, or just a continuation of the past? Are we in a new era? Is this Particle 1.0 or 2.0?

“Really, it’s both,” Molitz says. “This is Particle. This is the band. It carries the tradition of the previous incarnation in the spirit of the music—high-energy dance music, a mix of live electronic and funk-rock. The legacy lives on, but within this harmonious and solidified new lineup, we’re really firing on all cylinders.”

Looking across the jam scene, both Molitz and Parnell are excited about what they see. The audience is hungry for new music, and Accelerator is primed to satisfy fans who have been patient for over a decade. It seems that every member of this old-meets-new Particle is ready to rock; so much so that one album may not be enough.

“Now that we have this artistic energy alive and flowing, we’re definitely motivated and inspired to keep it rolling,” Molitz explains. “We’ve already started hashing out the demos for another new album, and we have this other concept album in the works. It’s a cliché, but we really are firing on all cylinders. I guess the cliché exists for a reason.”

This article originally appears in the October/November issue of Relix. For more features, interviews, album reviews and more, subscribe here.