Casket Salesmen is the band Phil Pirrone wanted to be involved in his entire life. Though getting there took a few years and a near-fatal auto accident, Pirrone, along with co-conspirator Nate Lindeman, finally assembled the project he’d been planning in the back of his mind. He’s also taken control of his recording destiny, as the owner and operator of his own record label, Longhair Illuminati, and for Pirrone and Lindeman, it’s a fantastic place to be.

Pirrone had embarked on this plan to develop his music career — from all angles — during his high school days in the Los Angeles suburbs of Chino Hills. Instead of paying attention to lectures and homework, Pirrone spent the bulk of his classroom hours strategizing imaginary tour routings and even arranged a benefit show before entering his junior year.

Yet, one of the most important phases of his career came to fruition just days before his 17^th birthday. That’s when Pirrone and Lindeman helped launch A Static Lullaby, which received an immediate and expeditious popularity push, largely due to an all-star lineup of local musicians. “It was like the Chino Hills supergroup,” Pirrone recalls.

After releasing its Ferret Records debut, Columbia Records immediately came into the band’s picture, signing A Static Lullaby to its esteemed roster. But for Pirrone and Lindeman, things had changed, enough to the point to find the pair itching to make their eventual exit.

It was during this period that Pirrone had encountered a decidedly fateful event in his life. After a night out with a friend, Pirrone drove home in his car but never made it there. “I woke up in the hospital four days later,” he remembers. “I had been in a coma. I jumped up in the bed, ripped the tube out of my throat and started yelling.”

Pirrone had run his car off the road, flipping it over in the air. He was ejected from the vehicle and had landed on a golf course. Pirrone was airlifted to the hospital, where the trauma surgeons sliced him open, stopping the internal bleeding just in time, removing his spleen and portions of his liver. He had also suffered a broken back, broken ribs and two collapsed lungs. He had lost sixty pounds as a result of the accident and just about every muscle in his body.

But the one thing Pirrone didn’t lose was his hope and determination. The weeks of hospitalization gave him plenty of time to think about his future. He realized that he needed to break away, wipe his slate clean, and this was the perfect time to engage in such change.

Using his idols — Les Claypool, Mike Patton, Robert Fripp, Sting, David Crosby, Melvins and Thom Yorke — as inspiration to start a label and get back into creating music, Pirrone (along with Lindeman) exited A Static Lullaby to begin a new chapter in his life.

“I feel like the break was the best thing for all of us,” says Pirrone, of his former act. “If I wasn’t in my accident, and I didn’t leave the band, and if the line-up stayed the same, we’d all be like, ‘What the fuck?’ We probably wouldn’t be as focused as A Static Lullaby is now and as focused as Casket Salesmen is. They want to do one thing, Nate and I want to do another.”

With Lindeman at his side, Casket Salesmen was now fully placed into position. Pirrone has finally found a proper forum in which to put his ideas and feelings into action.

“I feel in complete control of the band’s destiny, as far as placing it and marketing it, and I feel like Nate and I get to do exactly what we want to do musically, do it correctly and do it on our terms, which are to be as genuine, as human and as cordial, kind and welcoming as we possibly can,” says Pirrone. “Everyone’s too materialistic, everyone’s too afraid of death, everyone’s not fully living, and that’s why we named the band Casket Salesmen – to represent that we are a tool, too; we are a vessel of information.”

Such information will be transmitted this year with the release of the Casket Salesmen’s Dr. Jesus EP and the debut of the band’s full-length album, Sleeping Giants. Engineered and produced by Justin Gutierrez, with Pirrone and Lindeman, at the band’s own studio and mixed by renowned engineer Ryan Hewitt (Red Hot Chili Peppers, John Frusciante, Alkaline Trio), Sleeping Giants is the album Pirrone had been brewing in his mind for quite some time.

Drawing from the artistic experimentalism of his idols, Sleeping Giants finds Pirrone and Lindeman working in an entirely new musical light. With driving riffs akin to Queens Of The Stone Age, the expansive sonics of The Mars Volta and a dose of classic rock sensibilities ranging from Frank Zappa to Pink Floyd, Sleeping Giants is wholly crafted for the total listening experience – leave any false pretenses and temporary facades at the door.

Launching with the urgent bass lines of “I’ll Buy That For A Dollar,” Sleeping Giants initially takes flight with deliberate immediacy. “Feeling Ten Feet Tall (Part One)” ramps into part two, a forceful, moving, guitar-driven composition with seamlessly shifting rhythmic patterns. Snare drum rudiments and tribal tom phrases drive “Forked Tongues,” adding a new dimension to the already multi-dimensional Sleeping Giants. And the entire collection concludes with the floating acoustic-based “Goodnight, Jugdish.”

Though Pirrone and Lindeman are the only members of Casket Salesmen, they enlisted several friends to assist in the making of Sleeping Giants, including trombonist Chris Sheets of the Rx Bandits, saxophonist Steve Borth from Satori, Mythmaker drummer Ryan Knights, percussionist and programmer Anthony Alagna of Auditory Aphasia, and Mythmaker’s Nicole Verhamme on backing vocals.

“The only reason why I’m in a band and the only reason why I run a label and put myself through the stress and the problems that it causes, those sleepless nights, and my empty pockets, is for that moment in time where everything is gelling on stage,” says Pirrone. “That moment in time when you’re on stage and everybody’s playing perfectly, they’re enjoying themselves, their souls are taken away from everyday bullshit – I’ve got that feeling in every show that Casket Salesmen have done. And that’s the absolute feeling that we strive for.”