Phoenix Recorded New Album on Michael Jackson's 'Thriller' Console

1:40 PM PST 2/7/2013 by Emily Zemler

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"No one else –- no nerd or music engineer or memorabilia freak -– seemed to want" the recording console, said frontman Thomas Mars to the New Yorker.

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Phoenix have revealed that they mixed their upcoming album Bankrupt! on the Harrison 4032 solid-state recording console used to make Michael Jackson's Thriller.

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In an interview with The New Yorker, the French band said that guitarist Laurent Brancowitz found the console for sale on the eBay page of Clayton Rose, the owner of a recording studio in Fullerton, CA, and purchased it.

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The group bought the console for $17,000 after a back-and-forth with Rose, who originally listed it for $32,000. "The most mysterious part to me was that no one else – no nerd or music engineer or memorabilia freak – seemed to want it," frontman Thomas Mars told The New Yorker. "There was something a little spooky about him [Rose]. He was very pushy. It seemed like a scam."

The group shipped the console to Paris, where they used it to mix Bankrupt!, which at that point had the title Alternative Thriller.

Phoenix plans to release Bankrupt! in April via Glassnote as a follow-up to 2009’s Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix. The disc has yet to receive an official release date. However, Glassnote label head Daniel Glass confirmed that it will be an April street date.

Phoenix has also announced a series of U.S. and European tour dates, including stops at Coachella in April. The tour kicks off in Vancouver on March 28.