Features

Felix Burton of Basement Jaxx: “I saw something sitting right in the middle of the sky that looked a flying saucer”

/ Paul McBride / Leave a comment

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IT’S been five long years since the last official Basement Jaxx album, but the English EDM duo are coming back strongly with new effort Junto.

While being free of his record contract and releasing new material means DJ and song-writer Felix Burton should be feeling on top of the world, it’s something altogether more other-worldly he most wants to talk about.

“We’d just moved into a new studio; its windows look over London,” he says. “I saw something sitting right in the middle of the sky that looked a flying saucer. Well, it looked like a Ford Fiesta; the way a car shimmers in the sunshine – it was definitely metallic. [A friend was] with me, having a cup of tea, and we were watching this thing in the sky. We realised it wasn’t a helicopter or a hot air balloon or anything like that; whether it was a military device or arable farming technology we’ve never heard about, who knows? Some other people saw it on that day, but what was most interesting was how small-minded some people were when I told them. An unidentified flying object means I don’t know what it is, but people would get angry and say it doesn’t exist or there isn’t such a thing, and I thought it was amazing how closed-minded people are to new possibilities and ideas. I did a lot of research into all this as I was doing a talk at Oxford University, and I was trying to make sense of it, so I was trawling through conspiracy theories and all the stuff out there. I was seeing a girl at the time, and we were out at some exhibition. She had actually seen something when she was eight years old in Scotland; something had hovered over the car, and she had always talked about it. I was with her in this public exhibition and was talking about the UFO, and said ‘my girlfriend here also saw something’. It was a Judas moment because she said she hadn’t seen anything, and when I asked her about it afterwards she said it was because people think you’re crazy if you say you’ve seen a UFO. I just thought it was awful that people walk off on you and get angry if you say you’ve seen a UFO, but she was blatantly disproving it just because she was embarrassed. People can’t say what they think or be honest. So many people are living a charade and getting whipped up in all this bullshit of celebrity culture that has no effect on their lives and makes them feel dissatisfied and envious. I believe in angels, UFOs, ghosts and all those kinds of things, and I don’t have a problem with it. I’ve looked a lot into religions and what my spiritual path is; maybe because my dad was a vicar. But people are scared of even thinking about all these things, which is such a shame. People just jump on something and use these things to feel superior. They don’t like the idea of something they don’t understand, but the fact is nearly all of life and reality we don’t understand; it’s arrogant to think we do.”

Interplanetary interruptions aside, Basement Jaxx are back with an album brimming over with their signature electronic-pop anthems and plenty of vocal collaborators. After over ten years with XL, Burton is happy to be embracing independence on the new record.

“We’ve always felt free in how we write,” he says. “It’s just you might not hear a lot of the stuff that was very free [laughs]. There were people who thought it might be a bit too tangential or might not fit into the idea of what was appropriate. With this album, we were very clear that we wanted to have stuff we could DJ, so we wanted to make sure it could be useful in our live show and connect to Jaxx fans, as well as fitting in with the current resurgence in house and deep house; now that’s kind of like pop music here. A lot of those people are inspired by us, so actually we might as well do our version of ourselves anyway.”

One of the guest vocalists was transgender rapper Mykki Blanco, who didn’t exactly finish the job, Burton says.

“That was the one vocal where we weren’t actually with the singer. It was done in a very modern way, where we e-mailed stuff. I sent him a couple of things and said it’d be great to work on ‘Buffalo’ and get some Native American spirit. We were back-and-forthing, and Mykki was really into it, then we started getting random e-mails and things weren’t quite connecting. Then [someone said] ‘Mykki’s gone’. We thought it was all sounding great, and told them we need the second verse to finish it, but they told us he’d gone to the desert. I thought it sounded all quite biblical, but that was it. We were mastering the album the next day, so ran out of time, but it’s amazing what you can do when you’ve got to reshape something and make it work.”

Having been a major player in the EDM scene since the ’90s, Burton is unconcerned about how the music industry is evolving of late.

“It’s been changing so much in the past ten years,” he says. “I think people who work in the music industry now have no idea what’s happening with it or where it’s going, which I really like. Rather than resting on their laurels, people need to understand life is about change and embracing change. Everything is temporary, and if a tune is good, you’ll be whistling it in a few years and everything else will get left behind. At a time when there’s so much corporate entertainment dross, it’s good that things keep moving forward and we don’t know where they’re heading. Everyone says it’s all about streaming and nobody will own any music any more, but who knows? There are always going to be enthusiasts who pile up vinyl, but I don’t really worry about these things I guess.”

A heaving touring schedule is already locked in for the end of the year, with Burton hoping to add Australian dates.

“I’m really hoping we can come in February or maybe January; around that time,” he says. “We just did the Fuji Rock Festival in Japan and a festival here in the UK. They went amazingly and I feel very happy with our live show at the moment. We have a lot of people, so it’s quite expensive, but I’d love to bring everyone. Also, the album is called Junto, which is about togetherness. It’s not about me or Simon, it’s about the audience and ideally all the people on stage as well. But yeah, fingers crossed. If Australia shows some interest in the record, then hopefully we can come. At the moment, we’re slightly in that limbo time where we’re waiting on responses to the album, but in my mind I’ve got it to go to Australia and Japan in February next year.”

JUNTO BY BASEMENT JAXX IS OUT AUG 22.

For Scenestr and The Brag

Bill Bailey: “It becomes very much an Oz-centric show”

/ Paul McBride / Leave a comment

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FEW comedic minds are as sharp as that of Englishman Bill Bailey, and he’s bringing it our way once again in a bid to help us contemplate the true nature of happiness.

His new show, Limboland, is sure to continue his habit of selling out major venues all over the country, with a 16-date tour on the cards for October.

“[The show] basically uses a term which is more to do with comedy found in the Catholic liturgy; this concept of limbo or a state of transition,” he says. “But it’s not strictly that, it’s Limboland, so it’s a place of the unknown or expected. I guess it came about because I saw a sign on a door coming out of an airport in Copenhagen saying ‘welcome to Denmark – the happiest country in the world’, and I was like ‘what, really?’ I became intrigued by what is happiness, what constitutes the happiness quotient in our lives and what really gives us happiness. It’s very often not the things you find in surveys, which are all about feeling secure, the bins being collected and the country being in a secure state. It’s more ephemeral; it’s more sort of transient. I guess that’s the starting point of the show; trying to explore that area between what we expect and what is real, what we think our lives are going to be like and what they are actually are like. It’s quite an interesting area to explore because it lead me to all kinds of memories from my childhood and growing up; key moments where you think it could have gone this way or that way. It’s quite a personal show and a kind of reflective look at what makes us happy and what’s the true nature of happiness.”

The 50 year-old Bailey is best known to Australian audiences for his stand up shows and his appearances on television, including QI and ABC’s award-winning hit, Black Books, in which he played the increasingly deranged Manny Bianco opposite fellow comic, Dylan Moran. But can he provide the secret to true happiness with Limboland?

“Sometimes it’s just having a decent cup of tea and watching the sun rise or something, you know what I mean?” he says. “There are odd moments when things just come together and you think ‘this is it’. When religions talk about moments of rapture, they’re not really about visions and all the rest of it, they’re just about the day-to-day or if you have a moment of clarity about something. But it’s also about feeling a state of change; almost like a transitional phase in your life when you reflect and think ‘I’ve done this, this and this, I’ve got a family, house and a nice life’. That’s really what the show is about; it’s a slight sense of mortality or uncertainty about the future, perhaps. It might be borne out of the things that we used to think were untouchable; the monoliths of our society like banks, politicians, royalty, the media, newspapers and all these things that are supposed to be completely unimpeachable, above the law and pristine. All these institutions have been gradually and systematically revealed to be utterly rotten to the core, so there’s nothing for us to cling to. We’re a bit on our own and we have to look out for ourselves a bit more.”

No Bill Bailey show is complete without a healthy portion of his ample musical ability, with Limboland set to feature a fabulously downbeat version of ‘Happy Birthday’, among other compositions.

“I was just reading a fascinating book about the history of protest songs,” he says. “So I thought it’d be good to revive that notion, and there’s an element of that in the show. The travelling I’ve done quite recently has all been through Europe, and it seemed odd that I neglected touring Europe for so many years. I’ve been to Australia and New Zealand many times, I’ve travelled to Asia and performed pretty much all over the world. So I did this big tour in Europe earlier this year, and it was fascinating to realise that there’s so much diversity and difference in language and culture, all quite jumbled together in quite a small area. I did this intense hit of Europe and went to about 15 countries in a month and it proved to be a rich source of [musical] material.”

Having spoken of his love for Australian border control and customs in the past, Bailey is looking forward to the trip this time around.

“I’ve always had fun getting into Australia,” he says. “Very often, over the years, I’ve travelled to Australia via South-East Asia. Having been in parts of Indonesia where the border patrols aren’t that strict, and then arriving in Australia, you realise it’s got proper border controls with sniffer dogs and God knows what. I’ve been picked out of a line-up by dogs before now, and it’s always embarrassing. The dogs have just stood there, barking and barking. Once, I think we were at a party and somebody had a spliff or something, and some of the smoke tends to just cling to you. I didn’t have anything on me and there was no wrongdoing involved, it was just the dog doing his job, so I had to ‘fess up and say what had happened. The thing was, I just didn’t want the dog to get in trouble, you know?”

A run of 16 shows begins in Perth on October 1st, before finishing nearly a month later in Newcastle, with shows in Brisbane on October 12th and 13th.

“I like to come and run in the show, and it’s good to spend a bit of time in a country and really bed it in,” Bailey says. “Often, when I come to places like Australia, there’ll be incidents in politics that will end up in the show as well, so as the show tours around, I pick up stories and things that will get thrown into the show and it becomes very much an Oz-centric show. That’s the way I like it; I like to have material that comes in and is specific to an area, and is gone before I leave.”

Besides his accomplishments as a comedian, actor, writer and musician, Bailey is a self-confessed super-fan of wildlife; a passion he hopes to indulge Down Under.

“I’m hoping to be filming [a wildlife show] at the end of this tour,” he says. “We’re just sort of negotiating at the moment about the feasibility of it. If I’m able, then I’m going to try to fit it in. I’ve been travelling to Australia for nearly 20 years now and have a fascination with the wildlife, so I think I want to have that outsider’s perspective of some of the more colourful aspects of the wildlife, get into detail and maybe expose a few myths about them. I’ve snorkelled around sharks, stingrays and octopuses and hung around snakes and all sorts of things in Borneo, so I’m not too phased by these kinds of things. I’m fascinated by them, so I guess I do sometimes forget that these things can nip you or whatever. Okay, maybe more than a nip; a nibble.”

BILL BAILEY APPEARS AT QPAC ON OCT 12 & 13.

For Scenestr

Joe Agius of The Creases: “In the beginning it was definitely not serious at all”

/ Paul McBride / Leave a comment

the creases

LAST year, Brisbane’s Joe Agius and Jarrod Mahon decided to record a song and make a video one weekend as a bit of a laugh, doing it under the name of The Creases.

Little did they know that legendary UK label Rough Trade would soon have the band in their sights, and things were about to get a lot more serious.

“In the beginning it was definitely not serious at all,” Agius says. “They found the song and video on a random blog and e-mailed us. The Creases was kind of like a fun, joke band we had on the side, and then after we released the single for Rough Trade, we got more serious with it and realised that we could do it for real. It was suddenly an opportunity for us to tour and do all the things we wanted to do. It’s definitely different to a normal band, where you can chip away at it for a year and figure out exactly what kind of band you are and gig a lot, but we were thrown in the deep end pretty quickly. We had to make sure we were tight live, and had a good plan. We don’t mind the pressure; we actually work better under the pressure.”

The link-up with the label lead to a UK tour and now the young quartet have released their debut EP, entitled Gradient, but Agius is already looking forward.

“The EP has been a long time coming,” he says. “It’s a bit of a mix of stuff. There’s one song that’s more like the first single, and there’s a really shoegaze-y kind of track, and some more post-punk kind of stuff. It’s a pretty big mix, but still all sort of in the same category. Mostly pretty similar to ‘Static Lines’. We’re super-psyched for everyone to hear it. It’s taken ages for this EP to come out, so we just want to try and have a smaller gap between releases and move on to what will probably be an album. We’ll start demoing for our new album next month and then record it later in the year. We’ve probably got half an album right now, but we haven’t actually started writing properly.”

The sudden thrust into the spotlight has forced the band to adapt in other ways, with education and employment cast aside.

“I deferred before actually dropping out of uni,” Agius says. “I don’t think I’ll be going back, hopefully. Aimon [Clark, bass] has quit work then got employed again, but we’ve quit a fair few things for the band. It was hard in the beginning; my parents weren’t happy with me dropping out of uni to play in this band they hadn’t even heard yet, but I think they feel better about it now. I think once we started touring and they started seeing a good reaction and our music being played on the radio and stuff like that, they definitely felt a lot better about us dropping out of uni and work.”

The band began as a duo before going through a couple of changes and settling on the current line-up of Agius (vocals, guitar), Mahon (guitar, vocals), Clark (bass, vocals) and Gabe Webster (drums).

“When [our original drummer] dropped out, it was a pretty mutual thing,” Agius says. “She was doing law and was pretty far through a degree. At the time, she had to weigh up what she had to do. We were getting a bit too serious and she just didn’t have the time. Gabe is actually our third drummer; he played in Gung Ho in Brisbane. Gung Ho have kind of gone on hiatus; I don’t know what the go is with that band, but he joined the crew and it’s working really well. It’s good to have a confirmed line-up.”

With an appearance at Splendour in the bag, Agius is looking forward to a busy few months ahead for the band.

“Playing Splendour was the highest goal I ever set with music,” he says. “I would always go and tell my friends that next year we’d be on that triple j unearthed spot or whatever. It’s really scary, but super fun. We’ve got a few more tours with other bands, which will be announced, and we’re writing and demoing for an album. We’ll probably be doing some of our own shows as well.”

GRADIENT IS OUT NOW.

For Forte

Jeremy Neale of Velociraptor: “It’s here now; the apology record”

/ Paul McBride / 1 Comment

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FOR five years, Brisbane many-piece Velociraptor have been living up to their self-elected position as Australia’s most dedicated party-starters.

Now, ‘earth’s mightiest band’ (their words) is releasing its debut album, and is ready to bring the party to a venue near you, says frontman and songwriter Jeremy Neale.

“It’s really exciting,” he says. “Although I’ve heard [the album] so many times that I’ve lost objectivity on it, so I don’t really know what it sounds like to a new listener. I think retrospectively I’m really happy with it, so I’m looking forward to seeing how people respond to it. In an ideal world it’d be satisfying to be releasing music at least every 12 months, if not quicker than that. For us it’s been two years now, which is quite a length of time, but it’s here now; the apology record.”

The band’s self-titled debut, which comes after EP releases in 2010 and 2012, is littered with pop-culture references and ’60s pop vibes, as on tracks like ‘Monster Mash’ and opener ‘Robocop’.

“Well, obviously one of the greatest songs of all time is called ‘Monster Mash’,” Neale laughs. “I just wanted to use that as a way to paint the scene. If you imagine someone dancing to ‘Monster Mash’, you immediately get the vibe of that party, but the song is a bit dark, and I like the juxtaposition of the happy imagery in the middle of a sad song. The Robocop thing was a cool context to put it in, but the real sentiments behind the song were about being in love with something who is everything to you, but to them you’re just the best option at the time. I don’t know how Robocop came into it, but I wanted to create that kind of imagery of essentially a gritty, neon city that features on the cover art of the album. When this album was first demoed, everything was quite minimalist in its approach; everything was just power chords and simple beats. The vision for the album was to do a dark, ‘Pet Sematary’ or ‘Bonzo Goes To Bitburg’ kind of record, but after we played around with [the songs] in the studio it become more of a variety record than how it might have sounded.”

With anything up to 15 members in the band at any time, you can never be sure of what you’re going to get at a Velociraptor gig.

“We keep it all quite fluid, as everybody does have responsibilities,” Neale says. “It’s kind of like ‘here are the dates, who’s in?’ There’s nine of us going to Perth this time, which is out of control. It’s obviously a lot of fun, and it’s a unique and rewarding experience once we’re there. Having now done the record and booked all our flights, except for Adelaide, theoretically all the hard stuff is done. Now, we just have to go and have a good time and deliver the product. We’ve been playing [first single] ‘Ramona’ live for probably a year, and we added ‘Robocop’ and a song called ‘Leaches’. When we added them both to the set ‘Robocop’ [went down] fine, but ‘Leaches’ just did not work for people on first listening. It’s a very interesting experience working out what people want to see live; they just want to be familiar with it, I guess. They looked at us like ‘what are these guys doing; a weird cover or something?’ Once the album is out in the world and people have had a chance to hear it and still want to hear it, we’ll be able to get behind everything on there. It’s all relatively accessible and it’ll be more ‘party’ and faster live. I have high hopes for how it’ll translate.”

VELOCIRAPTOR’S SELF-TITLED DEBUT IS OUT AUG 22.

TOUR DATES:

THURSDAY 21 AUGUST
NORTHCOTE SOCIAL CLUB,
MELBOURNE

FRIDAY 22 AUGUST
NEWTOWN SOCIAL CLUB,
SYDNEY

FRIDAY 29 AUGUST
THE BRIGHTSIDE, BRISBANE

SATURDAY 30 AUGUST
THE COOLY HOTEL,
COOLANGATTA

SATURDAY 6 SEPTEMBER
THE CAUSEWAY HOTEL, PERTH

SUNDAY 7 SEPTEMBER
THE NEWPORT HOTEL,
FREMANTLE

SATURDAY 20 SEPTEMBER
PIRIE & CO SOCIAL

For mX

Julia Stone: “Angus and I probably would have just drifted off”

/ Paul McBride / 3 Comments

angus julia stone

BANDS split up and get back together for a multitude of reasons; whether it be for money, ego or another stab at the limelight.

For brother/sister act Angus & Julia Stone, however, it was different. Both were happily coasting along independently with their respective solo careers, until a legendary US producer sparked the flame that got them working together again.

“Rick [Rubin] said that he heard our music at a party and wanted to meet us,” Julia explains. “He contacted us when we were both on tour doing our solo records and it was very out of the blue. It was just so weird; we were like ‘what’s going on?’ We had our own paths set going solo, and we were both really happy doing that, and then Rick contacted us and came to both of our solo shows separately in LA. We hung out with him separately. I met up with him a few times in LA; we would hang out and go for walks, go on motorbikes and talk. Angus did the same when he was in town. Rick said he wanted to make a record with the two of us together, and that was kind of like the beginning of Angus and me talking; we hadn’t really chatted much between our solo tours. It was out of the blue, but it was a good thing, and it was a blessing. I think Angus and I probably would have just drifted off and not made an effort to be in each others lives. We really now have become friends because of this process, and I don’t think I would ever not talk to him for more than a week now, but at that time I wouldn’t have seen him until Christmas 2015, you know?”

Meeting and working with the Def Jam label founder has brought a new lease of life to the Stone siblings’ song-writing, the result of which is a new, self-titled album; their first since 2010’s Down The Way.

“It feels very exciting,” Julia says. “I feel like we know the record so well now, and I just assume that everybody else knows it. We’ve been playing a whole bunch of shows and summer festivals through Europe, and we play so much stuff off the new record and I forget that nobody’s heard it. I just sort of assume that everybody’s been living with the mixes as long as we have, but I’m actually excited that people will get to hear it for real, and not just in my head. It’s probably just the nature of what’s new in your life, but I feel that the new songs have a lot more energy for us. I think as well the [new] songs are a little more beat-driven and it’s more of a dance-y feel to a show, which is unusual for us. It’s fun to dance around a bit more.”

Not only has the rekindling of their personal relationship brought about a new album, but an entire new approach to song-writing for the pair.

“I think that for Angus and I, song-writing was always a really personal thing and it was space away from each other. All of a sudden, we’re Angus and Julia Stone and we’re this brother and sister thing. We were really young when it started and we enjoyed it a lot, so we kept on going with it, but there was a part of us that wanted to claim our independence from each other. I think for both of us, when we were on tour doing a lot of press and travelling, the song-writing was a really good way to express things that were personal to us and independent from the other person. The idea of writing a song together never even crossed our minds; it wasn’t something that appealed. This time around, we had had time apart and we had written and recorded on our own, and we felt that the only reason to get back together was to try to be different in the way we worked and in our relationship. I think the time apart made it possible; we established that we were independent, so when we came into the studio and started singing together, there wasn’t as much control and we felt more free.”

The new album takes the duo’s trademark folk sound and injects some unmistakeable American flavours, although the pair have no particular goals in that part of the world, Stone says.

“We signed to Rick’s label and he’s based out of the US, but I don’t know,” she says. “The guys from the label over there are really lovely and excited about the album. For us, we sort of just go to wherever we’re summoned to play music, and we never really know what makes a song work on radio or whether people are going to connect. We just wake up and play our songs, and whatever unfolds from it unfolds from it. We haven’t ever been known for our planning or goals about places or things. I think Rick’s great though, and his label’s really good, so we have a lot of support to tour there. Although I don’t really have a phone filled with famous people. It’s Rick and then family [laughs].”

The duo have lined up a September national tour following on from their homecoming show at Splendour, with dates already selling out.

“I was just looking at a tour schedule today,” Stone says. “We have so many tours, so many shows! We go to LA in a few weeks to do press, then we go to Europe to do TV and press and stuff. Then we have an Australian tour for September/October, then an American tour for November, then a Europe tour for December. Then I don’t know what happens after that. [I’ll] probably have a little nap.”

ANGUS & JULIA STONE PLAY THE PALAIS THEATRE SEP 25 & 26. THEIR NEW ALBUM IS OUT AUG 1.

For Beat

Sian Plummer of Circa Waves: “We’re a bit sketchy on the details – can you fill me in?”

/ Paul McBride / 1 Comment

circa waves

THERE are bands who have had meteoric rises, and then are English indie-rock quartet Circa Waves, who are set to play Splendour In The Grass and four sideshows.

When they wrote, recorded and uploaded their single ‘Young Chasers’ to Soundcloud in a single day, they didn’t expect much to happen. That very night it was picked up and played on the biggest radio station in the UK, and the young band haven’t looked back since.

“It was definitely a freak occurrence,” says drummer Sian Plummer. “That’s not the norm for us by any means. I think it was just knowing the right person at the right time at Radio 1 that helped it get played that evening. It really helped that Radio 1 was so keen to help champion young, new music, and they were quite eager to give us a push. But [getting it played on] the first day was quite an achievement [laughs].”

Sudden national exposure led to a flurry of song-writing and touring for the band, before a deal was inked with Dew Process.

“We all met at a festival in Liverpool called Sound City,” Plummer says. “We were all there, and we were all bored with our respective bands and whatever. So we decided we’ll start a band with the aim of playing Sound City next year, and instead of doing that we ended up getting signed and touring the world. To celebrate we just went out and had massive steak dinners in this really posh restaurant. We basically gorged ourselves on quality meat.”

They’ve existed for barely a year, in which they’ve toured incessantly, so it’s understandable that not all the members of the band have had a chance to reflect and plan for the gigs ahead. When asked how much he knows about Splendour In The Grass, Plummer laughs.

“We’re a bit sketchy on the details – can you fill me in?” he says. “Australia: the idea that people are listening to our music on the other side of the world is an unreal scenario to think about. I don’t even know what’s happening over there. I can’t quite process the idea that people are hearing our music and are sort of down with it, so we’re looking forward to coming over and seeing first-hand. It’s really exciting. To be honest, we’re just pretty stoked to be going to Australia, so we haven’t thought far enough ahead to be considering festivals and club shows. I guess I’m excited to see what an Australian club show is like; how you guys react and whether it goes off. Festivals are amazing as well; there’s this whole other side of playing to a crowd in a tent that is just a unique feeling, so we’re looking forward to both.”

The band have just released their debut, self-titled EP in time for an airing at Splendour and a run of shows supporting Metronomy.

“We’re just about there right now,” Plummer says. “We’ve got enough material for at least a 45-minute set now. We’re sort of still perfecting our set and have been over the past six months, so I think we’ve got a good set-list together now and we can fill that time. Then obviously Kieran [Shudall, guitar/vocals] does loads of stand-up comedy between each song, so that takes about ten minutes between each song in the set [laughs].”

Despite being praised by British music press and hailed as a “buzz” band and ones-to-watch, Circa Waves are keen on winning fans the old-fashioned way, Plummer insists.

“We did the NME tour, and that was a strange one,” he says. “It didn’t sell as well as it could have done, but they’ve been really supportive and we really appreciate having anyone like that championing us and getting our name out there. In terms of getting us out there, it’s invaluable. Being played on Radio 1 is the best place to get heard. But from our point of view, it’s all about the live shows; going to people’s towns and playing is the important thing. That’s the way we’ve always got out there and got known. If people haven’t seen us play and don’t know what we’re about live, they’re not going to know what it is we’re about. We’re keen to spread that message.”

While their touring schedule appears unending, a band that does things as quickly as Circa Waves isn’t going to wait years to put out an album.

“We’ve just finished recording our album a couple of weeks ago,” Plummer says. “We went into a studio for about five weeks and laid down quite a lot of tracks. Bit by bit we’re going to start mixing them in and showcasing them live. We’ve amassed quite a bit of material in the last six months. Ideally we’re looking at an early next year release, and before then play live in as many places as we can. It’s a pretty raw sounding album in many ways. It’s not an overly-produced record; we’ve tried to keep post-production to a minimum, and it’s got quite a live feel to it in places as well, as some of the takes were done completely live. It’s about capturing and conveying a lot of the energy of us live. I think we’ve managed to get something that sounds pretty cool as well. We get a lot of comparisons to the Strokes and that’s a great comparison to have, but it doesn’t tell the whole story. We’re influenced by the Strokes, but I don’t think we sound like the Strokes, and what we’ve tried to do on this record is to convey who Circa Waves are and how we sound, and I think that’s massively important. We’re looking forward to getting it out there and showing everybody what we’re about.”

When & Where:

Friday 25th July Forum Theatre, Melbourne (supporting Metronomy)
Saturday 26th July Splendour In The Grass, Byron Parklands

CIRCA WAVES’ DEBUT EP IS OUT NOW.

For Forte

Russell Morris: “I was sick of trying to write songs that I thought people might like”

/ Paul McBride / Leave a comment

Russell Morris

AFTER almost 50 years in the music business, Russell Morris is enjoying somewhat of a renaissance, with his last two albums reaching numbers six and four on the ARIA charts respectively. It’s all thanks to throwing a bit of caution to the wind and getting back to his roots, says the 65 year-old Victorian.

“I remember an ex-manager asking me what I was doing next,” he says. “I said I was doing a blues album. He said ‘why would you do something stupid like that?’ and I said because I really like the blues, to which he replied ‘but nobody will ever buy it’. I’m not doing it for that reason, I’m doing it because I really love it, but I think what happened is that people really do love blues music, but they hear American blues mostly. They can hear it and love it, but it’s not in Australians’ hearts. I think people can relate to the music lyrically and like the sound. A lot of traditional Australian music is real corny country stuff that a lot of people can’t relate to, with lines like [adopts country accent] ‘he came down from Nanadoon with a swagger on his back’. I wanted something with a bit more meat to it.”

2013’s Sharkmouth and the recently-released Van Diemen’s Land tell stories about a range of colourful Australian characters from as far back as convict times.

“History is something that really intrigues me,” Morris says. “I’d done probably six albums that had sunk without a trace, and I was sick of trying to write songs that I thought people might like. So, I decided to go back and make an album of stuff that I would really like. I thought about what got me into music, and the first album that really got me into rhythm and blues was the very first Rolling Stones album. I thought ‘wow, this unbelievable, I’ve never heard anything like it’. Then I realised they weren’t writing all the songs; they were written by a whole lot of other blues artists, and we started collecting their albums. I started off performing with a blues band, and I think that was the happiest I think I was. So, [with Sharkmouth] I decided to write a blues album. At the time I think I had written about four songs and I thought it didn’t seem right. One of the songs was called ‘Chilli Pepper Woman’ or something, and I thought it seemed a bit fake. I sort of put it on the back-burner, but then I was in Sydney and I saw a photo from 1916 of a guy called Thomas Archer being arrested. The photo really transfixed me and I took it home. One afternoon I was sitting looking at the photo and it almost spoke to me, telling me I’m not American and asking me why I’m trying to write songs about America, and almost telling me to write a song about it. I wrote a song called ‘Sharkmouth’ and as soon as I wrote it, I sort of saw the light and thought ‘that’s what I’ve got to do’. I’m Australian, with an English/Irish background, so that’s what I’ve got to write about and talk about my history and my blues. I can’t write about the Mississippi or New Orleans; I need to write about something I feel in my guts. That’s when I started writing about where my ancestors came from, the gangsters and stories I heard about when I was a kid.”

Morris will bring his new lease of life on a national tour beginning the first week of August.

“What I’m trying to do with this tour is to combine the [last] two albums,” he says. “Hopefully it’ll be an entertaining show. I’ve picked all the songs from the albums that I think are the best to do, and hopefully we can entertain the crowd. I think we should do, because we’ve been doing a lot of blues festivals, and it’s been really, really good; a lot of fun.”

Fans of Morris’s material from the sixties and seventies needn’t worry; he still plays classics ‘The Real Thing’, ‘Rachel’ and ‘Sweet, Sweet Love’ live.

“I almost become a sort of Doctor Who as we take a trip through time and end up in 1969,” he says. “That’s a way I can introduce it. I still enjoy doing the old songs, but the newer songs are much more fun, because as an artist you always hope you can engage audiences with new material. But people spend their hard-earned money to come and see me, and I don’t want them going away disappointed. If they’ve spent money to come and see me, I really have to give them the best I’ve got.”

When & Where:

The Capital Theatre, Bendigo Aug 3
The Palms at Crown, Melbourne Aug 8
The Wool Exchange, Geelong Aug 9

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Richard Jupp of Elbow: “It was a proper moment”

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elbow

THEY’VE been together for over twenty years and have six critically-acclaimed albums and a host of accolades under their belts, so a lightning storm isn’t going to stop Elbow winning over yet another Glastonbury Festival audience, explains drummer Richard Jupp.

“[English drum and bass act] Rudimental were on not long before us,” he says. “Then the beautiful British summer weather absolutely let rip. It was torrential and then the lightning started. Unfortunately Rudimental had to be pulled off stage, and they were having an amazing set. I was standing at the side of the stage with my wife and son and they were absolutely killing it, but obviously the lightning was a threat. When it did finally stop, Lily Allen – who was on before us – amazingly pulled a couple of tracks out of her set so we could catch up, time-wise. Once she came off our crew played a blinder; they managed to turn over in about half the time it usually takes a band to get on stage, so we were able to get on a couple of minutes early, which was incredible on our crew’s part. Again, we had this sort of Glastonbury moment where the clouds parted, the sun made an appearance and we had that sunset set that we’ve had the last couple of times we’ve played there. I don’t know what’s going on; somebody’s put a word in somewhere, but obviously we were very grateful and it was a proper moment.”

Australian fans can expect similar moments – albeit without the downpour and sunset – as the band has announced a run of October theatre shows, with appearances in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne.

“When we come to Australia, we’ll be playing the Tivoli again, and a few places we’ve played before; big old theatres,” Jupp says. “Then obviously we’re playing the Sydney Opera House, so we want to do something special there. We’re talking about maybe doing some obscure b-sides like ‘McGreggor’ or ‘Whisper Grass’; I don’t know. Maybe something that lends itself a bit more to the grandeur of the place. I know it’s all seated, and there are a couple of big tunes that might not suit that, so we’ll need to sit down and have a discussion. I’m looking forward to seeing what we can pull out of the bag for that. There’s always stuff we can get better, but so far it’s been brilliant. We’ve been on the road since March; through the UK, a little bit in Europe, America, then back into Europe with Portugal, Holland, Belgium, Moscow and two nights at the Eden Project in the UK. After Latvia we have a couple of weeks off, then well be looking forward to getting to Australia.”

The band’s latest album, the grand and melancholic The Take Off And Landing Of Everything, has received almost universal critical acclaim, and was written at a time when lyricist and singer Guy Garvey had split from his long-term partner. Luckily for the band, the record filled with loss and remorse has gone down well with fans all over the globe.

“There’s obviously a certain amount of ‘thank fuck for that’ when people liked it,” Jupp says. “We have been around for a bit, and you do get a little bit conscious of how we’re perceived. We don’t want to try to compete with all these young bucks, but we really enjoyed the process of writing this one because we all did more a bit more separate writing, then brought it into the studio. It was a new thing for us really, and it worked out really well. Tracks like ‘Real Life (Angel)’; Craig pretty much brought in the complete track and we Elbow-ified it, then Guy spent some time putting lyrics on. Mark wrote all of ‘Honey Sun’; everything on that track is all his. It was a little bit weird; we’re used to doing the writing together all of the time, but it was really nice getting something in a drop box or a transfer with some weird and wonderful sounds that you could take up to the attic and put some beats or a bass-line on. I was able to get into melody, which is always a dangerous thing for a drummer, but it was a really good way of working.”

THE TAKE OFF AND LANDING OF EVERYTHING BY ELBOW IS OUT NOW.

ELBOW TOUR AUSTRALIA IN OCTOBER.

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Gabriel Lewis of Lowtide: “I’ve battled this for a long time in my head”

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lowtide

HAVING EXISTED in various forms since 2008, yet only releasing their debut album this month, Melbourne shoegazers Lowtide aren’t a band you’ll catch making snap decisions. Blame their perfectionist guitarist and all-round nice guy Gabriel Lewis.

“Yeah, it has been ages actually,” he says. “When we recorded it there were lots of overdubs and returning to things. I sort of decided how my guitar was sounding in the studio sessions wasn’t as up to scratch as I’d like, so I overdubbed everything and broke everything down separately, just to get full control over everything and its sound. Otherwise, I think we’d played too much all at once and it got a bit choked. I really like doing that sort of stuff, because the idea is always there when I’m performing the songs, but I know that I don’t have enough fingers to be able to play all the stuff that I’m thinking of. So it’s kind of cool to flesh it all out and to see it realised in a way that we hope to be able to do.”

The quartet’s eponymous debut may have taken an age to see the light of day, but consistently strong live performances have paved the way for its arrival and reception.

“To begin with, we were so relieved just to have it done,” Lewis says. “But now it’s really exciting; the response we’ve had from the single so far has been really amazing. Live, there’s always a pretty strong response. The good sign is that you can’t hear too much talking going on in the room, which is nice. Especially with the quieter songs, people tend to lose attention and be chatty or whatever, but it seems to hold, so I think that’s a win.”

The first single is ‘Blue Movie’; a sparse slow-burner, although any future writing may come about in a different way, or so Lewis hopes.

“When we started there were a lot of songs already written,” he says. “[They] sort of just slotted into place in the band. More recently, we’ve had a few jams and a few ideas started from the two bass players doing parts over each other, then I’d come along and do stuff over that. I’m hoping to do more of that in the future. Everything I’ve written is really kind of taxing as far as performing goes. When we play shows it’s non-stop for me, and everybody else gets to have a bit of a relax now and then (laughs).”

Shoegaze’s original wave of popularity might have peaked in the early ’90s, but Lowtide are just one of a number of new bands taking the genre in a new direction.

“I’ve battled this for a long time in my head,” Lewis says. “You kind of don’t want to knock off what everyone’s done in the past, and if it works so well then why re-invent the wheel? Then there are a lot of bands classed as nu-gaze or whatever, adding their own edge to it to try and stand out from the crowd. I find that generally weakens the concept, and I guess if you look at blues or rock – there are standard ways of doing them, and it’s the same with shoegaze. Shoegaze is a fairly independent or off-the-radar thing, so maybe that’s why people feel that they need to try to make something else of it. But I think it’s now establishing itself, and the sound is still popular, even if it’s still linked to the ’90s because that’s when it first blossomed. It keeps coming and going as well; there have been ups and downs, and it’s just coming up at the moment, which is really exciting.”

As humble a musician as you’ll probably find, Lewis is happy take one thing at a time for Lowtide.

“At the moment we’re just focussing on the album launch,” he says. “[It] is on the 25th of July at the Tote, and after that we’ll be touring to Brisbane, Sydney and over to Adelaide as well. Then we’ll take it from there, I guess.”

LOWTIDE IS OUT NOW.

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J of Jungle: “We almost pictured ourselves in a jazz club, with T doing a door solo over drops”

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jungle band

THEIR music has been described as kaleidoscopic modern soul, but being in Jungle is all about feeling before style, says the band’s singer and producer, known simply as J.

“In the real world, I’m is doing all sorts of shit to try to prove myself,” he says. “Whereas J and T are our nicknames; they’re where we go and that’s what Jungle is for us. It’s just somewhere we can go and create and be free, and is a really powerful thing. It’s important that it’s not about any individual. It should always be about the music.”

Along with childhood friend T, J formed Jungle as recently as recently as ten months ago, and despite a much-hyped debut album released this week and an upcoming appearance at Splendour in the Grass, the London-based duo remains as mysterious as ever. Their self-titled record is very much a DIY release, featuring smooth, crisp bass-lines, urban grooves, falsetto vocals and a few happy accidents.

“A lot of the stuff we put down, we put down because it was hilarious,” J says. “There’s a solo that was a door creaking, which some people love and some people hate. Basically, I was on the computer listening to a track and T left the room to make coffee. The door in my bedroom is basically creaky as hell, and creaked almost in tune with the track in a weird kind of way. I was like ‘wow, stop, stop!’ and started pointing a microphone at the door, saying ‘you’re on, it’s solo time’. We almost pictured ourselves in a jazz club, with T doing a door solo over drops.”

Despite mostly being recorded in a home studio in west London, the album is littered with imagery of faraway places, as on tracks like ‘The Heat’.

“I suppose, if you think about it, everything on our album is a visual reference,” J says. “It’s all about how you can be in that place to create that music. For example, with ‘The Heat’; that’s the beach, you know? So, the beach is a metaphor for a feeling of happiness. Rather than just being in a room in Shepherd’s Bush, you can close your eyes and go to that space. Einstein said ‘simplicity is genius’, and it is; I think all the best things in life are simple, and I think we kind of look up to that quote.”

One faraway place Jungle aren’t going to have to visualise is Australia, with the band set to fill a slot at Splendour in the Grass.

“Oh God, I don’t know how big our set is going to be there – don’t tell me!” J says. “I just go around expecting these tiny little hundred-person gigs. Everything for us is about human connection. If you look at our videos, it’s all about the people and what they’re saying through their eyes, which you lose so much of in the digital age. It’s ironic that most people access it through the Internet. I think live we want to make it about having people on-stage, and I think people relate to people more than laptops, and they enjoy it. The interesting point comes when you explore the line between live and electronic; where does the human end and the computer begin?”

Part of Jungle’s mystery has been intentionally engineered; that’s for certain. But as J confirms, the duo are much more down-to-earth than at first glance.

“We finished a song called ‘Son Of A Gun’ and it gave us the energy and confidence to finish more,” he says. “And then you start to build up that archive of stuff. A lot of people struggle – and we have struggled – with finishing stuff or having the confidence to finish it. Its only really a sketch when it’s finished and you can only really judge it when it’s finished. It’s an emotional whirlwind of a process, especially when you’re doing everything and you’re writing, recording and mixing; it becomes one and you have to be quite structured in the way you deal with it, because you can end up producing and mixing before you’ve even written anything. There were probably terms where we were thinking that we hated the sound of a snare drum, but the song didn’t even have a chorus, you know? It was just about taking things one step at a time and doing what feels right. It’s quite a DIY process for us, and we kind of enjoy that. Some of the best parts on the record are the big mistakes, and you have to embrace things that just happened off the cuff. That’s a process that happened from when we grew up. When you first get a family computer and get a little USB mic and realise you can do this without having to go to Abbey Road or do it properly. We’re at an age now where you can create and produce stuff to high standards with these tools, and it’s not necessarily about how it sounds. There are some amazing records that sound like they were recorded in the plushest studios, but just don’t have any emotion in them. Whereas you’ve got some records that were recorded on one mic in a basement, that are the most incredible records ever. Therefore, looking at that, it’s not about where you are or what you’re recording, it’s more about that feeling, emotion and energy in the room. You can waste so much time positioning mics and that sort of thing.”

JUNGLE’S DEBUT ALBUM IS OUT NOW. JUNGLE PLAY SPLENDOUR IN THE GRASS.

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Kram of Spiderbait: “We always feel that our shows are special gigs”

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kram

SPIDERBAIT are hitting the road for their first national tour in ten years and an appearance at Splendour, and drummer/singer Kram is taking it all in his stride.

“We just turn up,” he says. “That’s our way to get pumped up. We don’t really prepare that much; we do some rehearsing and stuff, but my whole philosophy is that our music is very spontaneous. We don’t think about it too much; we save ourselves for the show and we don’t get there too early. We’ve been playing together for over 20 years, so whenever we walk onto the stage we feel each other’s dynamic through the songs we play, including the new ones in the set. Then we just let it happen; we let it all come out and let the audience’s energy, our energy and the music’s energy create a melting pot that you can stir for yourself and have a great time. That’s kind of the way I like to do it and how we operate. That’s why I think our shows are very exciting, because you’re never quite sure what’s going to happen.”

While their self-titled comeback album was released in November last year, it’s been a bit of a wait for the accompanying tour.

“It was basically difficult for us because of some family stuff,” Kram says. “We did a couple of festivals in Victoria and we were originally going to do Big Day Out, but that unfortunately folded as we couldn’t reach an agreement with them. It’s a shame that the show has reached its demise; we have a lot of great memories of that festival. So, we decided we would put it off and start it at Splendour In The Grass, which we’re playing this month, then we’ll do the national tour after that.”

Having just returned from Brazil and with film score work in the pipeline, Kram is as busy as ever, but the chance to get Spiderbait back on the road was an enticing offer.

“Everyone was up for it, absolutely,” he says. “The guys at Secret Sounds, who do Splendour In The Grass, were really keen on doing it. It was probably more their idea, in a way. We were like ‘yeah, that sounds good’ because we hadn’t toured for a long time; it’s just not something that we do very much any more. Once they put forward the idea and the dates were set up, we thought it was really cool. We’re looking forward to it; it should be good. We love playing live. We always feel that our shows are special gigs and we love that. We love the energy the crowd gives us and we’re very grateful to our fans for wanting to see us.”

SPIDERBAIT PLAY SPLENDOUR IN THE GRASS JULY 25 AND THE HI-FI AUG 9.

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Merrill Garbus of tUnE-yArDs: “Aren’t I supposed to know how to sing?”

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tuneyards

SINGER and multi-instrumentalist Merrill Garbus is refreshingly honest about her need for musical reinvention on Tune-Yards’ new album Nikki Nack.

Her 2011 album Whokill received almost universal critical acclaim, and saw the New England native off on a gruelling world tour. After a period of reflection, the 35 year-old realised it was time to go back to basics for album number three.

“I didn’t want to use any of the old tricks I used to,” she says. “I didn’t want to use my older methods of writing and the looping pedal. The looping pedal has very specific limitations, and although it did me well for a long time, I think I had come to the end of the road with that. So it felt like if I wasn’t going to use the ukulele like on the first album and I wasn’t going to use the looping pedal, I was back to square one or ground zero with a big question mark saying ‘how do you write an album?’ without doing it the ways I have done it before.”

Ditching the looping pedal might seem like a bold move for a musician who has relied on it so heavily, but Garbus went a step further by literally going back to school.

“I started off by taking voice and drum lessons,” she says. “It was difficult. I love being good at things, and I don’t like not being good at things, so it was very humbling to learn that I don’t know everything and realise that I can improve and learn new techniques. I took a lot of Haitian drum lessons, and it was great to admit that I had no idea what I was doing and nothing to direct me, as I had just not heard that music before. It was really challenging, but that was easier than taking voice lessons. I mean, aren’t I supposed to know how to sing? I sing for my living, so you’d think I’d know how to sing, but it turns out I have a lot of improving to do there as well.”

After experiencing the intensive Whokill tour, Garbus admits it’s difficult to not get burnt out.

“I’m 35 years old,” she says. “My body can only endure so much partying and late nights. In other words, we hardly do that at all. To me, keeping my health up and having a regular routine is important. I have certain books that I read and I have yoga and I eat well; pretty simple things. This is me trying to pretend I have a healthy, stable life, even though we’re taking that stable life all across the world. It’s pretty fun.”

Tune-yards’ upcoming appearance at Splendour in the Grass will give the band a chance to test out its new skills on an Australian audience.

“We’ll be so excited to be in Australia,” Garbus says. “So we’ll have lots of energy I hope (laughs). I’m drumming a lot more this time around, and we have another drummer who plays a very unique setup. We’ve got two very amazing back-up singers. Nate Brenner is on bass as always, also with more synthesisers. Expect a lot of fully danceable music.”

NIKKI NACK BY TUNE-YARDS IS OUT NOW. TUNE-YARDS PLAY SPLENDOUR IN THE GRASS.

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King Buzzo: “I’ll take the blame, no problem”

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king buzzo

BECOMING involved in music as a high school friend and band-mate of Kurt Cobain, before forming grunge/metal legends the Melvins, Buzz ‘King Buzzo’ Osbourne has accomplished most things in music.

However, after a 31-year career involving over 30 albums of studio and live material, the singer-guitarist is still breaking new ground by going acoustic for the first time on new album This Machine Kills Artists.

“It just seemed like the right thing to do, you know?” he says. “I’ve done a lot of albums in the past and a lot of other types of work in the past, but there’s no real reason other than that. I worked on it for a few months and I realised pretty quickly that I can do things fast, because I didn’t have anybody else working on the songs. So once I had them written, I was able to go in and record them, and I had a great time doing it. It was just another challenge and I was up for a challenge. I’ll take the blame, no problem [laughs].”

The 50 year-old is equally self-effacing, engaging and blunt, and was just as driven by what he wanted the new album to sound like as how he wanted to avoid it sounding like. A quote on his website reads “I have no interest in sounding like a crappy version of James Taylor or a half-assed version of Woody Guthrie”.

“I just listened to most of what that stuff sounds like and just made sure I didn’t do it,” he says. “I think it’s mission accomplished in that department. I didn’t want to do some National Skyline type of thing at all. Lots of rock and rollers try to do that; they think it’s more legitimate or something, I don’t know. It’s weird. I could certainly do all acoustic covers of Hank Williams songs if I wanted to, but that just doesn’t sound very interesting to me, you know? As much as I love Hank Williams, it’s not for me to do it. If I could figure out some other angle on it, maybe, but I’m not going to worry about that. I’m trying to be kind of a heavy metal version of Captain Beefheart. I’ve been calling it ‘molk’, which is metal-folk. How does that sound? M-O-L-K; I don’t know anyone else who is doing that. It’s an original concept. For all intents and purposes that’s the kind of area I’m working in. So nothing’s too direct, but I think if you listen to it, it can mean a lot to a lot of different people. I’m never that direct, never I’m not going to lead you by the hand down the garden path. It’s a walk people have to take on their own, you know?”

With more than 2000 shows under his belt, it would be safe to assume Osbourne should take performing in his stride, even if the new format throws up some original challenges.

“I don’t have a band to hide behind on this,” he says. “I just have to go out there and make it work. I’m all on my own; there’s no drums or anything except me and my acoustic. It’s very stripped-down, very minimalistic and that’s kind of how I want it. I’m eight shows into this tour and I did about 17 or 18 shows before this. I’ve done the better part of 30 shows, but I’m still learning, you know? I’m figuring it all out as it’s brand new to me. By the time I get to Australia I’ll have more than 50 shows under my belt, so I’ll be feeling pretty secure that I’ve seen it all by that point, but there really is nothing like playing live to get that experience and feeling that anything and everything could go right or wrong. There’s no substitute for that; none. Things can still go wrong; even songs that I’ve played for years. You just never know. That’s all part of playing live.”

Osbourne will bring his solo show to Australia for a ten-date tour in August, and while he’s not generally known for being a chatty performer, expect at least a bit of banter between songs.

“For now, I have been telling stupid stories and stuff like that,” he says. “It’s not normal singer-songwriter type stuff, it’s more irregular. I want to present this as serious, but still vulnerable to some degree. I got to have some kind of communication with [the audience], but maybe as time goes on I won’t say a word. With most of the Melvins shows I don’t say a word; I just let the music do the talking and don’t worry about it too much. Sometimes at Melvins shows I’ll talk about whatever the fancy takes me, but not a tremendous amount. I’m doing 70 minutes with not a lot of talking; maybe five minutes talking out of 70 minutes. Sixty-five minutes of music is a enough for people to have to deal with [laughs]. Out of those 70 minutes, I’ll be doing about 50 percent old Melvins material and 50 percent new material, which is what I do normally anyway. It’s not a wild stretch, you know?”

The permanently-busy Osbourne confirms that despite his acoustic gigs taking centre stage for now, a return to blasting loud rock music isn’t far away.

“[The Melvins] have a new album coming out in early October and we’re going to do some new shows in the US in mid-October, roughly. Nothing’s on the back burner at all; it’s very much in the foreground. I leave nothing to chance, you know? I’m very much about plans; all kinds of plans. I’ve worked my ass off to get to this point.”

Despite swapping his electric guitar for acoustic, Osbourne laughs off the suggestion he might be mellowing with age.

“Listen to the album and you tell me,” he laughs. “It’s something else I can do, and that’s all it is. I’m a songwriter and that’s what I do; I make music. I do it for a living, I work on it as a craft. It’s all just part of the same thing, thank God.”

When & Where:

Thursday 14 August Geelong | Barwon Club (18+)
Friday 15 August Melbourne | Ding Dong Lounge (18+)

THIS MACHINE KILLS ARTISTS BY KING BUZZO IS OUT NOW.

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Dan Cavanagh of Anathema: “We’re not into lyrics about elves and we’re not into playing the fucking flute”

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Anathema band

IT ONLY TAKES one four-letter word to get Anathema multi-instrumentalist and song-writer Dan Cavanagh fired up. Prog.

“I have no idea what it is, I don’t care about it and I don’t consider our band to be in it,” he says, when asked if the genre is in good shape globally. “It really is journalistic spiel to say we are a progressive band, you know what I mean? I do not consider us a progressive rock band; never have. In terms of where it is globally, I don’t care and I don’t even fucking know. If you’re talking about Pink Floyd, Kate Bush or Radiohead; that’s something I consider us to be closer to. If they’re a bit prog-rock, then I’ll take that, but we’re not into lyrics about elves and we’re not into playing the fucking flute. We’re not about time signatures and time changes and solos and what prog-rock seems to be known for; it’s got nothing to do with us. But I’m not knocking it! It’s just not for me. Pink Floyd, Radiohead and Kate Bush are for me.”

Luckily the 41 year-old Englishman is in more of a mood to talk about the (not prog) rockers’ tenth studio album Distant Satellites, and why it had the working title of Kid AC/DC.

“We’re all fans of Radiohead and AC/DC,” he says. “One thing I noticed was those bands strip back their music; it’s not over-layered, particularly on Kid A, which is a real difference from OK Computer. AC/DC do the same thing with rock and roll. Their music isn’t layered with strings and piano; it’s stripped-back, edgy rock and roll, which is great. We were tired of over-laying. Our previous albums are good, but we tended to just throw things on. This time we took a more mature and considered approach by not doing that. Both I and the producer independently came to that conclusion before we talked about it, but we were making an album that’s considerably more rock-edged than Kid A, so we called it Kid AC/DC.”

The album contains tracks called ‘The Lost Song’ in three parts; the result of a minor catastrophe that Cavanagh turned to his advantage.

“In about 2008, I recorded a riff which I considered to be a very good one for us,” he says. “I was very excited about it. A few weeks later it had actually disappeared off the recording and I couldn’t find it. I tried really hard to find other demos, and if it ever turns up I’ll be amazed and interested. Then I started trying and failing to remember that riff and these songs were written. So what I was doing was trying to write a song with a time signature and chord progression that may have been like the one that was lost. All three songs came from that. It drove me crazy, but John [Douglas, drums] said to tell myself the song was crap, and it’ll be okay.”

Along with Norwegian producer Christer-André Cederberg, the band were able to call on The Porcupine Tree’s Steven Wilson for additional duties.

“He was involved for just four days, but he made a difference,” Cavanagh says. “He mixed two songs on the album and two B-sides. All the production, writing and recording was already done before we asked him, and the reason we asked him was that Christer had taken ill and needed some time in the hospital for an operation. He couldn’t mix all the songs in time, so we asked Steven to help, and he did a great job as he always does.”

Almost unbelievably for a band that has existed since 1990, their three-date August tour will be the six-piece’s first trip to Australia. Does Cavanagh know why that’s been the case?

“Maybe because it’s so far away. It’s only just recently that we’ve got a really strong manager in place. We haven’t had a strong manager kind of ever, and it’s one of the reasons we’ve underachieved. We’re not going to underachieve any more, but maybe it’s just part of our story, I don’t know.”

ANATHEMA PLAY:
Thursday, August 21 – The HiFi Bar, Brisbane
Friday, August 22 – The Metro Theatre, Sydney
Saturday, August 23 – The Corner Hotel, Melbourne

DISTANT SATELLITES BY ANATHEMA IS OUT NOW.

For The Brag

Clare Bowditch: “Everything’s under wraps until you get there on the night”

/ Paul McBride / Leave a comment

clare bowditch

IF YOU’RE hard pushed to find time to run your business, raise a family and write your next album all at once, what’s the solution?

That’s easy: organise a national tour, invite Adalita along for the ride and let the pieces fall into place by themselves. At least, that’s what Clare Bowditch will be doing with her upcoming Winter Secrets Tour.

“I am sort of starting to write this new album,” she says. “My other project, my business, has been a very incredible but demanding lovechild. I thought maybe it was time to have a year off, which I do from time to time. But then I realised I write my best work after I’ve been talking with the people that I write for, which is my audience. So I needed to get back out on the road and hang out with them for a bit.”

The Winter Secrets Tour will see her do shows from Tasmania to Queensland through July and August, with the help of an old friend.

“I love Adalita,” Bowditch says. “We’ve worked together at various stages over the years. She’s a real inspiration to me; she’s a great artist who continues to make incredible work and she’s also very humble, which I definitely wouldn’t be if I was her. She’s insanely accomplished, but she’s also a good mate who makes great music. I love going on the road with her, and hopefully the audience will see a different side of her, as well as myself. Winter Secrets is very much a show-off, and we’ll make sure it’s one of the most memorable nights of your life, but everything’s under wraps until you get there on the night. The nature of Winter Secrets is that there are always lots of surprises.”

Bowditch’s new day job involves her Big Hearted Business project, which initially was meant to be a small affair, but quickly grew to something substantial.

“I thought it was just going to be a little thing that took a day a week, but it’s been a full time job for the past nine months,” she says. “Basically, we’re here to teach creative people about business and business people about creativity and why it makes sense. We make little mini movies called Inspiration Bombs, which are collaborations between artists like Claudia Karvan, Tex Perkins, Imogen Banks and people from different disciplines. We pair them with artists who make visuals for us, and we’ve been putting them up for free on the website as educational pieces. We also have a thing called (un-)Conference, which is an event where we get speakers from all over the world to come, and we put on a pretty unusual two-day event in Melbourne. We’ve just finished that a month ago.”

It’s been a long two-year wait since her last album, but Clare Bowditch fans won’t have to wait too much longer.

“My way of writing is to gather together at least a hundred sketches or half-finished ideas,” she says. “They’re sitting waiting, and have been for the last six months, and there are more coming every day. Then I dedicate a period of time to whittle them down, which I’ll probably do later in the year. It depends on which of my buddies I bump into between now and September too. This will be my eighth album I’ll start writing this year.”

Despite having a number of fingers in a number of pies, Bowditch has a strategy to cope with the different demands in her life.

“My realisation was during the challenge of writing The Winter I Chose Happiness,” she says. “I’ve kind of been challenging myself to slow down for a number of years, and I’ve accepted that when you’re creatively inclined, there’s always a degree of chaos in your life, so I’ve made a lot more room for quiet days at home. You come to a point of dynamic equilibrium with each project; some periods of the year I’m a stay-at-home mum, other periods I’m touring, other periods I’m working in the office. It certainly keeps it diverse.”

Despite the addition of a national tour and the writing of a new album in Bowditch’s life, anyone thinking the 39 year-old will be putting her feet up needs to think again.

“My friend and I are running a Big Hearted Business retreat in September, which will be great fun,” she says. “I’ll be playing shows and doing other work in places like Vietnam, as well as Australia. I’ll be continuing to create Inspiration Bombs with great Australian people, and constantly challenging myself to push through my own stories about what it means to be making music.”

When & Where:

Sooki Lounge, Belgrave July 17
Corner Hotel, Richmond July 18

For Forte Magazine