INTERVIEW: THE MEDICS

The Medics

By Emma Dean

Launching onto the scene in 2010 with their unique twist of indie rock, The Medics eagerly anticipated debut album is almost upon us. Emma sat down with guitarist Andrew Thomson to talk their recording the new album, playing at BIGSOUND and making a name for themselves in far North Queensland.

Your debut album is due out on Friday (May 18) and your singles have been getting some serious airplay on Triple J – has it sunk in just how highly anticipated the album is?

Not really hey, it still feels a bit airy. We are pumped for it to be released so people can own something that we are proud of.  We can then start on the next chapter of the story.

 

What can you tell us about the album? 

The recordings on Foundations [and the tracks] are all produced in collaboration with Yanto Browning – a great producer whom we had a lot of confidence and trust in.

Recently we have been working with video-makers ‘pixel frame’ on the production for our latest single ‘Griffin’, the setting is at the Boggo Road jail and the story has a semi controversial ending.

You can check out the video for ‘Griffin’ here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1gRMj6R0XQ

 

You’ve just been added to the line up for this year’s Splendour in the Grass – how does that feel?

Feels like a dream come true, not just to play the festival, but the bands that we have the chance to share the bill with and see live. It’s amazing!

 

How was playing at BIGSOUND? What doors did this open for you? 

Basically our band’s steps have been taken through our BIGSOUND showcases. With Brisbane at the forefront of the industry, a lot of bands get heaps out of it and more than just the experience of a ‘great show’.

We met our manager at BIGSOUND a few years ago . . . and then our label, booking agent and last year our publisher.

It’s such a great thing – all the other bands that you meet too, like the ones you wouldn’t usually run into, it all makes the Brisbane music scene pretty tight!

 

You signed to Brisbane’s Footstomp Records late last year – what made you decide to go with them? 

Footstomp just put the right things on the table, nothing unnecessary. Clean and simple. We get to maintain total creative control too, which we think is important.

 

For someone who hasn’t seen you perform live, what can audiences expect? And what track would you play them?

Personally, I always play ‘Ocean Eyes’ as my first track; it just has a catchy hook melody that makes me sing along every time.

The live show is a whole separate feeling to the album though. You need to have the two different dynamics of the visual and the audio to capture the true emotions of the songs for the entire set.

 

You were featured in the documentary ‘Who We Are’ for NAIDOC (National Aborigines and Islanders Day Observance Committee) week in 2010 – how did that come about? 

We first started our travels south to the Dreaming Festival held at the Woodford grounds.  The NAIDOC week video came from that opportunity and gave us a massive boost at the time.

 

You made the move from Cairns to Brisbane fairly early on in your career – what’s the music scene like in Cairns? Is it a good environment for up and coming bands?

The Cairns music scene can be a bit of a dry landscape, where there’s no water in sight, but you dig a little and there’s plenty underneath, where you can’t see it.

It’s all about DIY in North Queensland -  we started by doing shows in halls, then pubs and clubs when we all came of age, and then I guess we just were looking for that next step, and we found that in moving to the capital city, Brisbane.

 

How have you grown musically and as a band since your debut EP ‘This Boat We Call Love’? 

I don’t really feel like we have changed all that much musically, the production is up a notch, we’ve learnt to play our instruments a bit better and the beards are a lot longer.

 

How is your tour schedule looking over the next twelve months? Where will you be heading on your album tour?

This next part of the year will see us head to all the same cities we have already visited plus a lot more, with more rural shows being added to bulk up the road time. Also a few new festivals in the mix we hope around the end of year season.

 

Out of the musicians and industry people you’ve worked with, who has given you the best advice? 

Yanto Browning seems to have good advice when we need it. He never lies, that something is good when it sucks, and is good at making coffee.

 

Is there an awesome up and coming band you’d like to give a shout out to?

Really digging this band from Melbourne called ‘Drunk Mums‘ – they’ve got a sound like no other, and make you feel like you already know their songs.

 

Finally, what’s next for The Medics?

Album out May 18^th and then we can’t wait for Splendour in the Grass!

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Thanks to Andrew for taking the time to chat to us. To find out more about The Medics, check out their website: http://www.themedics.com.au

INTERVIEW: TO WRITE LOVE ON HER ARMS

To Write Love On Her Arms

By Meghan Player

To Write Love on Her Arms is a non-profit movement dedicated to presenting hope and finding help for people struggling with depression, addiction, self-injury and suicide. TWLOHA exists to encourage, inform, inspire, and also to invest directly into treatment and recovery. Meghan Player spoke to Chad Moses about the organisation, the worldwide support, and what else needs to be done.

- How did the organisation begin? What inspired you to start TWLOHA?

To Write Love on Her Arms began 6 years ago simply as an attempt to help a friend and tell her story. Our friend Renee had a long history with issues like drug addiction and self-injury and in February 2006 she decided that she was ready to get help.  Unfortunately, she was initially denied entrance into a treatment facility due to fresh wounds on her arms and the amount of drugs still in her system.  They told her that if she could stay clean for 5 days, that they would welcome her back.

From there a group of friends opted to take her in and help her get clean.  There she met a young man named Jamie and for the next few days Jamie and his friends made it their goal to make her feel less alone and to show her love.  At the end of those five days, Jamie asked Renee how she felt about having the opportunity to tell her story, and she responded saying that if her story could connect with just one person, that there will have been a purpose for all her pain.

The next day, she successfully entered treatment and Jamie decided to post a story about that week on MySpace.  Remembering her scars he titled it “To Write Love on Her Arms.”  From there he made a couple hundred t-shirts to sell in an effort to offset the medical costs, and a few of those shirts wound up on the backs of some touring musicians.  People started asking about the shirt and finding the story online, and the rest, I guess is history.  What began as one person’s story became a kind of movement, a really global conversation about pain and hope.

 

 

- TWLOHA began in 2006 – 6 years ago. Did you ever anticipate that it would last this long and reach so many people?

Quite simply, no.  There was never a business plan, or dream to start a non-profit.  Like we said, this was supposed to just be about helping our friend and in an incredible, organic, and unpredictable way we stumbled on a much bigger conversation.  Our latest numbers are both something we are immensely proud of and humbled by.

Since we started this, we’ve been able to donate over $1million directly to avenues for treatment and recovery.  We’ve been able to read and respond to over 170,000 messages from over 100 countries over email and social networks.  We have been able to take this story to millions of people on tours and speaking events…and yet in our minds, this is still about the individual.

We started in attempts to help one person, and in our minds we are still intentional about meeting people, one person at a time.  It’s still about helping our friends, just repeated thousands and thousands of times over.

- You have donated over $1 million directly into treatment and recovery – what else needs to be done [both in the short and long term]?

Depression, addiction, self-injury, and thoughts of suicide existed long before us.  They will also exist long after us.  These are issues of humanity and such issues won’t disappear by throwing money at it.  Sure, money helps create and maintain roads to help and recovery, but without compassion, it doesn’t amount to much.

We need to change the way we think and speak about depression and addiction.  We need to let people know that they are not alone and that we are not afraid of their pain.  We need people to know we believe in better days for them and their worth has never been determined by what they have or have not done.  This can be communicated in a hug or a smile.  It could be a 2AM phone call or simple anonymous letter.  Human problems require human solutions.

We get to the long term by realizing that 5 years is made up of a whole bunch of todays….so what are we going to do today?  We can speak out against bullying, or organize a safe place to talk about life, or highlight resources for help.  We can look inside of ourselves and understand that sometimes asking for help can be hard, and with that measure of sympathy we can be proactive in how we care for those around us.

In short, what needs to be done is finding ways to prove to one another that we are here for one another.

- What can people do to help out?

Like I said above, it can be the simplest acts that have the deepest impacts.  We don’t own exclusive right to words like depression, or addiction, or suicide.  Neither do we own word like hope and help.  Whether you decide to help out under the banner of TWLOHA or otherwise, we are just excited that you want to care for people in your life.

If you are curious about how to directly help with advancing our mission, we would like to welcome you to check out our website at TWLOHA.com.  There you will see a page called MOVE which is dedicated to helping you get plugged in.

- Support for your organisation has reached across the world – it must be an incredible feeling to know how many people are involved, across the entire world..?

Yeah, it’s truly an honor.  But I think beyond that it adds a level of community to the equation.  The issues we’re speaking about are “equal-opportunity” affecting people regardless of gender, faith, socio-economic status, geography, race, or age.  But in the same breath we can see that the same solutions are present for everybody.

The first step is allowing people to be part of our lives.  To know and be known.  It becomes a less lonely place when we realize that other people have been there, AND MADE IT THROUGH.  It becomes less scary when we can work together to find networks and places to continue seeking help.  We are all in this together, across every timezone out there.

- What else is in the future for the organisation?

We are constantly seeking creative ways to bring this conversation to more and more people.  Keep an eye on the calendar on our website or our social networks and odds are we’ll be visiting somewhere near you…if not, then know that we are working as hard as we can to get there.  I don’t want to spoil any secrets, but we are definitely excited about the coming months and we think you’ll be happy with what you see!

- You had a noticeable prescence at SXSW this year – are those sort of ‘events’ a great way to raise awareness?

SXSW has been an incredible venue for us for the past few years.  There is so much life during those weeks.  Thousands of people descending on one of the coolest cities out there and all drawn out due to their love of music.  We believe that music is a extremely powerful – something that can help us make sense of our lives.  It reminds us that there are things in life worth singing about and screaming about and dancing about and sharing with other people.  We celebrate the diversity of SX-ers and we feed off of the creativity.  So as much as it is an opportunity to raise awareness, it is also a celebration of life that we love being able to participate in.

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Many thanks to Chad for taking the time to chat to us. For more information about TWLOHA, check out: http://www.twloha.com/

INTERVIEW: RAZORS OF OCKHAM

Razors of Ockham

By Meghan Player

Dripping in a mix of dirty blues goodness, Melbourne’s Razors of Ockham are a feast for the senses. Stemming from their industrial/metal band Voltera, Michael and Jess embarked on creating something that was different, deconstructed, but on the whole, reflective of their personal style and sound. Meghan Player chatted to vocalist Jess Koch about influences, Voltera and developing a new sound.

How did Razors of Ockham get started? Where did the blues sound come from?

Michael and I had always wanted to indulge in a side project. We listen to a huge amount of different music, with blues and blues influenced music making up a major part of that. It’s only natural to be inspired and want to act upon that. In addition, we work really well together, which usually makes the difference in seeing something through.

Which came first – Voltera or Razors…?

Voltera. We have been tinkering around with the Razors of Ockham stuff since late 2009.

Both bands experiment in different sounds and styles – is it hard to be in two minds with these bands? [eg. is it hard to focus on the industrial/metal style of Voltera, and then still be able to write/perform at Razors..?]

No, it’s not difficult in the sense that we have to switch mentally. However finding time to write, perform, record, promote and up-keep two bands is exhausting…. There is also a challenge vocally for me, as I am also performing instrumentally and using my voice somewhat differently, relying on different abilities.

With having two very different bands, has it allowed you to experiment with new sounds/styles that you wouldn’t have considered previously?

It has allowed us to experiment with sounds/styles that we quite often previously considered. But it does allow us to meet people we wouldn’t have otherwise met.

Are there any crossovers of elements between bands, or do you like to keep it separate?

There is this weird, contrary thing that happens, when I’m supposed to be writing for Voltera I get inspired to write Razor’s songs…. Mostly it’s quite separate, however we did an alternative cover of Knees (a Voltera song) which would fit Razor of Ockham’s bill quite well…

You’ve been playing shows in and around Melbourne on and off – how have the crowds been reacting? Do Voltera fans come along to your gigs?

Yes, support has been great for something quite different and minimal. There is an engagement that occurs that in some ways can feel more powerful than that experienced fronting Voltera. I think Michael would agree.

How do your live shows differ?

The Razor’s of Ockham shows are very different. For a start I’m sitting down for most of it, as I’m responsible for percussion and minimal keyboard melodies, as is Michael, for he is working guitar loops, stomp and various other oddities. It’s far more laid back and as the name suggests, simple yet powerful.

You’ve enjoyed some airplay on triplejunearthed – is this a good platform for unsigned artists such as yourselves, to get your music out there? Would you recommend it to other bands?

I would recommend it. We have received quite a bit of love on there, and it’s also helped us to connect with similar artists. I urge everyone to check it out for a great source of underground Australian talent.

Do you have a release out at the moment – or are you working on releasing something?

We were selling a 3-track demo called “Deeper Cuts’ at the first few shows, however they are all gone and we have since been steadily working towards our full length release to be launched at the upcoming Fiend Festival.

Touring plans?

Yes, an extensive ‘tour where the travel takes us’ via caravan plan is in the works as we speak.

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Many thanks to Jess and Michael for taking the time to chat to us. For more information about their upcoming dates, check out:

https://www.facebook.com/events/234943933270399/

http://www.revoltproductions.com/melbourneevents/byevent/FIEND_FESTIVAL1

 

INTERVIEW: ASLEEP

Asleep

By Emma Dean

Hailing from Youngstown in Ohio, rockers Asleep are a melting pot of experimental raw sound that will take the world by storm. We caught up with Jon Dean to chat surviving SXSW, recording with Steve Albini & 15-foot robots…

Your most recent album ‘Unpleasant Companion’ was recorded and mixed in 4 days to capture your live dynamic sound – why was this important to you? Do you think more bands should be releasing rawer tracks as opposed to heavily synthesised/modified music?

We decided to record analog to simplify the music and change our approach to writing to navigate a new direction with this album.  Since tape is a pretty expensive format, it also needed to be a much faster process.  The album was also mostly written in about a month, which further added to the more natural feel of things.  I’m an over-thinker (is that a word?) so for me it was a new experience just letting things come out and going with it.  I think bands should do whatever they feel is the best representation of themselves.  There is no right or wrong in art, which is why I have always been drawn to it.

What made you want to work with producer Steve Albini (Nirvana, Bush, The Stooges)? What ideas did he bring to the table that you usually never would’ve considered?

Our drummer was majorly influenced by a lot of Steve’s past work.  As I caught up on his more underground catalog of recordings, I was quite blown away.  Being able to go record with him made me push myself to get better.  Although he did make plenty of helpful suggestions, a large part of the learning process came from really listening critically to his past work to analyze tones, feeling, lyrics etc. before we even arrived at the studio.  None of us wanted to go there and sound like clueless shit, so I guess you could say we sort of crammed for a final.  I’d say Steve has a way of understanding what a band is going for even if the music is not his thing stylistically, and then bringing out the best version of that band.

What are your biggest influences when writing? What albums do you listen to on the road? What did you grow up listening to that shows in your style?

Being from a small city and spending my teenage years in the late 90’s and early 00’s before the Internet explosion made it difficult to discover things outside of the steel-town box  MTV’s 120 Minutes was one way to find more off-radar music but it was like, “My Bloody What-entine?  They sound like a Smashing Pumpkins rip-off.”  There’s culture here but it’s not staring you in the face as much.  My upbringing was and always will be a large factor influencing the mood of my writing because it determined how I look at the world.  The first band I really fell in love with was Radiohead.  I remember seeing the “Paranoid Android” video for the first time and getting the album and just totally relating to it.  As for on the road I’ve been listening to a lot of Pandora.  It’s such a phenomenal concept.

Who would be your dream producer/band to work with?

Well we did record with Steve Albini.  I don’t see that being topped anytime soon.  Unless…hmmm…we record there again and he lets me wear the stilts from studio B while tracking…

You went to SXSW in March, looking back how was the whole experience? Have you been there before? How was it different?

This year was great.  We had more things going on this year.  We also didn’t have to lug a 15 foot robot past three floors of security at the Convention Center at 9am after narrowly escaping a group-syphilis infection the night before.  It’s always chaos down there.  At one point this year we were doing an interview at like 11:55am a mile away from a show we had at noon, so two of us literally left the press day and ran there, played, and came back to finish more interviews while the other guys loaded out.  This is our 3^rd visit in a row to SXSW and every year I feel we’re a bit more organized.  It is a great networking opportunity, but more importantly a gathering of some truly inspiring people and ideas.  On that same day after wrapping up interviews I smoked a huge bowl that looked like Master Splinter dumped some ooze on and saw Built To Spill before playing another show that evening.  Such an amazing day.

What benefits did you get from going to SXSW – would you recommend it more for local acts or international bands? Will you be returning next year?

Seeing all walks of life and artists being supportive of one another is a beneficial thing to witness.  It reminds there’s more to the world than all the negativity that sometimes seemingly takes over.  There was something for everyone.  You could go to the Taco Bell party and see hipsters all wearing the same cheesy gordita crunch shaped sunglasses or wander around another side of town and discover some old woman making authentic family recipes while the best folk band you’ve ever heard plays for four people.   I mean yeah I hope we raised the profile of the band that goes without saying, but the experience is what it’s all about.  I’d love to head back.

What’s an awesome up-and-coming local band you’d like to give a shout out to?

The guys in Class A Bandits.  They’re just this rock band that throws down without trying to be all cool.  It’s impossible to not enjoy them, and that makes them cool.  Every time I’ve ever seen them the whole room has been watching.

What’s next for Asleep?

It’s hard to say what the future will bring.  Uncertainty will always be my life and I’d have it no other way.  We’ve made it this far though and have got to work with so many talented people.  I’m particularly excited about an animated video we started working on.  We have some other things in the works; we never just sit on our asses and wait for shit to happen.  We always find a way to move ahead.

We’re pirates.  Arr.

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Many thanks to Jon for taking the time to chat to us.

For more information about the band, check out: http://www.facebook.com/Asleep

 

INTERVIEW: LILY & THE PARLOUR TRICKS

Lily & the Parlour Tricks

By Emma Dean

Diving deep into the well of musical Americana and resurfacing with a wild brew, Lily & the Parlour Tricks toe-tapping tunes range from 1940′s cornerboy songs to 1960′s psych-pop to 19th century murder ballads, with frequent detours into the smoky back room of classic rock n’ roll. Recently returned from wowing crowds in Austin, the Tricks talk music videos, SXSW and their favourite bands…

You have a wide range of influences – what do you find inspires you the most when writing songs?

[We are] most inspired by case studies of criminals and psychopaths from 18th-19th century America.  Our newest song is about a murderess named Belle Gunness. Look her up.   Musically, influences range from Johnny Cash to T. Rex to the Andrews Sisters to Nine Inch Nails.  We all grew up listening to different things, early ’90s R&B, Metallica, Buddy Holly, The Beach Boys, French pop… the list goes on forever.

Your debut EP ‘Lily & the Parlour Tricks’ came out in October 2011 to some pretty stellar reviews – how is that going? How are audiences reacting to it?

They seem to like it.  So far, so good.

Talk us through the video for ‘The Poison Song’ – how did you come up with the concept?

We wanted to work with Bank Street Films for our first video. They’re a local production company that has done a huge eclectic assortment of work – documentaries, music videos, feature films, short films – and we knew they’d do us right. We had some time constraints, so they suggested doing something extremely simple but visually exciting. The black and white concept was born, and we shot it in one 8 hour session.  Our part of it was a piece of cake; the editor Kevin Tadge had the terrifying task of putting it all together. But he did. What a guy.  What a team. We can’t sing their praises enough, and can’t wait to work with them again.

You went to SXSW in March, looking back how was it returning to Austin as LATPT as opposed to with your old bands?

The guys had been before (separately); the ladies had not.  But going with the PTs was something different; when the guys had gone before they’d been part of backing bands for other artists, Parlour Tricks went as a unit. We six are the band. So this was a new experience for everyone. And it was awesome.

What benefits did you get from going to SXSW – would you recommend it more for local acts or international bands? Will you be returning next year?

We played 10 shows in 4 days, which was surreal but made the trip worthwhile. Had we not had so many shows, including an official showcase, I don’t know if we would have gone. You really have to make it worth your while. We met a lot of people, we sold a lot of EPs, we got much tighter as a band.  That’s all you can ask for.  Maybe we’ll go back, haven’t thought that far ahead yet.

Any awesome up-and-coming local bands you’d like to give a shout out to?

We’re huge fans of In One Wind, Rocket & The Ghost, and Raccoon Fighter. Check ‘em all out.

And finally, what’s the plan for the rest of the year?

More Shows, more Fun, more Music, More More More!

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Many thanks to the band for taking the time to chat to us. You can find more information about the band at: http://www.lilyandtheparlourtricks.com/

INTERVIEW: BLUE GILLESPIE

Blue Gillespie

With the impending release of their much anticipated concept album, ‘Seven Rages Of Man’ – Blue Gillespie frontman Gareth David-Lloyd gave Meghan Player an insight into the idea behind the album, and the stories throughout.

The Concept

 

“I have always wanted to tell some kind of story based on ‘The Circle of Life’.  No, it wasn’t the Lion King that planted that particular seed, more a piece of art I saw at the Tate when I was 18. In my ignorance I can’t remember the artists name but it was a piece that consisted of three screens in a row. The first showed a camcorder recording of a birth, the second an underwater image of a messianic figure plunging into water over and over again and the third a recording of the artists mother slowly dying in hospital. It had been timed so that at the end of the 30 minute presentation we were left with an image of a newborn baby’s face and the lifeless face of the artists elderly mother. Without any special effects or CGI for an instant the baby’s face and the face of death were exactly the same. I was left feeling better about the world. It seemed that wishing oneself young again was the same as wishing to be old. I was less afraid of death and since then I have wanted to create my own piece on the same subject matter using craft of my own.

 

The idea for Seven Rages came to me in Newport Library after sifting through As You Like It. I felt a little empty. I had no work and was desperate to find something to occupy my mind. There was a lot going on in the world at the time particularly a lot of dark shit. I won’t bore you with the child abuse, rape and murder stories that were inked upon the local rags at the time but everyone seemed angry or wronged and believe me some people were. But, the more I noticed it the angrier people seemed, and not just about the things that mattered – some people were angry over any old bollocks: “I’m fat”; “I’ve can’t afford a haircut”; “It’s raining”; “I haven’t got any tobacco”; “I’m having trouble motivating myself in the morning”; “I can’t afford to go shopping”; “I think I’ve got a weed problem”. The more petty moaning I heard the angrier I became: “STOP EATING PIES”; “GROW IT”; “GET WET”; “GIVE UP”; “GO TO BED EARLIER”; “DON’T GO SHOPPING”; “FUCK OFF”. How could people be so angry about such utter shit when there were so many real things going on in the world? Then it struck me that I was getting angry about the fact that people were getting angry about trivial shit, which meant I was getting angry because of their trivial shit as well as my own, WHICH MADE ME FUCKING ANGRY! AFTER ALL I’VE GOT MY OWN TRIVIAL SHIT TO DEAL WITH. (breaths)

 

With all this flying around my mind I looked up and saw an image on the wall. A seven headed beast. The Hydra – a ferocious mythical beast that when beheaded grows two heads in replacement. At that point everything seemed to come together. If I could illustrate the seven ages of a man who whose life was steeped rage in one image it would be the Hydra. The poster bitch for Seven Rages of Man. I gave the band a text briefly describing the concept and the ball was rolling on album number two.

 

After discussing it we decided that no one man is constantly in a state of rage throughout his entire life but people do get angry at some point at each of the seven ages and,of course, not always about small issues. It had to be huge, but I knew if anyone was capable of translating such massive subject matter into music without losing its scale, it was the three musicians I know fondly as ‘the boys’.

 

We decided to tell multiple stories involving multiple characters that would weave and intertwine with each other over the course of the album. We needed a birth that became Prologue and a death which is now Epilogue and seven raging acts in between which would represent the ages. What we didn’t want to lose sight of was that Blue Gillespie is about venting the darker side of emotion through music so this couldn’t be an album that would encourage rage in the listener but would rather quench it. It had to leave people with a similar optimism for life that I’d had after seeing the installation at the Tate. Like Shakespearean tragedy we wanted to leave the audience with a glimmer of hope for the future. The messages we wanted to give were basically:  fight or vent your wrathful demons or they will control your entire life; and search for the positive even in the darkest of situations. In the stories within the acts there is nearly always a point where the characters learn to do just this but are pulled back into the dark side at the last minute. The only point where rage is truly let go is in Epilogue when a character smiles at the fact he was about to get angry for living a life dominated by anger – the final irony. He dies enlightened.”

 

 

Stories and Lyrics

 

The stories I chose for the ages were all based on true events and on real people mainly from articles I’d read and documentaries I’d seen. I even started to write the stories out in an abstract fashion and put them on the website. I put this on hold for the same reason I won’t release the lyrics as a separate element until the album has been out for at least six months.  When you tell a literal story about other people it is not the audience who are the central characters but rather the people who the stories are about. The lyrics in VII ROM describe the journey of emotions felt by the characters in the story rather than tell the story itself. That way the story can morph and change easily to suit each individual listener. If someone says Act III: Sullen makes them think of a lover in their teens I want it to be about that and for that person, only that. I don’t want them to have in the back of their minds that it’s really about a Russian woman called Svenja (it’s not but you see what I’m saying?). We want people to develop their own emotional relationship with VII ROM before we give away the details of ours.”

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Blue Gillespie play their album release show on May 4th – details can be found on the bands Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/bluegillespie and website: http://www.bluegillespie.co.uk

INTERVIEW: MIKELANGELO &THE TIN STAR

Mikelangelo & The Tin Star

The Tin Star is the brainchild of prolific and critically acclaimed Australian performer, singer and songwriter Mikelangelo. He formed the band in Melbourne in late 2009, inspired by a love of 50′s and 60′s instrumental guitar ‘n Western sound. Meghan Player chatted to Mikelangelo about The Tin Star, The Black Sea Gentlemen and, of course, surf rock.

By Meghan Player

 How did the band start out? What bought you all together?

The seeds of the Tin Star lie in another band I had over ten years ago called The Dalmatian Coast Surf Lifesavers Association (D.C.S.L.A). In the late 90′s I was running a music venue in Melbourne and really didn’t have enough time to focus on making music myself. In 2000, I moved back to Canberra (for love) and once there I set to putting together a new band.

The line up I put together included members of what was to become both the Black Sea Gentlemen and also the D.C.S.L.A.  For short while we had a 6 piece band that included my surf’n'western instrumentals and my lyric driven bastard-euro Kabaret Noir stylings. Pretty quickly this sifted into two bands, the D.C.S.L.A. as my electric group playing the former and  the Black Sea Gentlemen as a more acoustic group playing the latter.

The D.C.S.L.A  was a 3 piece at the start, myself on nylon-string guitar and vocals with two young guns Fiete Geier on lead guitar and Pete Olsen on Drums. We played from 2000-2003, during this time adding a bass player and cellist to the line up and recording a bunch of tunes which were never released.

I moved to NSW in 2002 and got busier and busier with the Black Sea Gentlemen and the D.C.S.L.A. just kind of faded away. But I kept writing surf’n'western songs and instrumentals.

Fast forward to 2009, and after living in numerous other towns and indulging in copious amounts of international touring, I moved back to Melbourne (for love once again). Pete and Fiete from the D.C.S.L.A were now living in Melbourne and itching to play with me again. We enlisted another ex-Canberran Gareth Hill on bass and the new band was born. I flew into Melbourne from the UK and three days and two rehearsals later we had our first gig as the Tin Star!

 

 

- What influences your sound? 

The heart of our sound is reverb drenched tremolo electric guitar. I just love that sound and always have. It was the first guitar sound I heard as a little nipper listening to my dad’s old singles and LPs from the early sixties. Though he has always loved music, he wasn’t an avid collector by any means, I don’t even remember him playing his records, he used to mostly listen to classical music on the radio.

But my brother and sister and I found his old vinyl stash and they made a great soundtrack to our young lives, exciting and exotic instrumental music  from twangin’ western guitar tunes to go-go stomps, to mambos, cha-chas and sleepy, creepy Latino numbers.

I became very attached to two albums in particular – Al Caiola’s ‘Solid Gold Guitar’ and Arthur Lyman’s ‘Taboo Vol. 2′. Needless to say I nicked them both and they now sit proudly in my own collection.

 

 

- Does each band member bring a different influence/style to the band?

Definitely. The thing I love about the Tin Star boys is that they don’t actually listen to any old surf or instrumental guitar music of the 50′s and 60′s. It sounds funny I know, but I think the fact that they are not steeped in the music that I love actually makes our band sound better. I’m not into recreation just for its own sake.

Musically our palette keeps opening up to different possibilities. All of the band are great writers and well as great players, so while I mostly make them play my tunes (!) It’s good having different  ways of approaching a song within the group.

 

 

- Was the original intention to have the lovely Saint Clare become such an integral part of the band [both as a singer and on stage performer]?

St Clare’s role in the group happened very naturally. She and I had started rehearsing a set of love songs together, just the two of us, around the time I got the Tin Star together. I invited her to guest with the group at our first run of shows, a residency at the Old Bar in Fitzroy in October 2009.

She has performed all her life as an actor, performance artist and dancer, so brings all that wonderful sensibility to the stage. Performing with the Tin Star was the first time she had sung live, and we immediately loved the sound of her voice as a part of the our sound and her great stage presence takes the whole show to another place. She has a voice that is floating and ethereal in one song and breathy and sexy in the next – what’s not to like about that.

 

 

- How does the Tin Star differ from The Black Sea Gentlemen? Do you approach each band differently? 

The personalities of each of the two groups are very different, as is our repertoire, so yes, I do approach both groups very differently.

With The Tin Star they are very much my backing band, and are not interested in the spotlight – which leaves a lot of room for me as the frontman. With the Black Sea Gentlemen, each member of the group has a developed stage persona with back stories of wild and debauched lives that they have led, which makes it a really different show to the Tin Star, and most other groups for that matter.

With the Tin Star I aim to put on an amazing rock’n'roll show, and that’s why I bring in special guests like St Clare and the fantastic go-go group Go Girl Gadget Go Go!

With The Black Sea Gentlemen the other members of the group each have cameo songs and stories in the show, so while music is still at the heart of the group, they are all entertainers and the live show moves more towards theatre with its storytelling and humour. It’s really a treat to have two such great but contrasting bands – and the guys appreciate this too.

 

 

- Do you have different personas [on and off stage] with each band? How do you ‘tap into’ those personas?

I think anyone who walks on stage is adopting a persona whether they admit it or not. The stage is a heightened reality, and with that comes potentially great power. At its best this power has a generosity that brings people to together – at its worst it is narcissistic and shallow, which is pretty powerless really.  I feel comfortable to do and say almost anything on stage, I love surprising the audience, the band and myself.

My persona with the Tin Star is quite instinctive, I feed off  the music and the crowd and, added to my own  racing adrenalin, it’s quite a rollercoaster.

I have been performing continuously with the Black Sea Gentlemen for over ten years, and my persona in that group has grown into a more fully fledged alter-ego. Myself and the rest of the group have developed our personas into characters. We have back stories, we adopt Eastern European accents (mine is ‘borrowed’ from my father) and are always further developing the mythical world of the group. It’s a lot of fun. It’s also a more intense collaboration with the Gentlemen, we have long, excitable and heated talks about our characters and our world and we work with theatre directors to help manifest this.

 

 

- A live set for the Tin Star is as much to do with the music, as it is about the visuals – is that intentional? Is that something the band was always adamant about including?

The fact that half the Tin Star set is instrumental music lends itself well to visuals. I feel this is something that we are only just scratching the surface of. We have a had a few great lighting guys work with us, and Red Card Film Productions made some projected visuals for some of our songs. Also, our guests bring a great visual element to the stage – particularly St Clare who is captivating and spends a lot of time conceiving her costuming and make up for a show – and of course Go Girl Gadget Go Go! who have choreographed great moves to a number of our songs, and look amazing in their costumes. Lets face it rock’n'roll is all about sexuality, and I think that a good thing…

 

 

- What I noticed about your debut album was the focus on music over vocals – letting the music tell the story etc – was that an idea that came about naturally? Was it something that you might have wanted to try with the Black Sea Gentlemen, but felt it applied better to the Tin Star?

I am a vocalist first and always will be. But I love listening to, composing and playing instrumental music. The instrumental focus happened very naturally with the Tin Star because of the genre based western, spaghetti western, surf and instrumental guitar music that I love. I often hum or whistle tunes as I walk along, and more often than not they are the sort of tunes that end up becoming Tin Star songs.

I like mixing up our set with vocal songs as well, I think the contrast works well. That split is there on our album too, there are four vocal tracks and five instrumentals (one of which has some spoken word sections courtesy of St. Clare). But I could also quite happily just make an instrumental album with the Tin Star, and probably will one day.

Because the Black Sea Gentlemen show has such a strong aspect of storytelling, our songs are usually driven by vocals. The very sound of the Gentlemen singing together as a baritone chorus is central to our sound. That said, for many years we used to open our show with an instrumental called The Black Sea Waltz (which also opens our first self-titled album) and there are a number of short instrumental pieces that punctuate our 2nd album ‘Journey Through The Land Of Shadows’, and less so our 3rd album ‘Dead Men Tell A Thousand Tales’.

I am currently making a new music theatre show with the Black Sea Gentlemen. As well as containing songs, the show also has incidental music, recurring musical themes and pieces that are played out as soundtrack to stories and scenes.

 

 

- Does being in the Tin Star allow you to experiment more with sounds/styles that perhaps wouldn’t be relevant with the Black Sea Gentlemen?

Definitely. The Tin Star is a rock’n'roll band, and with that comes the volume and energy of rock but with my bower bird sensibility towards incorporating diverse musical ideas. The Black Sea Gentlemen are harder to categorise, it’s part band, part theatre, part cabaret – it’s a multi-headed beast. I love both groups equally, and each satisfies quite a different part of me.  They also both draw quite different crowds, which is interesting, and ultimately a good thing I think.

 

 

- I know the debut album has been out for a little while, but can you tell us a little about it?- where it was recorded/how long it took/the writing process?

The album was recorded and produced by our lead guitarist Fiete Geronimo Geier. We started recording demos with Fiete in late 2009, not long after the band began. Some of the songs sounded good, so we thought we’d expand the demo sessions into recording an album.

I have been writing songs in this vein for almost 20 years, but never released any of them – except for Action (Is My Middle Name) which first appeared on the EP Tuff by my group P. Harness in the mid 90′s!! (I was always unhappy with that version, so I was keen to re-record the song with the Tin Star). So, as you could imagine, when it came to recording The Surf’n'Western Sounds Of… I had a huge back catalogue to draw upon.

The Tin Star set started out with a lot of songs that I used to do in the D.C.S.L.A. But pretty quickly I started writing new songs for the group. So the album has a few old tunes and a bunch of newer ones. There’s also a great track written by our drummer Pete Olsen entitled ‘Inspector Longboard’ and also one by Fiete called ‘Midnight Rip’.

We recorded a fair bit throughout 2010, putting down versions of most of the songs that were in our repertoire at the time. The recording process was slowed a bit by Fiete getting a nasty and debilitating illness (Krone’s disease). But he struggled on bless him, and is alot better now.

He recorded and mixed the album in three different bedroom studios in just over a year. Then we mastered the album with William Bowden and released the it in June 2012 through Sydney independent label Laughing Outlaw records.

I was very keen for the album to be short and sharp. That’s why its only 9 songs and a running time of just over half and hour. It’s easy for rock’n'roll albums to outstay their welcome, and I wanted this one to leave people wanting more.

 

 

- You recently released the new video for ‘No Sign of A Pipeline’ – again, can you tell us a little about how it came about? Why did you choose that song for a video? Did you have much to do with the creative processes for the video [ie concepts, theme etc.]?

I love great clips, but I have rarely ever made film clips throughout my career. This is weird because all my bands are so visual. I think because I have been so focussed on live performance and touring that I have never put the necessary time and energy into making clips.

That said, between myself and St Clare, we have alot of concepts for clips. Often they are so involved that they would be impossible to make without a big budget, but we still love dreaming up ideas, and I’m sure alot of them will come to fruition.

The idea of the clip for No Sign Of A Pipeline came from meeting James and Ez who star in the clip. I first came across these two fine fellows at the Gem Bar in Collingwood late last year. I was inside and I could see them through window outside with their great quiffs,  smoking  cigarettes and looking impossibly cool. The window made a cinematic frame, and I was struck at how much I felt I was watching a movie. The scene reminded me of the feel of what I love about Jim Jarmush’s early films, Stranger Than Paradise and Down By Law.

I’ve always thought of clips as short films, and that it’s a such a shame just to film a band lip syncing all the way through. So I thought, how about a clip starring these two guys with a Tin Star instrumental as the music. I had the one concept that they should be walking through the streets and perhaps never getting anywhere, or perhaps ending up at a Tin Star show. I didn’t really know what song to use, I just thought Ez and James had a great look to go with my music. I asked them if they’d be happy to star in a clip and they were cool with it.

So I enlisted my good friend, the multi-talented artist/songwriter/filmmaker Konrad Lenz to shoot the clip (Konrad often guests with the Tin Star as a vocalist and also did the fab design for our album).

I thought the title ‘No Sign Of A Pipeline’ would work well with these two guys walking the streets but never really funding the action. They are searching for something, maybe they don’t even know what it is, but it always eludes them. I told Konrad, james and Ez the concept and then left them to their own devices to do most of the filming of the clip.

A few weeks later Konrad finished a first edit, and I came in and did the final edit with him to get everything working with the music. I love the clip. I have immense trust in Konrad’s eye as a cameraman and a director, and I love his textural approach and his use of color, which is heavily  saturated at times, and quite drained of colour at other times. Konrad understands the rules, but he breaks them all the time, either accidentally or on purpose, and that’s what I think makes him a great artist. He works quickly and instinctively and that’s what got the clip done. And the stars of the film, James and Ez are brilliant. I think they are going to have to cameo in every Tin Star clip we make!

 

 

- You’ve also got a little tour coming up – is that the focus for the band at the moment? Do you have any other touring plans for the rest of the year? Is there a new album in the works?

Yeah, the tour will be fun. We do have a number of other shows coming up too, but beyond that our focus is definitely shifting to recording our 2nd album. We have plenty of strong songs and instrumentals that I am dying to record. I’d like to free Fiete up this time, so he can focus on playing and arranging and not have to engineer the recording. We are discussing studios and producers and looking forward to getting to work on the record.

But before we put out our next album, I want to make some more clips for the ‘The Surf’n'Western Sounds Of…’. Action (Is My Middle Name) is calling out for a clip, and I’d also love to make a clip for the instrumental track ‘Balkan Beach Party’ featuring Go Girl Gadget Go Go! and one for ‘Midnight Flower’ with St. Clare, who sings the track with me on the album. We will be releasing ‘The Surf’n'Western Sounds Of’…’ on vinyl in the next few months which I am very excited about.

We will put two extra tracks on the vinyl release that were recorded at the time of the rest of the album. I was unsure about the ‘bonus’ tracks idea for a while, I can be quite a purist about these things. But I’ve listened to the album with the two new tracks at the end, and it’s actually sounding great and gives a bit more of our Western sound to the album, which can never be a bad thing. There’s also a nice spot of whistling in one of the tracks…I want to bring whistling back!

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A huge thank you to Mikelangelo for taking the time to answer our questions. Be sure to check out the video for ‘No Sign Of A Pipeline’ here. You can catch the band on their current tour at:

Sat 5 May – Northcote Social Club, Melbourne

Fri 11 May – ANU Bar, Canberra

Sun 13 May – The Vanguard, Sydney

INTERVIEW: LIFTOFF

LIFTOFF

Canadian band Liftoff have the world at their feet after catching the attention of music lovers and entrepreneurs alike at SXSW 2012. Meghan Player chatted to Carmon [vocals], Marc [bass] and Gord [guitar] about the SXSW experience, what it meant to the band, and what will be happening next.

By Meghan Player

- Who are the main influences on your sound? What bands inspired this band?

Marc:  We have several influences – lyrically though, we draw influence from  a lot of brit pop a la  The Cure, Editors, Placebo, Interpol.

 Musically, the same again. We’re very brit-pop orientated – but there aren’t any specific bands in that regard.  Everyone in the band has their own influence that they bring into the rehearsals and our overall sound.

- How long has the band been together?

Marc: The current lineup has been together for a little over a year – but the core of the band has been playing music together for well over 12 years. We’re all friends. Carmon [vocals] was a friend of ours before he joined the band a year ago.

- Carmon, you’ve been in previous bands before settling with this band, did you bring any of your previous experience to this band?

Carmon: I definitely feel that my persona as a frontman –  and that energy –  was my number one thing I brought with me when I joined the band.  It has been a great opportunity to start fresh,  as I had stopped playing music and wanted to get back on stage. I missed the rush of playing live.

- You’ve released a great little 3-track EP called ‘Naked’, what can you tell us about it? What was the recording process like? 

Marc: Gord and myself worked for 6 months putting together 18 demos. We then got the band together for a few jams to see if it would gel with everyone. After a few jams we all got very excited by the sound. We invited Carmon to sing one night to see how a good vocalist would do with the material –  and he blew us all away. It seems he was sold on the material too after the first rehearsal.

We then started to rehearse enough songs to get a 30 minute live set together and test the songs on some friends. After the first show, we knew we had something special. Many of our friends had heard us in the past, but this time it was no longer the garage band from the past.

After a few gigs we knew we had to record some of these demos in a studio environment. We took a tape of the live show to a solid Vancouver studio and producer Jonathan Fluevog. Together we picked 3 songs which could help us promote our band the best at this very early stage. Knowing full well a full album is just around the corner.

We recorded it at Vogville Studios, where we came out after 4 full days with 2 solid singles –  Falling Apart and a demo.

- Are you working on anything new at the moment? 

Carmon: We always have new songs on the go – or are continuing to develop the songs we are playing.

Marc:  On June 1st we are going back to Vogville Studio to record 3 new tracks. We will add these new tracks to the current ones and print a new EP called NAKED Part II -  which will have 6 songs on it.

Though, if everything goes smoothly in July,  we’ll be going back to the studio in September to record another 5 tracks – then release a full length album.

- What brought you to SXSW?

Carmon: The love our music and wanting to share it with the masses. Also, to see what is happening musically.

Marc: If you’re in the Film industry,  you go to the Cannes Film Festival, if you’re in the music industry you go to SXSW – plain and simple.

- How was that experience for the band?

Carmon: Incredible! Great people, met many great connections. We’re also working on a few licensing deals with US television.

 Marc:  Our first tour was the US/Texas, which we timed so we could stop in Austin for SXSW – and we’re glad we did! Over 5 days in Austin we have exposed our music to a huge amount of people who would not have come across our songs normally.  To be able to get instant feedback from this many new music lovers was worth every penny we’ve poured in.

- Had you been to SXSW previously?

Marc: We were virgins –  but virgins we are no more!

- Has it opened up new doors for the band?

Carmon: Absolutely! The doors are opening day by day, since our tour to SXSW – there has been interest from press including radio, newspapers, agents and managers.

Marc:  We have met so many people in the music business that we would have never come across this early in our project. So far just from our trip we have already booked  new tour dates in the US via agents we met. Our music as now been picked up by several TV shows/licensing  in the US thanks to one of the connections we’ve made  in Austin.

- Would you recommend the experience to other bands?

Carmon: Absolutely, just make sure you having everything planned out day-to-day, minute to minute.

Marc: Highly recommend it! The motivation should be to further a band’s career, otherwise I recommend going as a tourist. Especially if a band isn’t exactly at  the ‘conquer the world’ stage, yet. It is a lot of work for a band and I mean ALOT of work.

- Would you go to SXSW again?

Marc: Absolutely! And we will be there in 2013 after. I know some of us will be going for years to come – regardless of the bands agenda.

- Would you do anything differently?

Carmon: Be even more organised.

Marc: Preparation is the key. It’s a broad spectrum, but ”have a plan” sums it up really well!

- Any advice that you learned at SXSW that you would share with other bands?

Carmon: Have fun and be well prepared.

Marc: For first timers, sorry you’re about to be blown away! Book everything 6 months ahead… no joke!

- You’ve got a little documentary coming out soon about your time at SXSW – what can you tell us about it? When will be released? 

Marc: We shot the entire Texas tour and we’re already in the editing phase. We are shooting for a 30 minute documentary. It’s been very hard not to share some of our stories with our friends, but we really don’t want to spoil any of the story. There is plenty of “twists”, so it will be a good one!

Once we’re done editing, we will figure out if we want to release it over the internet sometime mid summer. But if it is beyond our expectations, we won’t be releasing it until after we have submitted to the Vancouver Short film festival – which is our goal!

- What is next for the band?

Carmon: We are in the process of setting up tours around Nashville, Knoxville, TN down to Texas, then the East Coast New York  & LA.

Gord: We are just in the finishing stages of planning, and ready to announce  a 2^nd US Tour to Los Angeles in August. Everyone in the group is very excited to play shows on the Sun Set Strip. The band will be teaming up with one of LA’s top bands ”LA Velvet” - and playing at some of the cities most famous clubs the Roxy and the Viper Room. Should be a great time!

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Many thanks to the band for taking the time to answer our questions. For more information about the band, including upcoming tour dates and their EP, ‘Naked’ – check out: http://www.liftoffband.com/

INTERVIEW: WHITE GHOST SHIVERS

White Ghost Shivers

By Meghan Player

 

 

White Ghost Shivers are an eclectic American band based in Austin, Texas. They mix cabaret, jazz, vaudeville, hokum, western swing, hillbilly, jugband and ragtime into a theatrical and infectious good time. Meghan Player chatted to Shorty Stump [vocals, tenor banjo, ukuleles, guitar, mandolin, kazoo, nose flute, tuba, jug] about influences, pre-war tunes and the impact of SXSW on local bands.

- How long have you been together as a band?

Smokebreak and myself originally met and started getting together and playing some tunes with each other in June of ’99, just about 13 years ago.  As far as solidifying the line up and starting to play shows, it’s been about 11 or so years.  This current core has been playing together for about 8 years.

- What brought you all together?

At the risk of sounding cheese ball, FATE!  We really all came together by accident.  We all moved here around the same time, with the same interest in playing older styles of music.  We all had very little experience in playing this style at that time.

- Had you each played in bands previously [before forming White Ghost Shivers]?

Yes, I guess you could say we all came from various styles of rock ‘n roll, punk rock, metal, honky tonk, and yes, jazz. In short, some of the band names we all came from were: Utah Package, Bohemian Holiday, Deadites, Negatives, Mighty Blue Kings, Four Charms, West Coast Pinups, The Feekals, The Retards, Flapping Chodes. To name a few.

- There are A LOT of wonderful elements in your songs – from vaudeville to blues to country to rockabilly – were these styles/sounds/genres that the band was always interested in pursuing?

I can only speak for myself when I say that when I moved here, all I wanted to do was play traditional 1920′s jazz, and I was also really into pre-war blues and western swing.  When I met Jeremy (3rd day in town), he was into the same stuff, so that’s what we were going for, but we didn’t have the means or talent to start a jazz band, so we went the string band route.

Once we started meeting the fellas and adding to the line up, we just all started getting really excited about all kinds of pre-war music.  Hawaiian, calypso, hillbilly string bands, musette, Mexican-American border music, Easter European, Klezmer, you name it!  Not to mention some of us were really into silent films as well, which I think planted the seed to the whole vaudeville element a bit.  Once we added Cella and Oliver Steck, that’s when the vaudeville element really elevated.  It’s always been a combination of having an idea of what we want to do musically/theatrically, but also being open to new avenues.

- Which musicians/bands had the greatest influence on the overall sound of the band?

Well, as far as modern bands, some of the bands that we were digging in the early days were Squirrel Nut Zippers first couple of albums.  Also, their violin player’s band, Andrew Bird’s Bowl Of Fire had a huge influence on us.  Most people know him as the whistling indie-rocker, but his first couple of albums were a really sublime mix of styles from the earlier part of last century.

Devil In A Woodpile from Chicago, some great hokum blues.  And of course most bands throughout history are influenced by local peers.  Hot Club Of Cowtown, Asylum Street Spankers, Shorty Long, Hillbillionaires, Rubinchik’s Orkestyr, Erik Hokkannen, Tosca, and several great pick up bands from here in town all had an influence on us in some way.

A lot of the great local punk rock influenced a lot as well as far as our stage performance, but really, it was all of the original stuff that was recorded pre-WWII that really made us tick.  We did a lot of listening to them.  The modern bands were great because you could actually have an in person reference for these styles.

- Your style and sound almost step right out of the 1920s – are you inspired by that time period? Perhaps moreso than the present day?

This sort of ties in with the last question.  Yes, the 1920′s and early 30′s have a huge influence on us and is where we are primarily based from, but, being that we all grew up in the 80′s and 90′s, we can’t seem to shake a little bit of our adolescence out of our style.  We all listened to rock ‘n roll, punk rock, metal, and rap, and it all most certainly looms over us in our song writing and performance.

- Is it difficult to write a song in a modern context, but still have that classic feel and energy to it?

Actually, it’s not at all, it really all just comes out pretty easily.  When you love and listen to a certain kind of music for so long, it becomes second nature to write in that style, and again, our adolescent influences seem to just sort of find their way in there by accident.  In our mind, we’re a pre-war style band, and that is our intention.  What ends up getting written at the end of the day is just and organic mishap.

- Where do you draw that inspiration from?

Again, anything pre-war, as well as what we grew up with.  Also, as far as our performance side of things, we draw influences from silent films, musicals, and all of the imagery we gazed upon all of our lives.  Also, the great thing about growing up in the 80′s was that even though the world was going through a lot of social change and technology growth, there was still elements of our great grandparents’ youth.  On Saturday mornings, you could watch Looney Tunes, The Smurfs, or Donkey Kong the cartoon, and then after cartoons were done, they would air Little Rascals, Three Stooges, silent film comedies, and early talking pictures.  So, as a youth, it all just seemed to come from the same place in our minds.  Sure, Bugs Bunny’s humor was 40-50 years old, but it my mind, it was a cartoon, and that’s all that mattered!

- You’re based in Austin, so you would have seen your fair share of SXSW – how does the festival/conference impact local musicians such as yourselves? Positively? Negatively?

Well, when you’ve been here long enough, it’s easy to be grumpy about a bunch of people coming to your town and walking around like they own your town, but, I think the trick is to just go into it with a positive attitude.  Honestly, on the surface, it seems that SXSW does very little for most Austin bands, unless you are a “buzz” band, but then it doesn’t matter where you’re from if you’re one of those.

If you’re the coolest new band out there, it’s a good place for you to be.  Sure, it never hurts to play in front of a lot of people from all over the world, and there certainly are a lot of those people here during that time.  But, I would say the biggest benefit is that it brings in tons of money for people who work in the bar and restaurant industry, and also the overall all economy for the city, which in turn, is good for local bands.  The better local business’ do here, the more business’ there will be to hire bands, and pay them.

SXSW is also responsible for getting people to move here.  Most Austinites don’t want to see anyone else move here, but at the same time, that’s an extra person to have come out and see your band.

- Is it a good platform to showcase your music to a new audience?

Again, any time you can get in front of a lot of people from all over the world, it’s a good thing, but, there are so many people, and bands, and things to do here during that time, most of the time you’re just another blur to all of those drunk hipsters.

- Would you recommend SXSW to other bands?

Uh, if you’ve never done it before, sure, why not?  Try it out and see if you like it, you’ll know if you ever want to come back.  I would not suggest for bands to yearn for an “official showcase”, I would suggest they get on the free show train, that’s where it’s at.  Of course, I’ll probably be exiled for saying that.

- Do you have any advice for a band that might want to come to Austin for SXSW?

YES! Pace yourselves!  Drink lots of water and keep up with electrolytes.  Don’t book too many shows.  Give yourself enough time between gigs, the traffic here is horrendous here during that time and you’ll miss shows.  If you can do it, and you don’t have a lot of gear for gigs, bring/rent/borrow a bicycle.  Most importantly, don’t come her with hopes of getting “discovered”, just have fun.

- Your latest album, ‘Nobody Loves You Like We Do’ – can you tell us a little about recording it? Did you approach making this album to previous albums?

One thing that was in common with our previous records is that we recorded it all live in the studio, with minimal over dubs.  Something we did different is that we rehearsed five days in a row for four hours a day, just tightening up everything before we went into the studio.  That really made the process so much quicker and easier.  We recorded it with our now pal, Marty Lester, who was just really a joy to work with.  We really felt a great bond with him and he really reminded us of ourselves, so that just made the whole process really comfortable.  Plus, the studio and facility were also extremely comfortable and welcoming and made us feel at home.  It was really low pressure.

- How have people been responding to it?

Well, the people who listen to it really seem to enjoy it a lot, we’ve been getting great feedback.  Comments from old fans seem to be pretty consistent as far as them saying that it sounds like we’ve definitely done some growing, without compromising ourselves, and that’s some pretty important feedback to hear from folks, that’s pretty much what you hope to hear.

- Are you working on anything new at the moment, or focussing on this album for the time being?

Right now, we’re trying to focus on this album, but, we have already started talking about the next one.  We waited something like 4-5 years between the last two albums, and that’s just ridiculous, so we would like to avoid that from here on.  We have several ideas in mind for future albums, but the one that seems to be popping up more is the idea of doing an album that features our big band version of what we do, and we don’t mean swing era big band.

On ‘Nobody Loves You’, we did a version of ‘Short Haired Girl’ that featured a bunch of our pals and gave a nod to the early big bands of the mid to late 1920′s like the Goldkette Orchestra, The Missourians, McKinney’s Cotton Pickers, etc.  We ended up arranging about four tunes in that style for our record release in December, so we thought it might be fun to do an entire album like that.  It’s not set in stone, but it’s on the table.

-What’s next for the band?

Well, as we speak, we’re trying to prioritize how the next year is going to look.  Obviously, a new album is in there somewhere, as well as our 9th annual Halloween Ball.  Also, some touring in the states, and even possibly getting back over to Europe.  We’ll also be doing some big band shows that I just spoke of, as well as doing our punk rock version of ourselves, Boomtown.  We love doing special themed shows as well as secret intimate shows.  This summer, we will be working with local puppet theater group Glass Half Full, we will be re-staging a puppet show we did with them called FUP Duck.  We write all original music for the show and will be performing it live.  Plus, early talks of a very special event next spring that will take Austin by storm are happening right now!

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A huge thanks to the White Ghost Shivers for taking the time to chat to us.

For more information about the band, check out their website: www.whiteghostshivers.com

INTERVIEW: DEAD

DEAD

“Jem and Jace are DEAD. They awesome. Most bands are awful but not DEAD, they’re awesome. It’s spelled in capitals ‘cos there are only four letters and you have to make them count.” – says Melbourne duo, DEAD’s bio. Emma Dean chatted to the Jem about his favourite albums, touring and the bands Pozible campaign.

Tell us the story of how DEAD come to life – how did the band start? How did you meet?

This band started ‘cos we both wanted to do more with our other bands. That is: we wanted to play more often, release more music, tour overseas etc. Eventually we though ‘fuckit, we’re mates, well just make a band with the two of us and whatever it turns out to be it will be fun’.

It’s the first time I’ve been in a band that booked a tour before we wrote a song! We met years ago when my band Fire Witch organised some shows for Jace’s band back then called Pigman Vampire. Other members may come and go in the future, but I figure we will remain the constants DEAD for it’s lifetime.

 

You are both in several other bands – what direction did you want to take with DEAD that was different to your previous bands?

No direction as such. We just started jamming and went with what felt good. Musically we didn’t try to re-create or deliberately diverge from our other bands. To us every band will always sound different, depending on who is playing.

 

What are you listening to now? What are the three albums that have influenced your life/work?

Right now I am listening to BJ Morriszonkle; an incredible one man band from here in Melbourne. And have been smashing the new album from Vaz (New York) and 7″ from No Anchor (Brisbane).

Could never choose three albums. King Crimson are a long time influence for me. As are Nunchukka Superfly and The Melvins.

 

You’ve toured all over the world – what is your favourite place? Any amusing tour stories to share?

Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia was extra special for me as I got to play to my family. Malaysia and Indonesia have both got great underground scenes that we slotted into very comfortably. We’re very keen to get back there. USA was also a blast, in a very different way. Our best shows there were kinda out of the way places. Minot, Spokane, Albuquerque, Minneapolis with Gay Witch Abortion and Total Fest in Missoula where we got to play with Big Business, White Shit, Thrones, Helms Alee, Vaz and a heap of other sick bands.

Stories……..hmmm I don’t think you got space for that here. We got stuck in a Hurricane in New Orleans, that was the opposite of amusing. Have slept in many places I’d rather not remember.

 

You’ve just been to NZ- how was the tour?

Awesome. ‘Camp A Low Hum’ was a really special festival. Nothing like that exists here as far as I know, perhaps not in the world. Played with some great bands including God Bows To Math who are touring here this week and Threat Meet Protocol who I hope come out here some day.

 

Tell us about your debut album ‘Thundaaaah!’

We made it in a few days around Christmas with some discounted rate studio time. We recorded it at Headgap where we did a Fangs of LP (our other band) and I recorded an Inappropriate Tough Guy Behaviour LP.

We basically had a rule of doing everything in one take, including any overdubs so it’s quite raw but layered which I think is kind of unusual. All the songs were new, we’d only been together a couple of months. We made the album early on deliberately as we felt it’s a part of a band’s life that is often not documented.

 

You are currently taking pledges from fans on Pozible to raise money for your second EP – how’s that going? When do you start recording?

It’s going pretty well. We are about $400 short of our $2,000 target. People pledge cash and get stuff in return so it’s a win/win situation. Some bands like Budd/Christbait, Hard Ons and Electric Flu have even donated stuff to the campaign which has been especially cool.

We got about two and half weeks left on that so fingers crossed we reach the target. I really had no idea if anyone would support it or not when we launched it. We have applied for government grants for all our tours but not got any and it all costs a lot.  We have sold a decent amount of our LP so I knew people out there actually liked the band but it was still hard to predict if people would want to get behind the campaign. But a few have which is great.

We start recording early May. With or without the cash.

 

And finally, what’s next for DEAD?

A bit of laying low. The band accounts are looking pretty sorry after all this touring and releasing. We tour to Japan in September and will tour Australia again around December and will release the new LP sometime before that. Between now and then we’ll be saving up cash for this expensive habit we have called DEAD and playing a few shows in Victoria which you can check out here:

http://deadsounds.com/upcoming-gigs/

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Many thanks to the Jem for taking the time to chat to Emma.

For more information about the band, check out: http://deadsounds.com/