Interview: Yuck

Yuck have been one of the most exciting bands to emerge in 2011. Consisting of members from three different continents all in their early 20s, they released their debut record ealrier this year to both critical and fan acclaim. Playing a sometimes screaming, sometime's soothing, always melody-driven style of rock and roll, they've drawn a lot of comparisons with early '90s rock bands.

We talked to the band's front man, Daniel Blumberg, about his previous band, Cajun Dance Party, how he is surprisingly influenced by Nashville alt country band Lambchop and what it's like to be signed to the respected indie label Fat Possum.


You guys released a fantastic debut album this year and you’ve started to pop up on a lot of ‘Best Of’ album lists – is that a gratifying feeling?

It’s weird – I don’t know if I’m meant to but no.

It is weird because I like a lot of those albums and I do look at those lists sometimes at the end of the year and see albums that I might of missed. And sometimes I’ve had experiences where I’ve looked at those lists and seen albums that I really love, so it’s kind of weird but in terms of a “gratifying” feeling – I normally feel graitified closer to the time that I’ve written a song or something.

It’s a bit... I don’t know. Maybe I’m meant to feel something really good? But...

No, no no, you feel however you feel. I was just interested about what you thought of it. But yeah, I remember hearing you guys for the first time earlier this year and thinking, “Shit, that dude sounds a lot like the guy from Cajun Dance Party (Daniel's previous band),” and of course low and behold!

I’m sure it’s a question you get all the time but how has your experience in Yuck compared with your last band?

It doesn’t really get asked. Maybe in Australia people get Cajun Dance Party more but we didn’t really didn’t do many shows or press when the album came out. Sometimes in London we got asked at the start. But... Yeah, they’re completely different – they’re utterly different.

Cajun Dance Party was when we were at school. We started it when we were 15 and then the record came out three years later, which was really frustrating. I think we recorded it two and a half years after we wrote it. I mean to me, that’s like a stupid thing that I never want to do again.

We didn’t do that here, we were adding tracks to our album the day of mastering the Yuck album. So, yeah... everything is different.

You guys have had a pretty whirlwind year of touring – what would you say are some of the more interesting places you’ve played this year?

Ahhh... It’s all a bit of mush at the moment.

Well I just read on your tour page that before you head to Australia for the Laneway shows you’re heading off on the Weezer cruise – that sounds fucking rad! How did that come about?

Yeah, that’s so weird. It’s gonna be really strange but fun.

I was reading on your blog that Lambchop are a massive influence on Yuck, which I found really surprising.

Oh, yeah, yeah. I’m a massive Lambchop fan. They’re one of the most brilliant bands.

How would you say they’ve influenced your music?

Well, I went to Nashville – I dropped out of school and went to record in Nashville with Mark Levin and he was in Lambchop and has recorded a lot of their albums. And Kurt (Wagner - Lambchop lead singer) was around the whole time and I stayed in contact with him and he’s sort of quite a big part of Yuck really, in the background – well for me – and helping with... You know, it’s nice to have someone who’s experienced to vent to if touring is getting difficult. And then I guess I love their music.

I guess ‘Suicide Policeman’ was the first time I acknowledged a direct influence and I was like, “Shit, I’ve been listening to too much Lambchop.” (Laughs). But no one really says that and you picked up on that which is quite funny.

I also just read that Fat Possum has also released a book of your drawings – that’s a pretty fantastic project. Has visual art been something you’ve always done as well as music? Because I know you drew all the cover art for the Yuck releases.

Yeah, I’d been making these books since we started playing, out of the drawings I was doing. And yeah, when I started this type of drawing it was directly I when we started writing Yuck songs. And working on lyrics I’d always be drawing, or if I couldn’t think of lyrics, there’d be a drawing instead.

Those drawings that they’ve released in the book, we’ve used them for single covers and record covers. And I stopped drawing them when we mastered the record, and they sort of put it out as a complete thing next to the album, like every single drawing I did during that period of making and writing.

Obviously, after being in Cajun Dance Party, you’ve got a bit of experience being on different labels – how is dealing with Fat Possum as compared to other labels you’ve been involved with? They have a pretty impressive roster of artists like A.A. Bondy, Unknown Mortal Orchestra and of course you guys.

I think they’re amazing. We didn’t really know them, like – they hadn’t seen us when we signed to them. We hadn’t really spoken much before we signed. They were only people like”We want to give you money to tour and release your record in shops.”

So, we just signed and ... When I mentioned the book and that I had all these drawings, that was because when we did the Unknown Mortal Orchestra tour they kept emailing me and calling me and saying “We really want to make a screen poster for this tour because it’s going to be amazing,” and they kept hassling me and then they ended up printing it so beautifully! I had no idea that it would look so good.

Yeah they’re quite crazy – they do stuff that they like and they don’t really give a fuck.

I actually heard Oupa for the first time yesterday. It’s really lovely. Was that something you just did yourself?

Yeah, because we’re doing so many interviews and shows around the Yuck record I decided I just wanted to put out some music without a structure and just do it on a smaller scale because I find it quite rewarding. So yeah I set up a label for releasing that stuff.

Cool – have you had much positive feedback from that?

Yeah people have seemed to like it. It’s really nice that they can order it and that I can send it to them.


Nathan Wood


Originally published at www.vmusic.com.au

Interview: Adalita

Adalita Srsen is a towering figure in Australian rock music. For two decades she's fronted the iconic rock band Magic Dirt, who have toured tens of thousands of kilometres across the country, supported some of the greatest international musicians ever to tour down under and have released several acclaimed albums - including two that made Triple J's 100 Greatest Australian Albums of All Time list.

Earlier this year she released her debut solo record, Adalita, an album that has received vast critical acclaim, including being nominated for four Jagermeister Australian Independent Music Awards. We caught up with Adalita to talk about her growing confidence as a solo artist, what music she's into at the moment and what she thinks about the future of the live music industry in Australia.

You’ve said in a few of interviews that you really needed to be pushed into doing this solo record, and now that you’ve toured it and are up for a swag of Independent Music Awards - do you feel like you’ve got more confidence in yourself as a solo artist?

Definitely. I feel heaps better about it. I think being in a loud rock band for such a long time, you know I love playing loud. You sort of used to that wall of sound. I’ve never played solo before. Never, ever. So it was a real shock to the system to just shake of those nerves and just get used to the silence and the space. It was pretty full on, so I just had to get over that first and that took me a couple of years but I feel a lot better about it. I feel like it was definitely worth pursuing and I’m really glad I took Dean’s (Dean Turner, the former Magic Dirt bassist who passed away in 2009 from cancer) advice and was inspired by his belief in my work.

So do you think then that you’ve been able to craft your own style and your own voice away from Magic Dirt?

I don’t know about that. I still feel like the same person but I guess there’s no band around me and those big sounds have all been stripped away. I’m still playing electric guitar, I’m still singing about similar stuff and it’s all pretty moody like I normally write. So, I actually don’t feel any different in that way.

But I think crafting the album in the studio was definitely a different experience. I don’t know, I don’t make a conscious effort to do anything, I just sort of do it and it comes out. I haven’t made a conscious effort to evolve a certain sound or anything.

You’re also going to be performing live at the awards ceremony – are you excited for that? Sometimes that’s recognition from the organisers that your music had enough of a significant influence or impact that year that it warranted a performance at the award ceremony.

Oh definitely. I’m completely bowled over. It feels really nice – I feel totally honoured.

Have there been any other Australian records you’ve been particularly fond of this year?

Yes, there’s a Sydney band called The Laurels who have just released an EP called Mesozoic and they’re my favourite band at the moment. They’re sort of like - loud guitars, psychedelic, old grungy kind of shoegazey... Yeah, really awesome sounds and I love that Mesozoic EP. It’s just an album that I love and I listen to a lot. Yeah, definitely one of my favourites.

You’d started writing material for the next record before you started touring the current record, have you got much material ready to go?

No, I’ve only got a couple of new songs I’ve written and I’m not sure they’ll make the record. I’ve started writing in dribs and drabs now and I’ll hopefully go in and lock myself away in a couple of months.

So do you have any set plans to head back into the studio or are you just going to keep demoing for a while?

I haven’t started demoing yet, so I’ll do that first and then hopefully get in the studio next year.

You’re going to be supporting the upcoming Drones tour, are you psyched for that?

Mmmmmmmm (like she’s just bitten into a chocolate cake...). Oh, ho yeah, very! I’m going nuts, I can’t wait.

Obviously Dean was a significant force behind this first solo record. What are you perceiving for the next record in terms of sound, and in terms of arrangement without his influence – have you had any ideas about that?

I think the songwriting process will dictate that. I’m just waiting for that to kind of happen and then I’ll know at the end of the demo stage where that’s gonna go.

You’ve made some pretty gorgeous videos with Adam Harding for the album, how integral have those videos been to record and your solo project as a whole?

Oh very. A lot of the videos were done in my hometown of Geelong. So we visited a lot of those old haunts - Breamlea and the Shell Factory and just some old spots there. They bring back a lot of memories but they also visually look great. I have a real connection to that place and just wanted to film a natural environment and be outside and have a lot of nature in the videos.

Adalita - 'The Repairer'



We shot ‘Hot Air’ first and Adam had a very strong vision of what he wanted and it all just flowed from there. I’m really happy with the videos; I think they’re a great visual accompaniment to the album.

Adalita - 'Hot Air'



You’re someone that is really renowned and revered in the Australian music industry – you’ve been a major figure in the last 20 years and you’ve played a shit load of shows with some pretty fucking epic bands, a couple of albums in the Triple J greatest Aussie list - is a memoir or an autobiography something you see yourself writing in the future?

Oh man, I don’t know. I don’t think for myself, but who can say? I think definitely there should be a Magic Dirt memoir, I think either as a film or as a book or both. Or as a photo book, but I’d definitely love to do that and that’s a dream of mine.

You’ve also been a stalwart in the live music industry in Australia and the future of live music in Oz is obviously a really big issue at the moment – have you seen much of a change in you time performing live and do you have any thoughts on the future of the industry?

Yeah, it’s definitely changed. It feels like it’s a little bit harder for bands to play live. I mean there’re a lot of great venues in Melbourne, but a lot of venues have been shutting down. I know new ones open, but I guess sometimes I worry if it will stick it through. Will people still go and see bands live and will venues still have bands? Maybe I’m being a bit dramatic in my own head but it just seems a bit harder.

Touring regionally is just really, really hard and not viable for so many bands now, which is really unfortunate because the country kids miss out on music whereas before it was still hard but much easier [than] now to go to those country areas. But it’s definitely changed.

It’s a question that I’m sure sick of hearing but I’m kind of obliged to ask, any news on the future of Magic Dirt or are you guys still happy having a rest?

Yeah, we’re just on hiatus I guess. We don’t really have any plans, no. Not at the moment.

What are you current plans post The Drones shows?

I’m doing the Triple J tribute to Nick Cave tour, called straight to you, which is going up the East Coast, which is gonna be awesome. That’s in November with people like Dan Sultan, Lisa Mitchell, Tim Rogers, Bertie Blackman, Muscles – it’s gonna be great. And then I’m doing Meredith Music Festival in December here in Victoria, which is near my hometown, so that will be good fun. And then take the summer off and just write.


Nathan Wood

Originally published at www.vmusic.com.au

Interview: A.A. Bondy

I’m nervous as shit when I walk into the Regency Hyatt hotel in Toronto for my interview with A.A. Bondy. His first album American Hearts is genius, so I totally idolise him. But during my research for our talk, I came across an interview he did at a radio station where he more or less acts like a bit of a cunt. And seriously, come on, no one wants to meet someone they’re a fan of, only to find out they’re a cock.

My nervousness is increased 10 fold when while waiting in the lobby I realise that all the cool, hipster kids sitting around me are the members of Best Coast and Wavves! Holy fuck! What am I doing here? I keep waiting for someone to come up and tap me on the shoulder and tell me to “Get the fuck out!”

Luckily I see a familiar face in Zack from Mini Mansions, whom I’d interviewed the previous day. I wander up and start chattin’ and we’re shortly joined by Michael Shuman, co-member of Mini Mansions, bass player for Queens Of The Stone Age, and all round super-nice-dude. He high fives me and I get a boner. He asks “What’s happenin’ man?” I tell him I’m here to interview the Bondster and he politely informs me he’s just behind me. I spin around only to see him whisked away by some short ass blonde douche for another interview. CUNT! I some how grow a pair and quickly intervene.

“Mr Bondy, my name’s Rav. I’m here to interview you.”

“Oh shit, this guy got to me first. I’ll go out with him and be back with you in a bit.”

FUCK!

Twenty anxiety ridden minutes later A.A. Bondy strolls back up to me. “Alright man let’s do this,” he says with a wicked southern drawl. We head to a quiet corner and get comfy.

He looks nothing like the beautiful voice that fills his records. When I listened to American Hearts and his sophomore record When The Devils Loose, I imagined a pretty boy Sufjan Stevens or Connor Oberst look-a-like. The guy sitting before me however, looks like a geezer from a pre-Madonna Guy Ritchie movie. He has a gaunt face, intensely dark eyes, a wiry frame, spider web veined arms, charcoal hair, and his right T-shirt sleeve is rolled up to reveal a nasty-ass looking graze (the result of a recent motorcycle accident he later tells me).

I say “I’m just gonna get the recorder cranking” and he says, “Cool” but already seems distracted. His eyes shooting everywhere, from the floor, to the ceiling to people walking by, and he seems to be a ball of nervous energy, constantly juggling a spindly cigarette in his hands. I think “Shit, he already wants to get the fuck out of here,” but as the interview goes on, I realise that that’s just the way he is. His mannerisms remind me of a spider, or at least a guy called Spider, who shanks you in the prison yard.

“I was listening to your records before and I was thinking the first time heard you was when a friend actually gave me American Hearts as a present.”

“Right.”

“And I was wondering, how large a part do you think word of mouth has played in your career?”

“Actually, I was in Brooklyn where somebody said that. I imagine it’s a lot of it. I mean, I think that and the internet are pretty much the only conduits I’ve had as far as finding out about stuff. Which is really good. I mean, word of mouth certainly existed before but not in the same way, not as immediate. A band can be nobody and somebody by the end of the week. And that just didn’t used to happen.”

“How have you found the difference between crowds now after your first album and now after your second? Are there more people at the shows?”

“It’s steady it feels like. We’re definitely going to places that we’ve never been before, and they’ve been more people there than expected in the first place. At the same time, I’m not really… I’m still in the process of trying to figure out, I don’t know, that there is anything to figure out – where all this stuff sits. It’s still a weird thing to me that you write these songs, you make a record, you get into your van, drive to a town and strangers come and watch you play these things that you’ve made up. Even though it’s existed for a long time in various forms of entertainment, it’s still puzzling to me. You know? I’ve gone and seen people and been moved by something they’ve done and I don’t know how I’ll get my head around it.”

“As for the rest of this year, will there just be more touring or are you planning on making another record. “

“There’ll be touring and another record. It’ll be both things.”

“For the next record will you be working with the Felice Brothers again?”

“No. Well... They might be on some of it. But I’ve been playing with these two guys that I’ve been playing with now for over a year. So, we’ve talked about, maybe, joining forces a little bit. “

“Has it felt good to play in a regular band for those 12 months?”

“Yeah. I mean, we joke about it. We don’t really refer to ourselves as a band, that’d be kind of weird, but yeah it’s good because for a while I was having to put groups of guys together and you know, it takes a long time for anybody who’s playing together to really see what they’re capable of and develop some kind of language that they all speak.”

“In terms of songwriting are you a prolific songwriter or do you have bursts of creativity at different times.”

“No. I’m prolific in terms of melodies and ideas and stuff like that but not prolific in terms of words.”

“And do you think being around these guys in the band your songwriting process will change again?”

“It has. We’ve written a lot of things and I’ve seen what they can become by playing with them. I do write differently, more importantly, because of playing and touring with them. The way I play guitar has changed, the way I sing has changed. So it’s been good for that.”

“And have you changed at all as a live performer over the last few years?”

“I don’t talk as much as I used to. I used to feel like because I was just another guy up there with an acoustic guitar that I needed to do something to separate my self and it kind of just turned into like, a half absurdist stand up routine and half whatever the other thing is. But I don’t really say anything now.”

“Who would you say were your musical influences were growing up and who do you find you are influenced by now, or who do you find inspiration in now?”

“Mostly, I remember hearing stuff that my parents would play, records or whatever but, as far as something that I got into. When I was 12 Purple Rain was my favourite record and it probably still is. There’s a lot of people I’ve listened to over the years that I don’t really care about anymore that I was really excited about. I mean there’s still bands that, like My Bloody Valentine, Loveless, that record had a big, ahhh, left a big impression on me. And then before that American Hearts record I just got into all this American, other peoples folk music and stuff like that. I think I’m kinda through that phase.”

“I’ve heard your music described as a whole bunch of different genres.”

“Me too.”

“Do you have any concept of what you would describe your music yourself?”

“Not yet. I mean, I don’t know how you do it. I mean I guess it’s just like rooted in some kind of traditional, American songbook. Not traditional by meaning like folk or blues but traditional in terms of I think there’s little pieces of all American music in there except for maybe like hip-hop or rap or jazz. So when people ask, I’m just at a loss. I’m a horrible self promoter. I mean it should definitely be something that I know. And I also feel like somehow I always leave myself room to go onto the next thing by not saying anything. But I’ve never been able to answer it.”

“Do you think that's what makes you appealing as an artist – the sense that it's hard for someone to put a label on your music.”

“I have no idea. I mean, there’s those people that like to put things in boxes and I don’t know what purpose that serves to a listener. I mean, I guess it’s just an easy way of opening up the subject. It doesn’t help me, in my iTunes I don’t break everything up into genres, you know what I mean. I could very easily listen to a John Coltrane song or a Crystal Castles song. I mean whichever way I feel like going. It doesn’t really matter. “

“So in terms of what the next record is going to be or where you want to go with writing for this record, are you going in without a plan and it’s just gonna come out how it comes out when it’s time to record? Or do you think you’ll continue to fill out the production values like you did on the last record after American Hearts?”

“I’d like to say that I steer it, but it’s more… it’s just kinda like I kinda let the boat go where the boat wants to go and every once in a while I’ll be like, “I don’t like where it’s going” and then I’ll turn it. But the last record, there were actually two, full records of material recorded and one of them is never gonna come out. You know. “

“You don’t like the record or…?”

“I tend to not end up liking any of them. You know what I mean? I mean, I always think at some point I’m actually gonna make one that I like. But I don’t know, if you work on anything that long that it’s about ‘like’ or ‘dislike’. Either this is true or it’s not. And after that, even if this was true, at a certain point in time it’s rare, and only a few songs off each record will be able to travel outside of that box of wherever it was given life. But I steer it and I don’t steer it.”

“Do you think in the future, that this ‘dislike’ that you might have, will drive you to continue to be creative and produce work?”

“It does seem like there’s some kind of period like pain or suffering. Not pain or just dissatisfaction in between records and I think that is a function of time which will change a little bit till the next one. I’m just kind of frustrated or got to the point where I’m frustrated and I just don’t like the way… I mean I feel like the way I sing is my own. I feel like the way I play guitar is my own, but I don’t feel like the structures that I’m doing are mine and that’s a lot harder thing to personalise. There’s just so many different kinds of songs. So I’d like that to become more distinct. “

At this time I realise that that’s all my questions done so I press stop and shake the man’s hand. We head up a flight of steps to the lobby and chat along the way. I ask him about the show he played the previous night and he tells me “It was okay. ‘Cept I wanted to get fucked up and they only had like six beers in my rider, which was bullshit.”

It's great to meet someone you're a fan of, only to find out they're a fucking legend.

Interview: My Disco

Rav had an interweb chat with My Disco's Ben Andrews about recording his band's latest album, Little Joy, with legendary record maker, Steve Albini; getting your improv on in the studio; and naming an album after a shitty LA bar.

Did it take you boys a long time to record your new album, Little Joy? All of the instruments sound really meticulously recorded.

Not really. We spent four days of initial tracking with Albini (Steve. If you don't know who that is, you have no fucking business reading this) in Chicago and then we were on tour for a bit and then we came back and did about eight days in Sydney like doing vocals and mixing so longer than we've ever spent before but I guess in the grand scheme of things and bands in studios it was still only two weeks max. I reckon if you can't get something good in two weeks then you're doing something wrong.

For sure. What was recording with a producer Albini like?

He's not a producer per say, he kinda cringes at that word. He's more like an engineer in the classic sense like he'll get the songs down as you play them in the best possible way but also the quickest and most natural possible setting. There are definitely no frills with him.

But at the same time he'll pull this amazing drum sound in half an hour and you'll be like, 'Sweet, let's go,' and he gives you the confidence to kinda do what you're there for, which is play the songs and concentrate on your music rather than going, 'Oh do you think the guitar sounds any good?'

So he doesn't fuck around, just sticks the mic's where they've gotta go and get's done with it?

Yeah and that's the way I like to work as well. I hate having to listen to some dude hit a snare drum for 10 hours until he gets that right because by the time of that your ears are fucked and you couldn't be bothered and you're tired. So I like working fast. But at the same time having said that we kind of wanted to take a different approach to mixing and spend a bit longer on it and that's why we came back to Australia and did it with Scott Horscroft at BJB (Big Jesus Burger Studios) in Sydney. We just thought we've worked with him before on a single so let's have the best of both worlds ' a traditional engineer and then a producer sort of vibe. So yeah it was fun and it worked out in our advantage, I think.

How were you guys feeling when you went into record, especially in terms of comparison to how it felt to record your previous records?

It was a lot more relaxed and was a 'Whatever happens in the studio, as long as the vibe's right, is us,' kind of thing. We didn't stress or meticulously rehearse over the songs. We just kind of had them roughly done, 'cos there's a fair bit of improvised stuff on the record and we didn't want to over think it and make it boring for us. So, we just left a lot to chance, and on the way (to the States) I thought, 'Are we a but under prepared,' but it was just about getting the right level of song down and getting the right vibe. Some takes we'd do and they'd be completely different to other takes and that was just kind of the beauty of the album because the fact that they're not songs that are set in stone, you know. They're not songs that you either got it right or you didn't it was more about the feel of each take.

Yeah, the improvisation really comes through a lot on the record, did you guys find that you were coming into the recording with any influences in the back of your mind or were you just coming from that organic place where you were just going into the studio and just playing and seeing what comes out?

I think we knew that we wanted to do it a bit differently especially as we were only tracking with Steve. We were all excited about that idea especially having months between sessions, where we could sit on the record and listen to it at home or wherever and think about what we wanted. And then it also helped because we did vocals in Sydney, so it gave Liam (Andrews: bass/vocals/brother of Ben) a bit more time to come up with different vocal ideas and even a lot of that was down to some of the improvised stuff that he did when we did the tracking because we put a bunch of cool effects on the vocals.

That kind of played a big part in some of the layering and some of the more droney elements in certain songs where there isn't so much vocal part but more layering almost as if we used a drone synth or something. So yeah, it all kind of happened pretty organically and naturally in the studio which I think is the most exciting about it and now while playing it live we're just kind of reworking how to play it in the live setting .

What would you say is your favourite track on the record?

I really like how the song 'With Age' turned out because that turned into a... We had that song as a completely different song and then when we recorded it again, it's got this real depth to it that both of us (Liam and Ben) filled in with the guitar section that I'm really happy with and I really love the drums on it. You know it's kind of tight and clinical but at the same time has this warmth to it. And then I like some of the more expansive songs that surprise me when I listen back and go, 'Oh that's what we did?' like 'Rivers'.

So, where does the name from the album come from?

It's actually the name of a bar that we like to go to in Los Angeles. It's this kind of seedy, Hispanic kind of hole in the wall bar in Echo Park and it's called Lil' Joy, as in the way we write the abbreviated version on the album. And that was the first port of call where we got off the plane before we recorded anything or whatever. We just kind of went there, had a night off and had a few drinks and were like, 'This is the beginning of a cool adventure' or whatever, so it kind of has this starting place point of view. It's kind of developed into this kind of double meaning where you can see it as 'Little Joy' where, as we draw 'little joy' from this in the pessimistic [sense] or you can look in the glass half full perspective, where it's like a 'little joy' like something small and amazing. It's kind of cool the more after the time I think about it the more things I draw from it.

This marks album number three for the band. Where do you see yourselves in terms of your career or your lifespan as My Disco? Is this something that's still coming really naturally? Because, in my opinion, just through what I've been reading of late about the band and expectations for the album, it feels like Little Joy is going to be a high point for the band. You seem to be getting a lot more attention and interest.

Yeah, definitely. Bands are always evolving whether they're around for six months or 20 years and it's like that for us. Yeah, in some ways we're just hitting our stride now even though we've been a band for seven years or so, and that's kind of exciting because these things take time. We've only just kind of achieved goals that I've been working on for the band for the entire lifespan of it ' international releases and international tours and that kind of thing ' and I see these projects as kind of life long works, and things like that take a lot of time and effort. And we're happy to be in for the long haul, really.

You're doing the hard yards around oz for the album tour, but only one show per town, are the dates you've announced just the initial tour dates and are you guys planning to get round a lot more in the summer.

I don't know, it's about as extensive as we can go. We're still doing regional if you include like Geelong and Newcastle and I include Canberra as regional as these days. I think we're doing Hobart, Perth Freemantle and so 10 or 11 shows all in places that we've been and enjoy going to over the years. Yeah we'll probably do another run next year once the vinyl comes out but it's kind of cool to do a block of a tour that you can put it all up on a poster and get it done before Christmas, because then around December or January there's so much shit going on festivals, it's hard to compete with that kind of stuff so it's good to get a tour in before the bulk of that stuff happens.

What are plans in terms of post the record release? Are you guys gonna burn through Aus for a while and then tackle overseas again?

Yeah we're doing a weekend in NZ in February and then at the moment we've got tentative plans to go to Japan in Feb, an then we're planning a US tour for May/June and then a European tour for September. So I think 2011 will be pretty fun.

Originally published on Polaroids Of Androids.

Interview: Twin Sister

Floating out of Long Island, NY, Twin Sister make dreamy, experimental pop that's so good, you can hardly believe they make it all in their bedrooms and basements. Roving, radical reporter Rav, caught up with the band's bass player Gabe D'Amico to talk about their latest EP Color Your Life, giving up on promoting yourself through MySpace, and why the band decided to sign with Aussie label Pop Frenzy.

How did you guys meet/start playing music together?

The five of us are all from Long Island. We played in several different bands while we were growing up and we kind of met each other playing music with different bands. As time passed we started playing more and more with each other in kind of an informal way and then two years ago it started becoming a little more serious and a little more official.

Where does the band's name come from?

Andrea made this painting for Eric years ago. It was these two sisters around this big fish and then Eric wrote a song about it called Twin Sister and then we were having a really hard time naming our band and that one was just kind of the least offensive. Nobody disliked it so it stuck.

Who would you say are the band's major influences or did you have common influences that brought you guys together?

There's definitely common ground for bands that we all like, and each of us all have our individual tastes. A couple of those that we share would be bands like Cocteau Twins, Stereolab, we all like Japanese pop from the 80s like Yellow Magic Orchestra and the people they worked with. Those are a few of them. And of course we're kind of exploring music. In the last year we've been listening to a lot of Kraftwerk and been getting more into electronic music.

How would you describe your own music?

Our 'go-to' term when we get asked that is usually 'experimental pop' and we're very attached to making songs that have lyrics and are usually between two minutes and five/six minutes. We're not doing anything crazily conceptual but within the bounds of that we do like to try different things.

Obviously you guys are garnering a bit more media attention and general interest in the band of late. Was there a point when you guys were playing together where you felt that you were on to something good or something you hadn't experienced in other bands?

Yeah, especially making music on Long Island, sometimes it starts to feel like you're putting things out there and nobody is listening. There are so many bands that make music and people get inundated with Myspace friend requests and like "Come to my show" posts.

At a certain point we'd given up on promoting ourselves in that way and it had just become us casting songs off to our friends or just acquaintances and keeping it kind of small and it kind of just grew from there.

There was definitely a point where we'd see people [at shows] we don't know. We'd keep seeing somebody writing something online and from places we've never been. That was probably the point where we were like "Oh wow, for whatever reason the stuff we were doing was having some kind of impact."



What's the song writing process within the band? Do you guys collaborate or is there a chief songwriter?

It changes from song to song. Usually what happens is one or two of us have kind of like a little seed of an idea and it sits around for a while. And then someone else will come along with an addition and eventually we'll get to a point where all five of us are really liking the direction of it and then we kind of feel like it's close to being done because everybody's happy.

On Color Your Life, All Around And Away We Go started as a demo that Eric and Andrea recorded together and then Bryan and I recorded a couple of things on top of that demo and then we completely changed the feel the song a few months after it had been written originally while we were just rehearsing. And then the song kind of grew out from there. So everybody at some point in the process gets their hands into the song but it doesn't always start in the same place or end in the same place. Like for the sake of simplicity we just split the songwriter credits five ways, which isn't always accurate to the song but it goes through so many cycles and changes that by the end of it, it is kind of unrecognisable from how it started.

What can you tell me about Color Your Life?

We put it out on our website in March of this year and then it got pressed and released a couple of months later in the US and then it's gonna be put out in Europe and Australia. But it was recorded a year before. We started recording in February or March of 2009, and then we finished pretty much a year later. It took a really long time mostly because we weren't living very close to each other and we had other things that we were doing like jobs and school and things like that. So the whole process was broken up. There was lots of breaks and time in between. And we made it all pretty much in our bedrooms and our basements. We didn't do anything in a studio or anything, we just self-recorded the whole thing. It was kind of an intimidating experience, particularly being stressed out for so long toward the end. We were all going a little crazy because we'd been listening to all those recordings for almost two and a half months.

I heard you guys had a few labels chasing you, what made you guys sign with Pop Frenzy?

They actually just approached us and our only hesitation with signing to a label was doing something where we had options of doing things in the future. We always wanted to have the record out in as much of the world as possible. But we also didn't want to do something where wanting to make that happen meant that the next few things we did after that would be set in stone. We're pretty early in the process of understanding what it means to be a band and trying to figure out what we want do, so we didn't want to have too many constraints placed upon us. Pop Frenzy was nice enough to just say "Hey, we'll just license this release and put it out without any strings attached," and that was pretty much an ideal situation for us, so we jumped on board.

So what's the next step for Twin Sister?

We're just finishing a tour right now with this Canadian band called Memory House. We get home in September and we're taking all of September to just rehearse and flesh out some ideas that we've had over the last few months and then we have a couple of tours in October and November but after that we're gonna take a few months to make a record and we're really excited about because we've all quit our jobs so we can spend all day everyday making music which is very new to all of us. We've never had that opportunity before. So it should be really fun.

So are you looking at 2011 as the big year for Twin Sister?

Oh yeah, well as far as just being able to do music full time is pretty amazing and we're hoping to make the most of it. You know, we don't know how long this kind of thing can last and how far it can go but while it's here we're going to try and capitalise on it and make as much music as possible.

Originally published on polaroidsofandroids.com

Interview: Best Coast

As a kid growing up in rural NSW, summertime could be a real shit. When the temperature peaks at a median of around 38 degrees, and with the nearest beach sitting an eternal six hours away, you have to make do with what you've got. The salty bite of the surf was replaced with the sweet cordial taste of Wooly's ice blocks, detergent slicked slip 'n' slides, and the all out warfare of super soaker fights in hyper colour T-shirts (fuck me the 90s ruled).

This geographical remoteness also meant relative cultural isolation, with the soundtrack to those summers consisting of whatever the powers at be had decided to add to that season's Hit Machine compilation. If only I'd been listening to the Beach Boys or the Ronettes, I might have grown up to write songs like Best Coast.

Best Coast, for those of you who haven't hung ten on their net-hype wave yet, are a two-piece from Los Angeles, California, that have taken the genius song writing formula of the surf bands and girl groups of the 1960s and re-imagined them as the fuzzed out soundtrack of today's summer.

Our buoy Rav recently spoke to Bethany Cosentino, Best Coast's chief songwriter and conceptualizer, about how the band got their start, what recording their debut was like, and how Garfield has become a mascot for the band...

Where did you guys first meet?

Bob (Bruno, the other half of Best Coast) and I met at a party in LA. I knew who Bob was because he recorded a lot of bands in LA and he played with a lot of bands. He was kind of this guy in LA that was involved in a lot of music. We started working together on a project that I was involved in called Pocahaunted and he recorded us and played live with us and that was sort of the first time I'd recorded with Bob musically. And then when I started Best Coast I just knew that he was the right guy to ask to do it with me, so he was the only person that I asked, basically.

What was your first impression that people were really starting to dig Best Coast's sound?

I had no idea, I mean, I just started writing the music because I was... it was kind of a time filler. I didn't really have much going on and I'd just moved back to LA from New York and I'd just dropped out of college. I didn't really know what I was going to do and I started writing these songs and we started playing shows in LA and it all just started to happen really quickly.

I think the moment that I realised that kind of how busy things were getting was when we went to SXSW. We played like 10 shows in three days and that was sort of like the moment where I was like, "You know, this is something that I'm doing now pretty much full time. And it's getting pretty busy and it's exciting but it's also something that came out of left field. I had no idea that it was gonna take off like it did and it's really exciting and cool that it's doing well.

This summery kind of beach and summer inspired pop has taken off lately with you guys, as well as bands like Wavves, The Drums and others. What do you think it is about this kind of music that listeners are really identifying with?

I guess people are just trying to capture that vibe or that excitement that summer brings and try to portray it through their music and I think that it's kind of cool that everyone is kind of doing that and everybody's doing it in their own way and all those bands have different sounds and unique sounds and I think everyone is trying to have fun with their music. And summer is fun!

So what can you tell me about the new album, Crazy for You?

The record was recorded in January of 2010. Basically we had two weeks allotted in the studio just because time constraints and the guy who recorded our record is Lewis Pesacov and he plays in a band called Fool's Gold and he also plays in a band called Foreign Born and he's super busy and touring just as much as we are and we kind of looked at our schedules and that was the only time we had to do it. So we went in and the studio that's called Black Iris, it's in Echo Park, which is in LA, and we basically just went in and we took about two days rehearsing songs to come up with drum parts and tracking drums and all that and for the next week and a half we got in there and started recording our parts. We took a lot of advice and knowledge from Lewis and it was really fun experience.

You've already had a fair amount of success purely on the back of the singles you've put out, what are your hopes for success once the album gets released?

Who knows, I mean, we really didn't expect anything from the singles. I don't really have any sort of expectations or I try not to really think too much in the future just because, you know, I try to sort of live everything one day at a time, especially because things are pretty hectic and busy right now. If I think too far ahead, I get a little anxious because there's so much stuff going on but I think that I really just hope that people enjoy the record and I hope that a lot of people spend their summers listening to it or spend this summer listening to it at the beach or with their friends or whatever. And, you know, we have a lot of touring and stuff coming up this year that we're pretty excited to do and we're gonna get to go to some places we've never been before and meet awesome people, so I think we're just looking forward to whatever is sort of mapped out for us, I guess. We're just kind of open to new ideas and sort of excited about what the future holds for us.

Looking at the album's track listing, why did you decide to put When I'm With You on as a bonus track as opposed to one of the tracks on the album?

I didn't want to include it on the record at all, just because I wanted everything that had come out before the record to sort of stand on its own and I didn't want to re-record songs.

But then I realised to date that's the biggest song and that's the song that when we play live people recognise that song and I thought, you know, I just want to include it on the record. But it didn't just seem like it really fit with the record, so I didn't want to put it on their as a song on the record 'cos everything on the record was brand-new. So I just thought the bonus track would give the people what they want but I did it the way it wanted to be done.

What's the concept behind the album's cover art?

When we were trying to come up with our album art we were in Europe and our deal with Mexican Summer happened really quickly and they were like "We're gonna have the record out really soon and we need to have the art, and Bob and I had had some concepts and I thought of some ideas but the original things I wanted to do with Bob and I would've taken a lot more time. So I just sent in a photo of my cat [Snacks] and I said I want this picture to be included and I think it would be really cool if we kind of blend in some of the aesthetic or the aspirations of the band, which is the beach and, you know, it has the old timey post card font on it and in the inside of the font, is like map pattern and the map that is inside the font is actually a map of Los Angeles. And this guy, his name's David Raiser, he did it and he is a really nice guy and he just came up with it really quickly and basically I just explained that I want post card font, I want a beach scene, I want my cat, blah, blah, blah, blah and then he came up with that and we loved it!

Any plans to tour Oz?

Yeah, we are doing our record in Australia with Pop Frenzy and I think we are [planning to tour] actually. It hasn't been confirmed yet or discussed too much but we're thinking of coming out there in January or February of next year because the record comes out here in July and I think it comes out there a couple of months after. But yeah, I'm still so excited to go to Australia. I'm not looking forward to the flight because it's really long and I don't like flying [laughs] but Australia's the place that I never in my wildest dreams ever imagined I would go to and to be given the opportunity to go there and play music for people is really rad, so we're really looking forward to that.

I saw on your blog you guys want people to bring Garfield stuff to your shows, is Garfield a band favourite?

Yeah, I love Garfield and, in my house at least, there's a pretty good collection of Garfield stuff. And a lot of times at shows people will bring me weird cat stuff and I thought I'd just be more specific and say bring Garfield stuff, but cat stuff is also expected - but I do love Garfield.

I assume you guys don't want anyone chucking lasagne at the stage?

No, no lasagne [laughs], unless the lasagne is maybe in the shape of Garfield.

Originally published in Polaroids of Androids

Interview: Surfer Blood

2010 has been a pretty big year for Surfer Blood. A simple positive review on a little site known as Pitchfork had them quickly hailed (by some) as the second coming of early 90s nerd rock God's Weezer (considering the fact that many consider Weezer to have taken a long dirt nap post-Pinkerton.)

They've since spent much of their time attempting to distance themselves from said comparison, while trying to establish their own identity through touring the fuck out of their brilliant debut record, Astro Coast.

Roving reporter Rav (RRR) recently chatted to the band's frontman, chief songwriter and major producer of Astro Coast, John Paul 'JP' Pitts, about how Surfer Blood have developed as a live act since the release of the album, what hitting the big time has been like, and how they came up with their super sweet band t-shirt designs.

Hey JP. How you doin' buddy?

I'm good man.

Where are you at right now?

En route to Chapel Hill, North Carolina, for a show.

How's the tour been going?

It's been good. It's been hectic. Been touring a lot. Just got back from Europe last month. And have been touring with The Pains Of Being Pure Of Heart this month. And, you know, it's fun.

I've seen you guys in a bunch of write ups for stories like '10 Bands to see in 2010,' and '50 Bands You Must See!' Do you feel pressured at all by all the media scrutiny on your performances?

No, I mean, hopefully we're delivering. Just like anyone else we have our good shows and our bad shows. There's a lot of expectations but all you can really do at the end of the day is keep working hard, playing good songs, tour and, you know, try to reach out to your fans. We're growing everyday as musicians and as people.

Do you think you've developed over the last 12 months as you've been performing more and more live and to bigger and bigger shows?

Yeah we've definitely come together as a live act. The songs have always been there and recording was good, but the live show has grown and really fleshed out and people who see us now tell us now that it's better and more enjoyable than it was 6 months ago or whatever.


Now that you guys have blown up in terms of touring and having a big supporter base, do you think that you'll remain living in Florida, or is a relocation on the cards?

Right now we don't have any plans to leave Florida. Once this tour's over we're going to go back there and I'm actually excited to be home for a little bit, we've been on the road so much. We'll start working on some new material and I'm looking forward to spending some time with my friends and family.

You were responsible for a majority of the recording of the Astro Coast, and obviously how the album has turned out has been one of the major reasons why you guys have found such success - would you consider recording and engineering other bands in the future, or are you happy to just focus on Surfer Blood for now?

Right now Surfer Blood keeps me quite busy. But in the future it's not something I'd rule out. I've always been interested in the idea of producing other people's records and working with other people. I'm not an expert by any means. I kind of, like, figured it out as I went along. But collaborations are something that I'm interested in.

The first album's songs developed over a number of years before they ended up on Astro Coast, do you think you have experienced enough and will have enough material for the next time you record, and are you looking to get back into the studio anytime soon?

Not any time in the next few months. I'm not a big fan of just writing in the studio. I think it seems wasteful. Before we go to the studio I like to have a song pretty much written and demoed and everything else rather than try and rush through it in the studio and try to piece it together. And demoing is good too because you learn what the song's limits and strengths are because you've already tried to do a lot of the recording once before.

Do you guys like to road test new songs live?

Yeah a lot of times we do. We've been playing a new song on the road that we kind of worked on in the studio and we've been playing it live just to see how it goes. That's also very helpful for us learning a song. You can feel it more than just learning the parts and playing them in order.

Do you foresee Surfer Blood sonically shifting in the future?

Oh of course. I think that that's inevitable with almost any band. I see the sound becoming... You know right now it's already pretty full but hopefully the song writing will mature too and, you know, we'll continue to grow.





I was checking out your Myspace page and I loved the Unknown Pleasures spoof T-Shirt design you guys have for sale. Who came up with that?

That was actually our bassist Brian. He thought it would be a really cool design to show homage to. It's called the 'Unknown Leisures' T-Shirt. And yeah, Joy Division is a band that we all deeply respect so it's cool to pay homage to a band in that way, I think.

The album's artwork is also really striking, where did that come from?

My sister came up with the concept for the album art. She initially wanted to take two images and cut them up into strips and weave them together the way you'd weave together a basket and we sort of took that idea and ran with it and it turned out really cool.

I read somewhere that you're a big Yo La Tengo fan. What's your favourite Yo La Tengo record?

I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One. I mean, I know it's like everyone's favourite but it's just that good.

Yeah it's a pretty fucking amazing record.

Yeah and one of my favourite guitarists ever [Ira Kaplan].

Have you had a chance to meet any of you idols or found that you've got any celebrity fans?

Yeah we have actually. We got to meet a lot of the dudes from Pavement recently. And we met Mac and Laura from Superchunk at SXSW and that was pretty neat. And who knows, maybe we'll hook up after the show in Chapel Hill tonight.

[FYI - Mac and Laura from Superchunk also started the uh-may-zing record label MERGE, who have currently/at one time had signed to their roster The Arcade Fire, Spoon, Neutral Milk Hotel and the Magnetic Fields to name but a few. They're label is based out of Chapel Hill.]

So obviously you're heading to Aussie shores for some tour dates pretty soon. Are you guys getting psyched about that?

Yeah we've been getting a lot of emails and stuff like that from people who are really excited about us coming, so I'm really looking forward to the shows. I think they're gonna be really good. People seem really stoked to have us over there.

Are you particularly excited to be sharing the bill with anyone at Splendour In The Grass?

The Strokes, obviously. LCD Soundsystem is playing. Yeah, I just think it's gonna be a really awesome festival to be at.

Originally published in Polaroids of Androids

Interview: The Fumes

Aussie blues rock duo, THE FUMES, have been tearing up stages across the country over the last year on the back of their latest record, Sundancer. Singer, guitarist, pianist and loose cannon, STEVE MERRY, talked to NATHAN WOOD in the lead up to their spot on the East Coast Blues and Roots Festival about how Sundancer has gone down with crowds live, plans to support the Hoodoo Gurus and dealing with other bands’ managers having hissy fits.

It’s been almost a year since your latest record Sundancer was released. How has touring on the back of Sundancer compared to when you toured your debut, Guns Of Gold?

It’s been a lot different this time around, funny too because Sundancer I really felt I got it right, where as Guns Of Gold we were pretty green and I didn't have much experience, therefore input into the production side. So it came out how it did and I was kinda like, “Oh well, it’s alright” (one good single on radio – that I didn't even like the version of either), but we had great touring success on that. [It] got us to Japan and all was great. Still broke, but good.

So [the] second album we demoed for nearly two years. I kind of don't like doing too many demos, the music is in my head and I guess I just think everybody else can hear it, so the process was slow and nobody was really interested in it to put up any money. But I knew I had a good album. So, somehow we managed to get the money from advances from publishing, Joel [Battersby, the other half of The Fumes] invested and I just had to depend on my good friends and missus and manager to make it work.

Well, we put the album out and got bloody critical acclaim pretty much across the whole media spectrum, but just couldn't get a single on radio, therefore cutting our touring routes down to just capital cities. And all of a sudden the album has run its course. Humbling experience indeed. Still, I love the album, but I guess people just have different tastes.

How has the record been received by the crowds at your live shows?

In Australia we have our core fans, bless ‘em! But we have been really trying to work in the States. New York City has been great, so I guess we’ll be trying to get back there for a third time to finally release the album. We've had some fuckin’ cool shows in some smaller joints in Soho – the Rockwood Music Hall is a cracker!

Guns Of Gold was a big hit in Japan when it was released, how has Sundancer gone down in ‘the land of the rising sun’?

I think it went down pretty well. We played our own headline show there and had about 200 people there, which was unreal. But I think ‘the land of the rising sun’ is, at the moment, the ‘land of the sinking economy,’ which is maybe hindering our label from getting us back over there.

Has your live show (already renowned for being a rollicking good time) changed or developed much while touring Sundancer?

I sometimes attempt to play piano, but it’s a keyboard. I just wish every venue had an acoustic piano, or Joel was bigger and he could carry one round for us.

You recently toured Oz with Clutch and Calexico. How did those shows go down?

They were both fun and really different. [With] Clutch we played a harder, heavier set and they were pretty cool. But I pissed off their manager because I asked for a piece of one of their 10 fucking pizzas after the show and he hit the roof and stormed out of the room like on a reality TV show, but fuck him. He looked like he ate about 10 pizzas a day anyway.

And then the ironic thing was, two days later [at] the first show with Calexico, who have been one of my favourite bands for a long, long time, we met them at sound check and they ordered a whole bunch of pizzas and shouted us as much as we could eat… Love Calexico.

Are you looking forward to tearing it up at the Blues and Roots fest in Byron?

Fuck no! I can't stand the idea off playin’ one of the biggest festivals in Australia, just down the road from where I live, with the likes of John Mayall, Rodriguez, Taj Mahal, and the frigging Gypsy Kings! Oh and maybe the chance to throw a bottle at Donavan Frankenreiter… No, please kill me!

You’ve also got some support slots with the Hoodoo Gurus coming up – are you psyched to be playing with such a legendary Aussie act?

First time I heard them was on Thank God You’re Here! Nah, they’re legends and we are very excited for that and to meet them. I watched them side of stage at St. Kilda Fest and it was funny because I knew every word to every song – they ripped!

Finally Steve, any plans to get back into the studio in 2010?

I have plans but I ain’t saying nothing yet! ! But thanks for the questions mate.

Interview: 10 Questions With the Kill Devil Hills

We fire ten 'hot ones' at Brendon Humphries of Western Australian band The Kill Devil Hills and he politely returns serve with some responses that give a lil' insight as to what peeps attending shows on their upcoming national tour should maybe expect.

1. Describe The Kill Devil Hills in five words (swearing permitted).

Brendon, Steve, Alex, Steve, Ryan.

2. What kind of cocktail should one consume while attending a KDH gig and can you supply a recipe?

Claret mixed with Emu Export, never fails.

3. Why does Freemantle kick the shit out of Perth?

Most places kick the shit out of Perth, it's not that hard.

4. How many Kill Devil Hills does it take to change a light bulb?

We've got road crew for that.

5. Which Aussie artist would you like to collaborate with / give a squeezer to?

Not quite sure what a squeezer is but we would like to collaborate with Icehouse.

6. Do you want longer lasting sex?

What, more than 3 hours?

7. Vampires are all the rage at the moment, what's with that?

It's a good way to market jeans I guess...

8. I really like this girl at school, but every time I try to talk to her nothing comes out. What should I do?

Stalk her with your mobile like all your friends do. Or you could turn into a vampire and then she'd want to fuck you.

9. What's the secret to growing a rollicking good beard?

Longer lasting sex.

10. What surprises can audiences expect from The Kill Devil Hills' February national tour (eg have you added samplers and floor toms to the line up)?

We've got a choreographed dance and light spectacular now, with 250 people on stage... no miming either.

Originally published in Polaroids of Androids