Everything Remains: Eluveitie

May 17th, 2013 by Emily | No Comments | Filed in Interviews, Tour News

Folk metal? Whatever. Chrigel Glanzmann of Swiss eight-piece Eluveitie doesn’t concern himself with genres or labels. For him, music is all about combining your passions into a single package. Only in this case, his passions include death metal, traditional Celtic music and Galuish history, the kinds of things you don’t expect to see on the resume of a metal musician. When he’s not writing music, Glanzmann spends large amounts of his free time buried under ancient literature and manuscript fragments, searching for the topic that will inspire their next album. Just don’t treat the songs as a history lesson; all Glanzmann wants is for you to rock up to a show and bang your bloody head off!
By Peter Zaluzny.

Eluveitie are coming to Australia soon, so you’re touring in a land you’ve never been to before, which must be pretty exciting.
Well we will see if it’s exciting or not [laughs]. But for sure it’s exciting. We’re really, really looking forward to it a lot.

Aside from playing the shows, are you planning to do anything else while you’re in Australia?
No, I mean we would if we had the time but unfortunately on tour usually there’s no time to do anything besides, you know, what you’re there for which means playing the shows then travelling to the next destination. So unfortunately there won’t be any time for sightseeing or anything like that.

Also Anna Murphy, your hurdy gurdy player, has been ill, which forced her to pull out of some shows this year. Is she on the mend?
Thank you very much for asking, and yeah she’s definitely doing better. I don’t think she’s perfectly fine but she’s doing a lot better. You know she’s been in hospital since January actually, but two days ago we had a show in Norway, which was the third show that she’d played with us since January which was great. A couple of weeks ago the doctor said, “Okay she should be ready to at least try to play a show,” so she did and I think she should be back on track pretty soon.

So she’ll be well enough for the Australian tour?
Definitely, yeah.

You’ve previously mentioned that you feel like your sound has matured with each album. Can you explain what you mean by that?
I think that’s basically a very natural process that pretty much happens to any band, or at least I think it should happen to every band [laughs]. On the one hand, the longer you play the longer you learn – you get better just playing live as a musician, but the more you play together, the better you become as a live band as well. Also the longer you tour together and work together, the better you work together. You just become more of a team, or more of a family or something, so you’re working together pretty smoothly. Usually there’s not much we need to talk about, pretty much everything’s clear to everybody because everybody knows everybody so well and knows how everybody works.

What about the people who work around the band like managers and so on. Have you been working with the same group of people for the past few years and have they matured with each album as well?
I definitely think so. I think it always depends on how you work as a group and how you work together. In our case on the one hand we work quite closely together with our manager for example, we give him quite a lot of work pretty much every day. But the other thing, it doesn’t matter if you’re playing in the band as a musician or if you’re working with the band as a manager or whatever, it’s always very important to us that we learn constantly, and that we try to get better in whatever we are doing. Of course that also includes, for example, management or merchandise or whatever, so in that sense I think pretty much everybody in the group around the band has evolved together.

You’re part of the new wave of folk metal but from what I’ve heard that title was just a joke. What’s the story behind that?
[Laughs] Yeah that’s correct, it originally was a joke and it was actually us that came up with that term. It was around the time we recorded our debut album and, well back then this kind of combination of traditional folk music with extreme metal was kind of a new thing. But, at least in Central Europe, it actually started to become a thing; there were more bands doing that so the music press actually came up with new descriptions for that kind of music every now and then. After a while there had been so many descriptions or labels for that kind of music, we actually thought, ‘Come on, this is becoming ridiculous.’ People were talking of folk metal, of pagan metal, of Celtic metal and Viking metal and whatever you want. We thought, ‘Come on, please, after all it’s just rock’n'roll, calm down’ you know [em>laughs], so actually because of that, really as a joke, we thought, ‘Let’s come up with another description.’ After a year or two the scene and the press actually started getting serious about it and started adopting that term for our band, so we thought, ‘Okay, that’s what we are doing, fine by us’ [laughs]. But originally as you said, it was a joke.

Did you know a lot about the folk metal scene at the time?
Actually no to be honest, without wanting to be rude, none of us [Eluveitie] listen to folk metal, not then and not today. When I formed the band there was no folk metal scene, it was hardly known. It wasn’t that I liked folk metal and thought, ‘Let’s form a folk metal band,’ it was basically the realisation of a long dream that I had to combine the two forms of music that I loved which were death metal and traditional Celtic folk music. Some years later this kind of combination kind of became, as I said, its own thing or a trend or something like that, but originally there was no intention to do this folk metal, I didn’t even really know what folk metal in that sense was.

So you were the trendsetters?
No I wouldn’t say that, it was a thing that started to emerge in diverse places. Of course there had been bands around like Skyclad and they did include metal and some folky stuff, and also there have been some former black metal bands in Scandinavia that started to focus more and more on their folk roots, indeed only lyrically but still. I think it was something that just started to emerge in different places.

Your lyrics are mostly historically influenced, so with so many periods of history that you could write about, what drew you to Celtic history and mythology?
Basically I would say it’s the place where we live and grew up. When you grow up here it’s something you already hear about in school, it’s kind of the early history of Switzerland, the early history of Switzerland is part of Celtic history. It just felt natural singing about our own culture, our roots and where we come from. It wasn’t something that I even thought about really, it was just clear.

Can you tell us a bit about your research process? Do you use primary and secondary sources in your research?
Before I start writing an album, I think about what the album should be about, for example we decided that the last one should be a concept album telling the story of the Gaulish wars. It’s only when this is clear that I start writing the music. Once the main topic is actually set, then it really depends on what the topic is, I mean, studying Celtic history and cultures is a personal passion and something I’ve been doing for many, many years. No matter if I need it for the band or not it’s just a personal preference. For many topics there isn’t that much research needed because if you’re dealing with something for many years, then you kind of know things. I have a lot of literature at home but it depends, so for example I started working on a concept for our next album, which will be on a topic that’s actually quite difficult to write about because on a scientific level we don’t know that much about it. Right now I’m dealing with a lot of scientific literature and I collect all the bits and fragments of historical literature on this topic that can be found.

Can you tell us what the topic for the next album is going to be?
Yeah roughly I can say it will be, let’s say, it will basically be on Celtic and Gaulish mythology, and especially a focus on some religious aspects of it. The mythology of different cultures like myths of how the earth came to be, of how humans came to be and also of how this particular culture came to be. It’s mythological stories about how the Gauls came to be. There are quite a lot of fragments on this topic but it’s all still pretty much patchwork if you want to say, because all we have today are basically fragments.

Obviously you can speak Gaulish because you sang in it on one of your albums, but can you read and speak any other ancient languages?
I wish, but no I can’t. I don’t think you can actually say that someone fluently speaks the Gaulish language because it’s a dead language, it’s more scientific work, it’s more dealing with the ancient language on a scientific level. By doing that it’s usually needed that you deal with some other languages such as Greek, Latin or earlier Gaulish, stuff like that. But you couldn’t actually claim that you can speak Gaulish because as I said, it’s a dead language.

A lot of what we know about these times comes from the Roman perspective. How do you go about finding those fragments from the Helvetii perspective.
What you are referring to are matters regarding our last album since it told the story of the Roman Empire against the Gauls and especially the Helvetian tribes. I think it’s pretty much always the same; if history has been told and especially if it’s the story of a war, it always sounds a little different if it’s the victorious party telling it than if it’s the other one. On the one hand there are a lot of historical facts that we can assume and improve scientifically today by archeological findings and stuff like that, which you can compare to what Caesar says in his writings. It pretty much gets you a clear picture of how things most likely were back then. But besides that there was a lot of questioning, there was a lot of reading between the lines, it was quite a bit of work and quite a bit of scientific work. I’ve actually worked together with scientists quite closely on that matter.

Do you use your music to question historical perspectives and historiography?
Yes and no. After all, Eluveitie is about music. Eluveitie is a metal band, end of story. I’m not a big fan of using music as a medium to transfer any kind of message, whatever it is, because I think if you go to a metal concert you go there to bang your bloody head off and not to get some kind of deep message. Eluveitie is about music, I’m not trying to give any message or question or something, but nevertheless, I’m writing the lyrics because it’s something that means a lot to me. The thing is, If you’re dealing with history it’s actually, in a way, inevitable that this kind of raises questions on how things are today, that’s just a natural thing. If you’re dealing with history, you’ll see parallels with things we are doing today and this of course raises questions, it’s a logical consequence of dealing with history. This might be part of it but it’s not the reason I write lyrics. Eluveitie is about music and that’s it.

Eluveitie Tour Dates

Thu May 23rd – The Zoo, Brisbane (18+)
Tickets: metropolistouring.com

Fri May 24th – Billboard, Melbourne (18+)
Tickets: metropolistouring.com

Sat May 25th – The Metro, Sydney (18+)
Tickets: metropolistouring.com

Tags: Blunt Magazine, Chrigel Glanzmann, Eluveitie, Entertainment, Folk Metal, Interviews, Metal, Music

BLUNT TV: Gallows at Soundwave 2013

May 2nd, 2013 by Emily | No Comments | Filed in BLUNT TV, Interviews

Welcome to the first installment of BLUNT TV! As well as reading interviews from your favourite bands and musos, you can now watch them courtesy of yours truly.

Having spent a boatload of time backstage at this year’s Soundwave Festival in Sydney, we figured what better way to kick off BLUNT TV than with an interview with Wade MacNeil, Laurent “Lags” Barnard and Stuart Gili-Ross from UK hardcore punk act Gallows. Watch the boys chat about kicking it as a four-piece, who they were stoked to see on this year’s festival, and why they’d still see Slayer even if a bunch of old ladies were cranking out the hits.

BLUNT TV: Gallows at Soundwave 2013 from BLUNT Magazine on Vimeo.

Tags: Blunt Magazine, Entertainment, Gallows, Interview, Lags Barnard, Music, Soundwave Festival, Stuart Gili-Ross, Wade MacNeil

Slowly They Rot: Obituary

April 8th, 2013 by Emily | No Comments | Filed in Interviews, Tour News

When it comes to death metal veterans, it’s hard to find a band who’ve been doing it for as long as Obituary. The Florida five-piece pioneered the genre, taking the hugely popular thrash metal scene to deeper, darker more aggressive places. As well as working on a new album, Obituary recently decided to go back to where it all began by going on tour with songs from their first three albums. They’ll be bringing the classics to Australia in a few weeks time, but getting those tracks up to scratch hasn’t been easy according to frontman John Tardy.
By Peter Zaluzny.

In a few weeks you’ll be heading back to Australia, only this time you’re going to play a classic set from your first three albums. What made you want to do this tour?
We had some promoters who came to us with the idea while we were doing that European run. We hadn’t put a new album out in a while, and we’d done quite a bit of touring for the last album that we did do. So once they asked if we’d be interested in doing something like that, we sat back, we thought about it, like maybe we should do the whole Slowly We Rot record or something like that… After we started listening to the [early stuff], we thought let’s just do the first three albums, and it really worked out well. It was funny watching us sit down and listening to the albums because some of the songs, we haven’t played them for years, and some of them we’ve never even played live before. So it was a re-learning process for us to start with, but once we got going on it, it was a lot of fun.

Was it difficult playing some of those songs you hadn’t played in a while?
It was hilarious actually! Me and Donald [Tardy, drums] sat down and said, ‘Let’s put Slowly Rot on.’ It’s not like we sit around listening to all our albums all the time, so we put that thing in, we hadn’t listened to it for years, and we’re sitting there thinking, ‘I don’t even remember this song!’ [laughs]. Some of them were in different tuning so Trevor [Peres, guitar] had to sit there and kind of pick out some of the notes. It was a challenge, but it was cool.

How did you determine what songs you were going to play?
Me and Donald pretty much sat down, put the first record on and listened to it. After every song we were like, ‘Okay, we gotta play that one, and we gotta play that one’ and we pretty much wound up having almost every song off the first three albums, which was a little bit too much to do. We kinda had to go back and scratch some off the list. There were tough decisions, but I think we wound up being able to play like six songs off each album so it covers them pretty well. We took a lot of time to put the set together, to really make the songs flow, starting and stopping, and getting through the set nice and smooth. It’s pretty much the same set we do every night.

When some bands do these classic shows, they’re drawing a line in the sand and giving the fans a last hurrah with the early tunes. Will this be the last time we hear some of these tracks from Obituary?
[Pause] Well, I don’t know. I haven’t really thought that far ahead. We did some shows in the States with it and then we did a pretty good tour through Europe, so we’ll be doing some more shows like this. But once the new album comes out, I think we’ll want to play a lot of it when we get back on the road. We’ll mix it up a little bit and move things around; we usually try to put a set list together with something off every album. You can never make everybody happy, everybody always comes up to you after and says, ‘How come you didn’t play this and how come you didn’t play that’, but it’s a good problem to have when you have as much music as we have out there. It makes it challenging for us, but we try to cover a little bit of everything.

When you decided to do the classic shows, did you consider asking some of your former members like Allen West and Frank Watkins to join you?
No.

You’ve got Terry Butler playing bass these days, but he’s not really a new guy anymore. In some respects he’s been with you guys since the beginning. Is that what made him such a natural fit when a new bassist was needed?
We’ve known Terry for so long. We’ve known him since before we were probably playing music, and we knew him when we were kinda starting up. We’ve known him for so long that it’s hard to imagine him not being in the band at this time. It’s been so ideal for us, so great, he’s so cool. It’s funny cause we’ll be sitting there doing an interview or sitting around and somebody asks a question about Obituary, and he’ll more than likely know the answer faster than me or Donald would, even though he wasn’t in the band at the time. He’s like an encyclopedia of music, so it’s always good to have him around. Someone will ask, ‘Do you remember this one band?’ and he’ll be like, ‘Oh yeah, that’s so and so’ and he’ll know every name, every album and stuff. It’s crazy man, he’s really into it.

When he plays the older tunes does he retain the classic sound? Or has he brought his own distinct sound into the mix.
He’s got a bit of a different style, he uses a little bit of distortion on his bass that Frank never used, so he’s got his own sound but he just plays very steady, very straightforward and very tight so you know performance-wise it’s awesome. Like I said, he’s really just like a brother of ours with how long we’ve known him, so it’s been awesome.

Next year you’ve got a bit of a double anniversary happening. It’s been 30 years since the band formed and it’s the 25th anniversary of Slowly We Rot. Is there a celebration on the cards?
Well now that you mention it, sure, I’ll start celebrating right now [laughs]. Sooner or later those types of celebrations don’t sound so good anymore [laughs], well the numbers anyway, but it’s cool. When the first album came out I don’t think we really expected to do a second album, we really didn’t even expect to do the first album. So the fact that it’s been this many years, this many albums and this many tours and the whole nine yards, and we’re still doing what we do, it’s pretty cool. We really don’t have anything planned right now but we’ve got plenty of time to work on that, think about it, and maybe do something.

These days it’s quite popular for bands to get behind the idea of reissues. Do you have any material floating around that could be used for something like that?
No there’s not, I know that because pretty much every song we’ve ever written has been released on an album. There’s not really any hidden music around or anything like that. We’ve kind of been kicking around the possibility of re-recording some of the old songs, kind of like we did with Slowly We Rot that one time. You listen back to some of those albums and you wish you could redo them with some of the stuff you know now. A lot of the time you write songs, but you don’t play them enough [before recording]; it’s not like you’ve had three tours and five or six years of playing the songs. Then you listen back and think, ‘Man I could destroy that fill I just did on that album.’ You always look back and wish you could make a better sound, like you listen to the snare drum and think, ‘What the hell happened to that?’ We sometimes think about maybe going back and re-recording some songs just for the hell of it. But we don’t really have anything planned at the moment, we’ve just been elbow deep in the new album that we’re working on.

On that note, there’s been lots of talk about the new album over the past few years and supposedly it’ll be released this year. What’s the progress report on that?
Yeah, it probably wont be this year [laughs]. Last year we took several months off just to sit back and write the album, but I think we spent more time out in the boat going fishing than writing. But we’re okay with that, we really don’t care, we’re working at our own pace and we’ll get it done when we get it done. But I can tell you that we’ve got a significant amount done, there’s three songs that are ready to record at any given time, but talking to the guys, and this is kind of what I hit on earlier, we really want to give ourselves the opportunity to get the songs and just play them over and over again. We like to invite some friends over, have a few beers and just let them sit and listen to the new songs. It puts a little bit of pressure on you, and we just want to give ourselves the opportunity to play the songs a significant amount of times, really work it out, really feel it and really get the tempo where we want it. We’re taking our time, we’re having a lot of fun with it and we really love the new stuff we’ve been doing. So it’ll be recorded this year, but will probably be released more like the beginning of next year.

Has working at your own pace had a particular effect on the band and the music?
I think it’s a good thing for the music because we find that we’ll write a few songs, then four or five months might go by, and then we come back and start to write new songs again. It gives you four or five months with different things to think about, so I think you wind up having songs that have a lot of different feeling, and they sound a lot different from each other. I think you’re more likely to have songs that sound a little bit more similar if you start writing them all at the same time, you know? If you give yourself the time in between those things, where we take off, go on tour and come back three months later to try and write some new music, you’ve had a lot of things that have happened since then. For us it seems to work out good that way. We know we’re not in any hurry, we’ll get it done when we get it done, and that’s the way it’s gonna be [laughs].

So after 30 years, do you ever think about taking a break and hanging up the mic?
Well we do that, we’ve done that, we’ve done it three times or so. I think before Frozen In Time, it’d been six or seven years since we did an album. Before Back From The Dead there was four or five years, so there’s been several times that we did that. It always seems like we come back after a lot of touring and we plan to have maybe a few months off. That earlier one where we had seven years, that wasn’t planned to be seven years but it was just one of those things where we sat back and a year went by, then two years went by and there just wasn’t a lot happening. Even the whole death metal scene kinda took a dive down, it wasn’t like people were calling us every week saying, ‘Hey do you guys wanna do this?’ or ‘Do you wanna do that?’ We all got busy doing other things and I think that’s important. It’s healthy for the band to take that step back, so we’re not afraid to take time off. If we feel like doing an album, whether it’s this year, next year or four or five years in between, that’s just the way it works out and we seem to work pretty good like that.

What makes you want to keep coming back after each break?
[Laughs] We have fun man! We just get together and we have a ball. That last tour we did in Europe, that was one of the best tours that I’ve ever done. We had such a blast with the current line-up. Everything was just so smooth, we finally got things oiled down. We really know what we like, we really know what we need, and it doesn’t take us a lot of effort to get tours together and to make things happen; it’s not a big process for us nowadays. It leaves you open to have a good time, have good shows and the fans have really been respondent, so that’s a bonus on top.

I guess at the end of the day, someone needs to show these new death metal kids where it all began.
[Laughs] At the end of the day yeah, the older guys have to come up and slap somebody down.

Obituary will be whipping out the classics in Sydney and Melbourne this May, with a set taken from Slowly We Rot, Cause Of Death and The End Complete. Check out the dates below!

Obituary Tour Dates

Fri May 3rd – The Espy, Melbourne (18+)
with Denouncement Pyre and King Parrot
Tickets: oztix.com.au

Sat May 4th – Manning Bar, Sydney (18+)
with Daemon Foetal Harvest and Sanctium
Tickets: oztix.com.au

Tags: Blunt Magazine, Death Metal, Entertainment, Interviews, John Tardy, Music, Obituary, Rotting Slow In Australia

Vanna Hit Australia!

April 4th, 2013 by Emily | No Comments | Filed in Interviews, Tour News

Boston post-hardcore party boys Vanna are bringing their chaotic live show to Australia in May for a string of shows with Norma Jean followed by a tour of intimate headline gigs in support of their new album, The Few And Far Between. With this being their first time in the Great Southern Land and all, we thought it was about time we had a good chin-wag with frontman Davey Muise about what Australia has in store for him, and what the Vanna lads have in store for us…
By Daniel Furnari.

So you’re on tour with The Acacia Strain and Every Time I Die right now, how’s it all going?
Fucking insane dude! It’s been literally the best tour we’ve ever done; the crowds have been great, the bands are awesome. We were already friends with all these bands before we started the tour. We did a couple of tours with Hundredth, we did Warped Tour with Every Time I Die… It’s been such an awesome tour for us and we’re super grateful that we could even be a part of it. Right now I’m in Austin, Texas, I just had my hands tattooed, and we’re chilling on our day off.

Your Aussie fans were stoked to hear that you’d finally be heading over here. What‘s kept you away for so long?
We’ve been wanting to go there since we started the band! But you know it’s really expensive to get there, and contrary to what everyone believes, we don’t really get to pick where we want to go [laughs]. We have to get offered. No promoter had brought us out until now, but we finally got one! So we have the Norma Jean tour, but we’re also doing a headliner right after that. What happened was, we got the headline tour, we were kind of nervous, but we thought, you know, we’ve never been there and we wanna go, even if not that many kids come out to the shows we’ll have a really good time. So we booked it, it was gonna be a 10-day tour, and then as soon as we’d booked it, Norma Jean hit us up saying, “We’re gonna be in Australia the week before you, why don’t you guys do the support on our tour before your headliner?” so now we get to spend double the time there and it’s gonna be amazing, especially as none of us have ever been there, even outside of touring. We’re all “Australia Virgins”!

What are you hoping to get up to while you’re here?
Dude have you seen your fuckin’ continent?! It’s incredible! My friend just moved there and she said there’s like a million beaches, and jungles to walk through and woods and everything, and the food is incredible. I just can’t wait to soak it all up. One downside though is that all the girls there are apparently so beautiful, with these amazing voices, but I’m married now, and Sean is engaged. Meanwhile all the single guys in the band will be able to meet anyone they want! I’m bummed out! [Laughs].

Are you very familiar with the dudes from Norma Jean?
Well yeah, Cory [Putman, Norma Jean vocalist/guitarist] is my homie, we’re real cool with each other, but we’ve never toured with Norma Jean before actually, which is strange because we fit really well with those guys, so we’re definitely looking forward to becoming good buds with them on the tour. They’re a killer band and definitely a big influence on us so we’re very blessed to be coming out with those guys.

There are a lot of pressures that come with stepping in to replace a lead singer. What difficulties did you face when you joined the band and took over that position three years ago?
The biggest thing for everyone was that when a vocalist leaves a band, everyone has doubts about the new vocalist and how good he’s gonna be. A lot of kids like to talk shit on the internet; I mean that’s what the internet is for! [Laughs]. But I started calling kids out on Twitter and other social networking sites and saying, “Yo, here’s the deal: before you say I suck, come out to a show”. We even started putting those kids on the guest lists! And we said, “If you dig it, come kick it with us at the merch table. If you don’t dig it, go home and tell everyone you saw it, and tell them it sucked! But at least come to a show.” Because that was the biggest thing, no one actually knew, they hadn’t seen us. What we wanted everyone to know was that Chris [Preece], the old singer, was leaving the band of his own choice, and that he was my friend. We’re bros – I hung out with him last night! But he just didn’t want to be in the band anymore and he asked me to be the replacement. When people complain about a new member, I always wonder: if you like the band, don’t you trust them enough to get someone good to replace the person that’s leaving? But we did so many tours when I joined, and I think I won a lot of people over. We’re a whole different level of band than we were before. The band has changed for the better but we’re still Vanna, and the band is what we make it. Good riddance to anyone who doesn’t like the change, we have a slew of new dudes and girls who wanna party and have a good time with us.

I believe Chris also brought you up onstage and introduced you to the crowd at some of his last shows?
I actually did his whole last tour with them! I came up onstage at all of those shows and did “Trashmouth” with him, and then he’d tell the audience that he was leaving the band, and introduce me, and I’d do two more songs by myself. I was in a local band from Boston, and my band was fairly well known in that area. We did a lot of touring and stuff, so some kids knew me already. But those were some really cool moments that me and Chris got to share when he passed the torch on to me. I think the way we handled it was so different to the way any other band has handled a singer leaving.

Did you ever feel any pressure to sound like Chris when you sang his songs live?
I didn’t really feel that pressure, I mean, I don’t really sound like Chris, although I don’t NOT sound like Chris either. We have kind of similar voices, but I do me and I’m not gonna imitate anyone else. And the band knew that when they chose me, they wanted me ‘cos they liked my sound. I feel like if I tried to sound like him people would have called me a copycat anyway, so I made sure that I made my own stamp on the band. Fuck sounding like other people! It’s the same when I look at local bands. If anyone ever started a band and wanted to sound like me, I’d tell them not to. There’s already a “me”, so sound like you! You’ll probably be better and cooler!

Your new record shows the band really coming into their own sonically. It’s a very raw, fast and furious sound. Was this a conscious decision you guys made in terms of where you wanted to be musically? Or do you just see this as a natural progression for the band.
I think it’s a bit of both. It’s hard to please everyone when you write, but I’ve found that when we choose our live set we play the fastest, riffiest songs off each record, and that’s what kids like. We’ve rotated four records’ worth of material in and out of the set and we’ve found kids want to hear the hard, fast Vanna, and that’s what we want to play, that fast punk rock shit! So it was kind of like, ‘Let’s write a record where we will want to play every song live’. I love our previous record And They Came Baring Bones, it’s my baby, but we don’t play every song live. If you are a band and you can’t pull off every song live, there’s no point to what you’re doing. So The Few And Far Between is a natural progression but also a decision to write some real bangers!

In some songs on the previous album there seems to be a hint of a Southern influence creeping in, and it’s noticeable on the new record too. For a band from Boston, where does that Southern sound come from?
I can definitely see how someone who’s not from the area might construe it as Southern because Southern rock is so riffy and rock’n'roll-y, but to me our sound is just rock’n'roll in general, and Boston is a great hotbed for that kind of music. In the Northeast, it’s a hard place to grow up. Bands are definitely a product of their environment, so we definitely have the attitude of the Northeast, but that being said, we all grew up on our parents’ music. Stuff like Black Sabbath, and Zeppelin and The Who. I think rock’n’roll as a general sound is just ingrained in all of us, so we definitely do also enjoy a lot of Southern rock bands who get really riffy. But then there are bands like Every Time I Die for example, they have that sound too but they’re from New York! I think at the time that Vanna came out, there weren’t a lot of bands from our area playing cool, dissonant rock’n’roll. It was mostly the age of that really tough-guy hardcore, or on the other side there was the super indie post-hardcore. So I think Vanna just wanted to write the kind of music that no one from that area was playing.

For this record you chose to work with Jay Maas, who produced The Honest Hearts, the first EP you sang on for this band. What made you decide to work with Jay again?
Jay is the dude, man! I’ve known him since I was 15 years old. When we were gonna record that EP, the other guys didn’t know Jay but I said, ‘Let’s go to him’ and everyone bonded and became good friends. With this record we knew it would be really fast, hard and heavy, but also we wanted to record it at home. We had been gone for 10 months of the year so we wanted to get back home, and going with Jay was a no-brainer. He’s just like one of us. He’s the brains behind Defeater, and those guys are just killing it right now. It just made sense to record with him. I told him where we were coming from on the new record and he put his everything into it, I’m telling you. I’m so thankful that he did too.

Lastly, since it’s your first time here, what can Aussie punters expect from a Vanna show?
Dude, expect anything. Anything can happen. The other night a trashcan was circulating the crowd and kids were getting inside of it and throwing themselves around. I try to climb anything I can, and Joel our guitarist likes to climb shit too, sometimes he doesn’t feel like playing anymore and throws his guitar into the crowd and lets them play it. We want school, work, any bullshit that drags you down during the week, to fade away. All we want is for you to have half an hour with us where you just lose your shit. I don’t care if you mosh, I don’t care if you hang from the ceiling, whatever it takes for you to lose your fuckin’ mind and stop worrying about your problems or girlfriends or boyfriends. Even if you don’t even know the band. Even if there are kids in Australia who don’t really know our music but are keen to find out what we do and who are, just come to a show. I don’t care if you buy a CD or a T-shirt, that stuff is nice too, but please just come to a show and get wild with us, because that’s all that matters. We’re also gonna be doing a couple of house shows in between the bigger shows so it’s gonna get crazy! And I hear Australia goes hard. I hear you guys are wild, so I don’t wanna be disappointed!

Vanna will be tearing it up across Australia supporting Norma Jean from May 2-7, and then doing it all again on their own headline tour from May 8–19. Dates below!

Vanna Tour Dates

Thu May 2nd – The Hi-Fi, Brisbane (18+)
with Norma Jean and Safe Hands
Tickets: taperjeanmusic.com

Fri May 3rd – The Hi-Fi, Sydney
with Norma Jean and Safe Hands
Tickets: taperjeanmusic.com

Sun May 5th – The Corner Hotel, Melbourne (18+)
with Norma Jean and Safe Hands
Tickets: taperjeanmusic.com

Tue May 7th – Fowlers Live, Adelaide
with Norma Jean and Safe Hands
Tickets: taperjeanmusic.com

Wed May 8th – Karova Lounge, Ballarat (18+)
with Storm The Sky, Sierra, A Call To Anguish and Eyes Wide Open
Tickets: oztix.com.au

Thu May 9th – The Barwon Club Hotel, Geelong (18+)
with Storm The Sky, Sierra, Empires Fall and Exposures
Tickets: oztix.com.au

Fri May 10th – Beez Neez, Frankston (18+)
with Storm The Sky
Tickets: moshtix.com.au

Sat May 11th – Bang, Melbourne (18+)
with Storm The Sky and Sierra
Tickets: Available at the door

Sun May 12th – Wrangler Studios, Melbourne (AA)
with Storm The Sky, Sierra, Save The Clock, Driven To The Verge and Left For Wolves
Tickets: oztix.com.au

Wed May 15th – The Basement, Canberra (18+)
with Storm The Sky and Sierra
Tickets: oztix.com.au

Thu May 16th – Annandale Hotel, Sydney (18+)
with Storm The Sky, Sierra
Tickets: oztix.com.au

Fri May 17th – The Entrance Leagues Club, Bateau Bay (18+)
with Storm The Sky, Sierra
Tickets: oztix.com.au

Sat May 18th – Crowbar, Brisbane (18+)
with Storm The Sky, Sierra, Bayharbour and Wanderer
Tickets: oztix.com.au

Sun May 19th – Expressive Ground, Gold Coast (AA)
with Storm The Sky, Sierra and Dethrone The King
Tickets: oztix.com.au

Tags: Blunt Magazine, Davey Muise, Entertainment, Interviews, Music, Norma Jean, Post-Hardcore, Vanna

Of Epica Proportions

March 21st, 2013 by Emily | 1 Comment | Filed in Interviews

Ten years ago, Mark Jansen left Dutch outfit After Forever and started to look for musicians who shared his passion for sweeping scores, roaring riffs and tantalising tales. He was looking for people who wanted to help him create something epic. Today, he’s fronting Epica, a group of symphonic metal masterminds who are celebrating their ten year anniversary with a grandiose show of gargantuan proportions before heading to Australia for the first time. With this momentous occasion on the horizon, Jansen led us through the history of the band and all of the elements that have gone into crafting the opus that is Epica.
By Peter Zaluzny.

Epica has just had their tenth anniversary, how does it feel to reach the ten year milestone?
It’s a big achievement I think, because it’s hard for many bands to stay together for so long, but I think the reason we’re still together is we always kept a good vibe in the band. It’s also very important to keep the fun aspect; it should be fun to stay on the road and be together. We also take a rest every time we feel it’s needed and I think this way bands can stay together forever. It’s also very important that everybody in the band feels important. You see some bands where it’s one guy, a kind of boss, who’s bossing everybody around, and sooner or later some people get disappointed or they don’t feel comfortable in the band anymore, and you see these bands breaking up. [Making everyone feel important] is our strength, and that’s why we can keep on going for the next twenty, uh [laughs], I’ll say ten years.

Say twenty years, aim high!
[Laughs].

So when you initially formed the band, does that mean as well as looking for musical ability you also looked for people that could all work together and share all duties?
Yes exactly. We always look for team players. Obviously having people who know how to play their instruments is also very important, but even more important is the personal aspect. When you don’t like somebody, even though they’re a very good musician, they’d never get into our band because it’s very dangerous when there are people who can plant a bomb in the band. I think in our band, we have people with a wide range of qualities, even beyond the stage where there are a lot of things that have to be done. We’ve never worked with a typical manager, we have a kind of manager but he’s also more of a team player – he’s not a guy telling everybody what to do, he’s just covering a part of the work that we don’t have time for, or don’t have the knowledge for. Everybody in the band has certain tasks and responsibilities and it works really well for us like this. It feels like you’re being your own boss instead of having a schedule that somebody else made and doing what somebody else wants you to do. For me personally that wouldn’t work because I started the band ten years ago to see something of the world, to make music in a nice way and have fun with it, and even after ten years that’s still the most important thing.

Has this hands on approach made reaching the ten year milestone even more rewarding?
Yes I think so, it’s more rewarding for ourselves because we are basically self made. In the Netherlands there are some bands coming up with a big team behind them and a big money machine, and they’re doing all the TV and all the radio programs one after the other. Then that band becomes a hype, and you often see that after one year, nobody remembers that band anymore, they’re suddenly very big and then suddenly [pop noise] they’re gone. Epica don’t have that. We built our band steadily, we had to do it ourselves, we often didn’t have the support of the big radio and TV channels, but now finally we also get to play on some of these programs and it’s a big reward for us. We did it our way, we did it step by step, and also we know for sure that one day people won’t just start slagging us because our fan base is very solid and they’ve supported us for ten years already. They haven’t let us fall from one day to another and that’s a big difference between us and some more mainstream acts in the Netherlands. That’s also the fun of making metal music, it’s a world of its own and you get a lot of really warm feelings from the fans because they really believe in us and what we do. We make the [type of] music that’s the most rewarding to make.

At this stage in your career, do you feel like Epica’s sound has been defined or is it still evolving?
I think even today it’s still evolving. On every album we find some new influences, some new ways, and we never stop without trying some new stuff. I think that’s also important, otherwise it can get boring and if one day we get the feeling that it starts getting boring, then we won’t release an album until we get excited again. There are already too many albums that get released that make you feel like there’s something missing, and we want to avoid that. You need to keep trying to evolve otherwise you lose the fun for yourself but also the fans will be disappointed after a while because they expect you to come up with something new and not a repeat of something you did before.

The lyrics in particular seem to keep evolving. Each Epica album deals with different themes or tells specific stories, why do you take this approach to lyric writing?
Lyrics are as important to us as the music, even though I know and realise that only ten percent of the people who listen to music are also really interested in the lyrics. The music is way more important for most people than the lyrics, but even so, if you care about the lyrics as much as the music then the ten percent who care about the lyrics are really happy that you put so much time and effort into them. With every album we all sit down and start the lyrics as a team and we often work together with Amanda Somerville, who is a singer in Avantasia. She’s from the USA, and as we are not native English speakers, we have some [language] mistakes here and there, so she helps us out with that. When I read lyrics from some bands I see horrible mistakes and think “shit you should’ve done that too” [laughs]. Of course not everybody can afford somebody like Amanda to help them out with lyrics but I think it’s very important that lyrics are on the right level. It’s always a pity when some big mistakes occur in lyrics. Sometimes we write a story like you mentioned, when songs share themes so we try to connect them and make it a bit more interesting. Personally, when I listen to other albums and there’s some kind of story, it makes me want to discover what the story is dealing with and what kind of connection the songs have. The more things you can discover the more interesting albums can often get, and I think that’s the basic idea behind storytelling.

When you sit down to write the music do the lyrics come first? Or do they emerge from the music itself.
99% of the time the music comes first, then the music gives us the idea of where the lyrics should go. First we just write music, we let it flow, we have no limitations, no boundaries, it just has to sound like Epica. After that, we sit down and write the lyrics, and whatever feeling we get from the music is the direction we go with the lyrics. For us, it’s a great way of working. I know some other artists work the other way around and everybody has their own preferences, but for us, this works the best.

On the note of making it sound like Epica, when you write a new album how do you inject new elements into your music without breaking the core Epica sound?
We just do it. We just act on intuition. There’s also our producer from Gate Studios in Germany [Sascha Paeth], when we have written some new songs we go to him, and we present him the new songs. We never tell him who wrote which song, so he has a completely objective opinion. He also gives brutally honest opinions, so when we’ve written a song that doesn’t really sound like Epica, he will tell us. For us, this guy is very important; he’s like a seventh band member and he’s worked with us since the beginning. He’s the one who will tell us if a song is a bridge too far, if it doesn’t fit in our style, and if we’d better drop it, and we listen to him. 99% of the time, not always [laughs].

At the end of last year your guitarist Isaac said the band already had an album’s worth of ideas and structures, but nothing had entered pre-production. Have you moved into the next stages with this new material?
Not yet. All our time is dedicated to the retrospect show: all these rehearsals, all these preparations are very time consuming. After the ten year anniversary show we finally have time to slow down a bit, sit down and start work on the new songs. We’ve recorded most of the tracks in our personal home studios, but there’s still a lot of work left to be done.

Have you planned any of the themes for the next album yet?
When we have all the [musical] ideas worked out, then we’ll start working on the lyrics. That’s really the final part, or the finishing touch.

On the last album you focused a lot on the tensions that the world is currently experiencing. In most respects these tensions haven’t improved, so will those themes influence any future releases?
We don’t know yet, we have some ideas, but we’re not sure yet. I can’t say yes or no because it could still change. Obviously I’m still disappointed with how the world is evolving, sooner or later something will happen, a change in the money structure for example. Something will happen because it cannot go on like this. Also, sooner or later we will run out of oil, and we need alternatives to make things work and keep the economy going, but even when we find alternatives for oil… While the current system had some advantages, we also know now what the disadvantages are, and hopefully we can learn from both the advantages and the disadvantages and use them in a positive way to change for the better. That’s what humanity has always tried over the years, they try to throw away the things that don’t work and use the things that bring us further along. It’s hard because we all know that there’s a small group of people controlling all the money, and when the power exists for only a small group of people, things get really tricky and dangerous. I hope this is one of the things that will change soon because it’s very unhealthy when a small group of people control everything, the government, corporations… They don’t have enough reflection to know if what they’re doing is good. It’s important that things are good for all people, and that’s definitely not the case nowadays.

With the retrospective show coming up, how have the preparations been going?
We’ve had two band rehearsals already and those went really well. Today we are going to a TV program in Amsterdam, so today we have no rehearsal, but tomorrow we start rehearsals with the choir, and by Saturday we should be completely ready for the show [laughs].

You’re also going to be broadcasting the show online. It’s such a pivotal moment in Epica’s history and fans around the world have been asking if it’s going to be recorded for a live DVD. Is it?
I hope so, but we chose not to promise anything because the last time we promised a DVD it didn’t happen because the record company went bankrupt. We shot a DVD, there was a lot of people at the show and it was great, then we couldn’t use the material which was really disappointing. Another time we wanted to make a DVD and it didn’t happen again, so this time we agreed that we’re not going to mention any DVD. We’re going to record it with HD cameras and if it’s possible to use this material, and of course we really hope it is, then we will release a DVD. But we don’t want to promise anything and not be able to deliver.

Then once that’s done you’re heading down to Australia! Will the shows here continue with the tenth anniversary theme? Obviously without the same production scale, but will we be hearing older songs and rarities from the Epica back catalogue?
Yeah, we always think it’s very important to have songs from the older albums as well. When I go to a concert I also like to hear the old songs because often the old songs are the ones that are most dear to you because you listened to them when you were young. We will never keep old songs out of our setlist. Even though we’ve played them already so many times it never gets boring because you feel the energy of the crowd and the energy’s always different. A song is never the same twice because of the energy of the crowd and a diverse setlist is best. We always try to fit in some songs that we didn’t do on the tour before, so we keep it interesting for ourselves and for the fans who’ve seen us more than once. We always try to have some surprises, but obviously it’s not possible to have a set that’s only surprises because you have to please as many people as possible. Our fans want to hear certain songs for sure, but there are some songs you just cannot skip.

Well thank you so much for your time Mark, if there’s anything you want to say to the Australian fans, go go for it.
[Laughs] My last words are: finally we’re coming to Australia for the first time. Finally we can experience what the Australian fans have been telling us already for many years, that we should come over because the crowds are really fantastic. I believe it so you guys have to be fantastic, because I have really high expectations about the audience. Even though I’ve never been there myself I’ve heard really good stories from Floor from Alter Forever and now Nightwish. She was there recently and she said it was really amazing for her, so now I really cannot wait anymore. Let’s see if it’s all true, because I cannot wait to experience it myself.

Catch the Dutch symphonic metallers at a show near you when they pass through our fine country!

Epica Tour Dates

Wed Apr 17th – The Hi-Fi, Brisbane (18+)
with Gorefield
Tickets: oztix.com.au

Fri Apr 19th – The Metro, Sydney (AA)
with Metal
Tickets: ticketek.com.au

Sun Apr 21st – Billboard The Venue, Melbourne (18+)
with Eyefear
Tickets: metropolistouring.com

Tue Apr 23rd – The Capitol, Perth (18+)
with Voyager
Tickets: metropolistouring.com

Tags: Blunt Magazine, Entetainment, Epica, Interviews, Mark Jansen, Metal, Music

The Gaslight Anthem: Saving Rock’n'Roll

March 11th, 2013 by Emily | No Comments | Filed in Interviews, Tour News

Some might say it’s not easy saving rock’n’roll. Others say it never really needed saving at all, but it’s all in a day’s work for The Gaslight Anthem. This intrepid troupe of sincere songwriters have been enrapturing audiences the world over since their arrival on the scene six years ago. Fast forward to 2013 and their latest release Handwritten now stands out as a rock masterpiece of the new age. We caught up with guitarist and lead crooner Brian Fallon to get the lowdown on the band’s upcoming Australian tour and whether or not they’re still punk.
By Daniel Furnari.

The last time The Gaslight Anthem came to Australia was for Soundwave 2011. What was it like playing a festival that’s very “metal” when your band has much more of a rock’n’roll vibe?
It’s weird sometimes, it’s all dependent on the audience though. You know, if they’re open to something different, which most people are nowadays… but sometimes they’re not, and it’s a little weird. If they’re open to it, then it’s not so bad, and it can be okay.

Can you tell us about some of the best and worst experiences of that tour?
A lot of the festival tours, the best parts are hanging out with the other bands that you’re friends with. We were with the Social Distortion and H20 guys a lot. But it’s also whoever you meet along the way. You’re all doing the same thing, you’re on the same path, you take the same flights, and you get to know each other which is really cool. The worst experiences though… there were some really early flights, and I really hate those. This is gonna sound ridiculous, but I get paranoid. You’re done with the show and then you go straight back to the hotel room or wherever you’re staying, and then you get up really early and you get straight on a plane to go to another show, and that’s a great way to really mess up your voice. So for me there’s this lingering panic of, “What’s gonna happen if I can’t sing tomorrow?” and that freaks me out a little. Guitar players and drummers worry about their hands, I worry about my voice. I’m not sure why, cos I’ve never really had a problem, but at the same time you know that everybody’s relying on you.

The size of the venues you’ll be playing on the upcoming Aussie tour is a strong indication of the growth of your fanbase here since your last visit. How does it feel to see your music continuing to reach so many more people on the other side of the globe?
It’s so cool, because it’s the kind of the thing you can never really get your head around. How did somebody figure out about our band, and then go in the store and buy it on the opposite side of the world? It’s really weird how you can write a song in your bedroom and then somebody on the other side of the world likes it enough that they buy it and they actually come to see you play. It’s so bizarre.

What are you planning to get up to in your down-time while you’re here?
I like surfing, so I might try and catch a bit of time for surfing, ‘cos I learned that in Australia in Byron Bay. I think the food is really good too, it’s pretty similar to our food so that’s why I really like it, because every time we travel, there’s this period of adjustment, of not feeling too good for a few days. Even in Europe where I go all the time, the food is so thick that you end up feeling like you weigh an extra hundred pounds.

Your live performances are a little different now that you’ve begun bringing Ian Perkins from your side project The Horrible Crowes on the road with you as a third guitarist. What does this add to your shows?
Well, it sounds better! [Laughs] Now it’s not so much just me and Alex [Rosamilia, guitar] going for broke. We have another guy to hold things down and play the other parts on the record that we haven’t been able to do live before. The cool thing with Ian is that, when he started playing with us about a year ago, he was able to write his own parts and even helped us out with that in the studio. Before that, It would always seem that I would play my parts and then have to double them or write another part over the top to thicken it up, and I would be asking myself, “Why am I doing this?” and Alex basically refuses to play chords, so Ian came in and really added something to it. Plus, it’s another guy that we can vibe with on stage.

Many have called your new record Handwritten your best release yet. What do you think separates this one from your previous records?
I definitely think having Brendan O’Brien there as a producer separated it for sure, because he took the elements that we were going for and focused them. I was worried about topping our previous releases for a while; you don’t want something that’s in your past to be your best effort, nobody wants to think that they’ve done their best work already, even if it’s true.

Are there any particular moments on the record that you listen back to now and see that they came about as a result of working with Brendan?
Definitely. I think there’s probably one in every song. I haven’t really listened to the record in about a year, but when I hear one of the songs pop up on the radio I always think about the parts and how we recorded them, I don’t just listen to the song as a whole. I’m always reminded of those moments that wouldn’t have been there if Brendan hadn’t said something. His influence is all over it. For example, in the song “Keepsake”, the whole bridge was an entirely different thing before, and Brendan pretty much said, “I don’t like that bridge, why don’t we write something that sounds like it belongs in the song?”. We had this artsy bridge that sounded like a different song entirely, so every time I hear that song I remember that conversation and I remember having to come up with something on the spot. I’m glad he said that though ‘cos the other version was kind of weird!

For Handwritten you actually left your old label SideOneDummy and signed to Mercury Records, which was a big career move for the band. What differences have you noticed since moving from an indie label to a major label?
Well, you don’t have to try so hard to get things done! We used to have to beg, borrow and steal to get certain things done a lot of the time. With the radio and TV there always seems to be a priority list of artists, and if you don’t have enough pull sometimes it’s really difficult to do that. It’s a struggle with indie labels, they really try but sometimes for all their efforts they don’t get anywhere. Not all the time though, I mean sometimes they get everywhere! But you sometimes see guys work really hard and it doesn’t go through and that sucks for everyone. This time it just coasted right through, which is really different for us, because it used to be really difficult.

In your early years you were known as a punk rock band but now your music seems to be associated more with terms like “rock’n’roll” – when a comparison between your early work and your new work sounds very much like the same band. What do you think changed the public’s perception of your musical style?
I think it was the media actually, the way we were presented by them. I think the way people wrote about us, and the influences they compared us to, that’s what changed how people perceived the band. No one in a major music magazine is gonna care about Fugazi or some punk band that the majority of people have never heard of yet was directly influential on our band. Instead they compare us to the Tom Pettys and the Bruce Springsteens of the world, because that’s easier to digest. But it was a weird shift; it just kind of changed one day. In the beginning there were a lot of comparisons to Against Me!, but that just kind of disappeared one day. Nobody mentions Hot Water Music anymore, but we wouldn’t be a band without them or The Bouncing Souls… Yet there probably would still be a Gaslight Anthem if we’d never heard The Rolling Stones, not meaning any disrespect to them obviously. But the music we grew up on was punk rock music.

Have there been any comparisons that you’ve felt were a real compliment?
I read something the other day when someone sent us a link to a Pearl Jam forum and someone had said that the sincerity of the band reminded them of Pearl Jam. Not the sound, just the fact that it seemed so heartfelt. I thought it was really nice that someone would say that because I consider them to be one of the most heartfelt bands. But comparisons do get annoying sometimes, you know, sometimes we’ll read someone saying, “Oh, it’s just like this, mixed with that”, and I’m just like “Oh, for fuck’s sake!” [Laughs]

Speaking of Pearl Jam, what was it like having Eddie Vedder perform on stage with you last year in Florida?
Oh man it was a trip! We weren’t sure what was going on all day. There were rumours that he might show up, but we didn’t know. There was no preparation, we were just wondering if we would show up. So I kept watching the side of the stage to see if he was there, and I would see guys that looked kind of like him and I’d get excited! But I’d never met him properly before so I didn’t know what to expect, but then there he was, this little short guy about my height with a beard standing sidestage. We knew it had to be him, so we just went for it. Afterwards we got to hang out with him which was great. It’s funny though, that kind of stuff really does just happen, people just show up. It’s one of the mysteries of those rock’n'roll deities, they just appear like that!

One last thing before we go, NME Magazine wrote an article last year entitled “Why The Gaslight Anthem Are The Saviours of American Rock’n’Roll”. Do you feel that there are certain pressures or expectations that come with a title like that?
No, that stuff’s horseshit man! [Laughs] No one really pays attention to that kind of stuff in the band, we’re all like “whatever”. I dunno, it just seems a little ridiculous!

The Gaslight Anthem’s Australian tour kicks off in May – get yourself to a show if you know what’s good for you!

The Gaslight Anthem Tour Dates

Fri May 10th – The Tivoli, Brisbane (18+) – SOLD OUT
Tickets: ticketek.com.au

Sun May 12th – Enmore Theatre, Sydney (AA)
Tickets: ticketek.com.au

Tue May 14th – The Palace, Melbourne (18+)
Tickets: ticketek.com.au

Wed May 15th – The Palace, Melbourne (18+) – SOLD OUT
Tickets: ticketek.com.au

Fri May 17th – HQ, Adelaide (18+)
Tickets: oztix.com.au

Sun May 19th – Metro City, Perth (18+)
Tickets: oztix.com.au

Tags: Blunt Magazine, Brian Fallon, Entertainment, Handwritten, Interview, Music, Rock'n'roll, the Gaslight Anthem

Title Fight Return To Oz!

February 11th, 2013 by Emily | No Comments | Filed in Interviews, Tour News

It’s our intern’s big debut! Daniel Furnari scored the chance to interview one of his favourite bands – the Pennsylvania post-hardcore crew Title Fight – and he jumped at it. The past few months have been a whirlwind adventure for the four-piece, with their latest release Floral Green taking the band to whole new levels and places, including some huge support slots, a string of successful headline tours and a spot on the Warped Tour in the US. With their Australian headline tour in March fast approaching, Daniel chatted to the band’s vocalist and bassist Ned Russin about Title Fight hitting the big 1-0 and looked back on the band’s vast history.

Hey Ned, what are you up to right now?
We are currently driving through a snowstorm to make it to our show in Indianapolis!

How far into the tour are you?
This is the last leg of it, we have tonight, and then we go to Columbus Ohio, then we have Allentown Pennsylvania, then we’re home.

To start us off can you tell us a bit about the formation of Title Fight and what led you to play this style of music?
Basically Jamie [Rhoden, guitar/vocals] and I met in school when we were 12 years old or something, and we had talked about how we were both starting to play instruments and about how my brother started playing drums, and we all got together, the three of us, and we just started playing, and we tried to sound like the bands that we liked at the time, and that was Blink-182 and The Descendents and stuff like that, and then we kept playing and we would play locally, and then in 2005 we added our friend Shane Moran on guitar, and that’s when we kind of turned more into the band that we are today, and the four of us have been progressively listening to a lot of different bands and bringing all these different influences, and then we started playing out of town and stuff, and eventually worked our way up to the point that we were touring full time and we signed a record deal, and just last year we put out our second full length, and we’ve been touring for the last two or three years and that’s about it in a nutshell.

What has it been like being in a band with your brother, both in terms of writing and being on the road, and also with how your parents feel about your choice of career?
I’ll go chronologically with this… The writing process has always been pretty similar, we’re all pretty picky people, so when we write something we all have our own input and offer our own opinion until we feel that the song pleases all of us, and that could take anywhere from 30 minutes at a practice to three weeks or something, but we’ve been basically writing the same way since we formed the band when we were 12 or 13 years old. On the road, it’s a weird dynamic I guess because we’ve been doing this for a while we’re kind of used to it, and most people my age have just graduated or are in their senior year or something so they’re kind of looking for a job and settling down but we’re kind of doing something quite the opposite, we’re trying to continue building on what we’ve been doing for quite a long time. And we just play a lot of shows and we play anywhere and everywhere at the same time, and when we decided to do this for real and to tour more than just on our school breaks, we had conversations with our parents. And our parents have always been supportive but it was kind of a shock for them but basically their concern was that we were kind of going to get stuck in a rut and kind of be a band that plays for 100 kids a night and not be able to break out of that, and ever since then we were kind of worried about that too but we realised that we would never know unless we tried, and it’s continued to grow and I think our parents have kind of eased up to the idea of us not being in school and have kind of taken this more seriously, and with every tour we do it gets a little bit bigger, with every release we do it gets bigger as well and I think our parents are sometimes more excited than we are of the things that we’ve accomplished, and that’s a rewarding thing for us.

Having formed a band when you were so young, did you ever face any difficulties related to your age during those early years when you were trying to break through?
No, I mean honestly, we weren’t really trying to break through when we were that young. The way things happened was, it was really easy. We started playing and we just hit up promoters from our town and said, “Can we hop on a show?” and eventually they started offering us shows, and then we started making friends and stuff and going out of town playing, and it just kept building and building, and we weren’t even trying to do anything more than just play music and travel a little bit, and then we got hit up by Run For Cover Records, and we did some touring and stuff and things kept falling into place for us, and we never really had the idea that we would be a band full-time and put out multiple records and do all this stuff, we were just taking everything as it came and having fun, and like I said it kind of feels like it was just right-place-right-time more than anything, and it feels like we’re almost just along for the ride or something but we’re having a lot of fun and it’s still progressing for us.

2013 marks the 10th anniversary of Title Fight, which is obviously a big milestone for any band. Do you see any particular moments in your band’s career so far that really stand out for you and make you proud of what you’ve done?
There’s so many things that it’s kind of hard to pinpoint, but literally just having a full-length record is just… you know, we’re from an area where there’s been punk and hardcore bands for a very long time, and very few of those bands have gotten to the point where they’ve done major touring or an EP or something. The fact that we did that and that we in some way put our area on peoples’ radars, I think that’s the coolest thing. We are kids from the middle of nowhere, in Pennsylvania, we have been able to travel the country and play our music around the world. It’s cool. And the fact that we did it from a community that has been so supportive, and the people before us that really inspired us and stuff… I think that’s the thing I’m most proud of in our career.

As a band who managed to break out of your area, how do you think that the Kingston, Pennsylvania scene has changed in the last 10 years?
It’s taken a lot of twists and turns. When we first started playing the area was really cool, we had shows that we used to go to two or three times a week, and there were two or three local venues doing shows, and it was a really great time and there were a lot of kids from the area going to shows, and a lot of kids travelling to go to shows, and then in 2005 or 2006 everything just kind of stopped, and it was a weird thing because it was kind of my brother’s generation of kids that were running the area and booking shows, doing bands and all this stuff, they were in their mid-20s or something. And then the next generation of kids were my friends and myself and we had no idea what we were doing, but we realised that if anything was going to happen in the area we were the ones that had to do it. We weren’t even old enough to drive, but we had to figure out how to run a business and book shows and bring bands to make it worth their while and stuff, so it took a lot of getting on our feet but over the last couple of years there’s been a lot of bands from our area that have kind of made a name for themselves and a lot of hard work has been put into it, but I think now is a really cool era for our town, and there’s a lot of bands and a lot of kids. We’ve had our troubles with venues, but that doesn’t stop us, and everything is really in a good state. People are positive and excited.

I’ve heard that recently you guys helped to open a new venue for bands to play at in your area. Can you tell us a little bit about that?
Basically the venue that we started playing at was this venue called Café Metropolis, and there were so many venues that came and went in the area, but that was the one that seemed to stay around; it seemed like it was invincible or something. Then there had been threats that it was going to be closed down for a while but nothing ever happened and we never thought much of it. Then I got a call one day from a guy who booked shows there and he said “Café Metropolis is actually closing, we’re gonna have our last shows next month”, so we played one of the last shows there. There were a bunch of bands from the area that played the last few shows, and then after that there was literally no venue in our area, so some friends and us got together and we just decided we were the ones who would have to do something, because we want shows in our area. We found a place that was really cool and we had bands from all over the country and bands from England and all these bands coming in. The environment was really good, the venue was really cool, and it was just run by a bunch of our friends and stuff. Then last June we had some problems with the local law enforcement, and we had to unfortunately close, but we’re in the process of getting a new location and it’ll be bigger and better and we’ll have more bands and we’ll be able to have more people. Hopefully we’ll be able to get that up and running very soon.

So that’s become a kind of passion project for you guys to give back to your scene?
Yeah, I mean we’re very proud of our area and the bands that have come out of it, and the ethics that people hold in the area, and the least that we could do is give the kids that we care about and the bands that we like, and our friends’ bands from across the country when they come through, a place to play. The way that we want to do it is that it clearly has nothing to do with money, because we’re losing money all the time, but it’s more important to us to have a venue that is all-ages and lets people do whatever they want.

Now that Floral Green has been out for a few months, how are you feeling about the record? Do you think you accomplished what you were aiming for when you went into the studio?
I definitely think we accomplished what we aimed for. Looking back on it now, it took a very different wrap than I thought it would originally. We kind of did the record in secrecy, didn’t really let anybody know what was going on, and then we put up the first song, “Head In The Ceiling Fan”, and we were on Warped Tour at the time and we were really unsure of how the song would go over. That was kind of our first test to see what we could expect from the record. Right away, people were really into the song, and it was honestly the opposite of what I was expecting. I thought people were going to say, “Oh, they changed their style, they’re sell-outs” and all this stuff, but it was really positive, and it just continued to grow from there. Now looking back it’s something that not only musically we’re really proud of, but the way we approached it and the way people are receiving it is something we’re just as proud of as well. It’s a really exciting time for us and hopefully it just continues to grow from here.

The music video for the song “Secret Society” is pretty unusual, and it takes a bit of a dark turn towards the end. Where did the story for that video come from, and what made you choose that concept, as well as the vintage aesthetic of the video?
So we were supposed to do a music video and we had thought about it for two or three months at this point and we just kept putting it off and off, and it was like a weekend before we were supposed to turn it in or something, and we said to each other, “We know we’re gonna do it for ‘Secret Society’, but what do you want to do?” We’ve done music videos in the past where we usually just found an interesting setting and did a live video. We’re not really big on music videos… In 2013 it seems kind of silly to do that but we thought about it and Shane up with an idea from a line in the song, and the line in the song is, “I’ll be you and you’ll be me”, and for some reason he came up with the idea of a girl cutting off somebody’s face and wearing it as a mask. So we kind of took that idea and ran with it, and then my girlfriend actually did the video with us, and she directed it, edited it, and she kind of helped out a lot on that. As far as the aesthetic goes, we didn’t really have that many options for cameras. We have a VHS camera that we bought a while ago that we use for stuff, we had that lying around and we decided we liked the way it looks aesthetically and at the same time it’s just different to what’s going on today. A lot of people try and have this clean-cut HD aesthetic, and that’s not really us. We like things to be more raw and different. So the first reason we chose it was really because we like the way it looks.

You’re heading to Australia in March and a lot of the venues you’re going to be playing are much more intimate and “punk friendly” compared to where you played the last time you came here. Do you think this tour will be closer to the kind of shows you play back home?
Yeah, that’s the thing we’re most excited about. Last time we came it was really cool, it was a lot of fun, we had a great experience, but it was just a little off. The venues were a little too big, there were barriers everywhere and it was just not what we’re used to. So we said, “We’d love to come back, but we don’t want to have that experience again”. So Graham [Nixon] from Resist Records kind of took the reigns and he said these were the places we could play at, and it seems way more of what we’re pursuing and I hope it shows at the shows, hopefully people are excited to come see us in a setting that feels a lot more natural to us.

With the new material there’s obviously a lot less thrashy punk beats, there’s a bit more space and a bit more mood. How have people reacted to these new songs in a live setting and how do you expect the Australian audiences to react?
I mean it’s different everywhere we go, you know, but for the most part with the new songs it’s weird because for a long time we wrote songs that were really fast and really aggressive and people would just go off and go crazy, so whenever we write songs we try and maintain that same energy, but the tempo was a little different this time, so it’s kind of weird to expect how people will react to a song that I feel has the same energy but is a little bit slowed down. In some places people go crazy and act like nothing has changed, but in some places people don’t move around as much and they just sing along, but it’s all in the same mood and stuff, which is cool. We don’t want people to treat us differently, or think that you can’t go to a show and think you can’t go off and have fun, we don’t want people to think that. So it varies everywhere, but people seem to be excited and that’s all we really wanted.

Ned and the guys will be out on tour in March and you’ll be a damned fool if you don’t get yourself along to one of their intimate punk gigs! Check out the dates below.

Title Fight Tour Dates

Wed Mar 6th – YAC, Byron Bay
with Luca Brasi
Tickets: oztix.com.au

Thu Mar 7th – Sun Distortion, Brisbane
with Luca Brasi
Tickets: oztix.com.au

Fri Mar 8th – Crowbar, Brisbane (18+)
with Luca Brasi
Tickets: oztix.com.au

Sat Mar 9th – Annandale Hotel, Sydney (18+)
with Luca Brasi
Tickets: oztix.com.au

Sun Mar 10th – Annandale Hotel, Sydney
with Luca Brasi
Tickets: oztix.com.au

Wed Mar 13th – Amplifier Bar, Perth (18+)
with Luca Brasi
Tickets: oztix.com.au

Thu Mar 14th – YMCA HQ, Leederville
with Luca Brasi
Tickets: oztix.com.au

Fri Mar 15th – Enigma Bar, Adelaide
with Luca Brasi
Tickets: moshtix.com.au

Sat Mar 16th – Reverence Hotel, Footscray (18+)
with Luca Brasi
Tickets: oztix.com.au

Sun Mar 17th – Phoenix Youth Centre, Melbourne
with Luca Brasi
Tickets: oztix.com.au

Tags: Blunt Magazine, Floral Green, Hardcore, Interviews, Music, Punk, Title Fight

Strange Apparations

February 7th, 2013 by Emily | No Comments | Filed in Interviews, Tour News

After battling some serious Frape on his social media profile (for the record, no Ben Britton did NOT shit the bed), the Strangers frontman sat down to have a chat with BLUNT ahead of the band’s nationwide tour in support of their debut full-length, Persona Non Grata. Produced by Tom Larkin of Shihad fame, the album is laden with guitar-driven, rollicking riffs and makes for one dynamic and confident release. In other words, just the sort of thing we like to hear! While Britton reckons they’re not reinventing the wheel, Strangers seem quite content to slap on a fresh set of tyres.

Hey Ben, what have we caught you doing?
My mate just hacked my Facebook account. Man, that’s so early 2000s. I just had to log out as he’s being a mischief-maker.

So basically your entire friendlist now knows how much you “love cock”?
[Laughs] Pretty much. It was something about me shitting the bed, which didn’t happen by the way.

That’s cool, we believe you. Actually, after trawling the internet, I found that you’re “just five Sydney guys who live and breathe music – unless Seinfeld reruns are on”.
Yeah, we’re massive Seinfeld buffs. It’s ridiculous [laughs].

We’re probably giving you a bit of a Sophie’s Choice here, but could you name your favourite episode?
Oh my god! This is my favourite show! It’d be like if I had children… It’s a real tough one. I’m not gonna be clichéd and say “The Soup Nazi” or anything like that, because that’s what everyone says – it hardly makes you a real Seinfeld buff – it’s fine, you can like that episode, but I really like the earlier seasons. From season three I like “The Limo”, which is a really good episode and if you haven’t already seen it, do it, because let’s face it, everybody likes Seinfeld and if you don’t, then I don’t really want to know who you are [laughs]. I’ve got heaps and heaps. “The Non-Fat Yoghurt” one is excellent. From there, I moved onto Curb Your Enthusiasm. Our bass player doesn’t like Seinfeld and he doesn’t watch Curb because he just can’t deal with the situations. It’s like, ‘Why would he say that? Why would he do that? Don’t do it Larry David!’

Now that your debut Persona Non Grata has been out for a while, how are you feeling about it?
Yeah, I’m really happy with it. We worked pretty hard on the record and I think across the board, all the songs, we really went through them with a fine-toothed comb – from melodies to guitar lines to leads to drums – all that sort of stuff. The thing I really like about it is that it’s got a bit of a raw sense about it in the pop song sort of writing. I mean, yeah, we’re a heavy band, but in the same sense, we are a pop band: verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, outro chorus. I find it really engaging in the verses and there’s big choruses. That’s my cup of tea; no frills. It’s a really good place to start for a first album, so I’m really happy with it. Your first record is a real special moment that’ll always be there, you know what I mean?

Being your debut, were you going into it with a mission statement so to speak? Or was it more looking at just doing something you love.
That’s exactly right. I’m not really that sort of guy. Every rock band these days is like, ‘I’m more rock’n’roll than you’ and all this shit, but I’ve got no time for all of that. I just want to write songs that I really love and I connect with and they make me feel something, that’s the bottom line for me. Yeah, I like big sounding tough riffs and big drums and things like that, but at the end of the day, a song is just a song and a song will define your band and I think that across the board with ours, a lot of the songs on there, they’re all us and they’re all exactly how we feel. There’s no bullshit in there. If you listen to it, I’m not really trying to prove a point as such, I’m just singing about everyday stuff that is happening to me and things that are going on in my life. These days, everything has been done. We’re not living in the ‘60s anymore where bands are coming in and reinventing the wheel, it’s quite tough to do that these days. I never really wanted to go out there and reinvent the wheel, I just wanted to write some cool, catchy pop songs and stuff that I can get off my chest, so I can get it out of my head. We are an original band; no one sounds like us and no one’s doing what we want to achieve in terms of how we’re approaching things, but are we fucking revolutionary? Probably not. But at the same time, we make really catchy fucking music. It’s like the Foo Fighters. They just write songs that they love. All of their influences are pretty much on their sleeve, but they’re great songwriters. It’s all about the songs for us.

Not that you’re necessarily thinking about it now, but with the second record, they always say that’s the tricky one. Do you think there’ll be any pressure going in to do it?
Yeah, I mean, there’s always pressure, but I think the trick is not to really get caught up in that and just keep it how you want it to be. Get into the studio and just write how you feel and don’t overanalyse it. When you start overanalysing, things start to fall apart. You’ve always got to have something to say, there’s always got to be that emotional connection to the songs. If you don’t feel that, then you might be going the wrong way, but at the same time, if a band writes a song that the singer doesn’t really feel, you can push through that and that’s how some of the greatest songs have been written as well, so it’s sort of a catch-22 situation. As for the second record, we’ve already started writing. There’s a lot of heavier stuff on there, but a lot of it is really the emotional connection that I always kind of look for, that same feeling I was getting when I was writing for the first record. There’s going to be pressure, but we’ll just keep doing what we do and keep evolving as a band until it gets to a point where hopefully it breaks though.

Some bands have taken to recording overseas and heading over to the US; is that something that you guys would consider doing? And do you think it’s a worthwhile pursuit?
I think it depends on the situation you’re in. We have a great studio down in Melbourne, and if we get the opportunity to record overseas, fantastic. That would be a great experience for us and I don’t think anybody would say no to that. We are actually going to the US this year to play SXSW and we’re doing a showcase in New York before jumping up to Canada for Canadian Music Week, so we are playing overseas, but recording-wise, these days people are recording albums in their bedrooms. You waste so much money in studios, especially really big ones, and unless you have the songs to back it up… What’s that old saying? You can polish a turd, but it’s still a turd. You’ve got to go in with songs and I think the bottom line is we just want to get the pre-production and the songs to a certain point down here with our manager Tom Larki and then we’ll see where we go from there.

You’re currently in the midst of a nationwide tour as well. What can people who haven’t seen you live before expect from your shows?
A big party vibe is the way we approach it. We kind of look at shows as a house party and we’re just a house party band there to get everybody in a good mood and ready to party on, sing along, let their hair down and have a good fucking time. It’s going to be really loud, I’ll tell you that, and there’s going to be a couple of surprises along the way, but that’s the sort of band we are. Our shows sit in that pocket where anything can happen. You’re not going to hear the CD live, it’s going to be more fresh. We have a few beers before we play and then see where the night heads. I’m looking forward to it. We’ve never been over to Perth, so going over there for the first time should be great.

If you haven’t already, go out and catch Ben and the boys when they roll through a town near you!

Strangers Tour Dates

Thu Jan 31st – The Great Northern, Newcastle (18+)
with The Dead Love / Born Lion
Tickets: oztix.com.au

Fri Feb 1st – The Annandale Hotel, Sydney (18+)
with The Dead Love / Born Lion
Tickets: oztix.com.au

Sat Feb 2nd – The Patch, Wollongong (18+)
with The Dead Love / Born Lion
Tickets: oztix.com.au

Thu Feb 7th – Ed Castle, Adelaide (18+)
with The Dead Love / The Pretty Littles
Tickets: oztix.com.au

Fri Feb 8th – Workers Club, Melbourne (18+)
with The Dead Love / The Pretty Littles
Tickets: theworkersclub.com.au

Thu Feb 14th – Newport Hotel, Fremantle (18+)
with Further Earth / Coveleski
Tickets: oztix.com.au

Fri Feb 15th – Prince Of Wales, Bunbury (18+)
with Further Earth (FREE ENTRY)

Sat Feb 16th – Amplifier Bar, Perth (18+)
with Further Earth / Coveleski
Tickets: oztix.com.au

Sun Feb 17th – Indie Bar, Scarborough (18+)
with Further Earth
Tickets: oztix.com.au

Tags: Ben Britton, Blunt Magazine, Entertainment, Interviews, Music, Persona Non Grata, Seinfeld, Strangers, Tour

Pyramid Rock: Closure In Moscow & Dead Letter Circus

December 28th, 2012 by Emily | No Comments | Filed in Interviews, Tour News

Well folks, it looks like we’re only a couple of days away from making resolutions we’ll never keep and ringing in 2013 with party poppers and fireworks, though for the lucky punters heading along to the Pyramid Rock Festival, they’ll be celebrating with The Amity Affliction, Anti-Flag, Dream On Dreamer, Hands Like Houses, Tame Impala, House VS Hurricane and loads more at the three-day festival on Phillip Island. Jealous yet? To ease the pain, we scored some time with Closure In Moscow frontman Christopher de Cinque and Dead Letter Circus bassist Stewart Hill to see how they’ll be gearing up for 2013 and how studio life has been treating them.

CLOSURE IN MOSCOW

What’s been happening over at the Closure In Moscow camp?
Pulling shapes. Everything at the present falls under that umbrella.

Word on the street is that you’ve got a second studio album in the works. What can you tell us about it?
It is indeed in the works. Tracking officially starts in February so it’s a shape-pulling fiesta up until then. I can tell you that we are getting our jollies to the extreme with what’s coming together for it. We are really trying to make it a full start to finish experience more so than the last one. Everything will be connected like a stream of consciousness if you choose to flow through it like that or you can just flit about to your favourite riff outs.

Having moved to the US in 2009, how did the country treat an up-and-coming Aussie rock band?
We were treated very warmly and hospitably, more than I could have dreamed. What’s that? Our van’s motor just died? Not a problem, the mechanic that our GPS directed us to will definitely let us stay in his basement while he fixes it dirt cheap and take us out to dinner with his family one night. THAT hospitable. I’d advise any Aussie band to get over there and experience the kind of touring you can only experience in America. Even the shitty bands have a certain level of professionalism just because of the touring chops you can build up there hitting a different major city every day for two months straight.

I read that you were quite happy with the line-up change you had after your first release, so how have you found working with this incarnation of Closure In Moscow?
It’s been the best thing for the band. Sal [Aidone, drums] and Duncan [Millar, bass] are great players and they’ve added a steezy new dimension to the older stuff. The writing has opened up a lot and they have a lot of great ideas. They are quite different in their thinking compositionally, so that’s awesome to have two unique takes on things. Duncan has a great harmonic knowledge and that has been a great asset.

With the Pyramid Rock Festival coming up, you get the chance to ring in 2013 with some of the best of them. Who are you most looking forward to seeing on the line-up?
We’ve played with Stonefield once before and they were really great so it will be cool to see them again. I’m interested to see what Tame Impala are like too. Dead Letter Circus are dear chums so it will be lovely to see those guys again.

And if you have any finished, will you be trying out any new tracks?
We will be. They are extremely fun to play.

In an interview you actually said that you’ll be “sipping a whole lot of peppermint tea and coyly saying happy new year 12 seconds early because Kim from Dead Letter spun a time-bend bubble with his hypnotic mysticism.” Firstly, do tell us of Kim’s hypnotic mysticism and secondly, is it safe to say you’re close buddies with the guys in Dead Letter Circus?
Kim is a pathfinder, not the Nissan. He’s a shape-puller, the snake to oppressive thought’s mongoose, or the other way around, I’m not good with animals. We love those guys, they took us out on tour with them and they are both gentlemen and scholars.

What was it that sparked your interest in ideologies?
I really don’t know, how is it not interesting? Is transhumanism really an ideology though? It feels like it’s more just the next inevitable, evolutionary epoch… That is, if we make it through the next 20 years relatively unscathed. The jury is out for me on whether or not it’s going to be a positive step forward, it seems like the whole idea is steeped in death anxiety and not being able to come to terms with impermanence. Regardless, it’s something more people should be privy to because the issues that come along with the whole convoluted thing could become very important very soon. In regards to the eight-circuit model, I just find it really interesting to look at behaviour/motivations/desires and how they relate to the lower circuits, and how easy it is to be duped by your own imprinting even when you think about things in those terms from time to time. The human brain is the most awesomely powerful tool in the universe and I love people like Robert Anton Wilson who have a very keen, humourous insight into the sweet hacks you can perform on it. Who doesn’t want to know how to hone your own grey matter magical super duper computer?

Do you think this greatly affects the output of the band?
It has an impact on the lyrics and the way we approach things. Barrett’s guitar playing is inspired more by the teachings of Bruce Lee and The Book of Five Rings than any guitarist. I think it’s really important to know how to apply things like that in a meaningful, modulating way to your craft as a musician.

DEAD LETTER CIRCUS

What’s new with Dead Letter Circus?
We’re in rehearsal room lockdown at the moment. No one leaves until the album is written. No excuses, no retreat, no surrender! Stay tuned for more ’80s movie quotes.

I read a few months ago that you guys were getting stuck into a new album. What’s the recording process been like?
Yes, that would be true. It’s been a gruelling process of write and rewrite and rewrite again. Jamming out ideas in the rehearsal room over and over until they’re sounding awesome and feeling good. Most ideas for songs have been conceived on computers which we call “seeds” and are then jammed and grown in the rehearsal room. It’s a very similar process to This Is The Warning only now a more refined process with everyone being a bit more Pro Tools savvy and therefore able to get ideas across better. We’re going for a post-apocalyptic theme. There’s a bit of everything there from aggressive to pretty to brooding to epic to a “nobody puts baby in a corner” kind of vibe.

You were tackling some pretty immense themes on your last record to do with empowerment and how we as a society can actually make a difference. Is this new one following in the footsteps of that?
This is the next chapter. This Is The Warning was more of a wake up and smell the coffee deal where this is a call to arms, take action, in your face, sweep the leg type of theme. Sonically we’re going for more power and aggression while still achieving epicness and grandeur.

In an article, Luke [Williams, drums] mentioned wanting to head to India for a festival. Did you guys end up getting over there?
We did end up going to India! It was a festival called Waves at Bits Pilani Engineering College in Goa and it was insane. A few of the students had built a tricopter with a video camera on it to film the show. There were a couple of moments where you would look up and there would be this terminator looking drone thing buzzing around your head. It was awesome and an awesome part of the world. We can’t wait to go back!

With the Pyramid Rock Festival coming up, you get the chance to ring in 2013 with some of the best of them. Who are you most looking forward to seeing on the line-up?
So pumped! Such an awesome festival and location for bringing in the new year. I’m pretty excited about seeing Karnivool and Closure In Moscow. No matter how many times I watch them, I’m always left in awe.

And if you have any finished, will you be trying out any new tracks?
Possibly, but I’m not going to make any promises.

In an interview I read Closure In Moscow said that they’ll be spending New Year’s Eve “sipping a whole lot of peppermint tea and coyly saying happy new year 12 seconds early because Kim from Dead Letter spun a time-bend bubble with his hypnotic mysticism.” Can you shed any light on “Kim’s hypnotic mysticism”?
Those guys! We did a tour together last year and quickly realised that they’re just as weird, if not weirder than we are. And therefore the bond was made. All the while sipping on peppermint tea and dancing, dancing with the devil in the pale of the moonlight. As far as Kim’s [Benzie, vocals] hypnotic mysticism and spinning of time bend bubbles goes, I’m under strict instruction to not comment so as not to spoil the mystery. I’m also not allowed to talk about his pre-gig ritualistic slaughter of labradoodle puppies.

According to what I’ve seen, the band is in the midst of a five-year pact over what Dead Letter Circus means. Got anything for us other than the completely absurd stab at some sort of performing alphabet massacre?
The time is nearing when all will be revealed. Until then, let’s go with the alphabet massacre.

Catch Closure In Moscow and Dead Letter Circus at this year’s Pyramid Rock Festival!

Pyramid Rock Festival
Saturday December 29th – Tuesday January 1st – Phillip Island, Victoria
Tickets are available from thepyramidrockfestival.com

Nuggets: A Psychedelic Journey

December 23rd, 2012 by Emily | 1 Comment | Filed in Interviews, Tour News

As we celebrate the 40th anniversary of Lenny Kaye’s iconic psyche-rock compilation, Nuggets: Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era, 18 of our finest garage, indie and new-wave acts have stepped up to pay homage to some long-lost gems from the ’60s. Despite the long title it boasts, Nuggets: Antipodean Interpolations of the First Psychedelic Era, 1965–1968 is a collection of tasty garage-pop morsels featuring Pond, King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard, The Laurels, Step-Panther and tons more putting their own spin on some psychedelic classics. We caught up with members from three of the bands on the album: Straight Arrows, Velociraptor and The Gooch Palms, to find out just why they dig that tinny ol’ lo-fi sound and why the style of decades past still resonates with our modern scene today. A bunch of the bands from the compilation will be showcasing their talents at the 2013 Sydney Festival, so head to the bottom for all the details on the show!

STRAIGHT ARROWS

I’ve been told that you’re the resident expert on all things Nuggets! For the uninitiated, could you tell us about how the original compilation came together?
It was a couple of guys in 1972 who were sick of the garbage permeating the airwaves deciding that things really were better back in the 1965-1968 timeframe. Which, looking at what was happening in 1972, was totally justified. Thanks for NOTHING, Woodstock.

There’s a pretty stellar collection of artists involved, both past and present. What was it that made you want to get involved with the series?
I couldn’t really resist. When they showed up with a sports car with a built in TV AND an eight-track player I was sold immediately. This is Warner Bros. we’re talking about. Those guys invented the ROADRUNNER!

Not only that, but you also produced a selection of tracks on the Antipodean Interpolations release. What kind of sound were you looking to capture?
I guess the primary concern here was not screwing up a bunch of tracks I’ve been repeatedly spinning for aaages, so we split recording between a friend’s studio called Hanging Tree that has a whole heap of ’50s and ’60s equipment, and did the remainder in my lounge room and kitchen in a terrace house near Redfern where the neighbours are pretty tolerant. Having my recordings come up sounding ‘modern’ is not a problem that’s happened yet.

Was there then a feeling of responsibility or was it a gruelling task trying to get everything right and do it justice?
It was a pretty laidback time; I think we knocked out the recordings in about four days and then spent a casual week mixing it. I’ve been quite influenced by these original records so I reckon my recording methods would be inextricably similar to a lot of what was happening in the period so there was no real need to change anything up. We’d just go into the studio, set up a minimum of equipment, hit record on the tape machine and get the band to play it right and well.

When were you were first introduced to the garage, psychedelic and punk-leaning sounds of the ‘60s?
My folks probably influenced my taste in this stuff by listening to the complete opposite while I was growing up. A friend lent me the original Nuggets boxset when I was 17 and working in a shitty corporate pizza joint, so I’d sit out the back and blast the CDs and ignore customers until they took the CD player away. Dicks.

Looking at the significance of the Nuggets records, do you think it’s important to recall the historical roots of music and where these newer subgenres came from, especially now in the wake of “Gangnam Style” and more commercial releases?
I reckon modern music will always be entangled with the music of the ’50s and ’60s, so long as guitars and drums remain. Either way the pop sensibilities of what was happening back then are permanently entangled in almost all popular music proceeding it.

I read that you didn’t get a choice of the track you were going to cover. Despite that, did The Knickerbockers’ hit hold any special meaning to you before you recorded it and even after you worked on it?
We always dug the Knickerbockers’ track, but it’s just not the kind of tune you can really spin at a party ‘cos the beat isn’t really heavy enough, so we just went in a fixed up a few things. It was like surgery, on a pulsating corpse, plus a facelift, and some more electricity.

VELOCIRAPTOR

There’s a pretty stellar collection of artists involved, both past and present, with the Nuggets compilations. What was it that made you want to take part in the series?
Nuggets meant a lot of different things to all the members of Velociraptor so we’re very honoured that we were offered to be a part of it. We all love the music of the ‘60s, so a chance to recreate a classic and to be involved in a project with so many other Australian bands that we respect so much was an opportunity too good to be true.

When were you were first introduced to the garage, psychedelic and punk-leaning sounds of the ‘60s?
My parents had a fine collection of ’60s pop vinyl, so I was generally just raised on stuff like Gerry and The Pacemakers and The Hollies. It wasn’t really until I started playing in bands that I came across the Nuggets stuff through friends, which has been invaluable in its influence on all of our songwriting.

Looking at the significance of the Nuggets records, do you think it’s important to recall the historical roots of music and where these newer subgenres came from, especially now in the wake of “Gangnam Style” and more commercial releases?
I think “Gangnam Style” is a lot better than a lot of the music we have to deal with in the pop world these days. At least that guy is just taking the piss out of pop music and making millions of dollars in the process. I think it’s really important to give credit to the artists that have really pushed music to evolve. Psychedelic music was so important in pushing pop music to the next level and the trajectory it took music on post-’60s is incredible. The world owes that era and the bands involved a lot of thanks.

Going on from that, what’s so attractive about lo-fi recording given the technology that we have available today?
I think the best part about lo-fi recording is that you can do it all yourself. In an age of auto-tuned vocals and highly processed music it’s often a really big relief to hear something that sounds human and organic. Lo-fi recording can often better reflect the live sound of the band too.

Why do you think Australia and Australian bands in particular have come to resonate with the Nuggets series? Do we just dig some good ol’ garage rock?
I think garage is important to Australia because it is such an accessible form of music. Both in terms of gear required and how listenable it is; get yourself a hundred dollar guitar and a shitty drum kit and you’re away. This is important for a somewhat historically isolated country that has resulted in top line gear being more expensive than it is in other parts of the world. As far as musically, we’re talking simple, generally danceable songs based around a solid beat and good melodic hooks – what’s not to like?

I did read that you didn’t get a choice of the track you were going to cover. Despite that, did The Electric Prunes’ hit hold any special meaning to you before you recorded it and even after you worked on it?
Being a total Mersey beat style pop fiend my favourite track before being involved in the project was The Knickerbockers’ “Lies” but after spending so much time with The Electric Prunes track, we’re now super best friends.

And finally, is there any chance you’re joining the Sydney Festival Nuggets showcase?
I’m not sure if we got an invite to play but I’m sure we can either Skype our performance in from Brisbane or we can send James X Boyd down there with a carton of VB and a backing track.

THE GOOCH PALMS

There’s a pretty stellar collection of artists involved with the Nuggets compilations. What was it that made you want to be a part of the series?
We were asked to do “Romeo & Juliet” for the compilation by Owen [Penglis, Straight Arrows frontman and Nuggets producer] and said yes! It sounded like something that would be fun and a good opportunity for the band.

Was there then a feeling of responsibility coming into the record?
We of course hold the bands and songs from the original Nuggets in high regard, but as one of the songs that is maybe a bit lesser known ["(Just Like) Romeo & Juliet" by Michael and The Messengers], we didn’t feel as much pressure to stay too similar to the Nuggets version. We felt quite comfortable taking the song and deconstructing it and putting it back together in Gooch Palms style. We don’t bother covering a song unless we are going to make it our own, no matter how much we respect the original. There’s not much point in covering it otherwise. The whole process was a breeze and we loved every minute of it.

When were you were first introduced to the garage, psychedelic and punk-leaning sounds of the ‘60s?
Both our parents were into regular mainstream music and with both of us growing up in Newcastle, there weren’t many influential people guiding us in the way of cool music. There was one guy that was into ’60s music that I knew and he showed me the Nuggets compilation as a teenager, but he was much older and all I wanted to listen to was nu-metal at the time! A couple of years later I got heavily into Sabbath and then revisited the music he was trying to turn me onto and have never turned back.

Going on from that, what’s so attractive about lo-fi recording, given the technology that we have available today?
The lo-fi sound we have on our recordings reflects our live show, which is minimal and raw. If we recorded in a hi-fi, clean and highly produced way it would be disappointing for people to see us live, to some extent. The recorded songs are not too different from what you get live. There is definitely something that turns us on about most scuzzy lo-fi recordings.

Why do you think Australia and Australian bands in particular have come to resonate with the Nuggets series? Do we just dig some good ol’ garage rock?
We have always had a healthy love of ‘real’ rock and roll in Australia and I think we always will. The Aussies were doing a brutally good job of it then and are still doing it now. Australians have always taken influence from bands from overseas, but the Aussies have been very influential in their own right for bands worldwide, which is awesome.

I did read that you didn’t get a choice of the track you were going to cover. Despite that, did the Michael and The Messengers hit hold any special meaning to you before you recorded it and even after you worked on it, putting your own spin on it?
This particular song wasn’t too dear to us, but it was a good little pop tune that we could definitely put our own spin on. We have a deeper connection with a lot of the other songs on the comp and if we had of been given one of those tracks we definitely would have struggled to make it our own. If we could have chosen, we might have chosen “Liar, Liar”. We could have nailed that one, but we thoroughly enjoyed doing “Romeo & Juliet” and play it live sometimes now too!

Just finally, a few of the bands from the compilation are involved in a Sydney Festival showcase. Are you looking forward to the chance to bring these songs to life on the stage?
We are very much looking forward to playing our little nugget live at Town Hall and are looking forward to introducing some of our original songs to what might be a new audience. Hope they are prepared to see some Gooch!

Catch a selection of the bands from the Nuggets: Antipodean Interpolations record at the 2013 Sydney Festival!

Nuggets: Antipodean Interpolations – Paradiso At Town Hall (18+)
Friday January 25th – Sydney Town Hall, 483 George Street
Tickets are $36 and available from sydneyfestival.org.au

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