Lisa Gerrard (Dead Can Dance) Interview: 2013

RESTLESS SPIRITS

While somewhat distracted by the possibility of having to evacuate, Lisa Gerrard from her home in Gippsland, is watching the threatening orange glow of near-by bushfires while valiantly remaining focused on the task promoting the first Dead Can Dance album in 16 years. An impending home-land tour in which the release - Anastasis - will be performed in full is also going ahead now the singer's recent throat-bothering flu has been beaten 'just in time'. “I was seriously close to having to cancel the shows... all that time spent in aeroplanes is what made me sick.” Gerrard has just returned home from Argentina, one of the many non-Anglo countries where her band - a 30 year-long partnership between herself and one-time husband, Brendan Perry - are lauded as musical icons. Yet despite forming in the Melbourne suburb of Prahran, Australia has long remained their final frontier in terms of wide spread acceptance.

“Somebody once asked me, 'why don't we make Australian music'?”, A mental 'face-palm' hangs in the air as Gerrard begins. “It was as if we had to tick certain boxes to be considered Australian.” The daughter of Irish immigrants remembers this throw-away question posed to her long ago, and which has bugged her since. But to argue the case for Dead Can Dance's place in the Australian music scheme, she need only have retorted with AC/DC's Scottish-ness, or Crowded House's Kiwi-ness for effect. “Basically what they were asking was, why don't we sound like a white suburban band, which is after all what we were!” In fact the Prahran which Lisa left behind in 1982 for the excitement and uncertainty of London, provided the ideal foundation for what would become Dead Can Dance. Gerrard recalls unfamiliar and exotic languages and most importantly, music in abundance in the tiny suburban street. “So many of our neighbours were a mix of Greek and Turkish immigrants, many of who couldn't speak English very well, if at all, and because their sort of connection to the countries they had left behind was this very traditional music, it would blasting out of their windows on a hot night.”

The title of the new album, Anastasis, translates (from Greek) as 'resurrected'. Apart from the obvious self-reference following their long break, it could also relate to Dead Can Dance's choice of gear. They employ instruments so ancient their true origins have been forever blurred by time as they changed hands along the Silk Road. Gerrard meanwhile has often sung in a curious, non-specific language; resulting in a suitably inclusive form of expression. “When I was growing up, you didn't get Irish people speaking Italian or Greek or anything like that, so my experience of hearing these other languages on a daily basis meant I could just listen to the tones and patterns and there was a kind of music to that in itself.” She adds, “The Irish have a strong tradition of story-telling and so to me singing without using words to tell a story was such an exotic idea.” Once the foundation for what Dead Can Dance would become was set in place, Lisa and then live-in boyfriend Brendan Perry re-established themselves in London during 1982 at the height of post-punk only to find themselves suddenly starved of the cultural diversity they had become so used to.

















“We were in this very poor, white part of London for a time in this council flat and it was quite depressing when we first arrived.” Gerrard recalls, “But we kind of lived as though we were in this private school by spending all our time in the local libraries and music archives, just absorbing all this literature and music which was beyond what we could have found in Australia. Our own identity really began to develop from that time, so ultimately it wasn't wasted time.” After signing a deal with 4AD, Dead Can Dance quickly established their niche throughout the '80s and '90s as a 'world fusion' band. Releases like Into The Labyrinth and The Serpent's Egg became celebrated classics, and even drew the attention of Hollywood. During DCD's hiatus, Gerrard became an award-winning film-score composer in her own right, and along the way found time to establish her own label, Gerrard Records, with generosity as the driving force. “I wanted to be able to give more to artists signed to my label than I was given when we were on 4AD.” She explains, “That was the idea, but by the time everyone involved grabs a piece of the action, there's really nothing left. I wanted my artists to feel liberated to work on their music and not have to worry about money, you know. I mean when I think about the amount of dough that 4AD made out of us when we had so little... it's kind of criminal!”

Categorising Dead Can Dance's music may be a frustrating task for genreists - and the new album will do nothing to change this – but at it's core, Anastasis is less 'viva la difference' and more about what connects us all across language and cultural barriers. It's a concept album in that sense, and will be performed in full during this tour. “It is important that in concert the work is allowed to tell its whole story. I think it takes on a life of its own that way.” Gerrard explains, “We used a lot of organic instruments on the recording, but touring with a full orchestra wasn't practical. Brendan plays a variety of instruments, and I play my Yangqin and dulcimers... but I think the main detail in our music is the cavernous, 'big sound' that we do. It's very much about creating a landscape of sound when we play live... It's how our music is best enjoyed I think.”

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Iva Davies (Icehouse) interview: 2012

GEM FROM A GOLDEN AGE 

For Iva Davies, the clichéd mullet and leather jacketed Aus-rocker image was never a good fit for him, even in the 1980s. In fact the Sydney native multi-instrumentalist, while writing future classic singles for his band Flowers (and ultimately Icehouse), was in the late ‘70s, moonlighting as a bow-tied oboist in a symphony orchestra, in order to give himself options. “I was living a real double life back then!” Thankfully, the rock path held greater appeal, and in the coming years, Iva would find himself front and centre of one of the most successful bands in the country, before inexplicably disappearing without a word in the mid-‘90s.

Equally unexpected was the break in Icehouse’s 17 years of inactivity, when in July last year, an unannounced ‘secret’ gig at the Espy was swamped by hundreds of fans who’d turned up in the hope the rumours were in fact true. The huge response soon prompted further dates being booked, and ultimately lead to a tour in celebration of the respective anniversaries of the band’s two biggest albums; Primitive Man and Man Of Colours. Before the so-named Primitive Colours tour hits town, Iva looks back at the songs that made him a household name and tells why he decided make such an understated return.

“Part of the reason we did that show was basically to see if there was still interest in the band. Before that show, I really wasn’t confident at all but when the word got out that the surprise guests were us there were lines around the block, which was a huge relief.” Davies recalls. “It was also quite appealing playing a proper pub gig again. It was a bit of a return to our roots as well.” After Icehouse called it quits in 1995, Davies, holed up in his home studio, threw himself into writing scores for films (Master & Commander), the Sydney Dance Company and a Millennium performance piece called The Ghost of Time, which centred around an updated version of the Icehouse classic, Great Southern Land. For all intents and purpose though, it seemed as if Iva had suddenly turned his back on Icehouse and pop music in general.

“Playing in a band is actually a very gruelling lifestyle.” He reasons, “I’ve always needed to offset all that by grabbing as much quiet time as I can in order to work, which means pulling the phone out of the wall just so I can avoid any distractions. That’s how I’ve always made music; whether that’s pop or film scores.” He adds, “I look at someone like Prince, who I know for a fact had a studio on 24 hour stand-by while he was in Sydney a few months ago, just in case he had an idea for a song but for me, I’ve never been able to stop and start the process at will. It’s a bit of fragile bubble that once broken can never be regained.” His method of music making no matter how isolating resulted in a tonne of credible hits throughout the 1980s. Radio in particular loved Icehouse so much that based on playlists alone, one would have assumed they were the most popular band in the country for a time. Davies’ memory of such support however, is a little less than enthusiastic.
 

Davies: Not just the 'Electric Blue guy.'

“I never wanted to be known as the ‘Electric Blue guy’.” He laughs, distancing himself somewhat from the 1987 single, which was famously a co-write with John Oates (of Hall & Oates). “That song was actually our only number one hit in Australia, but it wasn’t what I thought best represented Icehouse as I saw us. Still it is the song that I get asked about more than any other even to this day.” Electric Blue was in truth far from the band's only moment in the sun. Second album 1984’s Primitive Man, was Icehouse’s first real mover on the local and overseas charts, however label doubt over the finished product’s hit-potential pushed Iva into an unexpectedly rewarding situation. “The American record label, who wanted to push the Primitive Man album, sent us back to the drawing board because they didn’t think we had a big single on there.” He explains, “Basically I ended up sleeping on the floor in Giorgio Moroder’s studio – who was of course this massive disco producer in Hollywood, where we had recorded most of the album – and in the wee hours, using this guitar with a missing string, I wrote Hey Little Girl, which became our first international hit.” The mention of Moroder prompts Davies’ to quickly remind me his allegiance was always to the rock world and that Icehouse were never in real danger of making a disco record.

“Back then, you were very much into one or the other, and I was never a disco fan at all.” He confirms, “Led Zeppelin and T-Rex was what I really was into at the time, although I did like what Moroder was doing with synths and sequencers.” As it happened, it was during the same year Moroder was enjoying success with the uber-cheesey Together In Electric Dreams, that Icehouse delivered what would become their signature single and sure-fire Aus anthem; the haunting Great Southern Land. “That song went through quite a number of changes before it was completed.” Iva recalls, “I remember the producer on that track had just done Billy Idol’s Hot In The City, which was a massive record at the time, and he replaced all of my synth parts with live drums and so on, and basically made it into this big Billy Idol-type production piece, but it was just awful.” He laughs, “But the finished version you know today was basically the untouched demo that had taken me around two hours to mix and complete and it ended up becoming this massive thing that has become our real defining moment. But I really was disconnected with what it was people seemed to love about that song at the time. All I knew was I’d written a song about Australia and if I got it wrong then there was a real potential of it blowing up in my face!”

The simplistic beauty of how Southern Land was ultimately completed indicates a high level of self-belief in Iva’s way of working. While he generally allowed producers and labels their input, trust in his own judgement delivered the best results. Furthermore, while sales and accolades have informed which Icehouse albums are the most loved, In Iva’s own view, 1986 album Measure For Measure was closer to Icehouse’s defining moment. “I’m not necessarily consistent about it, but if pushed I would say that album was the most pivotal for us.” He considers, “It turned out that that album was only the third fully digital recording made ever, but we didn’t know that at the time.” Davies recalls, “How it happened was, a few years before we made it, we met a guy in London called Rhett Davies, who was a penniless roady at the time, but in the space of a few short years he had amassed this warehouse full of amazing gadgets, including a brand new digital multi-track.” Iva continues.

Big Wheel and its floppy attachment.

“As with anything new, there were more happy accidents when recording in digital than there were plans. Having said that, Rhett wasn’t in any way flying blind. This is a guy who had produced all early Roxy Music and Brian Eno albums, and so we were very lucky to be in his company at the start of the whole digital music thing.” After embracing digital recording and the CD in the mid-‘80s, Icehouse were again at the forefront of a burgeoning technology in 1993. The band’s seventh album, Big Wheel was initially packaged with a floppy disc – only the second album in the world to do so – although it would prove to be a much more short-lived diversion, Iva recalls the “bonus floppy” with fondness. “It was actually developed by our keyboardist Tony Llewellyn, who was a real techno-boffin and one of the first people who bought a Macintosh and carried it around in a bag on tour. Once again, I was lucky to be around incredibly clever people, but it was always going to be a risk seeing as technology can be so transient, but it was something nobody else was doing and even though it took a while to fire it up once the disc was inserted, it was a fun little extra to play around with.”

Iva with Flowers; circa 1980

As our interview begins to wind up, the future of Icehouse is only discussed briefly as Iva had revealed earlier in our talk, “I can’t even think about recording or writing when I am preparing for a tour. They exist in two completely different sides of my brain!” He has however been sporadically recording music up until recently for an unfinished project known as Bi-Polar Poems, hinting at a possible further Icehouse album. In the meantime though, Davies is ticking off towns and venues around Australia in one of the band’s most extensive local tours of their career. “Most of the places we are playing this time around will be new to us. I mean take the Espy gig for instance, we had never played that venue before even back in the Flowers days. There was however a whole strip of music venues down that way (St Kilda Esplanade) at the time, one notably called Bananas, which was just tiny and I remember having to walk up about four flights of stairs, carrying all our gear to get to it.” Iva laughs, “We played there a number of times, but by the time the Espy was up and running as a live venue, we had already had a bit of success and were actually able to play bigger venues like Festival Hall.”

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The 'Primitive Colours' tour promo slide.

Iva at the 'surprise' Espy gig, July 2011

Trash McSweeney (The Red Paintings) interview: 2011

THE COLOUR OF MUSIC

Red Paintings singer/composer, Trash McSweeney - every bit as self-effacing as his adopted name – was never a musically gifted child, nor a particularly learned one, but rather his ability for intricate song crafting was one that foisted itself upon him late in his adolescence following a seizure resulting in the ability to visualize complete compositions in full technicolour. The condition Trash developed, known as synesthesia, landed the Geelong-born/L.A.-based artist among a mere handful of songwriters currently living with the neurological disorder world-wide. From this unplanned event, Trash and his Red Paintings cohorts have been guided by an ongoing struggle to make the music match up with the visual patterns McSweeney alone sees, often creating seismic tensions and frustrations alien to all who do not share his ‘insight’. It’s no wonder then, that after twelve years as a band, The Red Paintings are at long last set to release their debut studio album. Titled, The Revolution Is Never Coming, this marks the third year since the album was initially set for release, and in regards to its delay, McSweeney, as a synesthesia sufferer, is afforded free reign of the often cringe-worthy explanation; “the people I was working with just didn’t understand my vision.”
 
“This album was mixed eight different times in eight different studios around the world, and I went to some of the biggest and best studios available but what I kept finding was, people had their own shitty vision for my music.” He begins. During the album’s endless recording sessions, The Red Paintings as a collective came and went depending on either their availability or willingness to follow Trash to yet another studio and join him in sleepless, song-tweaking. “The rest of the band quite reasonably walked out and let me do what I needed to do.” He says, “We spent a lot of time writing down everybody’s parts and getting those right, but in the end it wasn’t financially possible for them to live as I was. We were all broke by that stage; I mean my string section were busking on the streets of Brisbane to make $50 a night while I was in Canada sleeping on studio floors.” Trash’s motivation to create a worthwhile album regardless of personal health or wealth seems largely down to a desire to not disappoint his fans as much as himself. “I didn’t want to put effort into something that my fanbase were going to put on and say, ‘oh the songs are okay, but the production’s pretty shit’, you know?” He confirms. “If I say I’m going to put out something – an album or whatever – then its going to be done to the best of my ability. I didn’t sleep properly for over year because I was consumed by just making these songs work.”

Fellow synesthesiac, Bjork, is a reference for Trash. “I listen to her music in a kind of ecstasy. It’s like what she creates is mathematically thought out, and that’s kind of how I approached making this record.” Trash boasts that there were an average of around 180 tracks to mix per song to get the desired result. “I guess I was trying to create a Da Vinci artwork as a musical composition.” He laughs. It’s not Renaissance painters however that inform The Revolution Is Never Coming, but rather literary giant Lewis Carroll. First single, The Streets Fell Into My Window (which was actually recorded in 2005) is punctuated by quotes from the novel, Alice In Wonderland, which Trash defines as a metaphor for passing from life into death. “I wondered if the trip down the rabbit hole Alice takes in the story was in fact the moment of death when the soul leaves the body.” He muses, “When the Tim Burton film came out, I was surprised he had played it so safe and not delved into the possibility of Wonderland being the afterlife, so when it came time to making the video for that song, I worked with this fantastic young director called Clint Lewis, and we were all about ‘what didn’t Tim Burton do but maybe should have’.” The Red Paintings live shows, which are as much renowned for their dramatic aspects as their musical intensity, reflect the Lewis Carroll theme in their current state.

“The live shows incorporate every kind of art-form; music, poetry, theatre, film, painting and narrative to make one whole performance piece which reflects what our music is about. On the last tour, I came out as the caterpillar, our cellist was the white rabbit, our violinist; the queen of hearts and so on - and that connection is obvious, right - but a while ago we did some Dr Seuss themed shows where each song became a different Dr Seuss book.” Trash describes, “The most bizarre thing had occurred to me, I realised that the themes in all of Dr Seuss’s writing were exactly what I was trying say in my songs.” Further explaining his theory Trash reasons, “Seuss could be taken one of two ways; fun, catchy books for kids, or the work of a highly analytical and complex mind.” Much like his literary idols, Trash McSweeney is an example of what happens when an artist loses all interest in convention and allows himself to push away certainty and comfort. Lead wholly by his synesthesia, Trash’s unusually heightened subconscious calls the shots and his trust in it is unwavering.

“It (synesthesia)’s never been a hindrance to me. The Red Paintings have been shaped by it and I’ve never had to worry about writer’s block. The reason the album has taken so long isn’t because I wasn’t able to write, it’s because the mixing never seemed to be the right colour and shape as I saw it in my head. I basically had to articulate what I was seeing jumping out of the mixing desk again and again in the studio, which sounds fucking ridiculous, I know, and when you’re paying an hourly rate it gets even more absurd, but I won’t stop until I get it right.” So The Revolution Is Never Coming’s long delay means fans will be getting an accurate picture of the sound inside Trash’s head, then? “Definitely. I mean I’m not doing this for any other reason than to give people the music best I can. I’m not creating something to sell records so I can buy a big comfy house, I’m making art here.” He deadpans, “I’ll never own a fucking house anyway. The amount of debt I generated for myself making this album saw to that!”

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Ed Kuepper interview: 2011

KUEPPER'S BREW

As guitarist in the Australian punk legends, The Saints, Ed Kuepper played the withdrawn, thoughtful foil to the rumbling brick shithouse that was Chris Bailey. But however uncharacteristic a thing ‘thoughtful’ may be in punk guitarists circles, as co-songwriter, Kuepper is credited as one of the two men who gave birth to punk in Australia in 1976, with a little sulk about being Stranded (so far from home). Despite the blazing debut of I’m Stranded, unlike Bailey, Kuepper had viewed punk as a mere minor bump in the road along which he was traveling, continually searching for something that moved him. Then in 1980, the German-born Queenslander, committed musical sacrilege - combining jazz with punk – in Laughing Clowns, but this hybrid-flaunting band demonstrated Kuepper’s formidable arranging and songwriting prowess, as well as gaining him widespread respect in his birthplace of Bremen.

It was Ed’s move to making solo records in 1985, beginning with Electrical Storm, that drives our conversation today as Kuepper takes stock of this, and 1986 album Rooms Of The Magnificent, through a series of acoustic performances, and planned re-rearrangements of the albums his punk and jazz roots never saw coming.  The two albums, although not strictly his most prolific work, have gained an almost indescribable significance for Kuepper over time, he begins. “It feels like an odd thing for me to be doing right now, but the material seemed to be calling out for my attention. I recently began to see links between the songs on those albums, as well as on Today Wonder (1990), and I want to get to the core of what those connections are, and why I they were suddenly making themselves known to me. All I really know is I couldn’t ignore them any longer… It’s like psychoanalysis I suppose.” A debut solo album, I propose, can be a frightening concept for a man who walked away from such a ‘sure thing’ as The Saints, and the massive overseas fan-base Laughing Clowns earned. Was the common thread one of self-doubt?

“I would say I was rather more relieved.” He laughs. “Both of those bands ended quite poorly in terms of our friendships, and so I had no trepidation about recording on my own, however those first two records were very rushed affairs, which is why they were so raw and now demanding my urgent attention.” Kuepper, motivated by re-visiting his early solo work, is putting together an entirely new album to be released as a follow up, “I’m wondering if the new record will be informed by what I discover in re-working those older songs.” But his search seems to be based on an ideal, rather than any real dissatisfaction with how those records sounded. “I had forgotten quite a lot of those songs until recently when Mark Dawson (Ed’s drummer, 1985-’95 who is involved in the re-workings project) and I began this process, and hearing them again they seemed so mysterious to me. I’m not expecting any great revelations to occur, but it does feel as though a story was being written and somewhere along the way I lost the thread of that, which is what I’m exploring now in order to move it forward.” Since 1985, Ed has written and arranged 20 solo records, often direct and emotionally raw in tone, so untangling the story of his subconscious is certain keep the artist busy for some time yet. One brief but certainly memorable chapter in Kuepper’s story outside of his personal songwriting, was of course the tense musical partnership he shared with Chris Bailey in The Saints. Ed has on occasion reunited with The Saints for tours, but he understands the only rewarding part of his and Bailey’s union was during the band’s formation.

“There was focus, and the kind of fighting between us that was very good for creating music, but not for creating dear friends.” He recalls. “Chris was much happier after I left so he could get on with doing his campy vaudeville act… that’s his thing, but it was never really for me.” The last Saints reunion tour in 2009 coincided with the news that Mick Harvey was leaving The Bad Seeds after 30 years in the service of Mr Cave. As a long-time associate and peer of the band - The Birthday Party’s deceased guitarist, Tracey Pew had briefly joined Laughing Clowns – Ed was approached to step into Harvey’s place. But if his role extends to writing the next album with Cave, he’s unsure. “Oh look, we haven’t discussed those finer details, but I would imagine just being in the studio with the band we would work out the songs as a unit, but being involved as a songwriter is not an issue. I think Nick writes most of the lyrics, and I certainly wouldn’t knock back the chance to write together, but I’m still ‘the new guy’ in a lot of ways, which is nice.” He laughs. “I haven’t been the new anything for a long time!”

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Trish Young (Clouds) interview: 2011

RAINING PLEASURE

The current ‘90s reunion tour juggernaut continues to prosper and throw up some pretty surprising, half remembered names. Some are more obviously deserving of our attention than others - it’s a personal taste thing for sure - but the last time Sydney band Clouds played in my hometown, I was so teasingly close to experiencing their show, I've always reserved a special place for them. The over 18’s-only gig in question, resulted in a cold night stood in the venue’s car-park straining to enjoy every morsel of muffled sound cranking from the speakers. This so close, but not quite moment never abated, but only rose to a lingering obsession with one day being in the same room as the band while they played - after all, their music had already made a fan-for-life of me.

Clouds’ reunion this year falls on the anniversary of their left-field, ARIA-winning debut album, Penny Century, a record that pooled together a whole career’s worth of ideas, and one that the band would never quite equal again in popularity. Yet the most endearing elements at play remained throughout Clouds’ eight year run; the perfectly synchronized harmonies of Jodi Phillis and Trish Young - who also provided lead guitar and bass – the well-measured guitar feedback/melodic tune-ship and some seriously creative drumming, was their ongoing signature. It was after a frustrating US tour, during which time they were signed and dropped within just three months, Clouds ended tidily with the single Never Say Forever and final album, Futura in 1997. The following years were good to Trish Young, she confesses today from her home in Sydney, but she's quick to add, “Though I am really looking forward to getting out there and playing some of the old songs again!” Young explains the timing of the tour - which see’s Gen-X favourites, Jesus Jones and The Wonderstuff on the same bill -  had an added benefit for Clouds’, who were already considering making a return.

“We had put out the feelers already to see if anybody would be interested in booking us to play a couple of shows before the Jesus Jones/Wonderstuff tour came about.” Trish claims, “In the start we were told it would be a five band line-up with us, Jesus Jones, Wonderstuff, Frente and Caligula, but by the time the booking was done, Frente and Caligula had vanished from the roster. I think in the beginning the promoter wanted a full mini-festival of bands from that era.“ The planned triple bill might seem like some cobbling together of completely unrelated acts in any musical sense, but between them, they recall a very specific time in music and had all laid claim to equal billing on the alternative music charts. So much like cask wine and orange juice, it’s not strictly an obvious mix, but then all three bands had previously crossed paths during their respective peaks. Trish recounts.

“I can’t remember the exact year – it would have been around 1992 I think – but we actually supported The Wonderstuff once before, and Jesus Jones used to open for them in England quite a bit.” She continues, “ I do vaguely remember hanging back stage and chatting with (singer) Miles (Hunt) and the guitarist and having a great time, but recently I read in an interview, Miles said none of them (in Wonderstuff) got on back then and tours were always really tense, but it was not the impression I had of them at all. But who knows, maybe the tour with us was the only one they enjoyed!” Clouds frequent tours, including the first ever Big Day Out in 1992, were near legendary events on the live music calendar and attracted sell-out crowds all around the country. Trish recalls Clouds’ touring years fondly,

“When Clouds started, that was exactly the kind of life I had wanted ever since I was in school.” She exclaims, “Opposed to a lot of bands, I actually enjoyed living on the road and staying in a different hotel every night, meeting fans and doing in-stores, but then it was tough on Jodi. She used to suffer terribly from insomnia when we were on tour.” Jodi’s fatigue was never offered as a reason for the Clouds’ eventual split in 1997, but it seems reasonable to think it was a factor. “No it really wasn’t that, but it is true that Jodi wasn’t enjoying the same things that I was about being on tour.” Although Trish admits she misses Clouds, and Jodi continues to slot her 'old band's songs' in during her live solo gigs, no plans are afoot to revive the group. “It’s only a reunion in the sense that we’re playing these three shows... there won’t be any new music or plans to continue beyond the tour. There just isn’t the time anymore for us to commit to that kind of lifestyle.” At the start of Clouds’ career in 1990, the release of their debut self-titled EP in 1990 - which featured Triple J favourite, Cloud Factory – saw the band lumped in with stand-out 4AD acts of the day, Cocteau Twins and Lush. It looked too many reviewers as though fans of ‘jangly guitar/girly-harmonies pop’ had a new band to slip nicely among their This Mortal Coil collections, but Clouds were already in the process of losing their innocence.

Cloud Factory’s gentle acoustic delivery was a false indicator of what was about to come and in 1991, the band dipped into darker terrain with the release of the Loot EP, in particular, the murder ballad 4pm, which beat Nick Cave at his own game. Following Loot, and its radio single, Soul Eater, Clouds managed to chart with a gothic tribute to Flemish impressionist painter, Hieronymus Bosch (Hieronymus), giving the band a green light to go darker and stranger still. Their debut album, Penny Century released at the end of ’91, carried on their sweet but sinister turn and a sizable section of the record-buying public went along for the ride. At this stage, Clouds guitarist Dave Easton was tuning into Pixies/Sonic Youth’s cosmic radio while Jodi and Trish’s writing seemed to be channeled through punk goddess, Siouxsie Sioux. Then in 1993, the much anticipated come-back single, Bower Of Bliss - with a vagina-worship narrative that would’ve made Serge Gainsbourg blush – signaled the end of Clouds mk.1, and unfortunately the end of long-held support from Triple J. Radio barely touched Bower… or it’s parent album, Thunderhead, but Trish holds no regrets about Clouds’ rapid shift towards a heavier, ‘less popular’ sound.

“Even if there had’ve been a ‘Clouds-sound’ to use as a reference, I doubt that we could have maintained such a thing. There were four people in this band at any given time, all with different musical tastes and wanting to do different things, so just that alone meant we were never going to be about one idea, or one person’s idea of what Clouds were meant to sound like.” Indeed Trish and Jodi are the only members of Clouds who remained from start to finish. A crew of six players all-up came and went between 1990 and 1997, however the current reunion shows will feature Clouds’ longest term line-up; Dave Easton, who played guitar during the band’s peak period, ‘91-’95, and Raphael Whittingham, who drummed between ’93 and ’97. Preparations for the three-date run, Trish explains, have been a mix of spirited gatherings of old mates, and the odd memory lapse. “I’m pretty pleased actually with the amount of songs I could remember, almost start to finish, but there were a couple of times where everyone just stopped playing and no-one could remember how the next part was supposed to go!” She laughs. “We used a lot of weird structures in our songs and it was kind of funny how everyone forgot the same parts because of these sudden changes where the music would just stop, or get really fast!” Trish says, surely describing Clouds’ superb 1992 single, Anthem, in which the band knowingly replicate The Troggs’ Wild Thing before freezing mid riff, as a chiming music box replaces an expected glam-rock guitar solo. “I’m glad you picked up on that, because there were quite a lot of gruesome guitar solos around at the time, and we were trying to sort of go against that in our own little way.” Fourteen years on from their split, regarding the Clouds catalogue, Trish reckons that the music her band made within those eight years, stands-up today, and has aged very well indeed. “I think some of the songs sound a bit dated, but most of them still feel surprisingly fresh to me.” She adds, “I honestly think we didn’t sound as though we belonged to particular time, or decade... to me it’s like Clouds could have happened at any time really.”

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Jodi and Trish; an unbeatable combo.

Charles Jenkins Mid-Winter Ball, 2011 (review)

Venue: Corner Hotel
Date: 09/07/11

At the third annual Mid-Winter Ball event, host and super-connected musician, Charles Jenkins once again rallies Melbourne’s finest for a heart and hand warming night of song. Jenkins’ band The Zhivagos are joined throughout by enough guest artists to bash out a modern day Do They Know It’s Christmas at the drop of a hat – which we are thankfully spared. Instead, the desperate to stay warm crowd gathering rapidly in the Corner, enjoy the proven talent of the Ball’s wondrous line-up minus the smugness usually found at charity events. This year’s beneficiaries of tickets sold are Foodbank Victoria who distribute much needed grub to everyone from those in disaster affected areas to the homeless.

However the thrill of helping provide some well needed funds to charity isn’t what’s on our minds when opening act, Ron Peno & The Superstitions take to the side stage with zero fanfare. Having the ex-Died Pretty front-man as a ‘warm-up’ act speaks volumes about the  musical acts on offer tonight. This being the first of two sets Peno performs with his new band, the captivating singer takes his time in building up the mood and momentum for the night’s proceedings. By third song in, Death O’ Me, Ron – refreshed, following a recent Died Pretty reunion show – is commanding our attention with a set of entirely new, yet somehow familiar tracks. Peno’s Ian Curtis dance is still a part of his live delivery, as well as touches of the American Wild West in his songwriting (Train Whistle).

Over on the mainstage, Charles Jenkins is preparing to unleash his many guest artists, while indulging us with songs from his latest album, Walk This Ocean. What happens over the course of his first of two sets, is a wildly veering, rough round the edges blast of rock. When singers like Mick Thomas (ex-Weddings Parties Anything) and Lisa Miller cosy up with Jenkins for tantalising duets, the arctic chills of Melbourne at night feel like a memory. Even the decorative cardboard snowflakes hanging from the ceiling seem in danger of melting at the sound of Thomas’s gruff and throaty punctuations. In equally fine fettle, Kat Spazzy (from The Spazzys) brings some youthful energy to the stage, while Georgia Fields cuts through the wailing guitars proving she can work her magic in any situation. It is those guitars in the end that dominate however, with no less than four maestros of the axe whooping it up as he concert draws to an end.

Having never seen one of Mark Seymour’s famed live performances for myself, I was triple-thrilled to see him at last join Jenkins and co. for punchy Hunters’ classic, Everything’s On Fire. Mark’s presence noticeably stirs up the crowd, so Jenkins chooses his moment to surprise us with an unrehearsed, but effective, cover of David Bowie’s Boys Keep Swinging, backed by every one of tonight’s guests. The rabble-rousing glam-rock rendition was a hit, and only topped by the full line-up’s closing number, The Kinks’ Victoria - in the style of The Fall meets the Sex Pistols, or some such brutal marriage. The mess of artists filling the stage sharing mics and trying not to bump into one another while showing great camaraderie, is a warming image to hold onto as the deafening chorus of Victoria throbs in my ears on the long, chilly walk home. The freezing weather is a crappy part of life here in Melbourne, we all know, but with events this good, it’s so worth chucking on the thermals and braving the snap to bask in Melbourne’s other claim to fame; it’s awesome musicians.

 

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Meeting Mark Seymour!

Fatty Gets A Stylist: interview with Kate Miller-Heidke and Keir Nuttall (2011)

STYLE AND SUBSTANCE

Fatty Gets A Stylist masterminds, Kate Miller-Heidke and Keir Nuttall are taking tea on a rare sunny June day at a South Melbourne café, discussing the finer points of what constitutes taking a risk in music these days. For one, both agree calling a band Fatty Gets A Stylist earns a big tick, but the most intriguing development in the risk department is, the brand new release – a co-write with hubby/long-time collaborator Keir – is Kate giving a big middle finger to her the sound that made her a star. The self-titled album - which claims XTC, Goldfrapp and Kraftwerk as reference points – started life on-tour as a between shows muck-around project for the couple, before blossoming into a throbbing multi-layered extravaganza. Fatty takes the listener through trash-spiritualism, cartoon theme-song terrain and post-punk with out a hint of Heidke’s sober pop artistry to be found. It seems as if Kate is flexing some newly developed muscle, all while snuffing out her ‘fluffy balladeer’ label in the process.
 
Being a Heidke album though, albeit one with zero relevance to her former work, that voice is, on one occasion, heard carrying a record-breaking sustained note that’s sure to leave even the listener out of breath. “I’m so glad someone picked up on that; it was done in one take you know.” She says of the track The Plane Went Down, “I can’t wait to do that live, but then I might possibly faint at the end if I have to do that night after night.” Kate’s classically trained voice – the one that has served her so well up til now – is the first of many surprise elements on Fatty Gets A Stylist. For a start, Heidke has been discovering the joys of using a much lower octave range than ever before. “I think we shocked ourselves a lot of the time making this album.” She remarks. “But you know, it started out as a passion project, just us two, and the thought of anyone else hearing it didn’t really cross our minds.” Kate adds, “I was singing a lot in the shower and getting comfortable with a lower range to what I’m used to, which is why I don’t really sound like ‘me’ on the record,” she laughs, “and I said to Keir ‘what do you think of my funny voice?’ and that kind of got us thinking about having this album be a completely anonymous thing without our names attached to it at all.”

The projects name chosen to keep an air anonymity could be read as nod towards the overabundance of surface-obsessed reality TV dirge currently on offer, but Keir explains, it’s less about the ‘make-over myth’ but rather an imagined tabloid headline. “The idea was to use a name that tells a story; ala Frankie Goes To Hollywood, who got their name from a newspaper headline, but I think ours is more in line with current obsessions with weight and appearance.” While Frankie suggested we all should relax, Fatty Gets A Stylist go one further with references to Zen Buddhism and pre-religious spirituality. Kate picks up the thread, “Even though some of the songs are very silly, I guess there’s also some obvious spiritual references like on The Tiger Inside Will Eat The Child, which has to with the Buddhist belief that you only really grow through letting go completely of your past systems.” In Wiccan lore, it’s taught that people possess power animals which they have to get to grips with - the intention being, it makes you awesome. After discovering this, Keir shares some concerns over what his animal might be.

“I dream about dogs a lot, but not cool ones like wolves or dingos, its always garden variety spaniels.” Kate, cracking up, adds, “Maybe you’ll graduate to a poodle.” While Keir contemplates his K9 dilemma, Kate maintains that the dream animal concept in songs has become an indie band staple; therefore best avoided. “I’ve got a natural resistance to this dream strength-animal thing, but I do relate to the inner child as a way of helping me creatively. You have to sort of get to that place I your head which is unaffected by just day-to-day crap and allow yourself to be playful and fearless.” Keir adds, “The tiger is more the self-conscious side of your mind – like the battle between the left and right brain that happens when you write or create music.” Although much of Fatty Gets A Stylist was written on a lap-top while Kate and Keir were on tour, it’s liner notes boast a long, impressive guest list of session players. The album was still in its demo form when, while supporting Ben Folds, Kate played him the album who then persuaded her to record it with a full band and release it. With the Folds tick of approval, all was left was to find the right artists for the job. Keir explains.

“Ben Folds called it ‘lower chakra music’, which basically meant it was more rhythmic, or more animal so we wanted players who came from that side of the spectrum.”  He adds, “We ended up going with Pete McNeal (ex-Cake drummer) who plays in a band called Z-Trip, who has this strong, crazy improv style. Then you have Justin Meldal-Johnsen, who played bass with Beck, Air and Nine Inch Nails, bringing this really huge range of experience.” He adds, “I think those guys are what Ben was talking about when he said lower chakra music.” Kate then simplifies, “It’s about listening with your hips and not our head!” When Heidke’s solo albums, Curiouser and Little Eve, established the her as a spirited and clearly gifted singer/songwriter, she was probably seen as a safe bet in the industry - especially once the awards began rolling in. To drop the psychedelic bubblegum pop of Fatty Gets A Stylist on the heels of such plaudits, would surely have had a few men in grey towers pulling out their hair. Kate responds.

“Our management were really supportive of us putting it out, but there is a slight scary element to how fans will react to me doing something so different, for sure. I expect some people will think I’m putting on this strange voice, and already I’ve heard people say they don’t like the name and that they think its offensive, but as I said before, we went into this with no fear and I accept that not everyone is going to get into it, or see why I’m doing this now, but as I get older, I feel I’m gradually taking more and more control creatively of what I want to do.” Keir adds, “The reaction has been really interesting so far. I mean before anyone knew we were doing this, I played some of the songs to our band (Transport), and they didn’t spot it was Kate – I just told them it was this new band I’d met in London.” He laughs, “Usually whenever you play something new to friends, it’s a pretty loaded atmosphere and you know they don’t want to hurt your feelings, so this was the best way to get a completely honest reaction from them.” Kate recalls, “They didn’t think it was me, so I said ‘what do you think of her voice?’ and one of them said, ‘oh she’s nowhere near as good a singer as you, so after that, I didn’t want to let anyone know it was me!”

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David Bridie (My Friend The Chocolate Cake) interview: 2011

RECIPE FOR DISASTER

In 2005, Melbourne musician David Bridie toured in support of his second solo album, Hotel Radio, playing to small pub crowds around Australia. When the night of his Hobart gig rolled around, I found myself in a state of barely suppressed excitement to finally see an artist who I’d revered - albeit from some distance - for a time, without really knowing what to expect. Ahead of his set, I overhear a pre-show conversation in which Bridie was surprisingly referred to as ‘the guy who used to be in The Reels’. While David Mason’s ears where hundreds of miles away, burning, it saddened me to think an artist like David Bridie should face such indifference after 20 years of creating so much beautiful music. He went on that night and performed one of the most astounding concerts I have ever seen, despite playing a set devoid of songs I previously knew, and no doubt confounded those mistaken Reels fans in the process.

Bridie was however wearing a very different musical hat that night, perhaps making him harder to spot for the more casual fan. This was, in a way, the start of a new era in his long career. Not Drowning Waving – his former full-time band – had recently split after 20 years while My Friend The Chocolate Cake – his stop and start second band - were on one of their regular hiatuses. Bridie had started living between Melbourne and Papua New Guinea, which was having a notable effect on his music, but while Hotel Radio reflected his island life, Bridie, back fronting My Friend The Chocolate Cake, has released a new, fully localised album. Location aside for now, Bridie, on the eve of My Friend The Chocolate Cake’s latest release, Fiasco, is the first to admit he is a man hard to pin down, especially when drawing from his broad musical interests.

“I have a low boredom threshold, but also being a musician in Australia, I think you have to multitask a little bit.” He begins, “Doing my soundtrack and production stuff is really important to me, seeing as My Friend The Chocolate Cake is an all acoustic outfit. Those other things mean I get to play around with the resonator button and synthesisers a bit which can be just as much fun.” David had long worked world music into Not Drowning Waving’s records, can talk for hours equally about programmable synths and folky acoustic pop. He continues, proudly. “I’ve got pretty diverse tastes is all. I can spend a day just listening to string music from Papua New Guinea and then the next getting out my old punk records or some Nick Drake, so I think keeping in touch with the broadest range of music I can helps me become a more interesting musician.” MFTCC began in 1989 while David and co-founder, cellist Helen Mountfort, were on holiday in New Zealand and having a break from commitments to Not Drowning Waving. There they wrote a set of acoustic-based songs, clearly in oppose to all previous NDW material which would ultimately form the start a steady side-project, ultimately outlasting NDW.

“Not Drowning Waving was my first passion and they were a great bunch of musicians, but we had a much different agenda in what we were trying to do with that band than we do in ‘Cake.” David surmises, “Also NDW was an expensive outfit to operate. It was a large group with a lot of equipment and so it would’ve had to get a lot bigger than it did to really pay for itself in the long run. But with my solo records I get to satisfy a lot of the urges I had doing NDW, but with MFTCC I get to have that collaborative, social urge fed as well.” Not Drowning Waving, you could argue, fitted awkwardly within the Australian music landscape of the mid-to-late ‘80s. Their lean towards world music and sparse instrumentals probably kept them from reaching the broader audience MFTCC has. Indeed by the time MFTCC had released their second album, Brood in 1995, they were gathering ARIA's and landing on radio playlists.

“MFTCC was a priority for me from very early on.” David adds on transitioning between bands the first time, “Working with somebody like Helen in Not Drowning and then us both shifting into MFTCC was great because she has always had such a different ear to mine in arranging and producing and so forth, so it was always going to be fascinating to see where we could take this little idea of an acoustic chamber band with our kind of opposing views on music but also with respect for the way we each did our thing.” Wearing their boffin hats, production on the band’s sixth studio album, Fiasco was down to David and Helen - as has been the case on all MFTCC albums - with mixing by Tim Cole. David describes his relief as the final piece was added to the long-awaited new ‘Cake album.

Bridie with Helen Mountfort - The core of  'Cake

“I remember on the last night (of mixing) sitting with Tim Cole and realising with some satisfaction we really had done the best album we could. I think over time we have developed a kind of ‘Cake sound’ if you like, and when I hear that, I know it is a good indication that we’re clicking.” So in sync they appear to be, that even violinist Hope Csutoros’s baby arrived right at the start of the band’s usual extended between album break, meaning her band commitment wasn’t compromised. “Hope happily was able to come back on board in time for this album after some time off for motherhood duties and that was obviously special to Helen because of how they work so closely together in the studio on the string arrangements.” David confirms, “Also it helps to have the same band in the studio as you play with on tour.” Aside from the predominant dueling strings, another constant in MFTCC is the suburban landscape oil paintings and collages that adorn most of their CD sleeves. Fiasco’s cover at first glance feels a little familiar, and then it dawns that this street scenario had graced the cover of Brood – only now the developer’s have been through.

The "Brood" sleeve-art

“Warwick Jolly’s done most of our album artwork so far and I think, like the music, the more you look at his collages the more you find.” Indeed you’ll see a train track tearing up the middle of the image, surrounded by cut-outs of Melbourne buildings and people past and present. In the centre, sits the unmistakable red brick overpass on the way to East Richmond station – an often by-passed location for metro travelers - which forms a tidy subtext for an album concerned mostly with journeys big and small and those who get left behind. “I guess the metaphor is fairly obvious isn’t it?” David laughs. As for the title, Fiasco, Bridie claims he was forced to compromise. “I wanted to call it Somewhere Between The Sacred and the Bleeding Ordinary but was somewhat dissuaded because of how long the band’s name is – like it wouldn’t all fit along the spine of the CD - so I was a bit disappointed about that. But Fiasco in this instance is more a bun fight in a bakery than a tragedy. Despite it being an Italian word, I think a lot of Aussies happily use it to add gravitas when describing something like a failed relationship.” It seems a natural choice of words considering the album’s centrepiece, Madang Panic Attack. This uncharacteristic, somewhat guttural release from the band – written by Bridie in Papua New Guinea - is one of the few tracks David will admit to being a very personal one.

"Fiasco"

“Madang Panic Attack was me going through a break-up and being in a different country with a bottle of duty-free whiskey.” David recalls, “Some of the locals had set fire to the store and the church in the village so the air was just hot and sweaty.” He adds sighing, “Anyway my troubles got on top of me one night and I just spewed forth all these lyrics trying to make sense of everything.” Madang Panic Attack stands as MFTCC’s darkest song thus far, both lyrically and musically. David describes, “It’s pretty edgy stuff for us and after we had it down in the studio, Andrew (Richardson – guitars) put a load of electric guitar on it, but Helen rightfully said, ‘look we’ve stuck to this acoustic thing all along, there’s no point in breaking from that now’ so it was redone for the album, but at some point I wanna put out that other version. I think people who have followed us for a long time might get a bit of a shock with Madang... but then I sometimes think being in a band, surprising your audience is one of the things you’re supposed to do.” Further hints of personal loss lurk throughout the album, but none is more startling than on Black Ice with its eerie refrain; ‘Black ice took her away from me’. David responds.

“I’m really using Black Ice as a metaphor here. There was no real car crash I was describing.” He reveals, “It was more to do with childhood memories of being driven on these winding mountain roads and seeing black ice warning signs. To me they always seemed to imply life’s greatest dangers are the ones unseen, which is just one of those things that has stayed with me through my own life.” Changing tact, David adds, “I’m actually really pissed off AC/DC called their last tour Black Ice because now we can’t use it for ours.” He laughs, “They kind of pre-emptively stole our thunder there… those bastards!”

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