“We’re talking massive balls! The biggest balls!” laughed drummer Lee Vincent, as he spoke of his band’s forthcoming – and clearly sizeable – sophomore album ‘Tough Love’.
“It’s a heavier album – not in a metal sense – juts in the presence of it I think,” he continued on the new record, which has come through as a plethoric mix of the band’s classic rock, post-hardcore and 90’s grunge influences, brilliantly making Pulled Apart by Horses a difficult outfit to push into a definitive niche.
For front man Tom Hudson, guitarist James Brown, and with Robert John Lee rounding off the outfit on bass, Lee described that their work on the new record with Gil Norton was a dream-come-true, commenting that “he really brought the best out of our band.”
Admittedly huge fans of the producer, Lee detailed that Norton’s name came up following the band’s viewing of a Foo Fighters’ documentary whilst on tour: “Yeah! That’s a great album [‘The Colour and the Shape’]! Put Gil on the list!” you know, just kind of joking really,” exclaiming that the troupe was ultimately “gobsmacked that it actually happened!”
As a moderately young outfit – having formed in the latter part of 2007 – the Leeds, England-based rockers have speedily made a big impression on the music world. But quicker than the aforesaid, the troupe has additionally gained a reputation for chaos and bodily harm during their live sets.
“It’s kind of a happy violence; we’re not aggressive when we play,” explained Lee, for whom – unlike his band-mates – the stage is a quite safe space, whilst he is hidden behind his drum kit.
“It’s all stuff off stage – that’s the bad stuff that happens to me,” he began to elaborate, climaxing with a story of his being hit by a car whilst having post-show, celebratory drinks with friends Future of the Left. “I went flying through the air,” he continued comically, “…my band just sort of stood there and didn’t know what to do, and then The Future of the Left guys… they turned into the instant dads!”
Currently a first-grader within their careers, Lee expressed that for him, the high and quick rise of the four-piece – and the clear, musical impression that they have already made – is still a peculiar experience, and one during which he continues to keep grounded.
“It’s just weird; I try not to think about it really,” he began.
“You know, when these things happen and you find out that – like when we found out that Gil Norton had ever heard of our band, let alone liked us – things like that, that stuff just doesn’t happen to normal people, and I’m still a normal person.
“You just take everything with a total pinch of salt, and you just keep doing what you’re doing, and that way you keep your feet on the ground…. We’re incredibly lucky to play music for a living, so that’s enough for us.”
“I don’t think that we felt like we needed to make a certain record, or that we would let down our fans, [or] our label. This is a record we made for us,” commented Silverstein front man, Shane Told, as he discussed the work behind the band’s forthcoming, new album, ‘Short Songs’.
Twelve years into the outfit’s career, Canada’s Silverstein is now set to release its sixth post-hardcore effort. ‘Short Songs’ is an album which pays homage to the bands that influenced the quintet, and features eleven brand new compositions that have not only taken on an old-school vibe in their length, but are also intimate representations of Shane during a rapidly changing – and an overtly tumultuous – period within his life.
“There have been a lot of changes in my life, my personal life,” stated Shane.
“There are times when you wake up in the morning and you’re not always confident – you don’t wake up and look in the mirror and always love yourself. There were days I didn’t love myself; there were days when I kind of hated myself.
“I think there is a lot of that reflected in this record,” he continued, delving into the lyrics. “There’s a lot of, I don’t want to say negativity, because ultimately it’s about positivity, [but] there are a lot of times I wrote these songs when I wasn’t in my best state of mind.”
The balance of personal negatives and self discovery with the band’s musical influences, found Silverstein going into the writing process of this record without any precise or preconceived approach in hand, and through this, the Canadian punks found that serendipity played part in the eleven original songs written for the album.
“The very first song we wrote [was] ‘Brookfield’; that was exactly ninety-seconds,” explained Shane.
“We felt like that gave us enough time to work with; not just having all the songs be so short, but we were able to get out what we wanted to say without it being too extraneous.”
The short length of each song is not a new model, albeit a rarely used one today, and indeed one that comes hand-in-hand with the bands that Silverstein decided to cover: further underlining this ideal by dubbing the record after a Dead Kennedys’ track.
“This is something that we wanted to do for ourselves, to have fun with,” Shane continued. “I think a lot of our fans are going to take something from this… it’s a special record,” he exclaimed.
The inception of Silverstein is now firmly placed within a different world due to the rapidly changing industry and their niche. Yet, for a band to keep to its original members for over a decade throughout the continuous transformations around them – whilst constantly being ahead of the technological curve – Shane described that this accomplishment is simply put down to their respect of one-another, and the absolute lack of indulgence in screaming matches back-stage.
“I think we’re very laid back with each other about things that people do in the band,” he began, “we try to respect each other.”
“If someone leaves their dirty plate on the [tour] bus, I’m not going to lose my mind and freak out… It’s just all about being laid back and being chill, and understanding that everyone makes mistakes.”
Silverstein has yet to announce a run of Australian tour dates in support of their new record; however Shane expressed that it is something they are currently working on, with the middle of 2012 currently slated as an unconfirmed possibility.
“No matter if it’s an Australian interview or an American, or Japanese; I always say Australia is my favourite country to be [in], so I can’t wait to come back!” Shane asserted.
Band of Skulls’ debut album, ‘Baby Darling Doll Face Honey’, was seen as an intimate record for the Southampton-based trio. Albeit, with the growth of the band, their influences, and the experience of prolonged touring, their fittingly titled sophomore effort, ‘Sweet Sour’, is an opus that reveres the ideal of remembering who you are, and where you are from.
“I think a home town is quite a big influence really,” explained bass guitarist and vocalist, Emma Richardson. “… Realizing where you’re from is important and you should never take it for granted, so that was kind of like a big theme.”
A track that Emma described as having been written as a three-way-split by the outfit, ‘The Devil Takes Care of His Own’ was chosen as the first single off the new record for the capacity it holds in linking the band’s debut with ‘Sweet Sour’. And as the path to the official release of the new album comes closer to the hackneyed light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel, the path taken in writing the record was not lined with a facile foundation, and nor was it without personal longing.
“Yeah, the first kind of month or two, it’s pretty difficult,” commented Emma on the external pressures felt in coming through with a second album, particularly as their inaugural release was, and is, an evident success. But admittedly harsh critics of their own compositions, they were not without the pressure internally.
A want for a break from the frantic life experienced on tour, as well as time to concentrate on the new record, was the decisive point behind the outfit basing itself in a remote studio in rural Norfolk, “but probably looking back, we needed a couple of weeks in between to just experience normal life, rather than jumping right back in to it.”
“We just come off tour and went straight into the studio to start writing again,” she continued. “It’s hard, you need to draw from something to write something new, and all we’ve know was touring for about a year-and-a-half, so I think it was good to go back home, and experience our home towns again.”
Having built a relationship with producer Ian Davenport through their work on 2009’s ‘Baby Darling Doll Face Honey’, Ian returned for ‘Sweet Sour’ to combine his skill with the band’s, and create, as Emma explained, “something that no one else can do.”
“He seems to understand what we’re trying to get out,” commented Emma on the bond with Davenport, “he just pushes us, and he helps us see through the vision in the studio.”
Expressing her excitement for the imminent release, Emma spoke of a track entitled ‘Navigate’, which, for her, is one of the most important songs off the new record due to the time and work put within its composition. Nevertheless, through wanting the audience to make its own conclusions, it is also a piece whose story and meaning she wouldn’t give away.
“I think you keep a little bit of something special about it, if you don’t reveal all the detail.”
Rock bands and young ages tend to invoke a stigma of negative attitudes toward their pubertal band members. A brilliant example to the above is Black Tide and its hilarious moniker as the “Hanson of metal”. But the (literally) all-female “Hanson of pop-punk” is currently a relatively unknown entity within Australia, and yet this troupe is about to embark on a run of the Soundwave Festival tour, with a catalog of achievements – that would make many musicians covet – already in tow.
Their name is Cherri Bomb, they are a quartet, and they are aged from thirteen to sixteen – cue shock!
“I guess because we’re so young people look at us like we’re crazy, but then they get into it and they’re like: oh yeah it’s really cool, these girls are cool!” commented bass guitarist, Rena Lovelis – aged a minute thirteen!
With a moniker derived from Carrie Borzillo-Vrenna’s book entitled “Cherry Bomb” [2009 release], Cherri Bomb has a long list of high profile names backing the outfit, beginning with their manager Samantha Maloney, who was blown away by the four-piece in 2009, only one year following their formation.
“Samantha’s really great!” exclaimed Rena. “She tells us a lot of stories about when she was on tour and being in bands and stuff, and we get advice from her: like, of course, stay out of trouble,” she laughed.
Relocating to the City of Angels for obvious reasons of opportunity, one of Cherri Bomb’s first tours was as the opening act for the Smashing Pumpkins, and one of their more recent included playing in front of fifteen-thousand people in Germany.
“I think our highlight would probably be opening up for the Foo Fighters in Germany; that was a really great experience,” commented Rena.
“It was really crazy. The first time we got there… the whole arena was empty and we were like oh my god, I hope people are here for us, and I hope they don’t just show up for the Foo Fighters, and we’re[on stage] all alone! [Then] we went out right before the show and there were fifteen-thousand people there and we were sighing and [saying] thank god, thank god!” she laughed.
Speaking with Rena was like conversing with any thirteen-year-old, her positivity and naivety was overtly present, but I wouldn’t slam these girls as rock neophytes. Their debut EP, ‘Stark’, dropped last October, and their debut full-length is now complete, with a tentative release scheduled for this April.
“A lot of it is about relationships; breaking free from control,” commented Rena on the predictable themes from the album. “We have an [album] name that kind of reflects that, but we’re not going to say anything about that yet.”
With Cherri Bomb’s inaugural time in Australia creeping in closely, Rena admitted that the girls are feeling a slight anxiety with the forthcoming festival.
“We’re a little nervous since it’s our first time in Australia,” she exclaimed “… but you know what, I think we’re gonna [sic] do pretty well!”
From punk, emo, and indie rock, to death metal, comedy and feminist slam poetry bills. It is hard to picture a band that has been part of every clashing niche imaginable, and even more difficult to keep your mouth shut when hearing of an outfit that not only successfully managed to permeate each scene, but did this as an alternative hip hop troupe with its routes of inception planted in a high school gym class.
The seed was planted in 1997, their fifth studio album was released in the latter part of 2011, but their beginnings are still an interesting, and even humorous talking point, underlining that genre segregation is not an essential path to undertake when faced with a difficulty of describing even your own musical sound.
“We played with basically anyone who would let us get on a bill with them. Death metal bands, to slam poets, to comedians. There was no scene that we fit into,” reflected Travie McCoy, also known as the front-man and lead vocalist of one of the most recognizable and diverse alternative hip hop fusions, Gym Class Heroes.
“In a sense, we kind of dabbled in all of them [live scenes],” he continued. “After a while of not being accepted in any of them, there came a point where we were embraced by all of them. And I think that’s kind of when we knew that we had something special.
“The fact that we could do a tour with Fall Out Boy, or a tour with a band like Fear Before the March of Flames [Fear Before], or even Bring Me the Horizon for that matter, and then do a tour with T-Pain and Lil Wayne, I think there’s not a lot of bands that can do that.”
The fusion of hip hop, reggae, jazz, rock and even pop music elements is overtly heard throughout the band’s eclectic career, with their Warped Tour stint and the current Future Music Festival tour trek acting as a further beacon to the Gym Class Heroes’ wide-spread reach.
Following three years between releases, Gym Class Heroes’ latest studio record, The Papercut Chronicles II, came as a sequel to their 2005 effort and second studio album, The Papercut Chronicles, to re-visit the quartet’s history and the band’s simpler days. This week has additionally seen the outfit hit their inaugural number one position on the Australian ARIA charts with single ‘Ass Back Home’ [featuring Neon Hitch], following the album’s charting on the US Billboard 200 and Top Rap Albums, as well as the UK’s R&B Albums Chart in 2011.
“I think it’s more of an anxious feeling, rather than a nervous feeling,” expressed Travie, as he pondered the sentiment of anticipation before their fifth studio album dropped on the world in 2011.
“We’ve spent so much time kind of nurturing these songs… and to present it to the world, I compare it to waiting nine months for your child to be nurtured, and the release date is like the date-of-birth in a sense. It’s all anticipation and anxiety, and then you want to show it off to the world and find out whether or not the world thinks your baby is ugly or cute,” he laughed.
Overtly, Australian fans are indeed ecstatic about Gym Class Heroes’ latest child birth: a baby that represents not only the rich history of the outfit, but indeed takes a step back to revisit the themes and music of a record that Travie described as their opening to the world.
“In retrospect, The Papercut Chronicles was our introduction to the world in a sense, and it’s an album that I feel like a lot of people connected with,” he explained. “So to expand on that album, to kind of revisit some of those themes in the music and some of the tones that the album had, was awesome and fun for us. I think at the end of the day, we make music for us first and foremost, and our friends secondly, and the world last,” Travie commented with a humorous tone.
But stepping over decade into the past also brings an unavoidable wave of melancholia, and with such a life-style the strain is similarly inevitable. Nevertheless, for Travie it has become a relationship in itself and one that he has worked to prefect.
“With the touring [life] style, time goes by so fast and it’s crazy to think that this is our fifth studio album. Where the fuck did all this time go?!” he exclaimed in rhetoric. “So you kind of have a chance to reflect on our very first album, which, in a sense you have your entire life to write, so it was kind of a trip.
“But I think over the years I’ve definitely become much better at trying to find a balance,” he continued. “But I mean, realistically, this whole life style is a relationship itself, a girlfriend. So to try to balance two relationships is definitely a tough thing, but I think I’m getting better at it, in a good way.”
Travie McCoy’s work with Gym Class Heroes as well as his solo musical endeavor has taken him onto a path that no matter how influential, infrequently receives mention. This aspect of Travie’s life is his participation and work with various charities and humanitarian organisations, in particular, the Staying Alive Foundation, a HIV/AIDS awareness campaign which he joined in 2009 as an ambassador, raising awareness for an issue that is admittedly very close to his heart.
“It’s something that’s definitely very, very close to my heart,” Travie began.
“When I was younger, I had someone very close to me die from HIV complications. And when you’re that young, you don’t really understand just death in general, but it’s a disease that still has so many stigmas attached to it.”
Speaking slowly and with a tone of uncertainty, Travie continued to describe the past, seemingly searching for the right words to express his passionate views through a sense of a lingering guilt.
“There is this kind of tremendous amount of guilt that I carried with myself for thinking that this person was living a terrible lifestyle, and it just happened and it was unfortunate. Working with Staying Alive is a way for me to kind of get back and kind of [get] retribution for all the time I spent feeling that way and falling for all the stigmas that were, in a sense, implanted in our brains as kids.
“It’s just all about being educated and educating yourself,” he expressed, “and taking that knowledge and spreading it in the hopes that the people that you share it with will do the same.”
For more information on the Staying Alive Foundation, please visit: http://foundation.staying-alive.org
“I still consider myself as just that kid fromSouth London, that’s trying to make something happen with my music.” With nominations spanning from the Urban Music Awards to the coveted The Mercury Prize, and wins at the Ivor Novello Awards, the BET Awards and the Brit Awards, these are Tinie Tempah’s frank words, and the epitome of him trying not to lose his head in the course of his out-breaking success.
His breakthrough record, the aptly titled ‘Disc-Overy’, was also his inaugural full-length release – and still riding the wave of what the current musical climate rarely allows: success from the first album, Tinie Tempah is returning to Australia for The Future Music Festival and his never ending summers.
“The fact that people on the other side of the world have been able to hear it [my music] and have been able to react in the way that they have, and receive it so well, it’s been a blessing and it’s been so incredible for me!” exclaimed Tinie.
“To be able to come out there and showcase my music, and even hear people sing it and rap it back, has been just as awesome,” he continued. “So I’m very, very flattered and honored.”
Since the 2010 release of Tempah’s aforementioned debut, ‘Disc-Overy’, and through the hysteria and pandemonium of the last eighteen months, the English rapper has been writing and recording his as-yet-untitled sophomore album, which is currently, and very tentatively, scheduled for an August release, with the first single ready to drop around May.
“I feel like I needed this amount of time to get it right and get it ready… it’s definitely going to be worth the wait,” began Tinie. “I just really wanted to take my time with it and get it right. I’m currently in the middle of it trying to wrap it up – just after I get back from Australia.”
Describing the excitement he feels for the forthcoming release and its sound, Tinie continued to unfurl more about his new work. “There is so much new music for people to enjoy and go crazy to, get emotional about, and really listen to how much I’ve grown as a person.”
With rumors of album delays circulating via the world-wide-web, Tinie clarified that the timing of the new release was completely in his own predilection, following his frantic promotional schedule of ‘Disc-Overy’, and the blurred and unclear vision that this life-style can bring.
“If I’m being quite honest with you, there wasn’t actually any delay, it was a personal preference,” he began. “I always thought that after I released my first album, I would love to release another one near an exact year after it. But after the entire promo schedule we did, I just felt like it wouldn’t be the right thing to do, like it would be at a detriment to myself,” he expressed.
“I didn’t have the clearest head in the world because I was so overwhelmed with everything that was going on,” Tinie continued. “I thought it would be an injustice to make an album where I really wasn’t explaining everything in the greatest detail that I could at the time.”
Tinie’s candid descriptions and his allusions to the personal tension that this existence can bring were unified in his explanation of the lyrical concepts behind his new record; notions dealing with his reality since the release of the first album. Calling it music in “real time” and “relative” to his current state-of-mind, experiences and the pathway to getting into his present position, what the audience sees, hears and reads about the artist, is what he confers through his lyrics.
“Whatever you see on the T.V. and whatever you see people spin in the papers, and whatever you see when you read my interviews or see me in the viral, on the YouTube videos, more or less, what I’m talking about over some pretty amazing music – in some pretty fine detail – is letting people know that I got here and you can get here too. Or “I got here and it fucking fucked up”, or “I got here and it’s amazing and I’ve done this, and I’ve seen this thing, and I’ve met these people…” So as you can imagine, over the past eighteen months, so many thing have happened. Oh god so many things!” he laughed, with his smile being felt through the telephone conversation. “More than you’d ever imagine, more so than it happened through a life time before it took me to write the first album.
“It should be pretty fun to see how people react to it,” Tinie said. “Because it definitely has advanced and I’m really excited about it.”
Tempah’s well publicized friendship with Adele has lead to more hearsay regarding their collaboration, which, to this date, has not thrived, and yet, hasty commentators have supposed otherwise. Remarking that he has not worked with Adele, “we’ve just become really good friends,” Tinie’s musical ambitions became clear in that of his want to create a personal bequest, and never use another’s success in order to push his own title.
“I’ve mentioned it [collaboration] to her,” he commented, “but she is in a crazy position and I totally respect that. She has been able to do the unthinkable with ‘21’ and it is really a colossal feat. God knows where my headspace was after the success of my album…
“If the right song does come about and we’re both in the right place at the right time, then why not… but I want to create my legacy,” Tinie explained. “More than anything that’s inspired me: it is to know that if you put your head down you can make a consistently great record that you know the whole world can connect with and wants to go out there and support. So I reckon you can do that on your own, you don’t have to have any other eyes – not saying that I won’t, but it’s definitely inspired me to start thinking a bit more like that. So, if it happens it would be great, but either way it will be alright.”
Feeling overwhelmed through his life changes following his debut release, Tinie expressed how fortunate he was in the recording of his forthcoming studio album. Giving descriptions of an anxiety when faced with the prospect of recoding in New York, his team did not allow for more pressure, sending him to his home, to London, and to the first studio he has recorded in, allowing him the space and trust of the people he knows, and for himself to be completely honest and open with his creativity and his writing of some of the most personal work to date.
“I was supposed to record the album in New York and I was like: “Shit I can’t record this album in New York! I can’t be away from London and what’s going on in London; away from my family and away from the person who usually records my music – or all the producers I know and love and I can get really personal with – to be in some flaky studio in New York with a sound engineer I’ve never met, recording an album that is supposed to be about some of the most personal experiences over the past eighteen months!” That’s not going to work.”
Despite the wear-and-tear of the beloved studio, humorously describing it as “a little shoddy”, Tinie was home, he was finally grounded, and his head was in the right space. “It’s nice, it’s a little bit of a juxtaposition, but more importantly, it makes me feel really comfortable,” he expressed.
“For that reason alone, it’s been amazing. I can literally go to the studio and go to my Mom’s house, or go to the studio and hang out with Dizzee [Rascal] or Tinchy [Stryder] or Chris Martin, because everyone is in London, and I didn’t have all these things before…. So I think it’s nothing but a good thing. I’m feeling really good about it.”
Envisage the aptitude of an artist who is in unremitting demand by other musicians to remix their work. Merge this with his background as a musician, producer, remixer, band member, DJ and above all, solo artist. Take the plethora of his undertaken projects, including work on Depeche Mode, Beastie Boys and Phoenix, and now understand the fertility of Alex Metric.
Through the above, and his countless, unmentioned works, it is a difficulty to suppose that Alex Metric only reached prominence in 2008, as he has rapidly managed to create an undoubtedly inspiring resume, and one that whets the appetites of anyone who yearns for his position.
Metric’s Australian visits have been very, very few, and to be precise, just one in particular. A club tour many years ago, that Alex himself cannot distinctly remember. Nonetheless, 2012 will see him live at the rapidly approaching Future Music Festival, on the back of his most recent release, a compilation of his remix and production work, entitled ‘Open Your Eyes’, which has mistakenly been dubbed as his inaugural full-length record, a misconception which Alex was quick to put to rest.
“That’s not really a full length album,” he began to explain; “it’s kind of a collection of remixes and some original stuff up to date… my debut album is yet to come.”
His forthcoming opus does hold a precursor which found itself scrapped due to the length of time Metric took to create it, and owing to this time, the record found itself too dissimilar from his concepts with its inception, to the final product delivered. For Alex, who admittedly finds a huge importance in only releasing music that represents him in that moment, he found this erasure “quite [a] liberating thing to do and a quite scary thing to do at the same time.”
“I just feel like if you take a long time over a record, you when you started and you when you’ve finished are two completely different things,” he continued. “I felt like the record I’d just finished didn’t really represent [me], I didn’t feel like I could then take that forward for another two years touring and promoting it. I just felt like it wasn’t what I wanted to say at that point in time… whether it’s a single or remix, or an album, I’m really particular about what I do, and making sure that what I put out there represents me at that time, and so I can be one-hundred-percent proud of every bit of the music I put out.”
Describing that he is moving into a “different territory” with the new record, but asserting that the music is still distinctly Metric, thrown in with experimentation of sound and beats, Alex portrayed the record’s niche as eclectic, rather than detailing something which may not come to realization at its completion.
Currently six tracks into the new album, a number which unexpectedly surprised Metric himself – due to the swift nature of his present writing process; “not thinking about it, just doing it,” – a number of singles are due for release this year as a taster for the album, which will additionally feature “a collaboration with one of my all time heroes, producer heroes,” he exclaimed.
As can be guessed, this collaboration, or the possible others which will feature on the imminent record, was not revealed, but according to Metric, the name would be easily worked out as “there are very few people that I revere and hold up as one of my main influences in making electronic music, so I’m sure people can put two-and-two together.” Perhaps not too easily, as Steve Angello is not that man.
“… it’s somebody who has inspired me massively from when I was a teenager growing up; first listening to electronic music, so obviously Steve’s a fantastic producer, but this is somebody that’s kind of really been there as a prominent, driving creative force with what I do, for many years.”
Alex’s extensive remix catalogue highlights the prominent names of the Bloc Party, Ladyhawke and the Gorillaz – to blatantly name a minute few – and yet, it has been well publicized, rarely has Metric asked to remix a band, having approached only two artists himself: Phoenix and Nikki and the Dove. The others, they have all come to him, and from this, the majority are turned away with a predominant reason of Alex’s lack of connection with their music.
“I kind of turn down probably three-times more mixes than I do, just because I want the ones I actually really care about and have a connection with.”
“I turned down one of my favourite bands recently,” he commented with regard to one of his beloved, TV On The Radio, “and I’d said that I could do the remix, and I actually got in on the computer, got it going, and just couldn’t find anything that really got me, and that I was proud of. So I had to go back and say that it wasn’t something I could do, which is a shame.”
“Sometimes that happens,” Alex continued. “Sometimes I [would] rather go back and not turn out something disappointing for one of my favourite bands, than turn out something that’s kind of average and that doesn’t really please anyone.
“So it’s good to be critical and it’s good to be strict on these things.”
Most recently having worked on Mike Snow and Snow Patrol remixes, Alex mused that these will be the last remix projects he undertakes for some time, albeit humorously adding that every time he mentions the ending of this process, “people like Mike Snow and Snow Patrol come along and I can’t really say no, and I love the records!”
“But hopefully for a bit, it will be the end of remixing,” he began, “and I [can] just crack on with some new stuff and who knows, you know if something that excites me comes in, I’ll do it, as long as I’m excited with it’s vibe, then I’ll do it over.”
Overtly holding a love for performing, Metric candidly admitted that his “heart is in the studio,” whilst speaking of the partiality for performance or writing. However, commenting on his forthcoming Australian tour, Alex described his view of the six-feet-down-under audience as “pretty clued up,” and as his latest two releases have done quite well on our shores, it is in perfect timing for his visit.
“They seem to really love what I do and get what I do… I don’t think that I’ll have to feel like I have to do anything other than just play what I want, and play the music I love,” he expressed.
From the foundation of Six Finger Satellite’s post-hardcore sound, he fell into a natural progression within electronica. Today, whilst holding over a decade of music behind his name, The Juan MacLean is only weeks from returning to Australia for yet another, innumerable run of shows on his perpetually demanding schedule.
The man responsible for the massive ‘Less Than Human’, ‘Visitations’ and one of DFA’s strongest releases, ‘The Future Will Come’, has roused the appetites of fans who have been waiting for his return for over three years. And as the anticipation rises and the touring is in an uninterrupted advance, the life style is taking its toll, leaving a shadow of destruction on personal and romantic relationships, and a feeling of apprehension for returning home.
“I think that’s just the trade-off [for] living this kind of life,” began John. “I’ve played somewhere around two-hundred shows last year; most of my life [is] on the road – which is amazing, it’s a pretty magical life… – but I still say that it is a pretty heavy price that you pay in terms of your personal life, just because you’re gone so much.”
Seen a cult figure amid fans of DFA’s work, Juan MacLean’s (real name: John MacLean) distinct musical sound is infused with lyrical content surrounded by the subject matter of this trade-off, and as he described, “it has been a big theme all along,” specifically within his latest work with Nancy Whang (LCD Soundsystem).
“For my last album, when we were writing lyrics, I feel like that was pretty much the central theme of the entire album, our experiences of living that way – spending pretty much our [whole] adult lives playing, and being touring musicians, and the fall-out of that,” he commented.
“It’s just such a different experience out there on the road, and [when] you come home, personally, I get very antsy. I don’t really want to be home very much.”
For John, the emotional conflict of living on the road has not turned toward a ‘sex, drugs and rock n’ roll’ platitude, and “I think that’s allowed me to have that kind of a schedule.”
“I think if you’re really getting messed up on drugs or drinking every night, and waking up just ruined every morning – then it’s pretty much impossible…” he explained, before reminiscing on a time when the DFA collective found dusty Polaroid shots taken before their real, ten-year touring and DJing cycle began, highlighting the before-and-after of their lifestyles.
“The affects of that were pretty astonishing,” he laughed. “I think it ages you exponentially.”
MacLean’s latest studio effort, ‘Everybody Get Close’ (2011) was an overtly emotive record, despite John’s admitted lack of deliberation for the balance of emotional tone within his music. But it is his attraction to melancholia that answers the above: an attraction that began with his musical roots and the influences of New Order and Joy Division, and a personal endeavor of combining the dark and the light within a progression of a single song.
“I think it has a lot to do with music I got really into when I was young,” explained John. “As a teenager, one of the biggest influences on me was New Order, and I was a big Joy Division fan before that, when I was a kid.
“I think being into that type of music really set the attraction for music that seems to be both uplifting and sad at the same time. It’s a tone that I’ve always tried to recreate as much as possible in my music, and I think it’s a very difficult thing to do.
“It’s easy to make overtly happy and upbeat music, or go in the other direction and make very dark music. But to somehow combine those element over the course of a single song, I think is a really difficult thing to do and something I’ve always aspired to do, and have been attracted to in other people’s music.”
John’s forthcoming turn on the Future Music Festival tour will be a reunion for the DFA Records collective, and this gathering is not only appreciated by the fans of the label, “I’ve looked forward to it for months!” he said. Undeniably, the musicians gracing the DFA stage have become a family that seldom sees each other, and unlike the customary traditions of family-ties coming loose, this is, once more, a touring ramification.
“The most exciting thing for me is having everyone in our DFA family together, on the same stage, playing the same festival,” John exclaimed. “All of us are on the road so much, a lot of the time we don’t get to see each other any-more – unless we cross paths somewhere else out in the world whilst we’re on tour. So to get everyone together on the same stage, and have a unified aesthetic going on that we’re in charge of, is really fun.”
The aesthetic mentioned by MacLean is a concept of taking the New York City life into Australia, giving James Murphy, Pat Mahoney and Juan MacLean, along with a slew of others gracing the stage, free rein in curating their Nightlife Exchange Program.
Ironically, however, for John “the fact is that night-life in New York kind of sucks at this point.” And in frankness, he continued. “Most of the nights that everyone is DJing are happening in new, boutique hotels that have clubs in them,” he emphasized with a tone of disdain and condescension for this trend. “Just New York, in terms of DJ culture has not been very good for a long time.”
The questions of loss of authenticity within the city that never sleeps are met with an explanation that is explicitly reminiscent to that of our own music industry irritations: ones that will be effortlessly understood and are frequently felt by musicians yearning for a space to perform.
“The problem is there are lots of amazing DJs and producers in New York, as much as there ever have been, and I think a lot of it has to do with zoning laws in the city,” he began.
“It’s just very difficult to open a club… and maintain a proper club. You essentially have to pay for a license to allow people to dance, and if you don’t have this license they will shut you simply by coming in and seeing people dance to music… so that’s really killed of a lot of night life in New York.”
Currently writing his new album with Nancy Whang, John clarified that the record is tentatively scheduled for a release at the conclusion of this year, or the beginning of 2013.
“I still can’t really take it in… I still feel like I’m just watching someone else do it all, like it’s just a dream.” Ten years; three albums, and these are the words from drummer Ben Gordon, coming as the epitome of the grounded nature of Parkway Drive in the face of their global success.
Metalcore has become a largely dominant sub-genre within the current metal scene, and yet, only one Australian band has managed to take the lead of this niche – despite countless others trying to break through the critics and the fans, and ultimately taking the proverbial crown from Parkway Drive.
If hardcore used to be the sound of Sydney and Melbourne, it is now overtly the sound devoted to the Australian coast, coming synchronically with the surfing and skating culture of its youth. Surf videos led to punk, and punk ultimately pushed to hardcore, which is “a pretty stereotypical thing to say for this band, but that’s how we were driven to this music, to punk music,” Ben explained. However, the position of Parkway Drive poses the question of why they are the overriding force in taking Australian hardcore to the world, despite myriad others trying and, for many, facing the reality of stalemate.
“Well, that’s the golden questions… I’ve been expecting another band to burst out of the scene and blow us away in the past six years…. But no one has really taken [our] thrown yet!” he laughed.
Following a grueling touring schedule in 2011, Parkway Drive is seldom resting as they return toAustraliafor a trek under the moniker of the Sick Summer tour. Their decision to turn from major cities in favor of regionalAustraliahas been two tours in the making, now giving the quintet the chance to revisit the kids that rarely get an opportunity for concerts, and to rediscover their country.
“I find that regional Australia, as well as the places we go overseas – we play places where no other bands go – they are generally some of the best shows because the kids are starved for music…” explained Ben.
Currently in the process of working on the follow-up to 2009’s ‘Parkway Drive: The DVD’, Ben emphasized that the forthcoming tour dates would not be featured due to timing, and with a tentative pause – fans, take note – adding that the may, after all find their way onto the screen.
Parkway Drives’ inaugural documentary film highlighted the history of the band, with the forthcoming release focused on their previous world tour, including a stint at Sonisphere Festival, a festival that Ben expressed was the biggest and “the most memorable show we’ve ever played,” – despite the roughly fifteen they have formerly covered throughout Europe – and guitarist Luke Kilpatrick’s well publicized performances whilst wheel-chair bound.
“It was great for us, because we just got to laugh at him,” exclaimed Ben. “He broke his ankle the day before we were meant to leave for this big world tour, and there was no time to do anything else but for him just to come.
“He could have either stood up on the stage and not moved [sic], or he could have sat in a wheel chair, and rolled around being funny, so that’s what he did!”
A tentative title for the release is in the works, albeit, overt reasons are in the way of Ben unveiling its name, giving detail to the content instead, once again underlining that Parkway Drive ventures into places which others choose to steer from.
“We played Europe, Russia, Ireland and Spain; then we went to Central America and South America, Asia and then India. And amongst all that there were some interesting, crazy events that happened,” he began. “The things we saw, the places we played, such as India, Guatemala, Panama, bands just simply don’t really go [there]. We thought it would be really interesting to show people what it was like in those countries; to play there,” something which Ben admits the band didn’t know themselves, “but we knew it was going to be interesting.”
Naturally, Parkway Drive took time off to explore and adventure throughout the aforementioned territories, and above all, discovered the overpowering reception from their fans in India.
“It was amazing, overwhelmingly amazing,” expressed Ben. “A lot of the time the shows are quite small – under or around five-hundred people – so being an Australia band playing somewhere like India or the Philippines, even to get five-hundred people to come out totally psyched-[up] the band. It’s amazing, and it’s good to see how they live and their different cultures.”
The amount of work undertaken by Parkway Drive rarely sees itself on pause, and due to this, the band is set to record the follow-up to their highly acclaimed, third studio effort ‘Deep Blue’, around May and June of this year.
“We’ve actually written about ten songs. So we’re quite close,” explained Ben. “We’ve been working on it ever since ‘Deep Blue’ came out, that’s how we write. We take a fairly long time to write, so we do one song every few months. That way you have time to reflect, and listen to it.”
Their writing isn’t directly influenced by fans, and definitely not written with what others may want to hear in mind, as Ben clarified. And despite the eclectic, personal tastes of each member, the diplomacy within the unit leaves enough space for each individual to take care of their own part in the music.
“The process of writing has been a lot smoother this time,” commented Ben on the recent change for the band, as they have adopted a digital approach with Pro Tools and an electric drum kit, for the purposes of writing. “It makes such a big difference… we can practice for longer periods at a time and every practice we have [we] can record [it].”
As for the sound of the album, Ben commented on the varied dynamics of the record, explaining that in his view the new work is the heaviest music that Parkway Drive has ever written. “I think it’s going to be our best album,” he concluded.
Our Last Enemy – heavy, industrial, loved and hated, but undoubtedly, these are the sweet-hearts of the Sydney metal scene. Since the 2010 release of their debut, studio-effort, ‘Fallen Empires’, time has proven that this quintet is rather blatantly kicking arse all over Australia.
With the notion of rising high-and-fast in hand, Our Last Enemy is now paving their metaphorical way to Europe and back to the States, with the band’s 2012 national tour blaring that this may indeed be the last chance that fans will get to see Our Last Enemy live – six feet down under – in the very, very near future.
“We are a product of our environment…” began bass guitarist, Matt Heywood, as we commenced our fourth interview together. “Sydney is the Alpha city of Australia and the hardest place in Australia to make any impact, in anyway… It’s the biggest, and at times the dirtiest city.”
“We’ve busted ourselves, literally, to make an impact in Sydney” he expressed; now standing at a point where their hard work is overtly becoming noticed.
As ‘Fallen Empires’ shot to number one on the iTunes metal charts earlier this year – a feat not habitually seen from an Australian act – in following, the band launched their first video for the track ‘10,000 Headless Horses’, coming with a post apocalyptic aesthetic and premiering on MTV’s Headbangers Ball this October.
“It really is an Our Last Enemy show reel,” laughed front man Oliver Fogwell, as he spoke of the clip – which is reminiscent of an international-band-with a-huge-budget, rather than a Sydney metal outfit living off bupkis.
“We incorporated all the themes and images from the album as a whole,” he continued. “This clip really represents ‘Fallen Empires’ as much as just the song ‘10,000 Headless Horses’. It has all the post apocalyptic imagery and vibe of the album… It also heavily features [our] live performance as the focal point.”
“People can see the energy and power of the live show in this clip,” he said.
Currently in progress of wrapping up the recording of their forthcoming EP, Heywood gave away the title of the release as ‘Wolves of Perigord’, an idea that Oli and himself gained from a pack of man-eating wolves that roamed the French region of Perigord in 1766.
“Oli and I always send links to each other over the net of crazy stories, ideas, theories, and we were on an animal attack phase…” he explained. “We noticed some similarities between a pack of wolves and a band such as ours… A family, moving in a pack, each member has a certain role to carry out, fighting, protecting what’s yours, and in the case of the Wolves of Perigord, [they were] persecuted for what came naturally to them.”
Trying to pick their heads for the themes and undertones of the record, the topic of frustration came through as their zenith within the writing, “and the results of that frustration, that we as a band and as individuals have faced over the last 18 months,” Matt explained. “We’ve all had things to deal with – health issues, money issues, and relationship break ups and break downs.”
“Hence we looked at Wolves of Perigord as our avenue to channel all of that energy.”
The EP is coming during what Matt described as an “in-between phase of Fallen Empires and album number two”, and very fittingly, the record opens with the lyric of “We are the Wolves”.
‘Wolves of Perigord’ will only be available at live shows and as a digital release, with Our Last Enemy having decided to take total control of this record, with production and release duties taken up on their own. A launch date of “before Christmas” was given openly with the unfortunate, but expected, undertones of “if all goes to plan”. Albeit, the EP will come hand-in-hand with a national tour – that is said to make stops in cities the band missed during their last Australian trek.
In addition to the aforementioned and imminent plans, Our Last Enemy is in current development of a European tour for 2012, with the possibility of hitting Japan and a return to the US via the West Coast. “We’ll be jumping on a tour bill as support,” said Matt, with Oli only giving away that they are currently looking at a list of bands, with everything tied-down in timing.
