Perth Music

Trial Kennedy’s debut album New Manic Art is set for release on 31st of May and it is set to be an album where every song leaps out and drags you in, where the song-writing is fresh, honest, and original and where it never sounds like some dumbed-down predictable play for high rotation. They have toured the country endlessly to fine tune their live act and have previously released two EP’s, but it is with New Manic Art that Trial Kennedy are set to take the country by storm. Bassist, Aaron Malcolmson caught up with Justin Middleton for this exclusive interview.

Click here to download the podcast of the entire interview. (13:36 - 3.2Mb)

I asked Aaron to explain the process the band went through in the creation of the album. “We set ourselves up in a small studio, locked ourselves away and wrote as many songs as we could in the time period we had between touring. Tim (Morrison, vocalist) took away the melodies that he had put to all the songs and wrote the lyrics which helps him get in touch and feel the songs a little bit more. Then we did a couple demos and shopped it around to a few producers. We got told to put down any names that we wanted, even long shots, so we put down Nick Didia as a long shot. And he ended up being one of the people that turned around and said yes.”

“We then traveled over to Atlanta, Georgia, recorded in Southern Track Studios and were there for 6 weeks and came out with the album. It was amazing. Probably one of the biggest things was being away from all the distractions, whether it be family, friends or even just wanting to be in your own bedroom for a while. We were all out of that comfort zone and it was all just business. Everything came together really nicely. It always feels like you need more time but I think if you have all the time in the world you end up doing a Guns N Roses album.”

Producer Nick Didia has produced and engineered albums for Powderfinger, Incubus, Audioslave and Stone Temple Pilots just to name a few and Trial Kennedy made the most of having such an experienced guy to work with. “He did a couple of my favourite albums in Rage Against The Machine and Pearl Jam and stuff like that. He’s got a lot of experience under his belt and he’s a very professional guy. He was very quick to make you feel right at home and we all got along with him really well. He’s just an awesome dude and funny as, he had us in stitches the whole time we were there.”

I asked Aaron if they approached the recording of the album differently then they have have for their previous 2 EP’s; Present For A Day (2004) and Picture Frame (2006). “For the EP’s you are limited on space so you don’t want one rockin’ track and three experimental things on there, you want four rockin’ tracks on a four track EP. So when you are given eleven or twelve spaces for a record you have to write to cater that whole type of mood. We were definitely given a lot more space and room to play with which was a luxury and really good to have. We went in there with a different attitude and we really wanted to explore the depth of different sounds on every song and Nick was just the perfect person to put everything together for us.”

“We are very, very, very, very, very, very, very picky people and we had already gone through the songs with a fine tooth brush. We had got it down to 14 and we were asked to take over everything that we had so we brought over all 14 and we recorded them all. I think they will all be released and see the light of day which is really good. (11 on the album) and the 12th is the b-side on Neighbours, the 13th will be the b-side on the upcoming single, Colour Day Tours and the 14th song, which is one of my favourites but didn’t make the album because it is a slow and moody song and we thought it might take away from the flow, we will give away to every person that signs up to trialkennedy.com”

As an added bonus for fans, when you purchase New Manic Art on iTunes from May 31 for the special price $14.99, a special Podmix is also yours in full, free! Basically it’s a remix of the same wonderful album for your ipods; a remix for the 21st century. It creates a different spacial experience for “earbud” headphones and the mix involves unusual “Left/Right panning”, where high frequencies are also emphasised. It’s a whole new wall of sound!

New Manic Art is released on May 31st. For more info on Trial Kennedy visit www.trialkennedy.com

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 27th, 2008 at 8:55 pm and is filed under Album Releases, Interviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.