Perth Music

Dukes of Windsor found their first incarnation when Jack Weaving (vocals) and Cory Blight (drums/engineer) spent several months in Cory’s bedroom writing songs. They enlisted the talents of Scott Targett (keyboard), Oscar Dawson (guitar) and Joe Franklin (bass) in 2005 and the tectonic indie electro rock sounds of Dukes of Windsor were created. They released the Foxhunt EP in 2005 and debut album The Others in 2006 and gigging in their hometown of Melbourne, it wasn’t long until Dukes of Windsor created waves everywhere they went. They toured nationally, were awarded Triple J’s “Next Crop Artist 2006”, and in 2007 the remix of their debut single The Others was certified Gold in Australia, was a top 10 Aria single, spent a huge three months at #1 on the Aria Club Chart and received an Aria Award nomination. Their second album, Minus, is due out next month and first single from it, It’s A War is out now. Guitarist Oscar Dawson caught up with Justin Middleton for this exclusive interview.

Click here to download the podcast of the entire interview. (9:24 - 1.1Mb)

I asked Oscar to explain what the band went through in creating the new album. “We wrote for about a year and a half to get this album happening. We recorded it in January and February this year in the north of Sweden of all places. Writing for us can be quite a long process, we are our own biggest critics. We spend a lot of time in front of computers working on whatever it is, a bass line or a groove or a riff or whatever, just building the songs up slowly like that. There are a few us in the band who have home studios and we all do different things and offer different ideas which is cool because we all have different angles we come from musically. In some ways that means we headbutt each other but at the same time it makes things quite diverse which is really cool. Someone will work on something at home and then Jack might come over and do vocals on it and then we’ll say ‘Yeah cool” or ‘My god what have we done’.”

“When we recorded the album we were in a studio in Sweden, so we did have an element of pressure to get everything down which is actually a good thing. If you don’t have any pressure to finish anything off then you can never complete a project so I think it was definitely a good idea for us to be in a studio. There was Pelle (Henriccson) and Eskil (Lövström) who were a couple of producers we worked with and they were great and had a lot of great ideas and they made sure we got things down and kinda acted as a strict quality control mechanism. We just made sure we were prepared enough before we went in there and that’s what happens when you write for a year and half before going in to record.”

Usually when a band records an album overseas there is always an element of holiday as well but Oscar believes this wasn’t the case with the recording of Minus. “It was the Swedish winter so it was hardly an ideal holiday. We got over there and all of a sudden we were in minus 15, minus 20 conditions and only a few hours of sunlight a day. We definitely went over there to work with the producers rather than just hang out. Pelle and Eskil worked on The Shape of Punk To Come by Refused, amongst a whole bunch of other stuff, which is an album that we all really love and we’ve all listened to heaps over the past couple of years. Whilst it is a very different style of music, I mean Refused are a hardcore band and we are definitely not a hardcore band, Pelle and Eskil jumped at the chance to work with a band like us.”

Minus is out this June. First single, It’s A War, is out now and can be downloaded free by clicking the banner at the top or here. For more info on Dukes Of Windsor visit www.dukesofwindsor.com

Tour Dates
Wed June 4 – Beach Road Hotel, Sydney
Fri June 6, Annandale Hotel - Sydney, NSW
Sat June 7, Ding Dong Lounge - Melbourne, VIC
Sun June 8, The Pier Hotel (Peli Bar) - Frankston, VIC
Fri June 13, The Producers Bar - Adelaide, SA
Thur June 19, Newport Hotel (Culture Clash Thursday’s) – Fremantle, WA
Fri June 20, Players Bar – Mandurah, WA
Sat June 21, Capitol (Amplifier/Death Disco Saturday’s) – Perth, WA
Thur June 26, Coolangatta Sports Bar, Coolangatta – QLD
Fri June 27, The Wharf Tavern, Maroochydore – QLD
Sat June 28, The Chalk Hotel, Brisbane – QLD

Dukes Of Windsor - It’s A War

Saturday 10th May, 2008
The Capitol, Perth
Gyroscope
Sugar Army
The Reserves

Up until a few years back, Gabriella Cilmi was just your average school girl growing up in the outer suburbs of Melbourne, with little ambition of a career in music. Her distinct vocal style saw her get knocked back for roles in school musicals, while her piano teacher told her at age eight that she lacked the discipline to go anywhere in music. Gabriella didn’t care. She was already starting to discover her own alternative musical path. She was soon besotted by the music of some of Australia’s biggest rockers – Silverchair, Grinspoon and Jet and she also fell in love with Led Zeppelin and Kings Of Leon. Around this time, her mum organised for Gabriella to record some rudimentary demos with a friend which led to her being flown to the UK and being signed to Island Records. Gabriella’s debut album Lessons To Be Learned has just been released in Australia and she chatted to Justin Middleton for this exclusive interview.

Click here to download the podcast of the entire interview. (14:23 - 1.6Mb)

I asked Gabriella to describe the creation of her album and how it was recording in the UK. “It’s nice the way it has all come together now because I have been recording it for three years and it’s nice to see it all packaged and really there. Before I got signed I went on this trip to LA, New York and London and I got to play these acoustic sets for different record companies and we ended up signing with Island Records which is when it all started for me in the UK. I recorded most of the album in Kent which is about 45 minutes away from London, a very country area. It was this little town where I think I was the youngest in the village and it was all really tea and scones and that kind of thing. The house I recorded in was Alice Liddell’s house who was the Alice that the story Alice In Wonderland was based on. It was this really beautiful, massive, old house that I think was first built in the medieval days and they just kept building on top of it. There was one part of the house where the ceilings are really, really low and you can hardly walk.”

“Normal studios have this smell and they make you feel claustrophobic but because this was a homely feel I could relax. Like, there was a couch in the room where I would record so I think I could take it easy. I was living in a house opposite the Alice In Wonderland house which was like 800 years old. It was a good environment for me to collect my thoughts and stuff.”

I also asked what Gabriella uses as inspiration for her songs. “I used to have this book where I would write lots of lyrics and stuff like that and they were all used. We used to jam with guitars or write over samples, this old psychedelic music from the 60’s, maybe early 50’s. We went on this writing trip to France and went to these really obscure record stores and bought all these old records for inspiration. That’s kind of how Sweet About Me came about.”

The album was written and recorded with the hit production team Xenomania who have also worked with Sugarbabes, Girls Aloud, Sophie Ellis-Bextor and Kylie Minogue. I asked Gabriella how it was working with such a strong production team. “It was funny because when I used to play music at home I’d just jam music with my mates in the garage and we’d play Jet covers and Kings Of Leon covers, a bit of Led Zeppelin and Janis Joplin was my hero. So it was funny working with a team of really pop producers but I think I brought something to the table and they brought something to the table. I think we came up with something good in between and something better than I imagined. We might have disagreed sometimes but we ended up coming to a happy medium. ”

At only 16 Gabriella is quite young to be writing about love and loss and life experiences. “I don’t think you need to write about love and loss, you can write about the things that you do know about. I write a lot about things that aren’t experiences but observations and stuff like that. There’s one track, Einstein, on the record where one day I didn’t know what to write and I had a mental blank. Someone said to me why I always ask why this happens or why that happens so I kind of put that into a song. You find ways to get around it. Sometimes it just happens and other times you tell a story. Century is about a time I was really comfortable with one of my friends but we aren’t friends anymore.”

Gabriella’s debut single Sweet About Me reached number 1 on the Australian charts so I asked her how she felt when she first found out. “It was really cool. When I got off the plane when we were going home I heard it on the radio coming back from Melbourne airport and it was really weird. I don’t listen to the radio much because I ride public transport a lot and I’ve just got my IPod. I was just really excited when I found out. I have my old demos (on my IPod) but I haven’t uploaded my album yet but it’s like when your song comes on the radio do you listen to it or change the station. You can’t be caught bopping to your own tracks.”

Lessons To Be Learned is out now. For more info on Gabriella Cilmi visit www.gabriellacilmi.com

When your debut single is number one in seven different countries and your album goes on to sell more than 700,000 copies, you get to choose where you record the follow-up. And having made her first album on a minuscule budget in a freezing barn in Cheshire, you might think Sandi Thom would want to go a bit more upmarket this time. But Sandi tends to do things her own way, no matter how unconventional that may be. Which is why she recorded the whole of her second album, The Pink & The Lily in the basement of her flat in Tooting. Sandi Thom talked to Justin Middleton for this exclusive interview.

Click here to download the podcast of the entire interview. (14:12 - 1.6Mb)

I asked Sandi to explain the process of the creation of the album. “A lot of the album was written out on the road because that’s pretty much where I’ve been spending a lot of my time the past couple of years. It’s basically a reflection of the last few years and everything that has been going on, all the ups and downs, the highs and the lows and the tour-bus life and missing your loved ones. The recording of it all took place in my studio at home in the basement which was partially for convenience and I wanted to keep the roots element to it.”

“It was ace. I didn’t really want to think about it when I came home and had some tea I would just go down and start doing demo’s. And then we thought why would we go anywhere else. The quality of it doesn’t suffer because these days you’ve got such great microphones and great equipment you can buy and setup and you can get a really good quality recording anywhere these days. Myself and the two guys I live with, who are also my producers and co-writers and one being my boyfriend and the other a really good friend of mine, we live and breathe (music)” Sandi said.

Most debut albums contain songs that the artist has accumulated over a lifetime and follow up albums usually contain songs that are much put together in a much tighter timeframe. Sandi disagreed “I wouldn’t have anybody hear the stuff I was writing when I was 14-15 because it was just terrible so to be honest my first album was written up to three years before it’s completion. I didn’t really take a lot of songs that I had floating around my head my entire life. I think along the way I got better at it. So in the same way I think it was a similar timeframe, the second album was two and a half years in the making. I’m actually surprised it took that long but it did in the end and just gradually pieced together. We didn’t just sit down for 6-8 weeks and went hammer and tong and record it, it was recorded very gradually over time.”

Sandi’s first hit single I Wish I Was A Punk Rocker was a huge hit and spent 12 weeks on top of the Australian charts. I asked Sandi if she felt pressure following up such a popular song. “I think Punk Rocker represented a time and I’m sure for a lot of people when they hear it they think of the summer of 2006. For me it represented a certain time in my life and these new songs represent another time in my life and they are equally as important to me. I wouldn’t intentionally go out and try and rehash Punk Rocker or make another one because I don’t think I could and I think it would be really lame if I tried. This is a new chapter and new material and Punk Rocker will always be a song that a lot of people embraced and that will never change. If I get another one like that it will be amazing.”

The Pink And The Lily is out May 24. For more info on Sandi Thom visit www.sandithom.com

Entries to the Next Big Thing are closing and this is the very last chance to get in on the richest and biggest original music competition in WA.

To enter simply send:
2 original songs on tape or CD,
50 word bio,
Photo,
Completed entry form,
Entry fee $22 cheque/money order made out to NBT Music WA,
TO: Next Big Thing, PO Box 6614, East Perth, WA 6892 before Wed May 21, 2008

Win Prizes!
With a total prize pool of over $70,000, the state winner receives an entire musician’s starter kit including recording time with a producer, 500 copies of their own CD, video clip production, CD distribution, photography, advertising in street press, rehearsal room time, equipment insurance, guaranteed performances at the WAMi’s, In the Pines and the Big Day Out, and much more!

For your chance to win, grab an entry form from www.nextbigthing.net.au

All Next Big Thing gigs are Drug and Smoke Free.

Jeff Lang is pleased to present his new album, Half Seas Over, released nationally by ABC Music/Warner on the 10th of May. Jeff spoke to Melanie Tremblay for this exclusive interview. Half Seas Over is an album resonant with story and song. The name of his album reflects a maritime adage that means barely keeping it together,“ which kind of resumes my album” explains Jeff. Like his 13 other albums, the cover of his new one is very original, and Jeff is really proud of it.

From the name to the cover, the new sound on the album is also original, and is delivered by the great range of instruments he uses. From very old instruments he found touring around the world, to custom-made guitars made especially for him in Newcastle and Adelaide. Since his first album (Ravenswood) in 1994, Jeff has been accumulating stunning instruments, which he admits to having trouble getting rid of.

The singer-songwriter and guitarist talks to me with passion about his career and new album. He has performed in front of lively crowds, cool venues and music festivals all around the world except for Africa. He has played with big names like Bob Dylan and Richard Thomson, both of whom have always inspired him. Jeff has performed in so many places around the world that we discover while talking that he played in one particular venue close to where I am from in Québec, where apparently a crazy pub owner welcomed him. One thing is obvious; “Every place has it’s own vibe and crowds, and that’s what I love, but there is nothing like playing at home”. After touring Australia in May and June, Jeff will be performing in Ireland, England and Scotland in July, and at Reunion Island in August following with a few shows in France in September.

Promoting Half Seas Over, Jeff is looking forward to performing in places where he has never been before, like in the Sakifo Music festival at Reunion Island in August.

Unlike many artists, most of the reviews about Jeff Lang’s music highlight the fact that he follows his own path instead of being compared to other performers. Jeff really appreciates these comments, explaining that every artist should be different, and that it makes sense that he is not compared with other artists because he is a songwriter, musician and performer. He writes his own music and interprets it differently. The lyrics Jeff composes, the instruments he uses, and the melodies he creates are unique. He explains that “making music and performing is spiritual and it should be the same for every other artist”.

Jeff is touring nationally through May & June, and will stop at the Fly by Nightclub in Fremantle the 16th of May supported by Andrew Winton. The tickets are $20 on presale and $25 at the door.

Jeff Lang has a great website and forum. You can access to it to find out more about his music and find out where he will be performing next at www.jefflang.com.au.

Irish indie/rock band The Thrills will be returning to tour Oz this June with support from Aussie band Spakadia.

The Thrills are made up of lead vocalist Conor Deasy, guitarist Daniel Ryan, guitarist and bass player Padraic McMahon, pianist Kevin Horan and drummer Ben Carrigan. Their big break came with their debut album So Much for the City which became an Irish number one. The band members spent a summer on vacation in Santa Cruz where they wrote several of the tracks for the album such as One Horse Town. The band’s second album, Let’s Bottle Bohemia, enjoyed similar success to the band’s debut, largely on the back of the single Whatever Happened to Corey Haim?. The band often cites Neil Young and the Beach Boys as its main inspirations. Their third album Teenager is the follow-up to 2004’s Let’s Bottle Bohemia, and was recorded at The Warehouse in Vancouver, Canada with producer Tony Hoffer, who worked with the band on their debut So Much For The City.

AUSTRALIAN TOUR DATES 2008
Wed 4 June - The Zoo, Brisbane
Fri 6 June - The Hi Fi, Melbourne
Tue 10 June - Amplifer, Perth
Wed 11 June - Fly By Night, Fremantle
Fri 13 June - Settlers Tavern, Margaret River

The Galvatrons are here to put some fun back into rock, but there’s also a serious side at work with their hook-laden productions. It’s the start of the future – rock & roll as it was always meant to be. For now, enjoy The Galvatrons with their stunning debut EP, When We Were Kids which is out now. They are currently touring the country and lead singer/guitarist Johnny ‘Galvatron’ chatted to Justin Middleton for this exclusive interview.

Click here to download the podcast of the entire interview. (10:07 - 1.1Mb)

Johnny explained the process of choosing the songs for the When We Were Kids EP and getting signed by their record label after only a handful of gigs together; “It was pretty easy to choose the songs (for the EP) because we really didn’t have that many songs at the time. We got signed after our fourth gig so it was really early on and we had only been together for about three weeks. We had some songs we knew we wanted to save for the album and I think the songs for the EP were pretty good choices. We played quite large shows early on and I think our 20th gig was the Meredith Music Festival in front on 10-12,000 people and that was absolutely terrifying. We still weren’t that confident with our material but we played a really good show and got a lot of really good reviews for that gig which was cool.”

The EP was recorded in Melbourne by Lindsay Gravina (The Living End, Shihad) and mixed in Hollywood by the legendary Tim Palmer (David Bowie, Pearl Jam, U2, The Cure). I asked Johnny what it was like recording with them both. “The old Lindsay! Who sounds like he’s been up all night. I don’t think he’s done much electronic stuff, he’s a mega rock guy and I guess we needed the rock side of things beefed up to compete with the electronic side of things and have a good match. So that was good for us. The hero of the recording was Tim Palmer, he’s mixed Pearl Jam, U2, INXS, the guy’s a genius. We sent him a copy of the tracks and he got back to us the same day and said he really wants to work on it and he digs the tracks. He mixed it in Hollywood which makes it sound really exciting.”

Johnny also explained the quick creation of the band “I lived in Melbourne and started ghost writing for a lot of DJ’s and pop acts and playing a lot of session guitar but it wasn’t really my thing and I wanted to get back into rock n roll. I wanted to take all of the electronic stuff I had learnt, the analog, the synths, different beats and electronic drums and work it into a new rock band. So I started writing these tracks for this project I was starting called The Galvatrons and I rang up one of my mates Manny who I played in Battle Of The Bands with back in high school. I rang him because he was the only drummer I knew in Melbourne and he was signed to another record label at the time so I asked him to help me find another drummer. He asked me to play him the music and he’d point me in the right direction and after I played it to him he said he’d join the band. Later that night we went to this other gig to try and find a bass player called Condor who was meant to be quite stylish. It was just one night of breaking up people’s bands which was probably quite mean. And Gamma our keyboard player…..I have no idea where he came from, he was just hiding in rehearsal one day under a towel.”

I asked Johnny how the name The Galvatrons came about. “The most evil transformer. When I was looking for the direction of The Galvatrons, this electronic/rock thing really late one night after a really big night someone put on that 1986 Transformers film. The animated one which has the best soundtrack of all time of any film ever made in any generation. One of the main characters in it, which isn’t in the TV show is Galvatron so I thought it was a fitting name.”

When We Were Kids EP is out now. For more info on The Galvatrons visit www.myspace.com/thegalvatrons

Tour Dates
Fri May 9 Empire Hotel, Brisbane
Sat May 10 The Elsewhere Bar, Surfers Paradise, Gold Coast
Thur May 15 The Karova Lounge, Ballarat
Fri May 16 Rocket Bar, Adelaide
Sat May 17 Enigma Bar, Adelaide
Thur May 22 Prince Of Wales, Bunbury
Fri May 23 The Railway Hotel, Fremantle
Sat May 24 Shape, Perth
Thur May 29 Repubic Bar, Hobart
Fri May 30 Sirocco’s, Bernie
Sat May 31 Batman Faulkner, Launceston
Fri June 6 The Espy, Gershwin Room
Sat June 7 Come Together Festival, Luna Park, Sydney

Scottish trio Biffy Clyro is definitely substance over style. The band cites a range of influences, like Pixies, Fugazi, Weezer, Rush, Metallica, but always operate on their own terms. They utilize extreme dynamics - constructing songs that can range from a whisper-quiet pick on the guitar, to huge walls of noise with massive distortion and crashing drums. While Simon Neil sings lead, all three members provide vocals, ranging from screaming to multi-part harmonies. Only when seen live is it possible to discern who is singing, as the three vocals intertwine so effectively. Their style of songwriting often depends on constant changes in volume, timing and even genre, displaying an eclectic range of influences even within one song. The bands fourth album, Puzzle, was released last year and reached number 2 on the UK Charts. They are currently on tour down under and lead singer Simon Neil chatted to Justin Middleton for this exclusive interview.

Click here to download the podcast of the entire interview. (13:50 - 1.6Mb)

I asked Simon if he believes the band has evolved and matured with their fourth album, Puzzle. “Yeah we are very happy with the new album, we put a lot of effort into it, obviously we put a lot into all our albums but we had more time to put into this one. I think we made an album we could be proud of and it’s been nice that other people dig it as well. I think every band hopes to evolve and move forward and I think it’s important to be constantly trying new things. We felt our last record, Infinity Land, was a complex pop album and we wanted to do something different for this one. So the songs we were coming up with were epic rock songs and it felt good so we were fortunate that we could spend a long time on the record. We could work on a song and then come back to it a week or two later and work out what we liked and what we didn’t.”

Describing the creation process of the album Simon says “We spent probably a year writing it and had about 40 songs for it, which was good as it was more songs that we had to choose from than before. We then went to Canada for two months with Garth Richardson (Rage Against The Machine, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Rise Against, Atreyu). Initially we weren’t used to working that slowly, we are very much a live band but we had to take a different mentality going into this record. We had to slow ourselves down and not expect to have the record in two weeks. We certainly always forget that making the record is different than playing it live.”

“We had a shortlist of a few people that had made records that we really loved the sound of and Garth had made two of our favourite records, one was the first Rage Against The Machine album and the other one was by an Irish band called Kerbdog. We wanted the songs to sound pretty but we had to sound like a band playing them. I think a lot of producers can maybe lose that energy especially when you spend so long on a record. We needed to convince him that we knew what we were doing because it was probably one of the most bizarre records that he’s worked on. He’s used to working with big metal bands so it was important to us that he understood that we can come from a little left of field. We wanted big pop songs but still have a skewed way of how we want to be presented.”

After recording in Canada the band travelled to New York to mix the album with legendary music engineer Andy Wallace. “It was a crazy moment when we found out that (Wallace) was up for mixing it and we couldn’t believe it. He’s done Nirvana’s Nevermind, Jeff Buckley, At The Drive In, Shudder To Think, Beastie Boys, Ben Folds Five, pretty much every awesome record in our collection. For him to be working on our record was a real dream moment and we really relished being in the studio with Andy. He’s an absolute gentleman and it took us a few days to get over the kind of fanboy routine. He was actually working on the Guns And Roses record and Axl Rose wasn’t turning up so he decided to do our record. It was funny knowing that he went from working with Axl Rose to working with three Scottish idiots.”

Puzzle is out now through Warner Music. For more info on Biffy Clyro visit www.biffyclyro.com