Perth Music

It is almost impossible to overstate the importance and impact that Wiley has had on UK urban music. From UKG’s ‘Nicole’s Groove’ to being a member of Pay As You Go, Boy Better Know and, of course, Roll Deep, this enigmatic MC and prolific producer has more than earned the title of Godfather of Grime but is now perfectly placed to take the scene to new boundaries with what will no doubt be his biggest album to date. See Clear Now is the hotly anticipated new album by Wiley out January 17th. The album features a heavy-mixture of grime, house and electro-pop melodies as well as special guests including Hot Chip, Kano, Daniel Merriweather, new kid on the grime block Scorcher, Pharrell protégé Kenna, Sam Young and Mark Ronson to name a few.  Wiley caught up with Justin Middleton for this exclusive interview.

See Clear Now is Wiley’s third full length album and was released in the UK late 2008. There have been some reports of Wiley not being that happy with the album so I asked him to explain the process of creating this album and if he is happy with the final product. “What happened was that I was more like a robot on this album, I just listened to what I was told. Sometimes you have to do that to be able to see the big picture so that’s what I did. There was some stuff that I didn’t like but I did it anyway and I didn’t argue and at the end I kind of felt that there was a bad energy about the whole album. But then I listened and listened to it and realised that the album wasn’t made for my normal crowd but for a wider audience. That’s when I saw the bigger picture.”

Wiley has been given the unofficial title of the Godfather of Grime and is highly respected in the music industry with artists such as Dizzee Rascal and Kano publicly stating that he is their idol. “I said to my father that I didn’t want to be known as the Godfather of Grime because I’ve always felt that Godfather means an old man and he said to me that in music there’s Godfathers like James Brown is the Godfather of Soul, there’s Kings like Michael Jackson is the King of Pop and that being labelled like the Godfather of Grime is a very important thing and I shouldn’t just brush it aside. He said to be called a Godfather of a genre is a very powerful thing and that other people in other genres will respect me and even if they don’t like my music they will respect me. So I am trying to embrace it from that advice.”

I also asked Wiley to explain the formation of Grime music and what he thought of the genre in Australia. “I was partying in the Garage, 2-step scene and there were a lot of people that were older than me that I looked up to and a lot of people that were younger than me looking up to me. I think the Grime scene evolved from the Garage scene and kind of formed from all the people that wanted to get into Garage but weren’t able to get fully into the scene. I haven’t stopped making music for at least 5 years so when I got here to Australia I was so happy. It seems like somewhere I can take a break as well as make music at the same time. The Grime scene in Australia is small so I would love to build it up and be completely involved. I used to think you had to live in London to do what I do but I’ve come to realise that I can live anywhere in the world especially now with the Internet the way it is.”

See Clear Now is out now. For more information on Wiley visit www.myspace.com/eskiboywiley

Godfather Of Grime 2009 Australian Tour Dates:
Fri 16th January - Rosemount Hotel, Perth
Sat 17th January - Metro Theatre, Sydney
Wed 21st January - Meche Nightclub, Canberra
Thur 22nd January - Prince Of Wales, Melbourne
Fri 23rd January - Adelaide Uni Bar, Adelaide
Sat 24th January - Coolangatta Hotel, Gold Coast
Sun 25th January - Zoo Nightclub, Brisbane

Lykke Li can’t stay still. Her life and her career are relentlessly pulled forward by an impatient desire to see what’s just around the corner, her music full of ideas about moving on and breaking free. Just 18 months ago she was complaining to her mentor, Bjorn ‘of Peter and John fame’ Yttling, that everything had gone wrong because she was 20 and still hadn’t released an album. Now 22, she’s finding that things are on track. With the release of Youth Novels in Sweden through her own label LL Recordings in January 2008, she’s been surprised and maybe a little embarrassed to find that the world is falling at her feet. She’s just the kind of person people can’t help falling in love with. The album Youth Novels, in all its minimalist brilliance, has just been released in Australia and Li has just completed touring Oz playing the Falls Festival and Southbound.  Lykke Li spoke to Justin Middleton for this exclusive interview.

Click here to download the podcast of the entire interview. (6:31 - 0.7Mb)

I asked Lykke Li to give us a rundown of how the album came together and formed. “I wrote songs and then meeting Bjorn (Yttling) at one of my shows allowed me to have somebody to bounce ideas to. Meeting him was definitely the most important part of the album. I kind of wrote songs on piano and then took them into the studio and wrote re-wrote them. Then we recorded it bit by bit for two months.”

“We didn’t have a lot of time for recording in the first year so it only about once a month so all together it was about two months recorded but over a longer period. It was very frustrating and seemed like life was passing by.”

Playing two festivals in Australia, I asked Lykke Li if she enjoys music festivals and if she had played many in Europe. “I did festivals all of last summer in Europe. I like festivals as long as they are good festivals but I do my best for every show that I put on. I really enjoy playing live.”

I also asked Lykke Li if she thought there were any artists or bands that influence her and her music. “I don’t think any artists actually influence me. I don’t know that many contemporary artists and when I made the album I was listening to a lot of old music. And I still listen to old music. I listened to a lot of music growing up but I’d need to be a psychologist to know if any of that influenced my music now. I mean that could be as influential as running into a tree or fainting.”

“I’ve been on tour constantly for the past year so I haven’t really had any spare time to even think about new songs or even my next album.”

Youth Novels is out now. For more info visit www.lykkeli.com

Lykke Li can also be heard collaborating with Kanye West and Santogold on an upcoming album by NASA (North America South America) which is a collective of like minded artists who got together to make great music with heavy Brazilian / favela funk influences. She has also released a remix/cover of King’s Of Leon’s Knocked Up.

Knocked Up (Lykke Li Remix)

N.A.S.A ft.Kanye West, Santogold & Lykke Li - Gifted

In 2008 TZU have smashed the pre-conceptions of what hip-hop can sound like with their third album Computer Love. Within the 14 songs on Computer Love TZU tackle serious subject matter such as domestic violence, work place psychosis, first time love and the relationship between linguistics and reality as well as serving up a solid dose of their trademark good time party raps referencing such things as man boobs, Ned Kelly and space travel. They enlisted the help of Tony Espie (The Avalanches, Cut Copy) to mix the album to get the tunes right in the bass bottom end for dance floors and collaborated with a number of female singers, most notably the great Renee Geyer, who adds a touch of class and soul to the new record. They have also been announced as part of the 2009 Big Day Out tour. Pip Norman (Countbounce) spoke to Justin Middleton for this exclusive interview.

TZU are well respected for their high energy shows that fuse live instruments with the classic turntables and sampler set up. The have played most of Australia’s biggest music festivals including Splendor in the Grass, Falls Festival, Big Day Out, Pyramid Rock, Woodford, Apollo Bay and they have shared stages with De La Soul, Mos Def, The Pharcyde, Michael Franti’s Spearhead, Blackalicious and a who’s who of local Australian music greats from many genres. “We love playing festivals as it just gives us more exposure to people that might not necessarily be fans of ours and it gives us a chance to win them over” Pip explained.

The group have been around since 1999 and released three albums and received great support from radio stations including Triple J. “For the new album we tried to focus a little more on the rock side of things as we are all just enjoying that side of the music a bit more these days. Not to say that we aren’t doing hip hop anymore but this album is definitely more rock than our previous two” says Pip.

I asked Pip how excited the band were for the upcoming Big Day Out tour and also if there were any bands that they are looking forward in seeing on the tour. “We can’t wait for the Big Day Out tour. I expect it to be one big party and I hope we can just have a great time and play some great music. The Prodigy are going to be fantastic and I can’t wait to see Pendulum and TV On The Radio five different times. I know we pride ourselves in our live shows and every band that is part of the Big Day Out tour will be at their best so it is going to be a great tour.”

Computer Love is out now. For more info visit www.tzu.com.au

Big Day Out Tour Dates:
Fri 16th January - MT Smart Stadium, Auckland
Sun 18th January - Parklands, Gold Coast
Fri 23rd January - Sydney Showgrounds, Sydney
Mon 26th January - Flemington Racecourse, Melbourne
Fri 30th January - Adelaide Showgrounds, Adelaide
Sun 1st February - Claremont Showgrounds, Perth

2008 has been a wild ride for The Getaway Plan. Since the release of their debut album Other Voices, Other Rooms and it’s breakthrough hit single Where The City Meets The Sea, these four young Melbourne boys have sold out two national tours, become one of the most played Australian acts on radio and TV, and made themselves a household name with their unique brand of alternative rock. They have also been announced as part of the 2009 Big Day Out national tour. Guitarist, Clint Splattering spoke to Justin Middleton for this exclusive interview.

I asked Clint to explain the creation of their debut album and how the experience was recording in Florida. “We wrote the album here in Australia in a little rehearsal room where we locked ourselves away for about three months and then once we had written enough material we started looking around for producers. We couldn’t really find anyone in Australia that we felt was on the same page as us, there are a lot of great producers in Australia but none that we felt were on the same level that we wanted them to be on. So we decided to have a look over in the U.S and we sent out a bunch of emails and we got a really quick reply from James Paul Wisner (Dashboard Confessional, The Academy Is…, Underoath) and he ended up producing the album.”

“So then we booked the flights and flew over to Florida and spent around two and a half months recording. It was good being over there and that being the only thing in our lives for that period of time. We were there strictly to record the album and there was no way we were going to get side tracked or go out with friends or get distracted with family problems or whatever. It was kind of a double edged sword because we got very home sick and missed our girlfriends and parents and it did get really, really hard. After we did the album we had planned on staying there for two weeks just to hang out and maybe go to Disneyworld but we ended up just coming home as soon as we could.”

I also asked Clint how excited the band was playing the Big Day Out tour and his thoughts on all the music festivals there are in summer. “We are all really excited about that. There’s so many bands on during the day that we will be treating the shows a little different to demand more attention. We will be trying to play more of our energetic songs to get the crowd pumped and hopefully remember us. It is amazing exposure and playing with all these other awesome bands to just great for our profile and I know that here in Melbourne the crowds are around 35,000 so it is a really big opportunity. We’ve done other smaller music festivals like Pushover and Come Together Festival and we are doing Homebake but nothing the size of the Big Day Out.”

“There are so many festivals these days it’s amazing. I mean Soundwave has pretty much every single band you’ve ever heard of, all coming out at once. I wonder when are these bands going to do their own tours, everyone is jumping on the festival bandwagon. For the Big Day Out I am really, really excited to see The Prodigy and I just heard that Dave Grohl (Foo Fighters) is going to be drumming for them. I also heard a rumour that Fantômas are playing, with Mike Patton and Dave Lombardo and that is going to be crazy. I think they will be pretty trippy days and nights. Our guitar tech has done Big Day Out tours before and he’s told us that there is an after party and then an after-after party so from what I gather it’s just a massive party tour.”

Other Voices, Other Rooms is out now. For more info visit www.thegetawayplan.com

Big Day Out Tour Dates:
Fri 16th January - MT Smart Stadium, Auckland
Sun 18th January - Parklands, Gold Coast
Fri 23rd January - Sydney Showgrounds, Sydney
Mon 26th January - Flemington Racecourse, Melbourne
Fri 30th January - Adelaide Showgrounds, Adelaide
Sun 1st February - Claremont Showgrounds, Perth

For their new record The Night Is Ours, Youth Group undertook a unique recording process. Over a couple of months late last year, the band holed up in a near derelict 1920s mess hall on Sydney’s harbour to create their fourth album. They decided against traditional studio procedures and turned a vacated building into a studio, bringing in all of their own gear to create an inimitable recording environment which allowed them to work at their own pace. The old dining room morphed into their ‘band room’ and the old bathroom became the ‘control room’. This unusual approach helped to shape the 10 songs that make up the personality of The Night Is Ours. The band have also been announced as part of the 2009 Big Day Out tour.  Drummer/Keyboadist, Danny Allen spoke to Justin Middleton for this exclusive interview.

Click here to download the podcast of the entire interview. (15:27 - 1.7Mb)

I asked Danny to explain the process the band went through in the creation of their latest album. “We were able to setup a temporary studio as we were looking for a place to do the album over a period of time rather than cram it into a normal recording schedule where money dictates things moving along. So for that reason we decided not to work with (producer) Wayne Connolly again, just to save some money and to try and do it with some friends, our live mixer Anthony The and his friend Tim Kevin. In that way we were able to work on the album over a period of three months, day and night, rather than cram it into a couple of weeks. We were looking at churches and disused community halls and we found a mess hall from a coal mining site in Waverton, North Sydney near the harbour. It had a very relaxing atmosphere and I think that definitely shows on the album.”

“We didn’t have a lot of the songs studio ready at the time like we would have in the past because we wanted them to evolve in there and be able to work on them while we were going. You don’t get to do that sort of thing very often and I don’t even know if we will be able to do it again. It was pretty incredible to be that close to the city and still feel isolated.”

Youth Group had just finished doing a tour with theredsunband and I asked Danny how much fun that was. “It was great. They are all friends which helped a lot. Toby (Martin) and Sarah (Kelly) from theredsunband were on Rockwiz together and did a duet of Sometimes Always, the Jesus & Mary Chain song. So we had the idea of closing all the shows with it and it ended up being both bands up there playing a few of each others songs. It was brilliant and went better than we could have imagined. Our manager was saying ‘just amalgamate’. I’ve always wanted to play with two drums on stage and I think it really worked.”

With the band being announced on the Big Day Out tour I asked Danny how the band treats these types of festivals. “We have a tendency to play a lot of our quieter songs in the smaller setting but you can’t really get away with that at festivals. We actually thought that for these Big Day Out shows we’d just write a setlist where we play every single that we’ve released.”

I also asked which bands Danny was exciting in seeing on the tour. “Neil Young, of course and My Morning Jacket, I have never seen them live and I can’t wait. And TV On The Radio, I’ve only seen them once and that was the best things I’ve ever seen. The last Big Day Out tour we did was amazing, the lineup was amazing and backstage was great. Of course there are some bands that are friendlier than others but we made friends with Kings Of Leon and we ended up doing a tour with them. I’m sure that happens for a lot of bands.”

The Night Is Ours is out now. For more info visit www.youthgroup.com.au

Big Day Out Tour Dates:
Fri 16th January - MT Smart Stadium, Auckland
Sun 18th January - Parklands, Gold Coast
Fri 23rd January - Sydney Showgrounds, Sydney
Mon 26th January - Flemington Racecourse, Melbourne
Fri 30th January - Adelaide Showgrounds, Adelaide
Sun 1st February - Claremont Showgrounds, Perth

It might be said that natural karma played a role in transporting the image of Katie Noonan as one of the two brother-and-sister lead singers of the ARIA-award winning group, george. After scoring huge success with their 2002 debut album Polyserena, and its wonderful 2004 follow up, Unity, george took a break from their burgeoning career to pursue an assortment of personal musical projects. Katie release a jazz album with her new band, Elixir, a classical album with her mother and a solo album that reached number 6 on the ARIA chart. After signing to Sony BMG, Katie decided to record a Beatles inspired album with some of the world’s best Jazz musicians in New York with the result being Blackbird - The Music of Lennon & McCartney which was released on November 1st. Katie talked to Justin Middleton for this exclusive interview.

I asked Katie to give us an explanation of how the album formed and how she feels about it now that it has been released. “I am really proud of it. I felt like it was a wonderful chance to celebrate the great song writing diversity and beauty of Lennon and McCartney and to give it a different perspective, combining it with the freedom of jazz improvisation. The idea popped into my head about a year ago, I was living in Sydney and I was asked to put together a proposal for a fellowship. I just thought ‘what can I do to combine my two main loves of pop and jazz’ and the perfect pop is The Beatles. They are concise and very precise and perfectly structured music with fantastic melody, lyrics and chordal movement. So that kind of structure of pop I believed would mix well with my in-the-moment spontaneity love of jazz.”

“So then I thought Joe Lovano (Grammy award winning saxophonist) would be perfect to work with and he suggested this absolute dream band to work with and I honestly thought it would never happen. Even to work with Joe Lovano was a dream come true but to end up having Sam Keevers, Joe Ferla (Grammy award winning engineer), Ron Carter (Grammy award winning double-bass player w’ Miles Davis, Eric Dolphy, Cannonball Adderley, Dexter Gordon, Wayne Shorter), Lewis Nash (played w’ Diana Krall, Betty Carter, Branford Marsalis), John Scofield (played w’ Miles Davis, Charles Mingus, Joe Henderson, Herbie Hancock) was unbelievable. I didn’t realise how stressed I was until I finished the rehearsal and felt this enormous and very heavy weight lifted from my shoulders because a) they were nice people and we got on well and b) the group was right.”

With such a world class band and a very expensive studio, I asked Katie how smooth the actual recording sessions were. “We made the record in two days, pretty much a day and a half. The first day with John Scofield we did 8 tracks from 12 to 8pm and that was with a lunch break! It was relaxed. It was intense but relaxed at the same time. Everything was a first take except for 3 songs and I have never had that before. We were originally going to do 14 songs for the record and then we got through them so quickly that we were also able to add Michelle. At first I thought Michelle and If I Fell were too similar and then I had this great experience walking through Central Park. I was asking Sam Keevers if he thought we should do Michelle or If I Fell and just as we turned the corner there were 20 guys all singing at the top of their voices ‘If I fell in love with you’ and standing around this Imagine monolith thing in Strawberry Fields. I didn’t even realise we were there and we just accidentally walked right through it. So we cut Michelle and then when we got through everything so quickly we thought let’s just do it. And it ended up sounding great.”

“Early on I did limit all the songs to Lennon and McCartney and that was just a self imposed rule because there are so many good Beatles songs I had to cut the list somehow. I love George Harrison but his style is really quite different so to stick to continuity I’d stick with Lennon and McCartney. And it is pretty McCartney heavy too but I just picked the tunes that felt right and lyrically and melodically inspired me. The noticeable omission is Sgt Peppers, there’s nothing from that record and I started from Hard Days Night which was their first all original record” Katie explained when I asked how she chose the final songs that ended up on the album.

With a bunch of album launch shows set for December I asked Katie if she was excited about playing these songs live and also why there wasn’t a Perth show planned. “The studio at the Opera House is one of my favourite rooms and hopefully we are going to do a live filming too so we can do a DVD thing. My Australian band is fantastic, I really love them and am very proud of them. There aren’t any album launch shows planned in Perth at the moment but I am really trying to change that. It’s been difficult with venues and the time of year but we are going to try and play in Perth. Otherwise I will be back in March, early April to do a series of shows with WAAPA doing this material. I will be doing some teaching there for about a week and doing some shows with the students. I don’t do a lot of stuff like this but it’s really fun to do.”

Album Launch Dates:
Tue 9th & Wed 10th December - The Studio, Sydney Opera House NSW
Thur 11th December - Prince Of Wales Hotel, St Kilda VIC
Fri 12th December - Adelaide Festival Theatre, SA
Fri 19th & Sat 20th December - Cremorne Theatre, QPAC QLD
Sun 21st December - Bangalow A and I Hall, NSW

Blackbird - The Music of Lennon & McCartney is out now. For more info visit www.katienoonan.com

Cog released their sophomore album, Sharing Space earlier this year to great reviews and have been exciting crowds nation ever since. The Sydney prog-rockers have been Triple J favourites ever since their debut album, The New Normal came out in 2005 and have played music festivals all over the country including The Pyramid Music Festival, Homebake, Big Day Out and Rock-It. When Sharing Space was released in April this year it debuted at number 2 on the ARIA chart and since then it has gone gold in Australia and been nominated for the J Award this year. The band have been on a headlining national tour since August and play 9 WA shows starting this Friday at Metro City. Bass player Luke Gower talked to Justin Middleton for this exclusive interview.

Sharing Space was recorded over a period of ten months in Australia and the US. It was produced by Sylvia Massy who also produced Cog’s first album and has also worked with Spiderbait, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Tool. “We are extremely happy with the reception the album has had so far and are very proud with how it has turned out. I’d have to say this record was the best thing that has happened for the band and the way we created it was extremely productive” Luke explained.

In March 2008 Cog played Triple J’s One Night Stand in Collie, WA along with Pnau and Faker. “The One Night Stand was really a special gig that all of us loved to be part of. It wasn’t just a normal gig to us and I don’t think it was just a normal gig to the people that were there. It really did bring the whole community together and it seemed that it was an event that was good for the town. While playing I remember looking out on the crowd and it seemed like the entire town was there watching us and really enjoying themselves. We really enjoy coming to WA and especially the beaches there. Believe it or not the main two things we bring on tour to WA are our musical instruments and our surf boards” Luke said.

The band got to perform in England for the first time in July this year when they played at Shepherds Bush Empire and Guilfest along with Shihad. They are hoping to get a European label and these shows were aimed to showcase their talent to an international audience. “The tour was extremely productive and the two shows that we did were great. Playing to a new audience is always great and playing in a new country is even better. Now that we have two albums under our belts it made it even easier to play a great variety of songs and all the touring that we have been doing has made the live shows even better” explained Luke.

Tour Dates:
Fri 24th October - Metro City, Perth WA
Sat 25th October - Big Top Show, Bunbury WA
Tue 28th October - Karratha Tavern, Karratha WA
Wed 29th October - Pier Hotel, Port Headland WA
Fri 31st October - Wintersun Hotel, Geraldton WA
Sat 1st November - Big Top Show, Rockingham WA
Thur 6th November - NSomniax, Albany WA
Fri 7th November - Esperance Civic Centre, Esperance WA
Sat 8th November - Big Top Show, Kalgoorlie WA

Sharing Space is out now. For more info visit www.cog.com.au

Cog - Birds Of Feather

Jessica Mauboy has just released her debut single Running Back featuring world renowned rapper, Flo Rida. Co-written by Jessica, this urban anthem was recorded in Sydney and then Flo Rida added his verse in Los Angeles. For 19 year old Jessica, it was a dream come true. Running Back is taken from Jessica’s forthcoming album Been Waiting which she has co- written and recorded over the last 12 months. Featuring a mix of rhythmic pop, urban and pop tracks the album is a testament to one of the brightest new talents on the Australian music scene. After finishing a guest spot in Perth for this year’s Telethon, Jessica caught up with Justin Middleton for this exclusive interview.

I asked Jessica what it was like being in Perth as a guest for Telethon. “It was really good. It was my second time back to Perth doing Telethon so it was really nice to see everybody and all the newcomers doing their new acts and everything. It was really lovely raising that amount of money. There were a couple surprises, one of the guys from American Idol, ummm….Mike….Mark….I can’t remember his name but he had such a great voice (Michael Johns). We were chilling in the green room along with the Home & Away crew, it’s really cool.”

I also asked Jessica how she feels about the huge response she has had for the new single already and also how the song ended up Flo Rida on it. “It’s been amazing. The feedback has been great and everyone has been really positive and of course the record label are really excited. We didn’t know this was going to be the first single, we wanted to come out with something really nice and really sing about something. I wrote the song and I was in the studio and finished the production of it and doing a bit of a touch up and re-vocalling and there was a part that needed a little bit more. So we thought maybe we could do a rap and obviously I knew I wasn’t going to do the rap because I CAN NOT rap. The producers knew a couple of rappers, friends of friends, and they came in and did there thing but it didn’t quite fit. The producers were like “Yeah they were good but nah, we’ll keep looking around”. So I was talking to my A & R guy and being Sony BMG they have heaps of connections. He went off and said “I’ll do something about it” and when he came back he said “I’ve got the best thing for you” and then just said “Low low low”. I knew straight away it was Flo Rida as I’m a huge fan of his and so I had a listen to what he did. Apparently he did all of his bit in one take and that was it. I couldn’t believe it because it wasn’t thought out, it was something unexpected and just happened. I’m just so grateful to the record label and their connections.”

While Jessica made a name for herself as part of Australian Idol as well as part of The Young Divas, her debut album is really her growing into herself musically. I asked her if this is how she sees it. “I mean being in The Young Divas and Australian Idol was totally different to what I’m doing now and this album has helped me grow and made me confident and I just wanted to make the most it and do it the way I wanted to do it. The album is complete and we have just finished the artwork and everything so hopefully it will be out before Christmas and we are also just planning a tour for later in the year.”

I also asked Jessica what else she has been up to since departing from The Young Divas. “I was over in Indonesia as an ambassador for multiculturalism and that was just so much fun. Growing up in Australia and being able to share that with the people in Indonesia was great. We are so close and we just wanted to build that friendship and help each other out. Not having travelled that much it really did open my eyes and it has made me want to do a little bit more. Music really brings people together so it is something I love to do to. The last time I was there was as an invited guest on Indonesian Idol which was great, singing in a different language as I am part Indonesian. I also got to go to some of the schools that the Australian government are in the process of building.”

Running Back is out now. For more info visit www.jessicamauboy.com.au

When Moo, You Bloody Choir, was released in 2006, it sparked 18 months of furious activity for Augie March. Accolades poured in at home, with the album winning them the Australian Music Prize in 2007, four ARIA Award nominations, while the single One Crowded Hour topped the Triple J Hottest 100 in 2007 and was named song of the year at the APRA Awards later in the year. Moo was also the album that finally brought Augie March critical acclaim and a swelling fan base in the United States. The world singer Glenn Richards has created for Augie March’s fourth album, Watch Me Disappear, is certainly not everyday and for the first time, Richards’ imagination has taken precedence over introspection. Keyboardist Kiernan Box spoke to Justin Middleton for this exclusive interview.

Click here to download the podcast of the entire interview. (18:14 - 2.1Mb)

After touring with Crowded House last year Augie March found themselves actually recording their new album in Neil Finn’s new studio in New Zealand. I asked Kiernan what was involved in the recording and if it was a different process to their previous albums. “We recorded a lot of it in New Zealand, in Auckland at a studio owned by Neil Finn which he’s building up for a while. I think we were the first act to actually record in the new, finished main studio. We planned to do all of it there, in the past albums end up being a piece meal, a little bit here and a little bit there. Different sounds at different studios with different recording engineers. So one idea this time around was to record it all in the same place and get a big, solid consistant sound. We got a lot of it done but not all of it, we ran over time and had to finish quite a bit of it in Australia and a little bit of it was recorded in Los Angeles. So in the end there is a little bit of that global production but we didn’t intend on it this time.”

“It was different. We worked with an American producer (Joe Chicarelli) and we hadn’t worked with a producer who brought such a strong vision of his own into the studio before. In the past I think there has been a person there who has tried to keep us in a straight line, kind of let us do want we do and then trimming off the edges. But this time we had a guy who had a pretty clear idea from the start what he thought the record could sound like, and to get that we had to work pretty hard. We did many more takes of songs than we did in the past and we spent a lot more time on individual instruments.”

I also asked Kiernan how well the new songs are translating to the live shows compared to before they were recorded. “Really good. Because we rehearsed them and played them so much, in one sense they don’t need any more rehearsal but I also think it’s very important that we shake them up a bit. The record is pretty intense and methodical and ambitious in a structural and sonic kind of way. That’s all there when you play it live but you also want to create an energy to make it work with a live audience. Let it off it’s leash a little bit. We’ve got a very talented musician joining us on tour named Dan Kelly and his backing vocals alone are worth the price of admission. He’ll be playing a lot of guitar and a little bit of keyboards. We’ve also been working with a horn section but I don’t think we’ll be able to get them over to Perth.”

Watch Me Disappear is out now. For more info visit www.augiemarch.com

Tour Dates:
With Special Guests Dan Kelly with The Ukeladies
Thur 30th October - Metro Theatre, Sydney
Mon 3rd November - Regal Theatre, Perth
Sat 8th November - The Uni Bar, Hobart
Thur 13th November - Governor Hindmarsh, Adelaide
Sat 15th November - Ormond Hall, Melbourne
Fri 28th November - The Tivoli, Brisbane

Children Collide are no strangers to the Australian music scene. They’ve produced two impressive EPs, Glass Mountain Lairs and We Three Brave & True, and quickly racked up a reputation for being one of the country’s most exciting live acts. This year Children Collide embarked on their debut album journey, joining forces with super producer Dave Sardy, who’s behind the breakthrough records from Wolfmother and Jet as well as multi platinum albums from Oasis, Marilyn Manson and The Dandy Warhols. They have just wrapped up a national tour spot supporting The Living End and now that their debut album The Long Now has just been released are setting out to headline their own national tour. Drummer Ryan Caesar spoke to Justin Middleton for this exclusive interview.

Click here to download the podcast of the entire interview. (10:40 - 1.2Mb)

Being fairly new to the band, I asked Ryan how it was being in the studio with the guys and what the process was in recording the album. “It was a pretty different process in how they did the last couple of EP’s, it was in LA for starters. I tracked the drums in Sunset Sounds in Hollywood where they did all The Doors albums and Led Zep and a whole lot of Rolling Stones albums and then we went to a mansion in the Hollywood hills for a couple of months. It was pretty surreal for a while, living right in the middle of Hollywood. Just concentrating on it was pretty cool and the whole experience was good to have as a band and get to know each other pretty well. We’ve done heaps and heaps of touring so we are used to spending too much time together and we’ve worked out how to fight and then get over it.”

“We demo’d like 60 songs beforehand so we had spent a whole lot of time recording together but it was definitely good to see everyone doing their best and focus. For the album about half of the songs we wrote when I joined the band and we all wrote together in a room and the other half was old songs that Johnny (Mackay, guitar/vocals) wrote by himself, I think. Johnny has one of those nifty loop pedals so when he goes home he records a riff and then brings it into rehearsals and goes “Let’s screw around with this” but sometimes we’ll just start jamming and play for 45 minutes and come up with something half alright and work on that.”

I asked Ryan how easily the new songs translate to the live shows. “4 days before The Living End tour we finished a tour with The Hoodoo Gurus which went for just under a month so right now we are playing as well as we can. All the new songs seem to be going really well and on The Living End tour it was good seeing the radio songs sort of building and each night a couple more people will know the song. We didn’t really do too much in the studio that we can’t reproduce live, there’s one song that Johnny has to do some tricky footwork with his pedals but most of the songs we had played live quite a bit anyway.”

I also asked if each member of the band had similar interests in music or if there were any clashing musical tastes. “We all love the same bands but all like a lot of different stuff as well. Heath (Crawley, bass) likes a lot of British post-punk and pop and stuff like My Bloody Valentine and I get into stuff like The Birthday Party, The Scientists and The Triffids and Johnny is into more psychedelic sort of stuff. But we all love the same bands and our main influences are probably all the same. It’s good because there is nothing worse than hanging around with a bunch of dudes and you all listen to same stuff.”

The Long Now is out now. For more info visit www.childrencollide.com

Tour Dates:
Fri 14th November - Revolver Upstairs, Melbourne With Ben Ely’s Radio Five
Sat 15th November - The Producers Bar, Adelaide With Ben Ely’s Radio Five
Thur 20th November - Alhambra Lounge, Brisbane With Ben Ely’s Radio Five
Fri 21st November - The Annandale Hotel, Sydney With Ben Ely’s Radio Five & Traps
Thur 27th November - Prince Of Wales, Bunbury With Harlequin League
Fri 28th November - Mojos Bar, North Fremantle With Harlequin League & The Slim Pickins Band
Sat 29th November - Amplifier Bar, Perth With Harlequin League & Sex Panther