Perth Music

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

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

Panic At The Disco’s latest album, Pretty. Odd was recorded in Las Vegas’ Studio at the Palms, with additional production and mixing completed at the world-renowned Abbey Road Studios in London. Produced by Grammy and Emmy Award-nominated arranger/composer Rob Mathes, the album sees Panic At The Disco embracing a melodic, classic rock-inspired aesthetic while still maintaining the visionary pop modernism that made its debut among the new millennium’s most popular and successful releases. Their debut album, A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out sold in excess of 2 millions copies and they have just completed a national tour of Australia along with fellow rockers Cobra Starship and The Acedemy Is. On the afternoon of their Perth show, drummer, Spencer Smith spoke to Justin Middleton for this exclusive interview.

Click here to download the podcast of the entire interview. (14:34 - 3.3Mb)

“We finally got some sleep last night which was good. We got up and saw that movie Pineapple Express, it was great, it was funny.”

The band had arrived in Perth just 24 hours prior so I asked Spencer how our fair city had treated them. “This is the best weather we have had since we got into Australia. It is a bit of a change, we were in South East Asia and they were in the middle of their summer when we had gotten there in the beginning of August. It was a nice change to get out of the heat and today was right in the middle and feels like southern California or something. We got to walk around and get some lunch and it seems like a really nice place so I’m glad to be here. It’s been a lot of fun coming back to some places and being able to have more than 11 songs to play and being able to mix both the albums and play to some people that have probably never seen us before.”

Asked to describe the process in which the new album, Pretty Odd was created, Spencer replied “We had come off touring for almost two years from our first record and at first we didn’t really know for sure what we wanted to do. We hadn’t been writing very much over that time and we had all really got into different music and different artists. We had gotten bored a little bit with what was very current and with what we were hearing on the radio so we ended up getting into some stuff that we had grown up on and from our parents. That stuff really interested us, the late 60’s, 70’s, even Billy Joel and Tom Petty which goes into the 80’s. Jon (Walker), our bass player had joined the band about a year prior to the starting of writing. It took us a little while to get used to writing with him and get comfortable with what we were doing and really get a good idea of what we wanted our second record to be.”

Spencer also described how past and current pop music was an influence on the new album. “We started listening to what we considered the best pop/rock bands of all time and I think what’s weird now is that there is a different view of what pop music is. It is very different to what it was in the 60’s and 70’s, especially in the States where R’n'B and Hip Hop are the new pop. It’s the biggest selling music that there is right now. It is a weird time and it has been for a while now for rock bands but luckily with everything in the past 10 years with the internet it has completely changed the music business. For as many people that love hip hop and rap there are so many that love all other types of music. So it allows bands like us to maybe not be what was a possibility for bands in the 70’s and stuff but we are happy what we’re doing.”

“I think (The Beatles) are definitely a band that is one of all of our favourite bands and how can they not be if you like pop music. Me and Brendon and Jon had grown up on it, Ryan didn’t really grow up on them, he grew up more on classical country like Johnny Cash, so some of that stuff was new for him. Listening to things like that is so inspiring and almost refreshing. Specifically with them, they are the perfect example of a perfect career of 6 or 7 records of material that never seems to have a dip and a constant level of great songwriting that goes in different directions. They just didn’t seem to any agenda as far as their career went and just did wherever they wanted.”

I asked Spencer what crowds can expect from a Panic At The Disco live show as they have made quite a repuatation of great live performances. “When we started touring we toured for a while doing 2 or 3 tours in the States before ever doing our own headlining shows. And then by the time we were doing our own headlining tours at the end of the last album cycle we only had one album to play and we actually did a tour that was in arenas and pretty big places to 8000 people sometimes. So we were really interested in doing more than just going up there in jeans and t-shirts and we were into having more of a theatrical aspect and putting on a bigger show than we were used to going and seeing. And we were able to fill a headliner set with only one album’s worth of material. When we did this record and toured the US we were playing big theatres whhich is our favourite type of venue to play. There is still a lot of people and still a really good energy but you’re still in a theatre which is made for any sort of performance rather than basketball or tennis. When we recorded the album we did a lot of songs live because we were aware of what touring is…and soem of the songs definitely interact the crowd a lot more than the first record.

Panic At The Disco - The Green Gentleman

For more info visit www.panicatthedisco.com

End Of Fashion - Fussy

End Of Fashion - Kamikaze

Upon its release, The Grates debut album Gravity Won’t Get You High immediately shot to the ARIA top-ten, was nominated for awards, and sold over 50,000 copies. The trio slogged it out for two years straight, with sold-out Australian tours, shows in the UK, US and Canada, and garnered gushing press coverage. With their new album Teeth Lost, Hearts Won, The Grates faced a new challenge in the studios: being their own co-producers for the very first time. While sound engineer/producer Peter Katis (Interpol, Mates of State, The National) joined the ride again, this time, The Grates were also alongside him closely at the producer’s desk at Tarquin Studios, a gutted-out attic in Connecticut, USA. Initially, taking the production helm - occasionally by themselves - scared them. Needless to say, the band’s newfound musical smarts have paid off. This batch of songs is more sophisticated and punch-in-the-guts catchy than anything they’ve done before. Hand-clapping, foot-stomping first single ‘Burn Bridges’ is a good indicator of The Grates’ new musical direction, but also provides a handy manifesto. Guitarist John Patterson spoke to Justin Middleton for this exclusive interview.

Click here to download the podcast of the entire interview. (9:00 - 2.1Mb)

“We are super happy. In the US we were in this house in Conneticut which was this huge stately mansion on a main road in a dirty area. We all lived in this house and it was half winter, half spring and we barely left. We worked upstairs and slept downstairs and that’s kind of how I like to work, just put everything into it and have nothing else to focus on. It was great. Peter Katis lives in Conneticut and the studio is in his house so we just went to his house. There was nothing special about the place except he was there.”

I asked John what it was like being away from Australia to record the album. “We’ve done both of our albums away from home and I would have a lot of trouble trying to work on something at home. There are so many distractions when you have to go home to your house and you have your family there or you pick someone up or drop someone off or you have bills to pay and stuff. When you are away you don’t have any distractions, even with the timezones no one can really call you up. It’s a great way to get away from everything.”

Second albums can sometimes cause problems with bands especially trying to live up to expectations and writing new songs. I asked John if this was the case with Teeth Lost, Hearts Won. “It was harder to write songs because when you first start writing songs it’s so easy because you’ve never done anything before. You feel so super original for writing your first 20 songs because you’ve never written songs before. The more you write the harder it is to feel you are doing something original and feel like you are doing something new. So it takes a lot longer to write songs and we had to put a lot of effort into making things feel organic. Even though it took a long time to arrange the songs and stuff a lot of thought was put into making it feel like they grew organically instead of just having that organic feel just because you wrote it really quickly.”

Asked what the songwriting process of the band was, John replied “The only way we have been able to get it to work is Patience and I start writing something at exactly the same time pretty much. I might write something on guitar and she sings something in the next 30 seconds or something. Otherwise we all get quite anxious and feel a lot of stress. If I write a guitar riff and leave it with Patience for a day or something, there’s no way she will be able to write anything for it because she will feel too much pressure. We have to do it both together at exactly the same time. It seems like that is the only way we can do it at the moment. I don’t know what it will be like for the third record but that was the only way we could it.”

“I think this one has much more of a theme than our last record. We tried to treat every song separately on the last one and this one was all written within a year and lyrically there are similar themes and musically I tried to bring in little melodies. We always try anything that is hanging around the studio. I played bass guitar and somebody else played bass guitar and we hadn’t done that before so I think there is bass guitar on six or seven songs this time. I think Patience can credit herself with handclapping as an instrument so she can sound like she can play an instrument. She does a bit of tamborine at the moment as well.”

Tour Dates:
Thur 2nd October - Sands Tavern, Sunshine Coast QLD
Fri 3rd October - The Arena, Brisbane QLD
Sat 4th October - Coolangatta Hotel, Gold Coast QLD
Sun 5th October - Great Northern, Byron Bay QLD
Wed 8th October - 21 Arms, Ballarat VIC
Thur 9th October - Peninsula Lounge, Moorooduc VIC
Fri 10th October - Hi Fi Bar, Melbourne VIC
Sun 12th October - Govenor Hindmarsh, Adelaide SA
Wed 15th October - Uni Bar, Wollongong NSW
Fri 17th October - Metro, Sydney NSW
Sat 18th October - Cambridge Hotel, Newcastle NSW
Thur 23rd October - Prince Of Wales, Bunbury QLD
Fri 24th October - Settlers Tavern, Margaret River WA
Sat 25th October - Capitol, Perth WA

For more info visit www.thegrates.com

The Grates - Burn Bridges

After playing to over 1 million people with their renowned energetic live gigs and their TV performances, Faker now celebrate their second album Be The Twilight officially achieving Gold sales status. Be The Twilight features Faker’s Top 10 hit single This Heart Attack – which is still in the ARIA chart after staggering 40 weeks! After a #5 peak on iTunes, a #5 peak on the radio airplay chart, a ‘Law & Order’ promo and endless TV performances, This Heart Attack has well and truly been seen and heard across the nation and also came in at a very respectable #5 on the Triple J Hottest 100. Far from resting on their laurels, Faker are soon to head out on the road on the ‘Are You Magnetic Tour’, supported by Sparkadia. Bassist Nic Munnings spoke to Justin Middleton for this interview.

Click here to download the podcast of the entire interview. (9:56 - 2.3Mb)

“It’s pretty surreal. It’s really exciting, we’ve been doing this forever and it’s flattering that people are starting to pay some attention to it. We never really have any idea what is going to happen next. The best we can do is try and write songs that we like and try not to care too much whether other people like them as well.

I asked Nic if the band felt more pressure from outside influences or themselves while writing and recording Be The Twilight. “We probably put more pressure on ourselves after the first record. It seemed to take us forever to get our teeth into the process for the second album. We were basically doing demos for two years from just before the first record came out until when we recorded Be the Twilight. We didn’t really feel a great deal of pressure from anywhere else but there were definitely points where we were going ‘What the fuck are we doing?’. We kind of had 45 songs before we went into pre-production and there was quite a lot of trimming down to come up with 12 songs out of that.”

The album was recorded in LA and I asked Nic if it was good to be away from friends and family for the period of recording. “The main thing about recording in LA was being away from everything. We worked really hard and were there for three months. We had a couple days off when we got there but other than that we were working six day weeks, up to about 14-15 hours a day. We didn’t get much of the sightseeing experience of LA and there is a reputation of LA people being superficial but we didn’t see that. You really need to be able to focus on the task at hand and we really thought we were going to be making the record at home so I don’t think we would have been able to focus all the energy if we were kind of going home at the end of the day.”

Asked what the band are up to at the moment and coming up in the next few months Nic replied “The tour starts next month but we a couple one off shows leading up to that. We are turning on the tap slightly before letting it all out. At the moment we are up the coast doing some demos of new stuff so that’s already underway. That will be the next thing we do after the tour and it’s pretty rare that we actually stop. Nathan will always be coming up with things while on tour but by and large, the touring side of things is not really where the creative process happens. It’s usually pretty important for us to find some space and time to let that stuff happen because on tour every ten hours you have to be somewhere else.”

I asked Nic how much he enjoys making music videos and especially the new Are You Magnetic clip which can be viewed at the bottom of this post. “It was even more colourful on set due to the amount of digital effects and stuff. We had a blue screen and we were wearing green lab coats that I don’t think are ever actually green in the video. The main thing was working with the guys making the video and making it a collaborative effort instead of them telling us to stand here and there. There is a lot of standing around but it’s important to feel like you have some involvement in the visual representation of your music. Our old drummer Paul used to say that every time he had to make a video a little piece of him died inside. But maybe that’s why he isn’t in the band anymore.”

Are You Magnetic Tour Dates:
Thur 4th September – Prince Of Wales, Bunbury, WA
Fri 5th September – Metro City, Perth, WA
Sat 6th September – Settlers Tavern, Margaret River WA
Fri 12th September – Forum Theatre, Melbourne, VIC
Sat 13th September – Wrestpoint Showroom, Hobart, TAS
Sun 14th September – HQ, Adelaide, SA
Thur 18th September – Tivoli Theatre, Brisbane QLD
Fri 19th September – Coolangatta Hotel, Gold Coast, QLD
Sat 20th September – Enmore Theatre, Sydney, NSW (licensed and all ages)

For more info visit www.faker.com.au

Faker - Are You Magnetic

One of the less orthodox bands spawned by the post-Libertines London music scene, the Mystery Jets started at the end of the last century when Blaine Harrison and his dad, Henry, formed a band together. Soon joined by Blaine’s school friends Kai and Will, the band recruited drummer Kapil and started staging gigs in a crumbling hotel ballroom on Eel Pie Island. Their second album Twenty One has just been released in Australia and frontman Blaine Harrison caught up with Justin Middleton for this exclusive interview.

Click here to download the podcast of the entire interview. (13:12 - 3.0Mb)

I asked Blaine if he is looking forward to see how the Australian public will accept the bands second album given many have not heard of the band too much before now.  “Yeah I am excited. We’ve been going for a long, long time. I started the band with William, my dad, when I was eight years old so it was a long, long, long time ago. I can’t work out exactly how many years, I’m not very good at math. I’d say things got more serious and focused when we left school and did a couple of tours off our own back. We eventually got the line up that we have today and we started putting on our own parties really as a response to not wanting to go down the traditional pub circuit. That seems to be the route that most bands don’t really have a choice but to go down and that essentially involved charging your friends money to see you at shitty pubs with shitty sound and overpriced alcohol. That seemed like the exact opposite of what we wanted to do at the time. Instead we put on our own parties and eventually they picked up and lots of friends bands that played eventually established themselves and a lot of them got signed. We kind of decided that our work was done and we signed ourselves to 679 Records and got our first album, Making Dens, out in 2006.”

“Twenty One is our second album and we wrote it across the course of about 18 months, maybe a year and put it out early this year in England. With the first album the songs you end up releasing are generally the songs that you have got people’s attention with and it’s really just a case of rounding the album off. But definitely with the second album we had to think a little bit harder and think about what we wanted to say. We toured the hell out of the first album and really went for it on the road so by the end of touring we all felt creatively starved. Henry, my dad, wrote a lot of the lyrics for the first album and William wrote a lot of the music but after touring we all felt like there were things we wanted to say and things we were learning and that kind of resulted in Twenty One.”

With everyone in the band contributing to Twenty One I asked Blaine if it felt different and foreign in creating the album.  “It is kind of a thematic album really. A lot of the songs I think really fit together and they all kind of sit under that umbrella of first love and having your heart broken for the first time. We all bring different things to the table, a lot of the lyrics come from Henry and myself and musically William is still, in a way, the driving force but a lot of the other stuff is equally important: the arrangements, and the kind of clothes you put the songs in. A lot of the songs are pop songs at the bottom of them but they are in some kind of disguise and I think that is something we have learnt to manipulate on the second album.”

The band are still young so I asked Blaine if it was hard creating pop songs or if it felt quite natural and easy.  “I don’t think initially it was really. We didn’t really grow up with pop music, we are 90’s kids and although what was going on in England at the time was Brit-pop and all that kind of stuff, I think we kind of grew up in our own bubble. My dad plays a lot of prog, a lot of Pink Floyd, King Crimson, Genesis and that sort of stuff and we were teased a lot about it at school. But that was what we really wanted to do and growing up pop music was an unnatural ground for us to cover. With the second album we felt like we wanted to do that and we wanted to go out on a limb and try and do something we had never done before. Likewise with the next album, I think we will try and explore something that does feel completely new. That is the only way you can not trap yourself and not bury yourself in a hole.”

Young Love

Twenty One is out now. For more info on Mystery Jets visit www.mysteryjets.com

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

Claire Clarke is only a young musical artist but has certainly progressed in leaps and bounds over the last two years. She released her debut EP Alter Ego to great reviews and now has just released her debut album Unhinged. She is set to explode upon the local and national music scene. Having filled some pretty impressive support slots Claire will play a special acoustic gig at the Hyde Park Hotel Front Bar on March 19th and sat down with Justin Middleton for this exclusive interview.

“The initial writing of it (Unhinged) was done over the past couple of years, I write all of the time and have all my journals so I put together songs that I thought were both relevant and immediate to that time. Unhinged was just the name that I thought most reflected me and my personality. The recording process was pretty intense and getting it all together was very exciting for me. We recorded it at Northbridge Sound Studios and that is just a beautiful studio and I believe the best studio in Perth. It was amazing listening to the tracks and seeing the evolution of them from acoustic numbers and going through all the steps to a final product. That was really, really cool. After that we sent it off to New York to get mastered by Leon Zervos who has worked with Avril Lavigne and Alanis Morissette. When we sent it off I was expecting it to come back exactly the same but when it came back and we were listening to this final version, it was just an amazing feeling to know that it was you had in your head all along.”

The lyrics to Claire’s songs are usually very personal and reveal a window into her soul that can be very poetic but mixed with her music also very easy to bop along to. Claire explains “I really enjoy writing about stuff that isn’t from ages ago but is really current and it is great to get the songs onto CD and get it out there now. I don’t want to be one of those people that works on an album for 10 years and just never does anything. I want to do it now and still be passionate about what I am passionate about. I don’t want to feel like I am waiting around. Waiting around for what? I want to do what I want and do it now. You may not have the chance later on in life.”

Claire isn’t signed to any major label and Unhinged is released through independent record label Bluestone Records. “As an independent artist I get to do what I feel is right and I get the freedom to do that. I haven’t got someone telling me or trying to manifest me into this little product or this manufactured product I’m not. I also know that i have had the time to develop as well rather than someone saying ‘This is your niche and this is what you have to do and this is what you have to wear’. I’ve had the time to develop myself and at the moment I am just so proud to be an independent artist.”

With recent appearances on Video Hits, Rage, Mornings With Kerri-Anne and multiple trips to play over east as well as locally in Perth, Claire has had a busy schedule of late. “The recent gig highlight would have to be with Kate (Miller-Heidke). The all ages show was my favourite so far just because all of the kids and people of any age really were just so excited and supportive. And after the show I just got a million photos and I was signing everything and it was just one of the highlights of all the shows I’ve done. Also playing acoustically is something I feel completely comfortable with and people always go on that you’re either one or the other, acoustic or full band, but I don’t see it that way. I just see this music as fluid and ever changing for me and when I started playing shows they were just unplugged versions of the band stuff anyway. For me it’s really cool to do shows like that and do the acoustic thing because it’s really, really nice to connect intimately with the audience and the live band thing is always very crazy.”

Like most musical artists these days Claire’s first single off the album, Rush, and the album itself is available digitally and physically in shops. I asked Claire for her thoughts on the digital age and the internet: “I am supportive of MySpace and digital music because I am part of that whole movement in a way and without it how could I connect with bands over east or overseas. I don’t go onto MySpace and ignore people that add me, I try and talk to everyone that messages me and chat back. It’s my way of communicating with the people that like my music. In the space of 2 years I’ve gained like 13000 friends with half a million views and I think it’s fantastic. In regards to digital music I can’t believe ARIA has just started to count digital sales. I mean what the hell has taken so long? Sanity, J.B Hifi and all those type of stores only stock the top 10 singles and some of them don’t even stock singles any more. So digital is the way it is going to go and in the next 10-15 years there may not even be CD’s any more. You have to be in the now and I think it’s great.”

For more info on Claire Clarke visit www.claireclarke.com or www.myspace.com/claireclarke

Claire Clarke - Rush