Category: Interviews

INTERVIEW: Calling All Cars (AUS), November 2011

Posted on by David James Young in Interviews

To paraphrase Max Landis, sometimes it feels like nobody gives a fuck about Calling All Cars, even if they think they do. Hell, I’ve interviewed CAC twice and I’m not entirely sure I give a shit about them. Still, they impressed a lot of rock pigs back in the day with some really tight live shows. Nobody bought their second album, but they should have because it was way better than the first one. The third album was… ehh. It was okay. I interviewed Haydn around the time it dropped and he was very despondent – barely got enough for a 900-word feature from him. James is pretty nice and is an okay interview; and as such, this one turned out passable. Who’d have thought an article by my 21-year-old self would trump one by my 23-year-old self?

– DJY, October 2014

***

A drunk guy at the Annandale leaps onto the stage, dancing like a maniac as the band plays on. A lead singer leaps off the stage in Warrnambool with a wireless guitar, heading to the top of the bar as some of the wilder punters figuratively dangle from the rafters. A young band simply grins in the face of an angry young bogan, who’s rocked up early to get a good spot near the front of a soulless stadium to see his dad’s favourite band. These stories might all be somewhat typical rock scenarios, but they are tied together by one band: Melbourne’s Calling All Cars.

Unquestionably one of the hardest-working rock bands this country has to offer, the three-piece spent the first half of the year prepping the release of their second album, Dancing with a Dead Man, hardly a year after the release of their debut Hold, Hold, Fire. The remainder was spent on an exhausting and extensive tour in support of the album.

“We had a lot of fun with those shows,” recalls James Ing, the gentle giant that brings drums and backing vocals to the trio. “It was a really good mix with playing a tonne of the old stuff and mixing it in with the new record. We were a bit worried about doing it half-and-half – we weren’t really sure how the audience would react. It all turned out really well, though. The reception we got was really good!”

Anyone who actively followed the tour’s progression, as documented through their social networking pages, certainly would have made note of the many small towns the band went through on the tour. “I guess we’ve come to expect more of a rowdiness from the more regional places that we play,” Ing says of the remote-and-regional audiences. “It’s kind of like seeing how far away a place is from a capital city or whatever to judge just how crazy the crowd is gonna get! It’s almost always worth getting out there and showing them something special, though,” reasons Ing. “You go through some towns and you can just tell that they don’t get very much when it comes to gigs and music at all.”

James knows all too well what it’s like to live somewhere with no following of live music – before relocating to Melbourne with the rest of the band, Ing lived in Narooma, on the far south coast of New South Wales. “Good beaches, surfing, nice for a holiday… not much else I could say or tell you about it,” says James with a laugh. “When me and Haydn [Ing, the band’s lead singer/guitarist and James’ brother] were growing up, it was music that was only our real form of entertainment, apart from surfing. We didn’t really have any neighbours, either, so we could pretty much play as loud as we wanted to.”

It’s certainly the loudness that first draws your attention to Calling All Cars, until it’s broken down into the sum of its parts: Hayden’s gravelly melodies and churning guitar, the thunder-rumble bass of Adam Montgomery and, of course, James’ relentless pounding that drives the songs. The craftsmanship of the songs is especially of note, too – they’re big songs, sure, but they’re certainly not dumb. The exploration of what they can do with their songwriting is what makes Dancing such a formidable release, and one that has had a great impact on the band and their fan base.

“It’s been very – I dunno, what’s the word?” Ing is attempting to describe the response to Dancing, something he is especially proud of but cannot quite articulate. “Warm? Supportive? Something like that. Everyone has really been backing the record. I think it was really important, as a band, that we turned over something like that really quickly. We’re stoked with how it’s turned out.”

“This album grooves a lot more,” he continues, as discussion turns to the direction the band took from a musical perspective. “The first one was a lot more straightforward, I guess – a lot of it was just building up towards the choruses, with really high tempos. With this one, we wanted to just play it cool and slow it down a little bit. We just wanted a little bit more space – when you’re playing in bigger venues and stuff, you definitely tend to notice that a lot of stuff gets lost in translation; the space between you and the P.A., the space between you and the crowd and stuff like that. We figured that the less notes we were playing, the more time it has to travel those spaces, so I think that’s something we really wanted to work on.”

In the lead-up to the release of the record, the band once again found themselves constantly on the touring circuit. Having opened for everyone from AC/DC to Grinspoon, the band were lucky enough to open for Queens of the Stone Age in February of this year. “All the support slots that we did were definitely an influence on this record,” says James. “Observing different crowds was really interesting. Watching the bands we were supporting every night made a huge impact, too. There’s a reason they’re playing to sell-out crowds and headlining festivals and whatever else. It was really good to sit back and watch how they do things.”

With 2011 nearly over, Ing is asked as to how he hand the rest of the band will be spending their time off after such a full year. “We’ll probably just go back to more writing, I guess,” he responds – almost incredulously, as if he cannot believe the trio will go right back to work. “It’s not like we won’t be enjoying the summer, though – my girlfriend just got me a new bicycle, so I’ll definitely be going to do some riding. I’ll hopefully get into some more graphic design stuff when I get some spare time, too. I’ve done all the graphic design stuff for the band, with the artwork and the logos and stuff like that. I’d love to do some more drawing, sketching… I dunno.”

You can audibly hear James shrug and laugh, in a typical laid-back Aussie fashion. “We’ll just take it all as it comes.”

INTERVIEW: Evanescence (USA), November 2011

Posted on by David James Young in Interviews

Another bizarre encounter with an absolute hero of my early teens. Me and a few friends were nothing short of obsessed with Amy Lee and co., so I simply couldn’t pass up the chance to interview her; despite just turning 21 at the time. Even though Evanescence would later go on to be one of the worst bands I have ever seen, I’m very glad I did this interview. Amy, despite major diva status among most writers, was an absolute sweetheart. As shit as Evanescence became towards the end there, I can’t take that away from her. So, enjoy, I guess? You probably hated Evanescence from day one. Hell, I might not even blame you these days.

– DJY, October 2014

***

If you need any indication of just how fickle the pop industry can be, look no further than the story of Evanescence. Their runaway success in the early 2000s cemented them as one of the biggest rock bands in the world, tallying up over 15 million sales worldwide and two Grammy Awards for their acclaimed 2003 debut, Fallen. A follow-up, 2006’s The Open Door, saw sales halved and the band implode whilst on tour, ultimately leaving Amy Lee as the only original member remaining. Following the end of a huge world tour, the band – and Lee herself – went into hibernation. It seemed as though the band would never resurface – but, as everyone from James Bond to Justin Bieber have warned, never say never.

“I’m glad people have still been interested after all this time,” says Lee, who finally brought back the band with a fresh line-up and a self-titled third album which dropped in October. “At the beginning [of the hiatus], me and the rest of the guys had no plans. It wasn’t the end; we just decided to take a break from it all until one of us had a cool idea. It was just a matter of following the inspiration – I mean, if I didn’t have the drive or the motivation to make another Evanescence record, we wouldn’t be here talking about it.”

In her time away, Lee decided to focus on what had made lose interest in music to begin with, resulting in multiple delays to the release of Evanescence. Thankfully, however, she pulled through, and is particularly enthusiastic about re-igniting the songwriting fire. “There definitely was a period of thinking that maybe the whole thing was done,” admits Lee, “but I can’t help it! I love writing music. I found myself writing all the time, constantly playing. I even started learning the harp, which was really beautiful. Once I started up again, and started writing and playing more and more, I was just like “Wow!” This is a big part of me. I love doing this. I love sharing it, too.”

Lee put together a new line-up with guitarist Terry Balsamo, who took over lead guitar duties upon the departure of founding member Ben Moody back in 2003. Bassist Tim McCord who played on the band’s second album The Open Door returned and fill-in musicians from the tail-end of the last world tour – drummer Will Hunt and guitarist Troy McLawhorn – joined the fold as permanent members. Lee is vocally enthusiastic about the line-up, as she appears to be about practically everything that involves the band.

“It’s a really strong line-up,” she says. “At the end of The Open Door tour, I really felt like we were playing better shows than we had been before. There was a great chemistry on-stage, and we really knew how to play off one-another and work together. We needed a whole new creative environment in order to make this record, and we needed to work more as a team than ever. It felt really good – I was so happy to have so many cool ideas to work with and to pull from. Normally, I just shack up with one guy and we make the record together – the first record was Ben, the second was essentially me and Terry. This time, I had a whole team of brains that just get it. They get what I want to hear, and they play because they love it.”

Evanescence, as a record, is a far more solid affair than the muddled and seemingly misguided sounds of The Open Door. The unity of the band’s sound that Lee enthuses about is unquestionably present and accounted for, from the anthemic lead single What You Want to the bold melodrama of The Other Side. Balsamo’s guitar also provides a darker and often quite heavy dynamic in the midst of the band’s sound, in a way that is unlike anything the band have recorded previously. Amy emphasises, however, that the direction taken on the album was never intentional – or, worse, forced out. “Will is an incredible drummer,” she says, “and working with him was so great because it drove the album from a rhythmic perspective. Terry had awesome ideas, Will had awesome ideas… and Troy was just a complete shredder from the moment we pressed record. None of it was intentional – I just think my band rules!”

With the almost operatic sense of drama and despair found in the music of Evanescence, you’d be forgiven for thinking that Lee is a very self-serious person. She proves to be very much on the contrary of this preconceived notion, however, laughing and giggling her way through her chat with FL and exuding a warmth and friendliness that one certainly wouldn’t expect from someone often seen to be a mall-goth poster child. She also even showed a notably different side recently, when she recorded a cover for a tribute album – not Korn, whom she has performed with on several occasions; nor Bjork, whom Lee cited as one of her biggest influences in the recording of Evanescence. Nope, the artist she covered was that other clear influence on Evanescence: Robin the Frog.

Yes, Amy performed a solo cover of Halfway Down the Stairs, the ballad sung by Kermit’s nephew, for The Green Album. Lee gets particularly excited when the topic of Jim Henson and the Muppets tribute album comes up – “Oh. My. God. Just Jim Henson in general has worked on so many of my favourite things!” she shouts. “I was really big into The Dark Crystal, which was one of those things that I was super-obsessed with as a kid. He’s done so much amazing stuff – so when it came to picking a Muppets song to do for this record, there was really no pressure. I went with the really obscure one because I always loved Robin the Frog. The whole experience was really cool.”

The band is currently planning a large world tour to promote Evanescence, and Lee is happy to let us in on the fact that Australia is definitely on the cards. Despite being a part of the rumour mill for the Soundwave Festival, Amy does not even acknowledge them. “It looks like we’ll be doing our own headlining tour,” she says. “I’m not sure about official dates or whatever, but it will be in the first half of the new year, for sure. We all love Australia so much, and you’ve always been so good to us!”

INTERVIEW: Panic! At the Disco (USA), September 2011

Posted on by David James Young in Interviews

You know what? I interviewed a teen crush from one of my favourite bands ever. If had a freak accident the day after submitting this article that meant I could never do a feature article again for whatever reason, I would be 100% okay with that. And yeah, I mean what I said – maybe it was purely contextual, but I will always love P!ATD unconditionally. This was a thrill for me – I remember I had to use my sister’s office at uni in order to do the interview; and then dash out to the ABC Illawarra studios to record an interview with Tom Tilley from Hack on triple j. Yeah, he was interviewing me! Felt pretty damn important that day, I’ll tell you what. In-demand DJY! HA.

– DJY, October 2014

***

A lot has changed for Las Vegas pop chameleons Panic! At The Disco since the last time they visited Australia – so much so, that vocalist/guitarist/keyboardist Brendon Urie can scarcely remember how long it has been since they visited. “Oh man,” he says as he begins to rack his brain, “It’s got to have been at least four years – or close to four years or something like that. Too long, anyways!” In that time, the band has gone under a complete transformation – they’ve reinstated the exclamation mark (infuriating Last.FM scrobblers worldwide); lost two of their members in founding guitarist Ryan Ross & bassist Jon Walker and bounced back into the spotlight this year with their third studio album, Vices and Virtues. It’s quite a bit to take in – although Urie, speaking to FasterLouder from Los Angeles, seems to have handled the whole ordeal like a true professional.

“After the split,” he muses, “for the last to years we’ve been touring with Dallon [Weekes, bass] and Ian [Crawford, guitar]. We wanted to make sure that we had people that we genuinely got along with, and not just people that we’d hire for our live shows. We wanted to make it feel more like a band – and, more and more every day, it kind of does. They’re just such talented dudes, and we get along so well. It’s kind of all worked out – we’re really fortunate, that’s for sure.”

Although Weekes and Crawford have settled into the live fold of P!ATD, it’s worth mentioning that Vices and Virtues was recorded entirely by just Urie and drummer Spencer Smith, Urie’s childhood best friend and another founding member of the group back in 2004. Urie maintains that creating the album just as a two-piece was simply something that the pair had to do – a “reclamation” of the band after the schism created with Ross and Walker’s departure (both of whom went on to form the jangle-pop band The Young Veins). It was certainly a challenge for the band, particularly for Urie, when it came to writing the album’s lyrics; something he had never attempted prior to the departure of main writer Ross.

“It was something that I knew I had to pick up responsibility for,” says Brendon. “I spent basically all of my spare time writing lyrics, and figuring out different ways to convey a message. Musically, though, Spencer and I have been writing together for seven years. The only difference this time around was the necessity of having more ideas for songs. You couldn’t just come in with a thirty-second idea – you had to come in with a two-minute idea. There wasn’t four people to work through these ideas with anymore, it was just the two of us. We had to just show a little more initiative and find out exactly what it was that we wanted out of this record.”

In accordance with their previous releases, P!ATD took yet another dynamic shift in sound from the album prior. Vices and Virtues makes a return to some of the more electronic leanings of their 2005 debut A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out, yet have not completely abandoned the more restrained mature pop that was found on 2008’s Pretty. Odd. In a way, Vices can be seen as bridging the proverbial gap between the two records – and it’s very much intentional on behalf of the group itself. Urie points out that there are songs – or, at least, ideas for songs – that stem from songwriting sessions for both Fever and Pretty. When queried as to the idea or song that has been around for the longest, he interestingly points towards the album’s opening track and lead single, The Ballad of Mona Lisa.

“One of us had written down this 45-second idea, maybe eight months after the first record came out,” recalls Urie. “A lot of what came from those sessions is really different to the way that we write now – but, in a way, that’s what made the record what it was. The mix of the old and newer stuff on there really reflected where we were at the time, and where we wanted to go with it.”

Urie, Smith, Crawford and Weekes will all be in Australia this week to headline the Counter-Revolution festivals across the nation – and Urie in particular is hugely enthusiastic about bringing the new P!ATD to Australia for the first time. “We were so bummed when the festival got cancelled,” he says, alluding to the original Soundwave Revolution. “But now we’ve been given this second chance, we’re all so excited to be coming back to Australia and playing for all of you guys.” He also gives a message to fans to expect a bit of classic rock to be thrown into the set. “Lately, on tour we’ve been covering Carry On Wayward Son by Kansas,” he notes. “It’s such a fun song to play, and it’s a great one for everyone to sing along to.” Lay your weary heads to rest, Panic! fans, and don’t you cry no more – they’re back, and hopefully better than ever for all attending the Counter-Revolution.

INTERVIEW: Seeker Lover Keeper (AUS), July 2011

Posted on by David James Young in Interviews

In 2011, I saw Seeker Lover Keeper five times. I also met all three of them and welled up like an infant. It was three of my heroes from the class of 2004 (go check out all of their releases from that year and thank me later) making remarkably beautiful music together. I couldn’t have asked for anything more. I get really happy when I think about that time in my life – I was super-close to finishing uni, I felt like I was getting somewhere with my writing and I had this goddamn album! So yeah, I spoke to Sarah Blasko and despite seeing all three of these women in public several times since I have never had the guts to go speak to any of them again. I’d probably bore them to death, anyway.

– DJY, October 2014

***

Anyone can dream up a supergroup, but it’s very rare that these fantasies actually come to fruition. It’s also very rare to see it happen of late outside the field of big, burly rock – anyone for Chickenfoot or Hellyeah? It’s interesting that it’s taken something as left-field and unexpected as Seeker Lover Keeper to break this mould. The collaboration between Sarah Blasko, Holly Throsby and Sally Seltmann was first brought to wider attention upon their announcement as a part of the 2011 Splendour in the Grass festival, but the idea of uniting three of Australia’s finest voices has been in the works for quite some time.

“I think I saw Holly play live first – we had a common manager at the time,” says Blasko when asked to recall the origins of her friendship between her counterparts. “Sally, I remember hearing on the radio for the first time and really loving her music – that would have been around the time of her first album. After seeing each other around all the time, I guess it was natural that our friendship developed. We’ve all got a lot in common, and have the same kind of sense of humour. I guess it was only a matter of time.”

It was after a show that Seltmann showed the other two a song she had been working on entitled Rest Your Head On My Shoulder, which would go on to become the final track on the SLK album. “That was really the turning point,” recalls Blasko, “where we all genuinely wanted it to happen. Sally came up with the name, and we scheduled to record not long after all of that.” Considering that Blasko’s last album, As Day Follows Night, was recorded across a month in Stockholm, it certainly came as a notable change to record Seeker Lover Keeper in New York across a fortnight.

“We all wanted to have a really different experience from the last time we all recorded albums,” says Blasko. “We kind of set ourselves a few parameters for this record. We wanted it to be recorded in a really large way. The harmonies, the base of the sound, we just wanted it all to be really natural, really organic. We decided very early on that we wanted it all to be very simple. Kind of like a folk album – I mean, it’s obviously got other elements in there as well, but our sole intention was just to create a simple, beautiful album.”

Mission accomplished. Seeker Lover Keeper is an album of cohesive musicianship, strikingly honest lyrics and kind of freeze-in-tracks, jaw-on-floor close harmony that would normally only come through shared bloodlines. Blasko is particularly enthusiastic about just how liberating it felt to be singing alongside these women, describing it as a “really wonderful” experience. “I think probably the last time I ever really sang like this, in this way, is with my sister when I was really young,” she adds. “In a way, all three of us kind of become children again when we start singing together. It’s a really special, pure thing to do. All of us have had harmonies on our records before – Sally, especially – but I guess we’ve never really had the means to properly replicate our harmonies live. It’s been so fun rehearsing these songs, and finally being able to do it like this.”

Another interesting aspect of Seeker Lover Keeper was its songwriting process. Rather than simply penning songs for themselves to sing, each of the three women wrote songs for the others to sing. Blasko, who sings the most lead vocals out of the three, says that although it was certainly a challenge, the end result was more than rewarding. “I’ve often enjoyed doing covers and things like that,” she comments. “When you sing someone else’s words, you have to put yourself into their mind a bit. You have to draw on your own experience, but you’re struck by these words that you wouldn’t say yourself. It really makes you pay attention to the way it’s been constructed. To me, it was a real pleasure to sing those songs.”

With the role reversed, Blasko emphasises just how amazed she was with what Throsby and Seltmann did with her songs. “It’s really quite amazing to see your songs take on a different meaning when they’re in someone else’s hands,” Sarah notes. “People just have different inflections, different ways of saying the one thing. Hearing Sally do On My Own, I thought she just sounded so sweet and so pure. It was really lovely to hear it done so differently.”

The songs will be brought to life on the band’s first ever tour, extensively taking in most of the east coast of Australia. With Dirty Three drummer Jim White at the helm, Blasko is really excited to be performing songs from the album, as well as each other’s songs. “We’ll definitely throw in a few of our own,” she promises. “It’s going to be really special.”

INTERVIEW: Liam Finn (NZ), June 2011

Posted on by David James Young in Interviews

Maybe it’s a generational thing, but I got into Sean Lennon way before John. Similarly, I was proper obsessed with Liam before by true appreciation for all things Neil kicked in. Not a diss at either John or Neil, but I feel their sons were too oft-maligned over the years. They’re incredibly worthwhile artists in their own right; and I still count I’ll Be Lightning as one of the best albums of the 2000s. I remember this being an interesting interview to do, as I literally had to do it on the train while it was pissing down raining. The fact that I was able to catch anything that Liam was saying is nothing short of a miracle. I put it down to my phenomenal note-taking that this article exists.

– DJY, October 2014

***

Like father, like son. Everywhere that Liam Finn goes, he always seems to take the weather with him. “It’s not seriously raining over there, is it?” he asks of Australian skies with more than a hint of disappointment. “It’s been miserable over here in London, and I was hoping for a bit of sun when I got in.” It’s an obvious gag to start us off, sure, but let the comparisons between Neil and Liam Finn end there. From his cleanshaven, youthful days in Betchadupa to his scraggly bearded solo glory that saw him touring with Pearl Jam and playing on David Letterman, Liam has come a significantly long way as an artist in his own right. After a wildly successful debut album in 2006’s I’ll Be Lightning and a follow-up EP in 2009, Champagne in Seashells (a collaboration with fellow rock offspring Eliza-Jane Barnes), Finn has spent the past twelve months or so focusing on his new album, FOMO.

“I just shackled down in a little beach house where I grew up, in Piha,” recalls Finn, “and just tried to make sense of what’s been happening in the past few years. It was a massive change of pace, after spending so long on the road. I almost completely forgot what living at home was actually like.” Interestingly, it was in this time away from extensive touring that Finn began developing the idea of FOMO – an acronym for “fear of missing out.” It’s a universal and transcendent feeling, a state of mind that can be hard to shake when friends and relatives are overseas. It’s one that particularly resonates for Finn – not only are both his parents touring the world as one half of Pajama Club, many of his closest friends are also travelling musicians that are constantly their fair share of travelling.

“When it all becomes electronic, just talking and sharing things over Facebook and Twitter and that, you kind of feel like everyone is out achieving something great with their lives, out exploring the world,” says Finn. “It’s funny, because that’s probably how some of my friends felt when I spent so much time away on tour, but as soon as I’m locked away and recording this album it starts happening to me. I guess it worked in inspiring me to continue writing, and it also made me appreciate my surroundings. I tried not to focus too much on the negative aspects, as I think we should never truly wish to be anywhere else apart from where we are.”

Finn points to two tracks on FOMO which perhaps best summarise his feelings – Neurotic World and Roll of the Eye. Of the former, he recalls it lyrically attempting to deal with “coming back down to earth,” as Finn puts it, after spending so long abroad and finally returning home. The latter is a bit more of an international affair, as Finn penned the track about his homeland while he was in New York. It documents a love/hate relationship with New Zealand, where Finn sings of how “your dreams die slow in the arms of your comfort zone,” but also how his infatuation with the country leads him to think that “in my head/I’ll be buried there.” “That’s one that came really quickly,” says Liam of the songwriting process. “I guess it was just everything that I felt about New Zealand, which made it easy to write. I think it was also having that outside perspective on it, being away from it when I was writing it. Finishing the song in the studio in Auckland felt really natural and organic, in a way.”

As with I’ll Be Lightning, Finn plays everything on the album himself aside from a few minor parts. He is quick to emphasise, however, that this was not originally his intention. “I’d been jamming with a bunch of guys that I was hoping to have on the album,” says Finn. “It just ended up being one of those things where I knew that the only way I was going to get out the exact sound that I had worked out for the songs in my head, then I would have to do the arrangements and instruments myself. Tell you what, though, it was more than a little uncomfortable to have to try and tell the other guys that!”

Thankfully, the end result of FOMO was certainly worth any awkward shooing that Liam may have had to do. It’s a layered, mysterious and engaging pop album that presents a variety of sides and styles that Finn is capable of. There’s jangly chiming guitar pop like single Cold Feet and Don’t Even Know Your Name, the swampy, breathless oddity of The Struggle, all the way up to the throwback psychedelia that encapsulates closer Jump Your Bones. Even with such a myriad of styles on display, Finn himself notes that there has been a mixed reaction to the direction taken on this album.

“It’s interesting, actually, that some people have said that this album is more downbeat than I’ll Be Lightning,” says Finn. “When I was writing this album, I couldn’t help but feel like this was much more of an upbeat album. It’s not always a positive one, sure, but there’s a great energy in these recordings that I feel hasn’t really made an appearance in my material before. I guess the only tracks I’d done before that really had that kind of energy were tracks like Second Chance or Lead Balloon – but in the grand scheme of things, those tracks were kind of anomalies.”

Finn will tour Australia this August for the first time since November of 2009, where he and Barnes opened for Pearl Jam’s stadium tour. Barnes will join the tour as a part of Liam’s new backing band, tentatively titled “the Come Agains.” “EJ was such a big part of making this new sound and helping develop my sound in-between I’ll Be Lightning and now, so I’m really excited that she is going to be involved again,” enthuses Finn. “I’m really looking forward to these shows, definitely.”

INTERVIEW: Lissie (USA), May 2011

Posted on by David James Young in Interviews

Was I the only Australian that got into Lissie? I swear everyone else jumped ship not long after her Oz tour from 2011. I still think she’s lovely – her album from last year was good fun, and it featured one of my favourite songs of the year. She was very sweet to interview, as well – giggly, charming, enthusiastic. Bit like Ben Kweller, really!

– DJY, October 2014

***

It’s probably hyperbole to say something like “Lissie has taken the world by storm.” With that in mind, it’s no secret by now that the clouds have certainly been gathering – following a slew of singles, tours with Lenny Kravitz and Ellie Goulding and a top 5 album in Norway of all places, the young singer born Elisabeth Maurus has certainly got a name for herself out there. This month sees the big-voiced Californian make her first-ever trip to Australia as the main support act for Megan Washington, an idea that has been coming together ever since the two first met in Paris late last year.

At the time of the interview, Lissie claims she has “literally just pulled into the driveway” of her home in Ojai (say it “oh-hi”), in California’s Ventura County. “It’s really nice to be home! I was gone since, like, early March. I did some shows and stuff like that, which was awesome, but it’s really nice to just sit down at home and have a deep breath.”

Maurus is unpretentious, sweet and engaged with everything that is going on around her – and it’s these traits that translate into the stunning songs of her debut album, Catching a Tiger. Released in June of last year, the album has garnered a strong critical reception and comparisons to everyone from Linda Rondstadt to Stevie Nicks. It’s a diverse, intelligently-crafted record that allows Lissie to stand out from a myriad of other girls with guitars. It is also an album that has been a long time coming.

“Going into making this record was really weird,” she confesses. “I started out working with some different people [in 2008] and not liking the direction it was going in, all the while thinking I was recording my first album. I had a bunch of old songs, and some songs from when that was going on. When it came to Catching a Tiger, the songs that ended up on the record were ones that I’d written for a year up to the actual recording, so they were all fairly new.”

Along with penning tracks on her own, Catching a Tiger also saw Lissie in sessions of productive co-writing with a handful of other songwriters, including former Furniture frontman Jim Irvin and his production partner Julian Emery. As she discusses her craft in depth, it becomes clearer just how much work has gone into creating the album. “Loosen the Knot was a hard one to write,” says Maurus when considering which of the songs proved the most difficult. “I knew when I was making it that my heart wasn’t too into it, because I was co-writing and I thought it was sounding a little too Avril Lavigne.” She lets out a hearty laugh when mentioning the Sk8er Boi songstress before explaining that “The ones that came the easiest were ones like Bully, Everywhere I Go, Oh Mississippi, When I’m Alone… songs like that were fairly immediate. These lyrics came very genuinely and sort of sporadically. It’s different when you’re co-writing, and it’s different when you write songs alone.”

The topic of co-writing is brought up again, and Lissie is happy to discuss it in further elaboration. It’s often quite contentious with many singer-songwriters, who feel as though they may grow more vulnerable when exposing their quite personal lyrics and music to someone else. This was, initially, a perspective shared by Lissie herself. “When I started I was worried about that,” she confesses, “This is a really private thing, and I didn’t think I wanted to do it. With Jim and Julian, who did a few songs on the album with me, I just really liked talking to them. It’s like I could talk to them about everything in my life, and when you earn that trust, you feel really safe with them. So I’ve been lucky with some of my co-writes – even though I hardly know them, I just have this instinct that it’s a safe zone that I can open up in. I think I’ve made a point of only really pursuing writing with people that I immediately connect with.”

In addition, Lissie believes that working with musicians of different heritage and style to hers is beneficial in expanding her musical palette. Describing her vocals as having “relative pitch” as opposed to perfect pitch and confessing to “honestly knowing nothing about music theory,” the humble Maurus is excited by the prospect of growing as a musician. “I come from a folk background, and I can only really play so many chords on guitar,” she says. “It’s very easy for me to rely on C to F to G when I sit down and write. So when someone else comes in the room and plays an A7 diminished chord – and I don’t know how to play that! It opens up a new possibility with melodies and stuff.”

INTERVIEW: Amanda Palmer (USA), February 2011

Posted on by David James Young in Interviews

Another double-up – which is a surprising rarity in the history of my interviews. She was quite nice the last time; very gentle and could tell that I was a fan, even if I was a little over-excited and ham-fisted in my interviewing. This time around, I pretty much let Palmer take the driver’s seat, only occasionally guiding the conversation. I think that’s what you’ve got to do with someone like her. It’s not much of a structured interview process – she’ll take the ball and run like hell with it. I kind of love her for it.

– DJY, October 2014

***

She might have been the one to pen and sing the lyric “You don’t want to hear about my good day” all those years ago, but when you’ve had a good a day as Amanda Palmer has, you’d be mad not to want to hear about it. “Okay! So…” begins Palmer with a deep breath. “Why was my day so awesome? Well, first of all, I played an incredible fucking show in Newcastle last night. It was out-of-control fantastic, one of those sublime electric gigs where we turned that bar into some kind of crazed palace. Then, we slept in the venue because it turns out they had a bunch of Futons in the office – we were going to stay with fans, but then we figured we should just crash there.”

“We woke up, and this place – the Great Northern – it had this amazing ballroom on the second floor, which could probably fit like a thousand people. The boyfriend of one of my opening acts texted me in the morning and said “We have to do a video in that ballroom before you leave.” My train was leaving in half an hour, but I was like “Holy fuck, you’re right!” So we put off the train for two hours, he ran over and we made this spontaneous music video for In My Mind from my Australian record [ Amanda Palmer Goes Down Under ]!” Surely this day couldn’t get any better? Oh, it does: “When I got to Sydney, I was on hold to do a chat with The Doctor at Triple J. I listened to his interview with Nick Cave, and he asked about my cover of The Ship Song …and Nick Cave said it was beautiful!”

You can’t blame Palmer for being in heavens-high spirits after that kind of day, now, can you? It’s all part and parcel for whenever AFP (the F is for Fucking, naturally) visits our fair country, and it’s the way it has been since she first started touring here as a part of The Dresden Dolls. “Everytime I come to Australia, awesome things happen,” she says with a laugh. “That’s why I keep coming back!” It’s probably the reason why Palmer’s latest album – a collection of mostly-original material recorded entirely within Australia and New Zealand – doesn’t really come as too great a surprise. It’s a long lasting, passionate and very much mutual love affair.

“I’m a very spontaneous, very messy person,” confesses Palmer, “and I have made an art of improvising my way through life. That seems to be something that Australians really appreciate. There’s just something about Australia and Amanda Palmer that resonates really perfectly in this embrace of the improvisational, do-it-yourself way of life.”

As nice and as smooth-running as things can be for Amanda, it doesn’t quite always go to plan. Just a few weeks ago, Palmer played at the Sydney Opera House for the third time in three years in what was described as an “Australia Day Spectacular.” It was Palmer’s biggest Opera House show to date, starring her friends The Jane Austen Argument, Michelangelo and The Black Sea Gentlemen, Meow Meow and Palmer’s husband, author Neil Gaiman. From various reports, as well as a few unhappy reviews amidst the blogosphere, the show was a bit of a shambles. Palmer is asked to clarify exactly what happened.

“We were going to have a rehearsal the day of our show,” she begins. “It turned into this messy soundcheck with a lot of problems, so we were really under-rehearsed. Then the setlist was written at the last minute, and during the show I accidentally skipped ahead five songs. I realised it two songs in and then had to backtrack and figure out how I was going to get everyone on and off-stage when I needed them for the songs. It turned into a classic disorganised rockshow, and naturally I’m telling everyone about it as it’s happening. Shows like that happen to me all the time…but they don’t happen at the fucking Sydney Opera House!”

“I’ve been talking with so many of the fans since it happened,” she continues. “And even more importantly, I’ve been talking to people who weren’t fans who were there – who got dragged by a friend, or their kids, or because of work. Nobody hated the show, which is a relief, but it still scares the shit out of me. I wonder: why am I capable of getting away with this? I guess maybe people found it refreshing that, in a venue like that, something got completely improvised right in front of them. When you know you’re getting something completely fucked-up and special, that’s where the blanket of forgiveness falls hard.”

This craziness continues to be adored by a swelling cult fanbase upon each and every visit, and one day it may well get to the point where AFP simply doesn’t leave. Not that we’d be complaining, of course – it’d be bloody un-Australian to not make her feel at home, wouldn’t it?

INTERVIEW: Stonefield (AUS), February 2011

Posted on by David James Young in Interviews

I was a very big and very vocal early supporter of Stonefield. I dug what they were about, I loved their energy and I found them to be really exciting. Derivative? Sure, but sometimes that’s what you want – a bit of familiarity and some energy in it. We’ve since fallen out of love – I found both their debut album and headlining show at the Annandale last year to be quite disappointing. Maybe it was only fun when we were younger? Whatever the case, Amy was a quietly reserved and very sweet young lady to interview – probably the youngest person I’ve interviewed apart from maybe Adrian from Northlane? I think so. So yeah, this is from a much brighter time for the Findlay kids – for my money, anyway.

– DJY, October 2014

***

Amy Findlay is hanging out at her cousin’s house in regional Victoria – “Just relaxing, taking a break,” she says. Probably what most girls her age would be doing on a Monday afternoon during school holidays. With that said, it is here where the similarities between her and other girls ends. Give this girl a microphone, a drum set and a couple of siblings and she’ll show you Stonefield – one of the younger collective voices heard in Australian music right now, but easily one of the most exciting.

Having blitzed the competition of triple j’s Unearthed High contest under their former name of Iotah, the band scored high rotation on the station with tracks like Through the Clover and Foreign Lover, both of which were re-recorded for the band’s debut EP. For such a young band, it seems like it has all come to Stonefield quite naturally – and Findlay herself is quick to validate this hypothesis.

“We’ve always been interested in music,” says Amy, the eldest of the four sisters that make up the group. “Because we grew up in a country town, there wasn’t very much available in terms of music lessons – so we took dance lessons and singing lessons and things like that. Luckily for us, about five and a half years ago, a music teacher actually moved in next door to us! We all started playing around the same time – and, as soon as we could, started playing together as a band; ’cause we figured ‘why not?’”

Why not, indeed. Following a rapidly-growing interest in Iotah – now Stonefield after not wanting to be confused with Sydney performer iOTA – the band recorded the bulk of the Through the Clover EP at Atlantic Studios in the south of Melbourne. “That was really fun,” recalls Findlay. “The studio was really cool, too. There was heaps of old equipment – a Hammond organ, Leslie speakers, stuff like that.” The only track from Through the Clover not to be recorded at Atlantic was the title track itself, the stomping rocker with which you are most likely to be familiar with out of the band’s work. That track was recorded in triple j’s very own studio as a part of the aforementioned Unearthed High competition. Findlay also holds fond memories of this session, too – “It was amazing!” she says. “The studio was just incredible; and to work with Greg Wales was such a fun experience.”

With its glass-shattering lead vocals and crashing major chords, there is a very good reason Through the Clover is the band’s most popular song. Surely the group knew they were onto something during the songwriting process of that little number? Findlay is a little bashful, but eventually put this forward: “Y’know when you’re playing or writing a song, and you’d be smiling because you feel so good about it? That’s kind of what happened with that song.” Fair enough and all, but there’s just gotta be more to it than that! Perhaps the answer lies within the songwriting process, which Amy herself is happy to explain.

“Generally, it starts whenever one of us has an idea – whether it’s lyrics or a melody or whatever,” she says. “We just muck around with it, try a whole heap of different stuff and just jam. It’s the best way to get our ideas out there.” Hey, it’s worked so far, why mess with it? “Definitely,” says Amy with a giggle.

Outside of the studio, the band – rounded out by Hannah on guitar, Sarah on keyboards and the youngest, Holly, on bass – have also been honing their live chops. Of late, their biggest gig has been opening the Pyramid Rock festival, the annual Phillip Island festival. “We were pretty scared that there wasn’t going to be anyone there,” admits Amy. “But because a lot of people camped the night before, I think they were ready to see the first band. So there was a good turnout, and it was lots of fun. It was probably the biggest stage we’ve ever played on, too, so it was cool and challenging for us to try and fill that space.”

It won’t be the last time the girls of Stonefield will be filling big spaces – March sees the band taking to the Pushover festival alongside acts such as Children Collide and Violent Soho; while later this year the band will make their first ever trip overseas to perform at the Great Escape festival in May and what many perceive to be the best festival in the world, the Glastonbury Festival, in June. “That’s probably the biggest thing that’s happening this year,” says Amy with a nervous quiver in her tone. She might sound daunted by the big things ahead for Stonefield, but with a talent like theirs you can be sure they’ve got little to worry about.

INTERVIEW: Owen Pallett (CAN), December 2010

Posted on by David James Young in Interviews

I interviewed Owen once before via email back in 2008. It… well, it didn’t go so well. Thankfully, over the phone, Owen was absolutely delightful. He was a really sweet, chirpy kind of guy that provided me with a very easy job of interviewing him. Definitely helped that I was head over heels in love with Heartland, his debut solo album; which has stood the test of time as one of the best albums of the decade thus far. His latest album is pretty exceptional, too. He’s just a fantastic dude. Can’t say enough good things about him. See for yourself!

– DJY, October 2014

***

It’s a cold, blustery day in Toronto, Canada as Owen Pallett takes our interview call, but he’s not about to let it dampen his spirits – especially with his plans over the next couple of months. “I’m really excited about the way that we’ve planned our tour,” says the 31-year-old. We’ve got a week of skiing over in Japan and then we fly down for a little summer vacation in Australia. It’s what I like to do – which is skiing – and what my boyfriend [his manager, Patrick Borjal] likes to do – which is lie on a beach!”

Pallett’s third album, and first under his own name after dropping the Final Fantasy moniker, Heartland, threatened to be the album of the year upon its release – and that was all the way back in January. With nearly twelve months since its release, Pallett still speaks of Heartland with great fondness – although he was initially reluctant to do so.

“At first, when it came out, I was kind of glad to be rid of it,” he admit. “It was a tricky record to make. But now that I have a year-on perspective, I’m feeling really good about it – I feel very proud.” The album, meticulously crafted and several years in the making, revolves around a character by the name of Lewis – a family man and farmer who abandons his life in pursuit of the love of Owen, a character that, by the sounds of things, is the equivalent of a god or deity in Heartland. It’s quite the album to get one’s head around from a conceptual point of view, with many lyrical sections requiring double takes. Interestingly, however, it was never Pallett’s intention to create such a dense, complex work – if anything, he wanted a pop album this time around.

“After I’d made [last album, 2006’s] He Poos Clouds, which was a string quartet, I knew I wanted the next one to be primarily orchestral,” he explains. “I wanted it to really pick on the characteristics of a pop record – specifically, a late seventies/early eighties synth-pop record. I didn’t listen to classical music when I was writing and working on the record – I was absorbing a lot of the pre-digital era synthpop. I really tried to make this record have the feeling of both falling apart and yet also the feeling of mechanism within that genre.”

He rattles off influences such as Can and Depeche Mode (“Particularly Speak and Spell,” he adds) as primary inspiration, as conversation steers back to the album’s characters. Despite song titles such as Lewis Takes Action and the slightly more provocative Lewis Takes Off His Shirt, Pallet himself is quick to downplay the album’s intricate conceptuality. “Conceptually, it’s not really meant to be all that highfalutin or pretentious,” he claims. “I’ve just always wanted to sing from the perspective of ‘the other,’ y’know? From ‘the beloved.’”

His explanation continues: “I simply wanted to make a record where I was singing from the perspective of the object of my desire, rather than specifically singing in my own voice. Even though I felt kind of obliged to be very specific about portraying Lewis and talking about his physical attributes – even from his own perspective – he is simply meant to be what is represented in other people’s songs by…” – he searches for the right word, before coming up with “…baby” – then laughing, adding “…or “shawty.””

Whatever the case, Owen has not only taken notice of readings into the lyrics and concept of Heartland by fans and critics alike, but fully encourages an open interpretation of the entire thing. “When I was making it, I was really trying to make a record that was not maybe necessarily accessible, but one that was going to be appealing – one that wasn’t going to scare people off,” says Pallett. “I’m really flattered when people engage with these songs.”

No doubt many within Australia have been engaging with Heartland since its release, and will be joining Pallett in celebrating its one-year anniversary when the man himself takes to stages across the country next month, including appearances as a part of the Sydney Festival. After taking his time to completely work out a highly technical multi-phonic loop station, which involves sending signals from his instruments across to speakers. Artists as diverse as Jamie Lidell and Autechre also use similar technology in their live performances, yet nothing is quite like the experience of Pallett’s music coming to life.

“I’m in peak condition!” says Pallett with a hearty laugh when asked about his current live set-up. “I’m really excited that my looping is all working now – even though it’s just piano and keyboard, there are actually a lot of channels of sound that I’m creating. When I first started working on it, I hadn’t worked out how to streamline the process and I played the worst show I’ve ever played in Dublin. People thought I was typing with my feet! It’s a pretty intense thing, but at least now I can think about talking to the audience – and maybe even smiling!”

Our conversation wraps with some good-natured humour and some back-and-forth on Australian music (“Tame Impala are Australian, right?”), but perhaps one promise resonates the most: “You guys in Australia are gonna get a good show.” He may have been around for the better part of the last decade, but Owen Pallett is clearly just getting warmed up.

INTERVIEW: Rolo Tomassi (UK), December 2010

Posted on by David James Young in Interviews

I discovered this band by pure chance at a Soundwave some years ago and I’ve dug them ever since. A consistently weird and generally wonderful band that exist on the outside of every genre they blend into their music – and that’s just fine by them. I’ve met the Spence siblings from the band several times, including at their Australian tour last year. They’re incredibly polite and charming folk. That’s all I have to say on the matter, really. 

– DJY, October 2014

***

There was plenty to see and do at this year’s Soundwave festival, but for those who managed to sneak in early, one new band was the talk of the early hours of the festivities. That band was arty British post-hardcore kids Rolo Tomassi, with a deceptively attractive frontwoman in Eva Spence who went on to screech and howl like some kind of rabid dog; as well as having at least half of the members leaping off the stage to crowdsurf at one point or another. Love them or hate them, they certainly generated a reputation, turning many perfect strangers into huge fans.

“For us, it’s the most important thing in the world to do good live shows,” says Eva’s brother James Spence, the band’s keyboardist and co-lead vocalist. “We started the band to play shows more than anything, and we strive to be as good as we can be – tight, as energetic and as aggressive and imposing as we can be without wanting to alienate anyone. We just want to be fun to watch and fun to be a part of.”

Working up from D.I.Y. shows and home-made cassette demos, the band evolved from a project between the Spence siblings to expand into the quintet that it is today. The band have two albums under their belt – the latest of which, Cosmology, was released in May of this year, produced by former M.I.A. and Santigold collaborator Diplo. In spite of Cosmology arguably being the band’s most technical and intrinsic work to date, the band were fully confident in their abilities to translate this to the live environment.

“It’s easier for it to be difficult to play than to worry it won’t sound good live,” Spence says. “Essentially, if something’s difficult, we can always practice it for ourselves. I think that’s the main difference between the first and the second record – there were some songs on the first record that we had to modify to play live, and none of us were really happy with that. We wanted to take what we’d done on the record and play that live and make a bigger energy, rather than change the songs. I think the difficult songs on the new album, we’ve mastered and can be realised in their full potential when we play them now.”

Ahead of its release, fans in Australia were amongst the first to hear cuts from Cosmology road tested properly. Despite only being here for just over a week, Spence still has incredibly fond memories of what was the band’s first ever Australian tour – even going so far as to describe it as a “headfuck.” His voice picks up and the tone of excitement is too outstanding to ignore.

“Flying that far from home across the world to play gigs with our band is just a very, very strange feeling,” he says. “I don’t think any of us ever expected or assumed that we would ever get the opportunity to do something like that, so a lot of the time we were just walking around wide-eyed – we weren’t really sure how to behave or what to do. After getting over the jetlag, we really made the most of the trip, and really explored the place. We could have really been taken aback, but we decided to make the most of it while we were there.”

The tour also saw the band paired up in some Sidewave action with what FasterLouder deemed one of the strangest support acts of all time – Rolo were the opening act for Jane’s Addiction’s headlining shows. “You’re kidding!” says Spence with a laugh when informed of the band making the list. “That’s amazing. I’ll be honest – I couldn’t identify a Jane’s Addiction song if you played it to me. But the name is just one that sticks out – I mean, I knew what Dave Navarro looked like, and I knew who Perry Farrell was – but I wasn’t really familiar with their music; though I knew it was an odd pairing. I consider them the last of the real rock-stars, and we’re a very humble band with really strong D.I.Y. roots – so to see the complete opposite end of the spectrum was something else. They were great shows, though – the crowds were really responsive and cool.”

After working through a tonne of festival dates, as well as coming off tour with a much more fitting support slot – opening for the band’s heroes, The Dillinger Escape Plan – the time is nigh for Rolo Tomassi to make their return to Australian shores as a part of a quadruple bill with other acts from this year’s Soundwave – This Is Hell, Comeback Kid and headliners Architects. The enthusiasm kicks up a notch once more as Spence gears up for his band’s imminent return to our “fair country,” as he puts it.

“Us, Architects and Comeback Kid were all on the same stage,” he recalls. “The drummer from This Is Hell is from England, too, so we got to meet those guys. I’m a fan of that band, so I ended up watching them anyway. It’s gonna be great to catch up with everyone – we all hung out a fair bit on that tour, and we all played some of the same festival dates in Europe, as well. It’s gonna be really nice – there’s gonna be that sense of friendship amongst all the bands, so it won’t be awkward the first few days.”