Tag: 2010s

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: 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: The New Pornographers (CAN), October 2010

Posted on by David James Young in Interviews

This was a fun one. Carl “A.C.” Newman is a legend of indie rock in my eyes, and you’ll rarely find a band as consistently great as his main squeeze, The New Pornographers. This chat is another one of the best that I wrote this year – even now, I’m really happy with it. I love the album Carl was promoting, as well. It’s called Together and you could do far worse if it’s your first New Pornos album. 

– DJY, October 2014

***

Carl Newman is on the line from Woodstock. No, he hasn’t created some kind of awesome time machine – the man, his wife and, their dog all live in the small town of Woodstock in the state of New York. “Y’know the story, right?” asks Carl, as he delves into the heritage of his home.

“All the people that were gonna put on the concert were originally from Woodstock, but they couldn’t find a place here to do it. So they had to go to Bethel, which is about thirty miles away – but they still called the thing Woodstock.” Living in such an important area to rock history must mean that the Newman family always has a story to tell whenever someone asks where they live – and Carl is inclined to agree. “The funny thing is,” he says, “is we’ve accidentally met quite a few people of note just by living here.”

“For instance, one of my favourite stories is that my next door neighbour is this old folk singer called Happy Traum. A lot of people know him because he did some duets with Dylan, and knew him from the Greenwich Village days. He invited my wife and I over to thanksgiving dinner, and we were sitting with John Sebastian of The Lovin’ Spoonful. Even better, we went to his 4th of July celebration and Donald Fagen was there! We didn’t talk to him, though – we were afraid of him!”

It’s more than evident that Newman is a very lucky guy. Not only is his home life truly rock & roll, but his day job keeps moving from strength to strength. The New Pornographers, the band which Newman leads, have just released their fifth album, Together, another uplifting exercise in full-voiced indie rock. Though its title may seem somewhat plain, Newman is quick to insist there’s a lot more to it than one might think.

“The word showed up a few times in the songs we were writing,” he explains. “It made me think of when we first began, in 1998. One of the first cover songs we ever learned was a song called Together, by a band called The Illusions. It made me think that the word “together” was a throwback to our beginnings – in a sense, calling our record Together was like our way of calling it Get Back.

“On another level,” he continues, “I also like the idea of appropriating a really generic word. So often when you’re trying to name a song or an album, you’re always trying to think of something really clever – like, “let’s think of something someone’s never heard before!” I always liked it when bands took a really generic word and made it their own – like calling your band Kiss or Love. You make it your own just by being who you are.”

Before going in to work on Together, Newman also got into the studio as a solo artist to contribute to the benefit album Stroke: Songs for Chris Knox. Knox, a New Zealand musician, suffered a stroke last year and has undergone severe treatment. To raise funds to assist Knox and his family in these troubled times, a slew of indie rock royalty – Newman, John Darnielle, Jeff Mangum, the late Jay Reatard et al. – each contributed a version of one of Knox’s songs to a double album, with all proceeds going to Knox’s treatment.

“That was an honour,” says Newman when asked of his contribution. “He really truly is one of my favourite songwriters. People talk about how I’m influenced by Brian Wilson and Jimmy Webb and Burt Bacharach – and I love all those people, but when I sit down and write a song, I think I’m closer to Chris Knox. I just love the way that he just sits down and plays his guitar really hard. There’s nothing incredibly fancy about it. He just plays urgently and writes these amazing songs. I’m just a massive fan. I don’t know how he’s doing these days, but I really hope he’s doing well.”

Newman, along with the rest of the Pornographers, will get his chance to visit Knox’s native country this November when the band brings the tour in support of Together to Australasia. Although the band are looking forward to returning to Australia, Carl feels obligated to bring the best show he possibly can to the land of the long white cloud – particularly after the band’s last visit in support of 2007’s Challengers.

“The Auckland show we played last time was the drunkest I have ever been on stage,” admits Newman. “There were a couple of songs we should have been able to play in our sleep, like Mass Romantic from our first record [2000’s Mass Romantic ], and Chump Change from our second record [2003’s Electric Version ]… I think I played a verse twice or something, and the whole band was just looking at me, thinking “Holy shit!” When I walked off stage, my wife was there – she came with us on the last tour – and she’s usually the most supportive person in the world. That night, she just looked angry at me, just saying “that was terrible!” I felt so bad, man, I went and apologised to everyone in the band and promised them it would never happen again – and it hasn’t!”

So, if any Kiwis are reading, hear this promise from Carl: “I owe one to Auckland. I’m hoping they come back and let me prove that I can put on a better show!”

INTERVIEW: Sage Francis (USA), September 2010

Posted on by David James Young in Interviews

Up until recently, this was potentially the quickest interview I’d ever done. Your boy Sage wrapped things up about 7 minutes in and was straight on to the next interview. It was a timing mishap or something like that, but I certainly got all that I needed out of him. He’s a bizarre and often hilarious character, and one that I always have time for. In the spirit of keeping things brief, I’ll leave it here.

– DJY, October 2014

***

There’s something we have to clear up with Sage Francis before the interview begins. It’s not anything major, nor is it some long-winded and unnecessary rant about the conventions of live hip-hop. It’s simply a formality: how do you prefer to be addressed? Do you call him Francis? Sage? Mr. Francis? Paul, his real name?

The man in question pauses on the other end of the line to consider the question. “…can you call me Dirty Uncle Frank?” Gee, don’t see why not. How are you, Dirty Uncle Frank? The line cracks with Francis’ cackling laugh. “Ohh man, this is gonna be interesting.”

Francis – sorry, Dirty Uncle Frank – is on the line from his home in Rhode Island, New York. He’s in the midst of what he calls a “marathon” of phone interviews for publications all across the world. While the promotional aspect of music is a drag for some people, Francis describes the experience as “breezy.” “I feel like I’m taking a quiz where I know all the answers,” he says with a laugh. This, believe it or not, is his downtime – he’s currently getting to the tailend of a major world tour, which will end right here in Australia.

It’s all in support of his most recent album, entitled Li(f)e – and, even though he’s probably told the story countless times, he’s more than willing to explain just how those parentheses came into play. “There’s an old lyric of mine where I say ‘life is just a lie with an F in it/and death is definite,’” says Francis.

“That lyric, in particular, is something that my fanbase kinda flocked to and they just owned it. They created that spelling of life with the f in parentheses, representing that lyric, and people even started getting it tattooed on them. I kept getting sent these pictures of this tattoo, and it really made me step back and think. I was like ‘Wow, people have been really taken by this lyric and are adopting it to their own lives and what they’re going through, and the believe in it enough to the point where they get it permanently marked on them.’ So I titled the album like that as sort of a tribute to that. It’s an understanding that there is a lot of meaning behind the symbolism of that, and I elaborate a lot on that in the subject matter of the album.”

It’s an album of bleak storytelling, heartbreak, isolation and family – and appears to be simultaneously the most and least personal record Francis has done. This is in reference to the tandem of both first and third person perspectives mixed into varying degrees on Li(f)e. “I guess I find it easier to write in first person,” says Francis when questioned on which writing style works best for him; before adding: “It’s easy for people to talk about themselves, I find. I also really love to be able to adopt someone else’s story for my own voice. I think it gives both me and the listener a break from me – I’m sure most of my fans have heard enough about me by now.”

Indeed, Sage’s evidently dedicated fans have come to learn a lot about the man behind the music through a lot of dark, introspective works over the years. With Li(f)e, however, it’s interesting to note that it’s the music behind these stories is more of a change than ever before. Borrowing from contemporaries such as Canada’s Buck 65, Francis spends a lot of time on the record rapping over acoustic guitar, jazz brushes, strings and a whole world of instrumentation beyond a simple 808 beat and a sped-up soul sample. Although Sage understands it was definitely more of a risk, he also claims it was exciting to be working within this new territory.

“I was receiving music from people that don’t typically provide soundscapes for hip-hop lyrics,” he says about the challenges of thinking outside the square. “I had to adapt to their sounds, to their time signatures and their song structures- which is fine. I feel like I give rap lyrics a lot more respect than others, on account of the fact I think that it can work with this.”

He then goes on to philosophise on where hip-hop stands sonically in this day and age. “Hip-hop has a history of taking from other genres and making it its own. Now, in 2010, I feel like there’s been a similar sound in hip-hop for quite awhile – the wheel has been spinning,” he says. “It’s a typical sound, and it’s a sound that I like, but I also feel like that there are other things that can happen with hip-hop, and with rap. So for me to sit there and think about how my lyrics can work within, say, a country and western style or perhaps a bluegrass style, that’s fun for me. I know I can do it, it just takes a little bit of readjusting. It brings out other things in me, and it’s fun.”

So there’s still conventions left to break in the field of hip-hop? “There’s a million conventions to break,” Francis responds. “I’m one of a few people who will step outside the norm and piss off the core base of hip-hop…” – there’s a pause. He mumbles something to himself, before correcting himself. “Actually, that isn’t true. I’m not one of the few. I’m one of the many, but I’m one of the few that people know about. There’s a lot of people doing super out-there shit, doing things way out of the norm and breaking tonnes of conventions. But they’re not getting the exposure and they’re not getting the support, so most people won’t know about them. So I think it’s important that one tries to understand the foundations of hip-hop and know how to create traditionally before going out on a limb and being like ‘look how crazy and different this is!’ You have to prove yourself before you go too far.”

INTERVIEW: Every Time I Die (USA), January 2010

Posted on by David James Young in Interviews

“This ain’t my first rodeo!” Actually, this was – I’ve interviewed members of Every Time I Die four times, and this was the first of those. I’m pretty sure it was Keith Buckley who answered the questions. This was for the Boys of Summer tour – remember when that was a thing? Another emailer; this was pretty sweet as I was just getting into these guys. I finally got to see them live in 2013; and their headliner ended up being one of the best shows of the year. Now, on with the show.

– DJY, April 2014

***

Welcome back to Australia! Have you been looking forward to coming back?
We absolutely have, especially because where I live there’s about four feet of snow on the ground. Now I’m out here sitting pool-side. When I go home, I’m gonna be the cats pyjamas! But we also love being here because the shows are amazing. Everyone is super nice to us. Sometimes aggressively nice. That’s sometimes a bad thing, but it’s rare.

Looking back on 2009, what were some of your favourite moments?
I got married, which was pretty monumental. It was a good year for us. We’ve been touring a lot on the newest record and did our first legit headliner for Epitaph. The reception was better than we could have hoped for.

My little brother has fond memories of Keith getting nailed by bottles at Sydney’s 2009 Soundwave. Did this kind of stuff happen at every stop?
I tried to encourage it as much as possible. We want to make the people watching us feel like they’re a part of the show. Since the stage was so big and we really weren’t close to them, I wanted them to come to us. It kept me on my toes too. I’m a lot faster than anything thinks.

You must be upset that Trap Them are no longer on the bill?
I am indeed. I’m an enormous fan of that band.

What do you think of the other acts you are playing with on the Boys of Summer tour?
I think they’re all really cool. They have a lot of support from the kids coming out so it adds a great element. They’re familiar to people. The guys are super nice too.

Many bands speak of how gruelling touring schedules can be. Has that ever been a difficulty in the ETID camp?
No man, it’s just a part of the job. You know what you’re getting into when you sign up. Well, at least you did years ago. If people complain, it’s because they put their music on the internet and got signed before even playing a real show. Either it took them by surprise or they’re just spoiled and didn’t realise that the instruments they bought with daddy’s money didn’t come with a ‘Get Out Of Jail Free’ card and they’d have to suffer for their art.

What have recent set-lists consisted of? Is there even a slight chance of playing at least one Burial Plot track?
There is ZERO chance of a BPBW song. Haha. It’s a good mix, about four songs from each record.

Can you tell us any more about what’s happening with The Damned Things?
I just did some demo/pre-production right before leaving for Australia. Things are coming out splendidly. A lot of solos; a lot of huge choruses. My dad heard a song and said it sounded like Foreigner. That’s a real good thing.