ComfortComes

Secret Machines

Are you guys currently on the road? Where are you at now?

Well actually right now, we’re in between tours. We just finished touring in the US and soon we start touring Europe. So right now, we’re home, in New York, where we have been living for the last 6 years.

So you guys will be touring Europe, where you’ve already toured before. Are you excited about going back?

Yeah, because in Europe we don’t feel that there’s as much expectations as in the States. The States is such a big country and Europe is made up of smaller countries, so things are more word of mouth there. But, yeah we’re really looking forward to going back to Europe.

This summer you’ll also be touring in Asia. Will it be your first tour there?

No, we actually went to Japan a couple of years back for the Summer Sonic tour. You know, big bands can tour everywhere, anywhere and anytime. For a smaller band like us we never know when we’ll be back in Japan. Before we were actually with a label, Japan would kind of pass on us. Then when we got a label, the label company did not think it would be a good idea to go there until the record came out.
Japan is one of the few places in the world where I’m truly lost. I don’t speak the language, I can’t read anything and not everybody speaks English, so I’m truly lost. It feels really weird.

Kind of like Lost in Translation?

Yeah, but imagine that at night you’ve got to play. You feel totally lost and weird all day and then at night you’ve got to rock.

So what would you say as been your best experience so far on this tour?

We started in the US with these real ambitious shows. In New York and Los Angeles, we played in the round. We would play in the middle of the room, with all the people around us and the lights coming up. It was really cool. It’s not like when Metallica plays in the round. They’re in an arena filled with people. For us, it was a much smaller site. We wanted to be entertaining and we pulled it off. We’re thinking of ending our US tour for the fall in the same way.

You guys are also coming to my hometown, Montreal, for the Dog Day Afternoon show. Have you ever been to Montreal?

Actually we’ve been a few times. We have been to Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver. We always have good shows in Vancouver. Toronto was good too. Montreal is cool, but whenever we come to Montreal, there always seems to be a reason why it should’ve been better. It’s like “Oh you guys shouldn’t have come in the winter” or “you should’ve been here last week”. We get small crowds. And you keep hearing all these things about how Montreal is down, Montreal is hip to music. I do like Montreal. I just wish we would do better here.

You guys have had a lot of media attention lately. Would you say it has changed the group’s relationship? Has it put extra pressure?

It hasn’t put extra pressure, because no one puts more pressure on us than we do on ourselves, regarding what we want to do musically, artistically and what kind of path we want to explore. But it does seem like it was easier when it was just us three. When we first moved to New York, in 2000, we didn’t have a lot of money. We had an apartment, in Bushwick, which at the time was a rough part of town, with just one big room with all of our gear on one side and our three beds on the other. It was a year where we just did what we had to do; write, rehearse, play shows, etc. Now it seems like there’s always someone to deal with. You’ve got to deal with your manager, your booking agent, your lawyer, etc. We have more of a do-it-yourself attitude. We’ll never be the kind of band to call up our manager and say that we need our dry cleaning done. We try to keep doing stuff by ourselves as much as possible. So it’s not so much the pressure as the stress of balancing the new responsibilities, like having a crew for lights and sound. We want to keep playing and keep cherishing that. We don’t want to tamper with our love for music. We want to wake up and play music and have fun. Doing what you love as a career is difficult; you have to make a lot of sacrifices. Right now, we’re in a situation where we can do this for the rest of our lives, so we’re just trying to stay balanced.

Talking about media attention, you were recently interviewed by David Bowie. Are you guys big fans? How did that feel?

It’s funny because since the podcast with Bowie, we’ve gotten these sci-fi interviews where we’re in an interview asking us about another interview. It’s kind of like the interview is more popular than other aspects of our music. But we are big fans and we’ll always have that memory. I mean this is David Fucking Bowie. He’s a cool guy. He’s interviewing us and we’re like “Dude, we should be interviewing you!”. It was very flattering and cool. At the same time, we don’t want it to be the only thing we’re known for. “Secret Machines ? Isn’t that the band that got interviewed by David Bowie?”. We don’t want it to be our big highlight, but it’s really cool.

Your album has also been reviewed by Rolling Stone and you have been in countless magazines. How do you feel about the media attention?

Well it’s kind of a double-edge sword. It’s mostly thanks to our publicist at Warner Bros, who fell in love with the band. He’s great. Since he has this real love for the band, he’s able to get a lot of people’s attention to it. It’s weird that we get so much ink when we have less record sales and station rotation than other groups. I get the impression the people see us as more successful than we really are.
We’re really lucky. Thanks to our publicist, we’re getting a lot of press. I would say that we’re the most overlooked underground group with the greatest amount of press. Personally, I wouldn’t mind having less press, but more fans. Fans are real. Reviews come and go. We do appreciate it though. It would suck if we got a lot of negative press.

What does the name of the album, Ten Silver Drops, mean?

This is a weird question, since normally we don’t like to tell people what album titles or lyrics mean. But this time I’ll answer it. We were in a studio in London mixing. The whole time, everyday, we would throw out album names and we would each be like “Nah, let me think about it for a while”. One day, Brandon (Curtis, vocals) came in the studio saying he had a dream.
“Cool, what was the dream about?”
“Ten Silver Drops.”
At the time, we were mixing ten songs, but only 8 songs made the album, so for me it just totally connected. We have 10 songs and we have been here mixing this album for what feels like 10 months.
We’re always careful about telling what our lyrics or album title mean. I think it’s cool when you make it your own. It’s good to leave that space for you to interpret it.

Leave space for the imagination?

A little bit, yeah. Because it’s fun. It’s like a Van Gogh painting; you don’t look at it for what he’s telling you, but for what you’re feeling when you look at it. We try to not push a meaning on people. It’s fun for the songs to be reinterpreted.

By Eli Larin

Wolfmother

For those unfamiliar with your music, can you tell us a little bit about yourselves? Give us a bit of background, so we can get a picture of who you are.

We are three guys who met up through mutual friends, some years ago, in Sydney Australia, and realised we shared a love for collecting gear and playing music. We spent five or six years jamming together in our free time, we would have sessions where we would just play for hours on end with no structure at all really. We loved it but began to get increasingly frustrated that we didn’t really have any songs and had never played a gig. Most of the tracks on our album were put together to get gigs and try to fill a live set.

How do you write songs? Any special techniques?

A lot of the tracks come together from jamming sessions that we would record and then go back and slowly structure into songs, we spend a lot of time thinking about dynamics, and how we are taking a song on a journey, a lot of the time a song doesn’t really get resolved until you road test it on an audience.

What do you think is the most influential Australian music release and why?

For me it would probably be The Avalanches “Since I left You” because it was such a bold statement, They really weren’t paying attention to what anyone else was doing and came out with something so unique and full of character. Part of the beauty for me is that it doesn’t necessarily sound Australian, It sounds like it could have been produced in New York or Paris or wherever. It’s just a celebration of psychedelic music, and can translate anywhere, I think.

Can you tell us a bit about your upcoming album?

Well we recorded the album in L.A last year with Mr D. Sardy. The majority of the tracks came directly from our live sets we had been playing and touring for up to a year and a half before hand, a handful of the songs were created during the one month of pre-production we spent working at cherokee studios in L.A. We then spent another two months tracking and recording the album in various studios around Hollywood. It was an amazing experience for us and we are really happy with how it has turned out.

The producer on the album Dave Sardy has worked with some great bands. Was that a pressure to bare?

We were probably a bit nervous the first day of pre-production when he walked in, sat down and said “o.k. play me a song” but very quickly we realized that we was a great guy to work with, he would push and challenge us but at the same time was a really down to earth and funny guy. He taught us a whole new way to communicate and he was like the fourth member of the band for a while, he could bring an outside perspective to structuring the tracks and giving us ideas.

The artwork for your releases has been stunning. Who does the work?

It’s from a guy called Frank Frazetta, he’s a pretty well known illustrator from N.Y. he did a lot of sci-fi and fantasy book covers and things back in the 60′s.

You are on the Big Day Out Festival. Are you looking forward to playing with all those bands?

We love being a part of music festivals, it’s a trip for us to have our name up on the bill with bands we really dig.

What cane people expect at one of your gigs?

People cane expect to experience a trance induced interaction between three curly haired fools jumping around the stage and attempting to co-ordinate a musical happening through the use of loud noises.

Who are you guys listening to right now? Are you listening to new stuff as well as old stuff?

A Tribe Called Quest, Air, Amon Duul II, Antipop Consortium, Aphex Twin, The Arcade Fire, Autechre, The Avalanches, The Beach Boys, Beans, The Beastie Boys, The Beatles, Beck, The Beta Band, Bjork, The Black Dog, The Black Keys, Black Mountain, Black Sabbath, Blackalicious, Boards Of Canada, Bola, Bon Jovi, Booker T. & the MG’s, Boom Bip, Brian Eno, Broadcast, Buffalo Daughter, Bumblebeez 81, The Byrds, Can, Cannibal Ox, Capitol K, Caribou, Clisms, Clouddead, Cream, The Creation, Cut Copy, Daft Punk, Damnation, The Dandy Warhols, Danger Doom, David Axelrod, David Bowie, David Holmes, De La Soul, Dead Meadow, Death In Vegas, Decoder Ring, Deep Purple, Desert Sessions, Devendra Banhart, Die! Die! Die!, Dj Shadow, Donovan, The Doors, Dr. Octagon, Dungen, El-P, Entombed, Faith No More, Four Tet, Fu Manchu, Fudge Tunnel, Gerling, The Go! Team, Gorillaz, Grateful Dead, Herbie Hancock, The Hives, Icehouse, Incredible String Band, Interpol, Jackson and his Computer Band, Jaga Jazzist, Jean-Michel Jarre, Jefferson Airplane, Jimi Hendrix Experience, Jimmy Edgar, The Juan Maclean, Kate Bush, Kim, King Crimson, Kings Of Leon, The Kinks, KLF, Kraftwerk, Kyuss, LCD Soundsystem, Led Zeppelin, Lego Feet, LFO, M83, Madvillain, Manitoba, The Mars Volta, Massive Attack, Mastodon, Metallica, The Meters, Midnight Juggernauts, Mike Patton, Miles Davis, Money Mark, Motorpsycho, Mouse On Mars, Mr. Bungle, Mr. Oizo, Mr. Scruff, Mum, My Bloody Valentine, Neil Finn, Neil Young, New Buffalo, Nightmares on Wax, Nirvana, Outcast, Pavement, Pink Floyd, Plaid, Plone, Poets Of Rhythm, Polyphonic Spree, Portishead, Prefuse 73, The Presets, Primal Scream, Prop, Radiohead, Ratatat, RJD2, Rocket Science, Roots Manuva, The Saints, Savath and Savalas, Skalpel, Slayer, Sleep, Sly & the Family Stone, Soulwax, SPOD, Squarepusher, Stereolab, The Stanglers, The Strokes, Supergrass, Syd Barrett, Talking Heads, Tangerine Dream, Tom Vek, Tomahawk, Tommy Guerrero, Tortoise, Trans Am, Turn On, Two Lone Swordsmen, Van She, Vincent Gallo, Ween, The White Stripes, The Who, Wolf & Cub, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Yellow Sunshine, etc.

I always wanted to go to Australia. Give me a reason why I should?
Because you always wanted to. We’ve got kangaroos.

By John Siwicki