A chat with THE LAURELS

Interview by Michael Bird
Transcribed by Sean Sebastian
Photos by Timothy Casten

                                                

Driving around the country in the Tarago they've nicknamed 'The Wombat', The Laurels have gathered a strong fan base down the East Coast with their shoegazing, almost psychedelic jams. Their long-awaited, much-anticipated EP is due to be released in the coming months and it will be composed from a giant catalogue of tracks written over the last 2 years. 

The band will be playing Boogie Festival in Tallarook (more info here) this weekend and at the Ding Dong Lounge (Tickets info Here!) for an ANZAC day show with Machete Moon. 

They were down in Melbourne a couple months ago to play shows with Swervedriver and Conor (Bass), Piers (Vocals/Guitar) and Luke (Vocals/Guitar) sat down with DUCKDUZZ to have a chat about the influences on their writing and their touring plans.  

Are you guys excited to play with Swervedriver?

Luke - We all met them and they became really good friends with Kate. They were in constant contact with each other 

Conor - Should be really, really good. They’re a bit of a forgotten band, that whole shoegazer thing. People get more excited about other bands, so it’s cool the Melbourne show’s sold out. 

In an interview, were you kidding when you said you had 23 pedals?

Luke - It was a joke, but we actually do have something like that. I think I have 21 now, but I don’t use them all. I think we’re pretty particular with the texture. I think I spend too much time on Ebay and just read descriptions of these pedals. It’s just a matter of hitting them at the right time, and I can never really do that. It’s a bit too difficult. Hopefully I’ll get used to it. Conor’s only just started getting into guitar pedals.

Conor - I have just one pedal. I bought it off Luke. Actually I think we traded for a bill I owed him or something. I would like to get more.

Was there more of a focus on playing live? Is that why the album took a while to come out?

Conor - I think not getting the stuff out has more to do with logistics and money. Playing live would sort of be the main thing, it’s more fun. We’ve been doing it for so long, it gets more and more fun. With new songs and returning to old ones, we sort of click a bit more than we used to.

The EP was half old recordings and half newer ones?

Conor - We recorded over a long period of time, and we had a sort of album’s worth of material. They were done predominantly in 2 sessions, about a year apart. We just picked the ones we liked out of the both of them, that would be the EP. Hopefully it’ll be out relatively soon.

Initially, I felt like there was a bit of a gulf between it. The older stuff’s kind of more psychy and a bit more what we were into then. And the newer stuff is kind of moving on from that. 

Is that a change in the writing process? 

Conor - Luke and Piers write the songs. 

Luke - We kind of bring them in and put Conor’s magic on the track and Kate comes up with a nice beat. It ends up being a Laurels’ write in the end. 

Is jamming a big part of the process?

Conor -There’s a jam element to it. I think we come into them with a bit more structure than other bands. Luke and Piers always have pretty clear cut ideas. 

Luke - They tended to meander a bit when we first started out, but what we’re writing now is a bit more thought out. 

When we started out we had a pretty clear idea what we wanted and what bands we wanted to sound like. And now, over a couple of years, it seems a bit more like us. Also in the course of 4 years we’ve listened to a whole lot of new music and moved beyond initial artists. 

What would they be then?

Piers - Don’t say jazz. (All laugh). 

Conor - I think over the last few years, I’ve really gotten into Flying Nun and all that sort of stuff. Piers has been getting into a bit of Public Enemy. I don’t know if we bring that into the band at all. 

Piers - it’s just for driving around (laughs). 

Conor - The Saints have been a big influence for a while. 

Piers - It’s been a lot more Australian music, rather than British or American. 

Is it almost a separate thing, live influences and recorded ones?

Conor - There’ve certainly been a few bands that we’ve seen and played with that have had a lot more influence. Like Ghosts of Television. They’re broken up now, but they were an amazing band in Sydney. And we played with them quite a lot, and saw them quite a lot. Personally, I thought that was quite an influence. There’s lots of bands, Beaches, Love of Diagrams. 

Have you played with them at all? Love of Diagrams?

Conor - Played with them once. Which was really exciting. 

There seems to be a lot more psychedelia and new-gazer in Sydney and Tasmania but not much in between? 

Conor - I don’t know why that is. There used to be a lot more bands in Sydney that used to tour with us who aren’t anymore. There was a bit of a community for it. You know, some friends had bands and we all sort of played together. Melbourne has other things.

Luke - There’s a band called 3 Month Sunset. Lowtide now.

Piers - The guy started the band and called it 3 Month Sunset and then he got other people to join and called that band Lowtide. 

Do you get your pick of who to play with down here? 

Conor - Kind of. Probably not as much as we would in Sydney. We’re always keen to come into Melbourne. If we get our support and it suits, and we sort out our schedules, we’ll always make time to come down. We haven’t played with a lot of bands in Melbourne who we’re really looking forward to in future. Panel of Judges. 

ALBUM REVIEW: Jebediah - Kosciuszko

(released on Dew Process/UMA, 2011)
Review by Matt Hallett
                                             
3.5 /5

After deciding to go on hiatus following their 2004 album ‘Braxton Hicks’ Jebediah are back in full flight with their latest release ‘Kosciuszko’. The Perth quartet’s fifth studio album, demonstrates a certain maturity within the well crafted songs, yet still has that unique ‘Jebediah’ sound about it.

It’s evident that singer Kevin Mitchell’s solo project under the name of Bob Evans, has helped further develop his song writing craft, with a number of well crafted and structured songs such as Control and the infectiously catchy She’s Like a Comet. While Mitchell’s voice has matured since the early Jebediah days, there remains a unique quality about his singing that puts an immediately recognisable ‘Jebediah’ stamp on the tracks.

Songs such as To Your Door and Are We Ok? demonstrate the band’s growth over the years from the early days of ‘Slightly Odway’, but there’s still a youthful vigour in songs like Under Your Bed.

Battlesong is a fine example of how the matured Jebediah sound blends with the classic anthemic Jebediah sound on the album; with its steadily marching beat in the verses and hushed vocal tones, building up to an anthemic chorus.

‘Kosciuszko’ is probably a more optimistic record than its predecessors, with a little less angst in the songs. But overall the album is a solid listen from beginning to end, apart from one or two tracks that fall a little flat. It may take a couple of listens for the tracks to sink in, but diehard fans will be impressed, as will new fans who will find the album very accessible, whether or not they’ve heard any older Jebediah material.



Jebediah kick off their tour in support of Kosciuszko at the Corner Hotel in Melbourne, May 5.
For more tour dates and info visit the official Jebediah website.



 

ALBUM REVIEW: The Strokes - Angles

(released on RCA, 2011) 

Review by Michael Bird

                                               

2.5/5

There’s a restaurant I used to take girls to on dates that weren’t particularly important. It might have been hastily organised last-minute dinners or relatively unimportant first stops on long nights out, but the attraction was the minimum fuss, decent if uninspired menu and consistent mediocrity. There’s nothing wrong with mediocrity, of course, in the right context. Unfortunately, someone in the management chain decided that a facelift was needed, and the restaurant became a weird, quasi-Hawaiian themed joint with off-putting staff and strange menu items. There was pineapple everywhere.

I don’t think I’m alone in saying that all I ever really want from a Strokes release is a good time. Casablancas et al. have never been at the cutting edge of creativity (or the cutting edge of anything besides consummate pilfering of the coolest trends from bygone eras), and the big drawcard for the Strokes has always been their ability to turn out solid, catchy as hell garage-pop songs. However, on Angles, the band has changed their menu somewhat. The blueprint remains the same, and there are some cuts that are arguably right up there with ‘Reptilia’ and ‘Someday’, but there is definitely pineapple that’s come with the introduction of new elements. A lot of pineapple.

There have been hints of every-second-beat, lite reggae/ska feel in a few Strokes songs of years gone by, but no one would have accused The Strokes of being terribly experimental before now. Vocalist Julian Casablancas did explore some new-ish territory (new for him as a recording artist, certainly not new in a ‘Michael J. Fox playing Chuck Berry’ sort of way) on his solo release, but for the most part, Strokes albums have been consistently safe affairs in terms of texture. The tropical guitar chirps deployed in ‘Machu Picchu’ are a surprise then, but like most new directions explored in Angles, the novelty wears off quickly and the experiment pales in comparison to the more familiar parts of the song. 

The 80’s reverb and quite ugly drum production that dominates the verses of ‘Two Kinds Of Happiness’ is an unwelcome distraction from the chorus/instrumental break that follows, likewise for ‘You’re So Right’ in its entirety, which must be trudged through before album highlight ‘Taken For A Fool’. It’s a snappy pop number about girls and bars, ‘Taken For A Fool’: truly classic Strokes. Casablancas has never had much to say that was particularly deep, so why bother? There might be one group of kids who gets high and discusses the insipid lyrical turns of ‘Games’ for every thousand discussing Lateralus, it’s just not The Strokes’ market. 

Casablancas does display some growth in his singing abilities, mostly in terms of range. The tinny vocal distortion that became his trademark is gone, and there’s even some multi-tracking (which might become a problem in live performances, we’ll see come next festival season). The disparate, disconnected manner in which the album was apparently recorded seems too easy an excuse for the schizophrenic nature of the songs; it’s really something that can wait for the bands’ obituary to be discussed at length. Who didn’t always suspect that Casablancas was a bit of a dick anyway? The best songs on Angles are those that live up to this and other myths (true or not) about The Strokes, those that sound like they were written and recorded after rolling out of bed, having a smoke and a beer for breakfast, donning out of (and thereby in) fashion jackets and shades, and swaggering a little. Classic Strokes has some swagger to it, and not enough of this album does.

THE JEZABELS - The Corner Hotel, Richmond, 07/04/2011

Written by Sean Sebastian

Photos by Daniel Hussey

                                                      

If there was one word to describe The Jezabels’ sound, it would be dramatic. Anyone who has tuned into Triple J in the past months would no doubt recognise lead singer Hayley Mary’s shrill and frantic musings on love and self-defence, backed by driving drums and theatrical, pounding piano. The songs themselves swell and break as well as any operatic offering at Hamer Hall; particularly tracks like A Little Piece or their EP’s titular Dark Storm, and this all translates ridiculously well at one of their shows.

As the curtains at the Corner Hotel part, Heather Shannon sits placidly at her keyboard, Sam Lockwood stands straight-legged and grinning with his guitar and Nik Kaloper’s fit frame sits with authority at his drumkit. Then Mary, clad in tight, black leather pants stalks onto stage, her face painted in seriousness. She does well in separating herself from the band as she’s the only one who doesn’t really laugh or smile, least of all when Lockwood cracks a joke about their attempts at ‘big rock finishes’. That leaves a slightly sour taste on your tongue as The Jezabels could easily fall into a ‘laughable’ category without a sense of humour about themselves, and with Mary’s solemnity, they do straddle that line quite precariously.

Petty aesthetic squabbles aside, there’s no doubt they’re a tight band on stage; most notable is Kaloper for his madly energetic drum lines, particularly impressive is the tom-rattling Hurt Me. They pace their long tracks with masterful accuracy, making the climactic finishes an energising wall of sound that’s downright irresistible. Mary holds her shrill tunes perfectly and she does well in making herself heard over the reverberating piano and overdriven guitar. One of the more surprising aspects to the band is the almost anthemic quality their songs contain. As the instruments swelled and Mary crooned, more than half the audience threw their arms up and chorused, “I don’t care when you cry, I think self-pity is a state of mind”. It was mostly the twenty-something girls of all denominations who had their eyes closed, mouthing, “But she loves me, more than anyone who wouldn’t lay a hand”.

The Jezabels continue their emotionally energetic onslaught at Youthfest in Sydney on April 10.

                                                       

Support act, Ernest Ellis
The Jezabels