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. 

Are there more recording plans on the horizon?

Conor - Yeah, really soon. We’re trying to sort out the EP, before we’re ready for the album. 

Luke - The recording would be finished this year anyway. 

Conor - We’re hoping to get the EP out, and then have the album ready to pull out really soon afterwards. When it’s all built up, we kinda just want to get it out there. 

Have you all still got other bands? Is one of you studying?

Conor - I’m studying. Which isn’t too bad. My job is to do uni stuff on my own schedule, so it doesn’t really get in the way. We all play in other bands. – I quit mine (laughs). – We used to all play in other bands. I play in one with my brother. – That’s a bit more sporadic though, you can kinda get away with it. 

Is it a conscious decision to focus more on the Laurels and less on the others?

Conor - I think it’s good to have different outlets for things, you know? The other band I play in is a bit more dirty and it’s fun to be able to play stuff I wouldn’t be able to with The Laurels. And vice versa. Kate plays in Holy Soul and they’re fantastic.

Did you guys all know each other in your old bands?

Luke - We all started playing together, and the others sort of poached members from us. We were the original ones (laughs). 

Was that through school or uni?

Luke - We all sort of met up after we finished school. School would be a lot more pleasant if I had known these guys. (laughs). 

Conor - Luke and Piers grew up in Woollongong and Perth, respectively, and then moved to Sydney.

Luke - Where’s Kate from? I always forget.

Piers - Epping. (laughs). 

Luke - First time I met Conor I spewed everywhere.

Conor - There was a lot of kind of pissing about, kind of before we got a show together. 

Luke - Still pissing about. Haven’t done anything. (laughs). 

Well is that the case with the album? Not so much pissing about, but other commitments? Is there really a drive to get it out? 

Conor - Yeah. It’s been ridiculous. We could’ve put out so many songs if we had have done that, instead of holding onto it. 

Luke - A majority of the songs are 6 to 7 years old, and we’ve changed so much between then and now. So we couldn’t really put it out. 

Conor - I think we’re lucky we do have this back log of material to fit into an album. We have a pretty clear idea of where we wanna go.

And where is that?

Conor - Jazz. (Laughs). Free Jazz. Bebop. Barbershop. 

There’s a band from the UK every now and then asking us to change our name, “We’ve registered our name, you’ve gotta change yours”.

Piers - I saw some YouTube clips of them, they have a song called ‘Lavalamp’. 

Apart from recording, are there any grand plans for touring?

Conor - We really loved when we toured with Tame Impala, it would be great to go to Perth, visit Piers’s homeland. Just play around a bit more. I think that would be the next step, after we get this out and finish the recording. We played in Woollongong and the only people there, literally, were our mums and dads. Literally the only people there. I loved playing the regional places with Tame Impala. Places like Ballarat and Geelong, Maroochydore, Byron Bay, 

Luke - Byron Bay was so good. 

Piers - People seemed more enthusiastic. 

Luke - Brendan. From Red Cliff. He was awesome. He drove 50 kms to the venue, and had a lot of beers and a few cones before he drove home.

Conor - So we felt a certain kinship with him.

There’s just more of a culture of loud music here I think. In Sydney, it’s a bit better now, but there was period when we were just kinda losing venues by the month. The Hopetown was a big one. There’s a strip along Oxford where there’s a few places you can play at, that’s the main place to play. 

Luke - Same thing happened to the Tote down here, except people here get off their ass and do something about it. Rather than going and drinking in a different street or whatever. 

Conor - That does make Melbourne a lot more appealing. At the same time it’s nice to play shows at a few big bars. Except Piers is the only one that can drive, so it’s probably a hassle for him. 

Piers - Nah, I love it. 

Luke - We have a Tarago. The ‘Wombat’. We gotta get a different name for it.

"Black Cathedral" Directed by Oliver Heath.

Are you looking for festivals or anything, to play at?

Conor - We’re playing at a Boogie Festival in March. That will be fun, that would be our first festival. We’ve never really played outdoors before, We’re playing at 11.30 in the morning, that’s kinda nice.

Luke - We once had a show at 11, then we had to drive to Kotoomba, and we were also moving house that weekend. Yeah. 

Were there ever any other members in the Laurels?

Conor - Yeah there was. There was one for about 2 years. We had a keyboardist, but then she went overseas for a while and disappeared. 

Luke - Well, she came back. (Laughs). She was gone for 6 months. And we’d sort of moved in a different direction. 

Piers - During our first ever jam together, she fell asleep. That’s how it goes. 

Conor - We started out a lot cleaner and poppier, but it became a lot more abrasive and harsher. 

Luke - We’ve gotten angrier as we got older, more stuff to complain about. 

Conor - I really like that late 60’s,early 70’s, militant, east-coast jazz. A lot of it’s pretty sonic and I like it in the same reasons I like a lot of late 80’s and early 90’s, for lack of a better word: shoe-gaze stuff.

UPCOMING DATES:

Saturday 23rd April: BOOGIE FESTIVAL

Tallarook, Victoria

Tickets Here

Monday 25th April: DING DONG LOUNGE

Melbourne, Victoria

Tickets Here