STACK April 2017 Issue 150

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04 APRIL 2017
Did you all expect DeathToThe Lads to hit
it off with the triple j public so hard?The
hottest 100 entry was an amazing result.
Not at all! We believed in the song and
thought people would like it but none of us
expected for it to catch fire the way it did. Love
playing it live now as well, people get very
into it!
The organ at the end is gorgeous; is it a
real one, and if you could have the chance
would you play this at the MelbourneTown
Hall and use the pipe organ?
Thank you! Yeah it is, we recorded in an
amazing studio that had all kinds of organs and
synths and other beautiful gear. I was actually
walking past the town hall yesterday and
thought of how fun it would be to play on that
enormous organ!
Did Max the robot (from the Birthdays
clip) come from the brain of director
NealWalters? How did Neal come into
your world?
It came completely out of his very cool
brain! He's a great person. He's hard
working, passionate and very talented,
but also super easy to be around and
get along with. We just found each other
through mutual friends. We have a similar
ethos and work ethic so as soon as we
entered one another’s worlds it was a
match made in heaven!
There are several unusual sounds in It Kills
MeTo Be Alive. I think there's lapsteel,
synthed strings, and something that could be
a euphonium in a bucket. How much time did
you spend experimenting with where these
sorts of sounds fit across the album?
It's lapsteel, pedal steel and the Lee [Hartney]
doing guitar volume swells. We did heaps of
pre-production and then had about a month
to record, so we experimented a lot. There're
definitely a lot more interesting sounds and
ideas on this album than on our previous work.
ZKR
Jeff Rosenstock’s album WORRY. was
one of my favourites from last year –
what do you admire about Jeff and
his approach to music?
Everything! Jeff’s been my hero since
I was about 15, so to be able to call him
a friend now is pretty special. His energy
and passion for music is infectious and
we have different writing styles that
complement each other well. He's a
fantastic producer!
One of the major thematic similarities
between your own and his outputs is, I think,
the acknowledgement of ill mental health
and anxiety. Do those themes come out in
your music because you are deliberately
trying to address them, or is it just chance
that the way you find catharsis – through
creating music – also brings people who
suffer together?
A bit of both. I try and be as natural as
possible with my lyrics, if I set out to try to write
a certain kind of song it always sounds forced
so I try and let the songs write themselves as
much as I can. But whenever I write a song
that's about these kind of issues I always try and
make it a good song, it's very important to me to
talk about this stuff and I love that it emboldens
other people to talk about it too!
continued
The enormous, freaky glitch noise towards the end of Laughing (Or Pretending To Laugh), the final track on The Smith Street Band's new album, remains a mystery to
the band, their engineer and their producer. They decided to leave it in the final recording.
ALED JONES
We all know what it means for a vocalist to harmonise with
themselves – singers have been layering their own vocals
in the studio since time immemorial. But on his new album One
Voice, world-renowned Welsh vocalist Aled Jones duets with
himself... as a child. Jones reached international fame at 15 with
the haunting Walking In The Air, and after a decades-long career
in musical theatre, radio and television broadcasting, recently
unearthed never-before-heard recordings of himself singing as
a boy. In what he describes as a decision which has brought
him "full circle," Jones recorded accompanying vocals to the
collection of classics (including pieces by Handel, Purcell and Britten as
well as Celtic Irish and Welsh folk music). The special Australian edition
features an exclusive 1986 recording of Jones and Australian bel canto
Dame Joan Sutherland performing Handel's Athalia. ZKR
One Voice
by Aled Jones
is out now via
ABC/Universal.
visit MUSIC NEWS
Read the full interview online at
THE
SMITH
STREET
BAND
We shoot some questions toThe
Smith Street Band'sWilWagner,
ahead of the release of the group's
fourth album More Scared Of You
ThanYou Are Of Me .
More
Scared Of You
Than You Are
Of Me by The
Smith Street
Band is out April
7 via Pool House
Records.
TOURING
25/05 - 10/06
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