STACK July 2016 Issue 141

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for two months, Emma re-built
her purpose and wrote the tracks
which make up Supercry .
Piano is a major player, from
the lilting chords on single
Underflow (which also features a
sample of the huge church tower
bell at the centre of Pascal’s
village) and the almost biblical
toggle between major and minor
chords in album opener All We
Ask Is Time. Everything Will Be
Fine is a stand-out of uniquely
elegant samples and Talk Baby
Talk includes Emma’s own
hambone-type mouth effects,
which she demonstrates for
me by deftly tapping her cheek.
Pascal Gabriel. He lives in France
in a castle.'”
To the castle our gal went,
and so began a transformative
journey. “There was a tower
outside of the studio that you
would stand on top of and just
look over the whole of the south
of France. It was so chilled; I
only knew music as this super
stressful thing that totally
destroys me – my confidence
was whittled away – but this
was just so much fun. It’s really
changed things for me so much,
in a really good way.” Living with
Pascal and his wife (“who’s the
best cook in the f-cking world”)
T here was a time there, back in early 2015,
when every other day you heard another
sour story about Blink-182; the iconoclastic
pop-punk trio were apparently in-fighting, and
their position as perennial bros was suddenly
shaky and confused. “It wasn’t like anyone was
Twittering, ‘so-and-so sucks,’” drummer Travis
Barker tells us. “It was just trying to explain to
the fans what was going on.” What was going
on was that vocalist and guitarist Tom DeLonge
had left the group, and the reasons were murky
even to his former bandmates. “It was hard,
but everything happened for a reason,” Barker
explains. “At that time when Tom took his hiatus
from the band, I honestly think he needed a
break and he really wanted to pursue other
things. I talk to Tom; I’m friendly with Tom; I
respect Tom and any decisions of his – but all
we did is, we continued on. We had a couple of
shows booked. We followed through with them.
We kept our commitment and then decided to
experiment with getting in the studio and that’s
how California came about.”
Those shows Barker is describing featured
the talents of Alkaline Trio’s Matt Skiba, who
agreed to fill in for DeLonge. “I was surprised
how great he sounded singing Tom’s parts,”
Barker says. “He has kind of the same register
as far as his voice, and he just killed those parts.
It was really great.” When the chemistry kept
rolling, Barker and third bandmember Mark
Hoppus asked Skiba to join them in songwriting,
and the return to Blink form – which Barker
says had been hampered by DeLonge’s interest
in Coldplay and U2, bands he insists he is
not “dogging out”, but which nonetheless are
a definite shift away from the Blink style –
resulted in 30 tracks spilling into the studio,
from which the group picked the best 14. “We
play fast, melodic, energetic music,” Barker
says.”It was kind of easy to just do what we
naturally do on this album.”
visit MUSIC NEWS
06 JULY 2016
MUSIC
California by Blink-182
is out now via Liberator.
W hen she relocated to
Melbourne at the end of
last year, the first thing Emma
Louise did was head straight for
a coveted treasure she hoped
was still waiting for her. “Eight
months before [I moved] I saw
this piano and I was like ‘F-ck
man, If I move to Melbourne and
it’s still here I’m going to get it,'"
she says. "It’s a really old one:
1908.”
It's an extension of the
determination that returned after
a long period of fatigue, following
the release of her acclaimed first
album vs Head vs Heart. “In the
time that I took off a lot of things
ended at the same time,” she
explains. “I didn’t know what I
wanted to be or what I wanted to
do. I wasn’t planning on making
an album at all. I just wanted
to write. And my manager said
'Okay, there’s this guy called
INTERVIEW
EMMA
LOUISE
continued
TRAVIS BARKER BLINK-182
INTERVIEW
Closer I Thought I Was A Ship
channels the eerie beauty of
James Blake, and Grace is a
moving tribute to Emma’s best
friend. “We met the first few
days of Grade 8,” the musician
says with shiny eyes. “We slept
over at each other’s house all
through high school. We went to
Italy together. She’s a total angel
in person. I still can’t really listen
to that song when I’m delicate or
I’ll end up crying, ‘cause she’s the
real deal.”
As a solitary person, Emma
has tried to “break out” of the
feeling that she can’t be creative
in front of people; Grace is one
of the few who have known for
longer than the rest of us that
Emma adores painting. It’s her
own pieces that make up the
album and cover art. “This has
actually been quite a big thing
over the past few months,” she
says shyly. “I loved painting but
I never really knew how to do it,
I felt like I fluked it every time.
When I paint I just go into this
peaceful kind of place and I’ve
been craving that more and more.
I wouldn’t classify myself as a
painter really, I’m just trying to
learn. And I f-cking love it.”
Supercry by
Emma Louise is out
July 15 via Liberation.