STACK Nov #133

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even with a track like the phenomenal lament
Daemons – which references wild behaviour and
the awful troughs to which it can lead – he’s telling
stories. “I think [Daemons] is for anyone who feels
they’ve got the potential to go under, yet they still
keep prodding the bear,” he says. “First of all,
make sure you’re not hurting anyone else. That’s
the number one priority. Then keep appraising that,
and then start thinking of yourself.”
He hints where this protagonist and himself
might intersect when he begins explaining that the
bear-prodding isn’t an excuse for anybody: “The
thought that you need to be miserable to create
good art, I think, is a crock of shit,” he says. “But
I found great solace in anything that’s been going
on in my life that’s been depressing, knowing that
you can use art to help yourself and to help people
around you. Not use the pain of the situation
necessarily, and being manipulative that way, but
as an escape; just to give yourself respite so that
you can reappraise your behaviours.
"Making [music] has definitely been an immense
help, and I think the rest of the band would agree
that if we’re having a bad time, hurtling along
somewhere and psychologically imploding, that
the phrase ‘Thank Christ we’ve got a show tonight’
has often been deployed.”
visit NEWS MUSIC
As trumpeter Toby Laing
acknowledges, New
Zealand groovemeisters Fat
Freddy’s Drop are a big draw
on the European festival circuit:
the seven-piece now regularly
divide their time between
the northern and southern
hemispheres, offering up that
delicate/brash mix of Afrobeat,
soul, jazz, reggae and dub which
turned heads way back when
Midnight Marauders crept
through your stereo. However,
this year they retired to their
Wellington studio to write and
record their fourth studio album,
Bays. “Close to 100 percent of
the songs came out of extended
studio sessions, whereas what
we usually do is go on the
road and grab a few minutes
during a soundcheck to work on
something,” Laing tells STACK
NZ. “It was luxurious, you
know, to plan these sessions
and jam for hours. Obviously
you have to go back and comb
through it, but Fat Freddy’s
have been together now for so
fat freddy's drop: toby laing
Q1/ In opening track Awake there’s an
immediate sense of contentment. Do you
think worrying about what can happen is as
destructive as worrying about what already has
happened?
Sure. I think that song is kind of about how you
can't really spend too much time thinking about what
has already happened or what's going to happen in
the future. There's no past or future, only right now.
I'm not sure I fully subscribe to that, but I liked the
opening line, "The past is past is just the point,” so I
went with it.
Q2/ Are you more aware of time's passage
now that you are a father?
It's true there are a lot of references to time
passing on this record. That's something I only
realised after the album was done. The fact that I
became a dad while making these songs definitely
plays into it, and getting older, and just that the
album itself took so long to make.
Q3/ Where in New York was the beautiful
Northern Highway clip filmed?
That was pretty much all filmed in Beacon, NY. I
just was loving how overgrown and lush everything
is up here in the summertime. There's also a lot of
abandoned industry up here – old train tracks and
factories. I liked the idea of having the video just be
a series of shots of nature reclaiming places that had
been used for a time by people. It almost has a post-
apocalyptic vibe, though that wasn't the intention.
Q4/ Did you writeVestiges first, or have these
tracks had discrete, staggered timelines during
the last 12 months?
Vestiges was one of the earlier ones, but they
were all finished at their own pace. For example, the
fist song I wrote was Focus. I wrote the music for
that one in early 2013, before I wrote anything for the
last Real Estate record even.
Q5/ Are there secret lyrics that go with the
flautist’s melody in title track Many Moons,
or did you always intend for it to be an
instrumental?
I guess at first I was thinking of writing words for
that one, but pretty early on I decided it would work
better as an instrumental. I was just going through a
heavy Nick Drake phase at the time, and I'd wanted
to use flute in a song for a long time.
Many Moons by Martin
Courtney is out now, through
Domino
YOU AM I:
TIM ROGERS
P orridge = breakfast comfort food. Hotsauce
= fiery, giddy-up food. Porridge and hotsauce
= with all affection, wake your arse up food. You
Am I’s new album, Porridge and Hotsauce, is well
titled because Tim Rogers and his crew embody
a kind of happily vicious energy – throw in a last
minute session at Daptone Records and you’ve got
a warm and wry blues-rock earworm.
“Well hell, when someone says you can get a
week at a studio that you love both aesthetically
and technically, then we’re the kind of middle-aged
idiots who will do that,” Rogers tells STACK.
The frontman says that some tracks have been
resuscitated from years ago; stand-out One Drink
at a Time – whose roaming chords still manage to
make some weird, innate sense – was birthed in
the ‘90s. “That’s the oldest one of the bunch,” he
says, “because I started writing it in 1998 when
I was living in Los Angeles. I had these chords
together and didn’t show it to the band because I
thought it sounded a little too much like ELO.”
Luckily he discovered that bandmate Davey
Lane was also an ELO fan, whilst the pair were
“typically out on the hack one night” and came
across a jukebox. “I wanted the music to be
upbeat, because the protagonist and his true love
are probably gradually destroying themselves, but
it’s the way that they want to do it, and I feel very
affectionately about this protagonist, whoever they
may be.”
Rogers mentions his ‘protagonists’ often, and
Porridge and Hotsauce
by You Am I is out November 6
through Inertia
MARTIN
COURTNEY
Bays by Fat
Freddy's Drop is
out now through
The Drop/Remote
Control
long – it’s become more of an
institution! – that to be able
to take our time in the studio
made the songwriting process
really enjoyable.” Bays is a
wonderfully percussive outing
for the group, and Laing says
that's a direct result of having
that time to “zero in on the
basics” of each track. “I think
sound quality is something we
are all particularly interested in,
just because we have now had
the experience of playing on
some big stages,” he explains.
“There are certain tunes, that
when you get them on the
big system like we did at the
Alexandra Palace in London
last year – 10,000 in a lovely big
hall – the experience of playing
is completely different.”
Martin Courtney, of New Jersey band Real Estate,
has just released his serene and bucolic new album
Many Moons, which revolves around themes of putting
nostalgia to bed and appreciating the present moment.
088 NOVEMBER 2015
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