STACK #129 Jul 2016

COVER FEATURE

MUSIC

was apparently a happy accident. “That’s all improvised live,” says Wright. “We were playing Dreamer for the first time as a band, I accidentally played a jazz chord and everyone went with it. Eight months later, it’s on the record.“ There are other moments on Dark Horses that stretch the definition of ‘epic’ somewhat. The band describe Bird Effigy as “a collage of ideas thrown together … to take the listener on a journey", whereas the closing track Exodus builds to

T he cover of Dark Horses is compelling to say the least. An eerie, shadowy picture of a young woman. It’s simple, but it’s hard to look away once you see it. It found it’s way to the album cover by chance. “ It was a picture I stumbled across online,“ says Wright. “I couldn’t leave it: when I first saw it, I thought it was a bit ‘horror movie, a bit eerie’ , but we just kept coming back to that image.” The band eventually tracked the photographer down online, discovering she was a woman from Germany named Karina Spectre. She was considering giving photography away when the band got in touch. “She was stoked! She offered to do it for free," continues Wright. “She was over the moon, she had another series of photos that were very similar to that one; they will be scattered throughout the whole campaign.”

a mighty, riff-mangling, ear-shredding, lighter- waving crescendo and then simply ceases. An homage to The Beatles' I Want You: She’s So Heavy that closes side one of Abbey Road, is a track Wright describes as "a big influence". Ellis concurs, “there was nowhere else to go with it, it’s so stupidly epic, 16 guitars, there was nothing else to do but pull the plug”. As for the future, things in camp Getaway Plan are complex, but potentially pretty interesting; they are clearly now masters of their own destiny and have delivered a record that their fanbase should love, while also raising a few eyebrows elsewhere. They're a band that have been buffeted by change and lived to tell the tale. They fully credit the internet – and specifically being able to use MySpace back in 2008 – as way of first sharing their music. As for the future of the industry they find themselves in, they’re resigned to yet more change, and hope to ride it all out. “It’s scary! It’s really scary. It seems like it’s heading towards busting entirely," says Wright of the future of the music industry. “Hopefully we will prevail! Who knows what’s going to happen? We don’t hate the way the industry is now – everyone’s listening to music, everyone seems to have earbuds in, so I assume that they’re listening to music!”

length record: they’ve already broken up once, are without a label, and have two new band members after original rhythm section Dave Anderson and Aaron Barnett left their respective creases – both had been part of 2011’s reformation. “The mistake we made was jumping in exactly where we left off: we didn’t really consider that there had been a year and a half where he hadn’t been in a room together, and that people may have changed,“ says Ellis. “We didn’t address where everybody was at. As we got further and further on, we realised how far we’d grown apart in that time.“ The pair have been replaced with siblings Dan and Mike Maio, drummer and bassist respectively. “The communication between those two ... they have some telepathic sibling shit going on,” says Wright. “We just cannot understand it; they put us to shame in the jam room. Having those new elements has opened up our ability to experiment.” As for the new music, it seems The Getaway Plan – unlikely as it may have been, given the circumstances – have really found their feet on album three. Still extremely fond of making a blistering racket, the new album has some genuine jawdroppers that will surprise pretty much everyone – longtime fans and newbies alike. Dreamer/Parallels showcases the softer, more downbeat side of Wright’s voice and again has drawn comparisons to the late Jeff Buckley. The track features an instrumental interlude that

Dark Horses by The Getaway Plan is released July 3, distributed via MGM. They tour nationally from Sept 3 until Nov 28. More at thegetawayplan.com

The Getaway Plan’s recent gigs have seen them playing a few new songs from Dark Horses , including one oddment of sorts that nearly made the cut, but didn’t.

L ost in the Woods is a song based on Young Turks by Rod Stewart, a “half cover” according to the band. Inside of just recording it and hoping no one would notice similarities, the band did the honourable thing

and applied for permission to use elements of the song. But it was knocked back at the last minute. “Stewart heard the song and liked it, but there was another cover version coming out or something and they didn’t want to interfere

with that. We even wrote him a personal letter! He was cool though,” says Wright. The band say they may try and use the song in some future project, but for now, if you want to hear it, you’ll have to get to a gig.

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