A few weeks before they made the trip down to Australia (the tour of which kicks off later this week), Larry Heath caught up with Times New Viking’s Beth Murphy to talk about their first tour down under, life on the road, their new album Dancer Equired! and more…
It’s not long before you make your way down to our part of the world – how are you all feeling about making the journey?
It was very much one of our early goals together as a band… to get down to Australia and New Zealand, so very much looking forward to it.
It only took you five albums but you got there!
*laughs* Yeah… we made it!
Well we’re looking forward to seeing you down here, and of course that fifth album, Dancer Equired! was released a few months ago, how have you found the fans to have responded so far?
The reception has been pretty good I think. The right people have been in our corner about it, they understand it – that kind of thing. You know, it’s hard to say, because you read so many different kinds of reviews, with blogs, newspapers and magazines… that kind of thing. It’s hard to work out how much stock to put in all of it, but yeah, it’s been good enough! I what I think it comes down to the fact that we really like it and are proud of it.
When it comes to touring around, what’s an average day in the life for Times New Viking? What’s the show on the road like?
We usually wake up and get going as late as possible while still making the sound check in time *laughs*. Once we’re on the road, we’ll make sure we have picked up some choice beverages and snacks, and we all sit in the same seats… and we’re pretty quiet on the way to the show. It’s really boring actually. We’ll do sound check. Possibly eat something if it’s not too late – but it’s usually too late. So we don’t eat much. Drink a little bit, play, and then if it’s a cool town, see if anyone wants to hand out with us afterwards or not. Go back to the hotel or someone’s house… usually the latter.
It’s a pity you’re only here for three days! Will you be coming back again anytime soon?
Yeah it’s very quick, probably not even enough time to get over jet lag! So we might be a little crazy out there. (As for coming back,) there’s nothing planned. I think there’s something on the internet that says we’re coming back… but it’s not true. We don’t have anything planned.
Well you haven’t been out here before, and you’ve got five albums worth of material to choose from – how will you choose the setlists? What can we expect from the shows?
It will probably be half of our latest album, and then a couple of songs from each of the albums prior to that – mix it up!
I understand that when recording Born Again Revisited, your album before last, you were involved in some interesting recording techniques, most notably that you recorded to VHS and things like that. With the new record, is there anything that has happened in a similar vein, or was it a much more straight forward recording process?
The new record we recorded at a studio in Columbus, Ohio. They have really nice microphones there, and we recorded on a reel to reel – the same one that Fleetwood Mac used for Rumors. We had a good friend of ours on board for engineering, but we were still very much in control of how the whole thing sounded, but actually going into the studio was a change for us.
How long did that process take?
We were in the studio for about three days.
Quite a quick turnaround!
Yeah definitely. But with this album we had already done demos with the songs, so we had already fleshed the parts out – the lyrics and the melodies. So all we had to do was go in and record the final versions. Things changed in the last minute of course, but we were well prepared and album to turn it around very quickly.
You returned to SXSW in March – what was your experience like this time around?
We actually never thought we’d play (SXSW) again, because it’s all about the “new bands”, but considering how we are on a new label, we thought it might be appropriate – a coming out party for the second time, or something like that. We ended up playing five or six shows, but it all started out innocently – we were only going to play a couple of shows, but it ended up getting a little out of control… very exhausting. But I’m glad that we did it and that we went down there.
I saw you on the lineup for one of the shows at the pizza place?
Actually we didn’t end up playing that show! We were supposed to. They wanted us to do an acoustic set, but we couldn’t really do that… it wouldn’t fit our sound, so it didn’t work out and it was cancelled. But we hung out there and ate some free pizza anyway.
So what’s the rest of the year hold for your guys?
After the tour in Australia and New Zealand there are a couple of shows in September and then we’ll be going home! Going to take some time off touring, but we might start working on a new album. But definitely going to hanging around at home.
Don’t miss Times New Viking at their shows which kicks off on Thursday in Sydney! Tickets are on sale now.
Thursday, 25th August – Tone, Sydney
Friday, 26th August – Woodland, Brisbane
Saturday, 27th August – Northcote Social Club, Melbourne
