First up, congratulations on your sophomore LP Tambourine! You’ll be launching it around the country in June… what can fans of Monobasic expect from the album and from the tour?
Thank you. It took a little while to get here. As far as the album goes, I think it’s a more focused, concept-driven album than Monobasic. Not a concept album though! There’s just more of a sonic theme running through it, more consistency in terms of sounds and instrumentation. Similarly, when we play the album live there’s a leanness and economy to the arrangements. We’re just a three piece playing bass, drum machine, guitar and keyboards, so we’ve got our hands full. For that reason we try to keep it simple and effective, with no flab.
How did the writing and recording process of this record compare to your debut?
This one took longer but only because I was trying out so many different approaches. I wasn’t sitting around for three years trying to write an album. I had most of these songs for ages but Teeth & Tongue (the live version) went through a lot of line-up changes and so there were several false starts. I was working with a great five-piece band, which was working out pretty well, but after recording a bunch of demos as a band and then touring Europe solo with a drum machine, I realised that I didn’t want to make a ‘rock’ album. I wanted to make a stripped back, drum machine-based record. So I started again.
With so much critical acclaim for your debut, did you feel any pressure this time around?
Hah! It’s funny when people say things like that because it never really felt like lots of acclaim at the time. I mean, I was flattered and surprised when people liked it, but I don’t think the record made a huge impact or anything. I was still trying to find my feet and I think that is reflected in the sound. This time round I had a much clearer idea of what I wanted and so I didn’t feel any pressure at all, I just wanted to make a much better album.
Was there a longer gestation period of the songs this time around, compared to with Monobasic?
Some of the songs were written before I even finished Monobasic, and some were written after I started recording Tambourine. So yes, for the most part. But many of them I re-wrote and re-worked specifically to fit with the album as a whole.
When and where did you record the album?
All over the place, but most of it came together at Simon Grounds’ little studio in Reservoir, Melbourne. I’d recorded all the demos at home over the past two years, and we ended up using quite a few of the original bass lines and vocal parts from those home studio recordings, and of course all the drum machine parts I did at home. Steve Masterson overlaid some live drums at Bakehouse in Fitzroy. Simon and I mixed it in Reservoir over the course of last year and early this year.
You worked with Simon Grounds, can you talk a little bit about how he got involved?
I’d known him through his work with Bird Blobs and Kes and though various other projects. I love the sound of his recordings and I also loved that he ‘got’ what I was trying to do with this album. He saw me play live with just drum machine, bass and guitar and was adamant that the album should be recorded that way too.
With a few years between albums, I imagine some may have already become part of the live repertoire?
Yep, most of them. We’re still working on a few for the launches.
How have you changed as a band since the Monobasic was released do you feel this comes through on the new record?
Teeth & Tongue has never really existed as a proper band, or if it has it’s constantly changing. There was no band in place for the recording of Monobasic, and Tambourine was recorded just after the then line-up imploded. So it’s always going to be a different beast from album to album and I’m sure that comes through.
You have the launch tour in June what else will 2011 bring for Teeth & Tongue?
Hopefully lots of touring, and the start of the next album! It’s not going to take this long next time. Fingers crossed.
