Not long before he released his new record, Don’t Tell the Driver (available now), I caught up with Mick Turner, best known for his work as part of Dirty Three to talk about his music, his art, touring with Bill Callahan and much more… Mick will be playing Sydney Festival on January 23rd.
You’re a very busy man at the moment, it looks like you’re about to jump on a plane to America. Are you looking forward to getting back over there?
Yeah, yeah I am. I’ve got one of my main shows in New York and then I’m doing the West Coast opening for Bill Callahan (Smog), and then I’ve got a few shows across the midwest with the Japanese band Mono.
They should all be some great shows. Have you performed alongside Bill or Mono before?
Yeah I’ve known Bill for quite a few years, I used to live in Chicago and we’re on the same record label. And I’ve played with him and his band before.
Was that as Bill or as Smog?
As Bill from memory. It was only a couple of years ago, in Australia. It was me and Jim White and him at Sydney Festival.
Those must have been some special shows.
Yeah it was great, they were Spiegeltent shows. And as for Mono, I opened for them recently on their Australian / New Zealand tour. And then after touring with them I’m playing ATP End of an Era, the last UK holiday camp, on the 1st of December. And then hopefully I’ve got a show in London.
It’s an amazing lineup at the ATP event – everyone from Fuck Buttons to Mogwai and The Dismemberment Plan and of course yourself! You’ve been a part of them before haven’t you? Even curated at one point?
Yeah, I’ve played quite a few with The Dirty Three and we curated one in England a few years ago.
What is that curation process like? I imagine there’s some pressure on you to pull out an interesting lineup…
Yeah we loved it. You basically make a wishlist of who you’d love to see play the event, bands who either exist or don’t exist anymore. A lot of bands reform to play ATP… I guess they do have to be alive though! And from there you work with ATP to whittle it back.
Are there any particular highlights from the one you curated?
The whole thing was a highlight for me. It really felt like a high point for my whole musical career. It was really great to be in that position… to have all your best friends and favourite bands all in one big party!
And Bill Callahan was a part of that of course!
Yeah he was! I’m pretty sure he was. It’s been a few years now. I’d been a fan of Bill’s for a long time.
Of course all these shows are coming off the release of your new record Don’t Tell the Driver, I understand it’s not exactly the sort of record you sat down and did in a few sessions… it was quite a few years in the making…
Yeah, it took about four years I think. There was a lot of leaving it and coming back to it and doing other projects in between. But it did take a long time.
And I notice there are a lot of different drummers who joined you along that journey?
Yeah there are quite a few different people among the tracks, I even did some of the drumming myself, but the best drumming is the in the tracks with Ian Wadley, Kishore Ryan and Jeff Wegener for sure.
When you spend four years on a record, at what point do you know it’s done?
It’s a good question. I guess you just have to reach a point and say stop, because you could work on it forever. I was pretty happy with it though, where I’d gotten to. I didn’t think I could make it any better. And I guess that’s the point you say stop…
Is it harder doing it yourself, as Mick Turner, thank when you’re working with other musicians?
Yeah I think you put more pressure on yourself… I kept changing things, and I think in other situations those decisions aren’t really made by you. But that said, my earlier solo records had been put together relatively quickly. There was something that kind of came through from my painting practice, in which I’d learnt this approach of changing works quite drastically when they didn’t feel quite right. And just going back and reworking things.
Is the artwork that ended up on the cover of the record something that was significant through the process of putting this record together?
I didn’t create it specially for the cover, but I did take a similar sort of approach to the work than I’d done with the record. It’s a really large painting and I’d put a lot of work into it and spent a lot of time doing it and redoing it.
Is it based on a specific location or is it an amalgamation of memories of your beachside experiences?
It’s come from my memory, but it’s a real place, it’s some dunes down at Phillip Island??, I go down there quite often, a particular spot I like – it’s about an hour and a half out of Melbourne.
After ATP, what does the rest of the Summer hold for you – I understand there’s a Sydney Festival appearance amongst it?
Yeah, I’ll be playing Sydney Festival (on 23rd January) and hoping to do some other shows around that period. And hoping to have more of a band to play those shows with… bass, keys, drums, singer…
Are you just playing solo overseas?
Yeah it’ll just be me and a drummer for the support shows with Bill, by myself with Mono and for my New York headline show, I’ve got a saxophone, drummer and a bass player.
Playing solo is no doubt budgetary over anything else, but do you enjoy performing in that format? It opens up the music in a different way I’m sure…
Well there’s so many different parts on the record, so many voices… I do much prefer to do it with a bigger band, but like you said, for budgetary reasons I can’t do that all the time, so I’ll be doing scaled back versions at those shows. I often use a lot of loop pedals though to fill out the sound.
That must keep you busy on the stage…
Yeah, it’s quite annoying really, I’d much rather not have to think about it.
What else is in store for us in 2014? Any music with any of your other projects in the works?
I’ll try and do a proper tour (in Australia) for this record and then I don’t think there’s any Dirty Three coming up, but I do have some art shows coming up. So I’ve been doing quite a lot of that recently and I’m looking forward to that. Will be mainly in Melbourne but hopefully I can bring it up to Sydney too.
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Don’t Tell the Driver is available now. Mick performs at the Sydney Festival in the Circus Ronaldo Tent at Festival Village on January 23rd. Tickets and more details can be found here: http://www.sydneyfestival.org.au/2014/Music/Mick-Turner/
