The Drones - Sound In The Signals Interview
You have a rich musical and band background and you're on the cusp of your twentieth year as a band. Can you tell us a bit about it for those who are new to your band?
Gareth Liddiard: Well "the drones" was something me and the original guitar player Rui would write on certain 4 track tapes we used to make after high school in about 1996 or 1997. We lived in Perth in the 1990s and there was absolutely nothing to do except get wasted and make the weirdest music we could possibly make. It was like Butthole Surfers or Psychic TV but even weirder because in Perth, if you're not Norman Normal you are forsaken. Perth people are proud of the fact that Perth is the most isolated capital city in the world. So proud in fact that Honolulu, the actual most isolated capital city in the world, can get f*cked. If cities were people Honolulu would be wondering what on earth did it do to make Perth want to punch its head in. Anyway, we moved to Melbourne in 2000 because we wanted to go pro. Melbourne is amazing for music. London or Nashville are the only music cities that rival Melbourne but nobody playing in London or Nashville on any given night actually lives in those towns. We had to pretend to be a normal band when we arrived in Melbourne just to get gigs. But what was normal for us was very weird for everyone else and that's why we're not as famous as U2.
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| Feelin Kinda Free |
Feelin Kinda Free, your seventh album, was released in March. It's garnered high praise from critics and fans. Your original drummer, Christian Strybosch, rejoined the band on the album. Was it like a homecoming and can you describe the recording process?
Liddiard: Well Chrisso left in 2004 because we were touring most of the time and he had work and adult sh*t he needed to attend to. He has his sh*t screwed down now so he's back and he's loving it.
We usually record in really weird places. We recorded in an old convict built mill in the middle of Tasmania. In a cabin the the Australian Alps. In a dilapidated mansion in the middle of nowhere. Stuff like that. But this time we set our stuff up in an actual purpose built recording studio in inner city Melbourne. For whatever reason we've never managed to get right back to our ultra weird roots but this time we were determined. I think we did a good job. Everyone ditched their habits and did something they usually would not. But weirdly enough it sounds more like us than ever.
You once mentioned that with this new album you "wanted to use what technologies were available. I wanted to do something for now..." in reference to Bob Dylan's idea that we've got enough songs and how other artists do the most-up-to-date thing that they can at the time. What do you see for the future of The Drones and for the future of music, in general?
Liddiard: Its complicated. This is a very conservative time because the rock music industry is totally broke. They would never admit that but its true. Rock has always been self referencing to a degree but Live Fast Die Young has become Live In The Past or you won't get a deal. Labels that were once all about innovative and iconoclastic music are now just signing bands that are easily marketable. And those bands that are marketable are just aping the bands that were innovative and iconoclastic. Its like a rock n roll themed fancy dress party. In the next 3 or 4 years we'll see a million bands who are just aping the 1990s 'cause the 1990s are back in fashion. That is bad. All good art offers something new. That is a rule, the only rule and there is no way around it. Music is an art form whether you like it or not and it will die if its not renewed. But you look somewhere like pitchfork and its so conservative its scary. I’m not talking about bands like Die Antwoord or Death Grips or Deer Hoof or Ariel Pink. I’m talking about you indie kind of guitar music. No one is taking risks. Everyone is walking around with a computer in their pocket that rewards them for doing stuff everyone else approves of. That's not how an art form reinvigorates itself. But maybe a new generation will flush their iphones down the toilet, do what they actually want and deal with the horrors of Disapproval. Whatever happens I suspect rock and roll as we've known it is a dead and whatever is left of it will be absorbed into electronic music and hip hop. But peripheral bands like us will just keep doing our thing, getting weirder and weirder. None of this sh*t has anything to do with us.
I've read that you (Liddiard) like Carl Sagan and Kurt Vonnegut as writers. It's fair to say you put a lot of meaning into your lyrics. Can you explain how you go about the writing process and what might influence you?
Liddiard: I get that question a lot and all I can think to say is that I'm not dead. Being alive gives me tonnes of ideas to pump into songs. I don't care about old lyrical tropes like whiskey, trains, rivers, beards or b*tches, $$$ or 9mm what evers so I just write about anything. Sometimes I write sh*t, sometimes I write good sh*t. The process is just start writing and stop when you have something that isn't totally idiotic. Its a desperate act and I feel ridiculous doing it for a living but everything's ridiculous when you think about it.
Speaking of lyrics, you've described the idea behind the 'you' during the day and the 'you' at night when you are free from restrictions or from the civilized self. Could a listener interpret the opening line from Feelin Kinda Free, "The best songs are like bad dreams", as a way you approach writing, meaning you (or others) can write the best songs when they are free from restrictions or from certain ideals?
Liddiard: Yeah that'd be the approach. Civilisation is just a veneer. Everything is just monkey business. It doesn't matter if you're working on Wall Street of you're running an organisation like ISIS or playing in a band, its all for the same stuff. The same stuff baboons and chimps want like resources, power, prestige, acceptance, sex and reproductive rights. Our drives are like the laws of physics in that they’re pretty straight forward and clear cut but once you mix them all up all sorts of whacky shit happens. Shakespeare knew about monkey business but music is a whole different kettle of fish. Somehow music speaks directly to those drives and all the subconscious turmoil they stir up. Its primal stuff. And the most moving lyrical stuff always seems to be dreamy and vague and hard or impossible to understand. Kind of magical like Borges or Yeats or Blake. Or like Blue Flowers or Liquid Swords or Tangled Up In Blue or stuff by Townes Van Zandt.
When someone listens to your music for the first time what type of feeling do you hope it invokes in the listener? What would you like the listener to take away from the song?
Liddiard: I just hope they like it. Or get it at least. I don’t care why they do. I can see why they might not so I see it as a lottery. There are about 6,999,950,000 people who have never heard of us and if they did, most of them would hate us. So there is no point trying to impress anyone. We just please ourselves. But I still hope they’d like it the same way you’d hope someone would agree with an opinion you’ve just expressed.
Your tour just kicked off so you're getting to play the new songs live. What can fans expect to see at your shows? What makes it a good show for you?
Liddiard: I guess we’re old school in a way like Hendrix or Fugazi where we just go ballistic.The kind of shows that I grew up liking were always full on mind blowing and transcendental as opposed to completely f*cking boring. So that’d be a Drones show. We don’t waste anyone’s time. But its hard to nail down what actually constitutes a good show. Sometimes they’re the ones where you’re just switched on and it seems really easy and other times there are the ones where everything breaks and people are chucking sh*t at you and its actually really stupid and fun and you soldier on heroically. Other shows are really heavy emotional things and others are quite funny and feel like parties. Then other times we’ll play really really well but it just feels flat. You kind of get the whole package with us. If the band was a person you’d be getting the whole person rather than just one side of the person. In that sense its not a “show” at all.
Thanks for taking the time to answer the questions. Do you have anything else you would like to add?
Liddiard: no that’s all….. thanks, cheers.
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