Wolfmother

0:00Alright, talking with Chris from Wolf Mother. I'll start the show off with the tune. Song that I guess broke you over here. I guess there were singles out in the UK and Australia before. But, women's the song seems to be working out over here right now. Yep, yep. That's the one there. The single they're going with over here. Yeah. Yeah. Your choice? Labels choice? Um, there's a bit of both, really? Yeah, totally. I mean, you know, it comes across as a strong short song that people can do. Wow, that's Wolf Mother sort of thing. But, you know, there's so many different facets to what we're doing as well. There's the whole, you know, there's the woman's style and rock out song. And then there's, you know, there's like... It's definitely like a backbone. Yeah, yeah, totally. And then there's like full groove based kind of like dimension, love train, witchcraft style. And then there's... I don't have love train. I have the Australian version.

0:45I don't get to hear it. I've never heard the song. I'm going to download it today. You should get it. Yeah, that's actually in essence was our very first song. Oh, no. And then when we first started jamming, like I discovered I'm putting distortion through keyboards and... Andrew discovered jumping around and going nuts. And we just played that riff over and over for days and we were like, yeah. And then fucking like five years later, we decided to turn it into a song. Yeah, nice. Well, let's play Woman. I'll go home, download it off iTunes, Love Train. And we'll throw them back to back. Show people new stuff and some old stuff, I guess. Yeah, totally. I'm with Chris from Wolf Mother at Utershire Woman, Love Train.

7:04Love Train, we recorded for the new stuff or was it just the same demo version from way back when? No, no, no, the demo version, well, it wasn't even really a demo version. It was basically like two riffs and no structure. Just chaos. There were some bits we could never recapture from the first version. We just did these like, we just recorded a jam and somehow we went out of time and did these hits and then came back into time together and we were like, yeah, we do that. And every time we tried to recreate it, we were like, no, that's not it. So we had to restructure it a bit so that we could figure out how what. Nice. You mentioned putting distortion through keyboards and stuff. Play bass and keyboards. What came first for you? Um, keyboards. Well, actually I played guitar for years and then I started teaching it.

7:50Oh really? I think through teaching it, I got Jack of playing it. Like, I, you know, I kind of thought, oh, yeah, this is cool. You know, I can make some money from teaching guitar and stuff. And it was really cool. Like, I really enjoyed teaching, sharing and, you know, watching people develop and especially when I taught heaps of kids, like I used to teach groups of kids before school and stuff. I don't know how I did it. I couldn't do it now. This is chaos. But just, you know, you get such reward from the one kid who just has, you know, can play and connects and is like really into it. And, but that in retrospect, kind of every day I'd go home and just look at the guitar and go, no. And then I, I don't know. I started, my brother always played like awesome blues piano. So I, I know I just started getting into synths and stuff and, and then once I discovered putting

8:42distortion, like an organ through distortion, I was like, why don't metal bands do this? Like, you've got a bass and a guitar and then another guitar with your other hand and it's like, you can make it so heavy too. So that, that came first. And then, then we, we kind of had this jam space for years. We used to hang out and then we had to move and out of necessity. We just kind of got this space where we just, we were desperate to jam. So we just took in a few guitars and drums and I was like, oh, yeah, I'll play bass. It's actually Miles's bass, which I still use because I love it. It's like the best one. But, um, yeah, it was really cool just to focus on like playing one instrument. And then after a while, I just kind of thought, I think I could add more if I, you know,

9:29bring in a keyboard and do something like that. And Miles was like, yeah, we should try that love train riff that we did ages, go and stuff. And so that kind of, so originally I was playing keyboards first, but in Wolf Mother, I was just playing bass. And then I was like, ah, bringing a keyboard because I feel like an add more to it. I have that. Obviously live. I mean, you're going back and forth between the two. Any chance to ever get like a fourth, like a touring keyboard or something? So you can just be the one. No. You like to be the one. Yeah. I love both of them. And I love that it's pretty much 50-50. So, you know, it keeps me, um, keeps me really engaged too. Because I find, you know, my keyboard playing, I've got so much to learn. So every time I try to play it, it's like a real challenge to, you know, putting new things. And the bass is just like, I just dig the sound of it and the groove and the way it feels to play.

10:19And it's just really, it's just good fun, sort of no brainer jump around. Yeah. Definitely love the keyboard or the organ riff. I guess on Mindside, it sounds amazing. Oh, thank you. Yeah. That kind of came about from, um, when I first started playing the organ in Wolf Mother and a friend came around. I had an electric piano sitting in my lounge room. And he came around and started playing all his classical stuff. And I was like, oh man, can you teach me how to play properly? He's like trying to show me some like bark thing or something. And I kind of figured it out, but I just kept changing it and going, no, I wanted to go like this. And then I sort of came into the jam space. And it was just me and Andrew, which was, which was kind of weird because it's usually the three of us or Andrew and Miles. It was the first time we got together early without drums.

11:06And I kind of had these mellow chord patterns and little arpeggio thing. And so we, Mindside started off really mellow because it was just the two of us without any drums. And then Miles kind of rocked up a while later. And there's this big cacophony at the end where it just takes off and sort of goes stellar. And that's how that song kind of came about. Cool. You want to play it now? Yeah. Yeah.

16:08You're talking about it. And then I was like, oh, yeah, I heard you guys didn't sound anything like what you sound like originally. It was more like a hip hop kind of beastie boy style. Yeah, it was all sorts of stuff because we had this room where we just used to hang out. And you know, I've always collected, I just from playing guitar, you know, I started getting into nice guitars and abs. And then I started getting into like vintage synths and mugs and old organs and then stuff like tape echoes and things like that. So it was always about, you know, the warmth and quality of sound and stuff. Yeah. Very vintage style stuff. Yeah. Yeah. So we sort of had all this gear and all these different things. But I also had like turntables and Miles had drum machines and stuff.

16:53So it kind of, we were really kind of like three musicians who didn't know what they were doing. You know, sometimes you'd go in there and you'd lay something down and like play some guitar with on tape and then turn the tape around and play it backwards. Like you'd all say that. Just all sorts of experimenting. But it was always kind of the three of us with our own ideas. And then you'd present it to the other people and it kind of muck around with stuff. But it never, not until we really did Wolf Mother where all three of us worked on creating it together. And then we sort of find a sound that was unique to the three of us and really worked with us. Before that we were kind of doing our own things and trying to do things together.

17:39And so there was sort of, you know, three people doing their own sort of songs and then three people jamming. And we'd never sort of connected the two for ages. Now you are. That sounds great. Now we've got it. Now we've got our sound and we know what we're doing. Nice. Most of the stuff written in Australia are in the rehearsal space in LA. I think pretty much like the essence of everything was done in Australia. But we spent like a month fully working with Saadi to refine everything from the perspective of listening to it on a CD at home and stuff or in a car or whatever. Like a lot of our songs were written just before we had to do a show. We needed another song. So we're like, okay, we're at another song. And then from doing playing it live you're like, okay, that fits a little bit too long. So we'll shorten that.

18:24And we really had our songs structured for a live set to engage a live audience, which is, you know, as you know, from going to shows is totally different from listening to a CD. So we'd take a lot of liberties live. We still do and like stretch things way out. And then Saadi would be like listening to us going, yeah, that's really cool. But, you know, I'm not playing it. So I'm not into it as much as you guys are. And maybe you can cut that back a little bit and move that bit over there and stuff like that. Is that heard as a band? I mean, working on your first record with a guy telling you that doesn't sound like it. No, we've always been like, even the three of us, it's constantly refining the songs that we're always throwing in our ideas and we're very over minded. And Saadi was pretty much the same. So it was excellent to have a fourth person who was just focused on listening.

19:10He didn't have to worry about playing or anything. And you could kind of just throw an idea out of it and just keep going with what you're doing as well. So he was kind of like a listening post and bounce ideas off him and stuff. And he really taught us to communicate in the traditional verse pre-chorus kind of terminology. Which we didn't use before. We just used to say, you know, the bit that's like riding through the desert or, you know, the bit that's like wigging out on acid or something. And he was really good like that. But he was also open to ideas as well. Like he sometimes said, well, you know, you got a chorus but it doesn't have any lyrics. It's just got a cool riff. And we're like, yeah, that's all right.

19:56She got Bob Dylan 10 minutes, no chorus. Herdrian's going to fall, stuff like that. I was playing on her song. What do you want here? Off your record. What, unicorn? Nice. Good to know you're just looking at my list and going through them. You know, when we first did that, because that was the longest song in our demo. And people started playing it on radio. And I think at the time it was probably like a seven or eight minute version. Oh, well. And we were like, people playing that on radio. You know, it doesn't usually happen these days. It's got to be three minutes or something. Yeah. So I still like to hear people play that. It's kind of different from what you usually hear on radio these days. I love it. Everyone's chris, you just heard white unicorn.

25:25I want to talk about downloading music real quick. How do you feel about it? I think it's good. But I mean, the way, you know, I grew up, I think my brothers tricked me into like, they bring over a pile of records and a pile of cassettes and say, can you take these records for me? And taping vinyl, you know, you have to sit down and listen to it. Yeah. So I kind of listened to all these records. And I think they were like, you know, you should listen to this, but I'll just ask you to record it for me. So I like, I mean, I don't actually download stuff. Really. I kind of grab a few things. I use it more as a tool to search out stuff. The same as I'd sort of go and browse a record shop. But I still love like, you know, getting bands from friends and stuff and going into a shop

26:10where you know the person and checking everything out. So I really love that hands-on experience. And I think it's kind of a pity that, you know, it's so easy to like get music onto your computer in one respect because you don't listen to it. You know, it's while you're putting it on the computer, which is kind of like I end up putting so much stuff on there. And then listen to it on my iPhone and go, oh, I'll delete that one. But it's kind of it's good in a way to search stuff out. But you know, if you really want to get into it, then I find, you know, you have to go out and get the artwork and fully see what the band's about. And I find it's more rewarding to find a band from, you know, like your friend put you onto them or something like that. Cool. It's another tool. Yeah.

26:55Let's play another song, Vagabond, and then do five quick questions. Okay.

27:50Yes, I am.

29:48Mr. Vagabond, talking about Chris from Wolf Mother, Leonard McCartney. The Beatles. I like the Beatles and I don't think I particularly like any of them individually. I like them as a band. Yeah, it's... They've always found that really interesting how people pick, you know, one member of the Beatles and I'm always like, it's a band. That's what makes them unique. And you listen to their stuff after they're a band. And I'm kind of like, you were better when you were the Beatles. I agree. Alcohol and marijuana. Now alcohol. Cool. Previously it would have been marijuana. Yeah. You're grown up. Song you've written your most proud of.

30:33Um, I like them all. But you know, people often say that as a musician you always like the most recent thing that you've done, which I think is the case because I quite like where Eagles have been because I find that a real challenge, especially to play live because I kind of wrote these bits that were a little bit complex. So I'm always kind of like, okay, here we go. Gonna get it this time. And I like witchcraft as well because that was another new song that we did in the studio. Nice. And one word, Wolf Mother. One word far out. One song for the set. What do you want to hear off your record? Love train.

31:19We already played it. Oh, we play that. Damn it. I dig them all. They're cool. Yeah. Joker and the thief's pretty right. Continuation of all along the watchtower. Anything to do with. Um, I think, like Andrew writes a little lyrics that I think he was listening to a lot of Dylan at the time. I think it was, the title was inspired by that. We were also like getting into, we had this whole phase of doing things really loose. So we had a lot of loose groove based songs and then all of a sudden we kind of got into this phase of, let's do all hits together and go bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. And we really got into that. So Joker and the thief is just full of stuff like that and whole sort of breakdowns of doing things like that. So I don't know if that's inspired by Dylan.

32:05It's probably more metallic or something. Just the words I was thinking. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you so much. No problem. Thank you.