Speaker 1: Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of Inside the
Speaker 1: Studio on iHeart Radio. My name is Jordan run Tug,
Speaker 1: but enough about me. My guest today are members of
Speaker 1: one of Australia's biggest bands. They've slowly but surely mounted
Speaker 1: their musical assault on this hemisphere with the help of
Speaker 1: two stellar records, The Positions and Go Farther in Lightness.
Speaker 1: Their latest album, Angel in Real Time, is the result
Speaker 1: of nearly five years of intense workshopping, numerous false starts,
Speaker 1: serious case of writer's block, and one immense personal loss.
Speaker 1: It's a monument of frontman Dave Leo Pepe's late father,
Speaker 1: who died of cancer, and the song cycle finds him
Speaker 1: coming to terms with the life milestone and contemplating the
Speaker 1: loneliness of his passing juxtaposed with the comfort and peace
Speaker 1: that often comes. And I Loved One transcends this reality
Speaker 1: and into another. To paraphrase the group's own description, Angel
Speaker 1: in Real Time is a meditation on the meaning of death,
Speaker 1: grief and God, and also a nod to the London
Speaker 1: neighborhood of Angel that served as the band's home base.
Speaker 1: It's also a celebration of Dave's own Samoan heritage. The
Speaker 1: record is packed with refluences and recordings of indigenous music
Speaker 1: of the South Pacific, in addition to sounds of modern classical,
Speaker 1: English drummond bass, and American folk. Angel in Real Time
Speaker 1: is a highly ambitious work of creative and personal growth,
Speaker 1: and it was well worth the way. I'm so happy
Speaker 1: to welcome Dave, Leo Pepe and Max Dunn of Gang
Speaker 1: of Youths. I hope you enjoy our conversation. Just to
Speaker 1: kick it off, I mean, I I just want to
Speaker 1: offer you, guys, oh well deserved congratulations and thank you
Speaker 1: for Angel and Real Time. I mean, I know you've
Speaker 1: been working on it for for several years now, and
Speaker 1: I think I'm right and saying you recorded it three
Speaker 1: different versions of it. I mean, how did you know
Speaker 1: it was done? How did you know you had it
Speaker 1: where you wanted it? Finally, it was when the labels said,
Speaker 1: all right, the major label dead. That's the honest. So
Speaker 1: your first for warners, right, Yeah, so yeah, it's it's um,
Speaker 1: it's weird lot our experiences labels is kind of more
Speaker 1: synonymous of how they experienced it, probably in the nineties
Speaker 1: when they had Googles and money and credit cards and
Speaker 1: credit cards, but like Cartel wrought cocaine, um, that kind
Speaker 1: of But they've been really permissive with us and really
Speaker 1: really even temp and cool with us, you know, which
Speaker 1: is you know, not the stereotype of most major labels.
Speaker 1: And honestly, we stay in the business, they stay out out.
Speaker 1: The Warned team here in the UK are unbelievable. The
Speaker 1: American team are really really really great, super supported, unbelieving
Speaker 1: as well. So it's been kind of like that. But
Speaker 1: they were like, listen, it's been two fucking years, stop
Speaker 1: passing around and get it done. Um. So that's kind
Speaker 1: of what we had to know. And I think there
Speaker 1: was as well, Yeah, because Max had a kid and
Speaker 1: you know, it's the whole thing. But I think it
Speaker 1: was a lot understanding that we had said everything that
Speaker 1: we wanted to say in the best way, ah possible,
Speaker 1: and it was and it was beautiful. We all found
Speaker 1: it beautiful. And we keep sucking using this word today
Speaker 1: that it's this idea of something that felt beautiful. And
Speaker 1: I was saying before and I'll say now, this is
Speaker 1: the first time in my career I felt um, but
Speaker 1: I don't absolutely hate something, just hate it a little
Speaker 1: bit this is a fucking miracle for me. But Mars
Speaker 1: like it. But I think it's I think it's stunning. Man.
Speaker 1: Like I think, you know, because we made so much
Speaker 1: bad ship, well not even bad but just non right ship,
Speaker 1: that it really does feel like, um, really cool. And
Speaker 1: it was like so free and um, it was fucking hard,
Speaker 1: Like obviously we were going insane. It's at seven points
Speaker 1: of like two years during lockdown and a room. Um,
Speaker 1: but I just mean it was like it was, yeah,
Speaker 1: everything that you know Dave's probably wanted in terms of
Speaker 1: influences in the past that had been too weird or
Speaker 1: too like whatever, and you know, we were able to
Speaker 1: throw ourselves into that and all our different backgrounds and
Speaker 1: kind of just come up with something really beautiful and
Speaker 1: weird and like that, I felt like it was the
Speaker 1: right thing for who we are now, which is really cool.
Speaker 1: I feel like you only know you only you know
Speaker 1: when you've arrived, when you arrived, like it was sort
Speaker 1: of you just got there and it got to the
Speaker 1: last track being done, kind of the scaffolding of it,
Speaker 1: and I think we just kind of paused and said,
Speaker 1: I think we're about nearly really there or winners, Um,
Speaker 1: some lares. Yeah, And it was interesting because like at
Speaker 1: the at the outset of the of the whole fucking album,
Speaker 1: right when we first started working, when I first started working,
Speaker 1: I knew it would be a title pain to get done.
Speaker 1: It would be a lot of late though. It's a
Speaker 1: lot of travel, a lot of money spent to get
Speaker 1: the sound that we wanted, the size of the of
Speaker 1: the string ensemble that we wanted, um, you know, to
Speaker 1: pay the musicians correctly, um, to to appropriately distribute admiralties
Speaker 1: to the rights holders of not only the recordings of
Speaker 1: the samples that we've used by David Fanshaw, but also
Speaker 1: the people who performed that trying to find ways so
Speaker 1: we understood there would be a lot that went into it.
Speaker 1: So I think once that stuff was kind of ironed out, um,
Speaker 1: and we've got we've got a sense of, um, what
Speaker 1: the album was going to sound like mixed wise, because
Speaker 1: we actually started mixing some of these songs before vocals
Speaker 1: moveing on it. Because I hadn't finished the lyrics for
Speaker 1: some things. Something has had lyrics for anyone the decades,
Speaker 1: and other things just took a really long time. So
Speaker 1: it was basically when the lyrics were done. Okay, the
Speaker 1: album's done, gentlemen, our mate counts it. And also Peter
Speaker 1: Cater who we can't forget, who was just sucking amazing.
Speaker 1: He mixed Return Unison. But but people really really worked
Speaker 1: against the clock on it. So the way I then,
Speaker 1: especially count did so much work, massive, massive, massive gratitude,
Speaker 1: the huge de on the tracks where you had the
Speaker 1: the instrumental arrangements done but working on the lyrics. Did
Speaker 1: you know what you wanted to say in those songs?
Speaker 1: Was it a case of sitting down and working on
Speaker 1: how to articulate it? Or did you sit with the
Speaker 1: instrumental tracks and just think, where does this take me?
Speaker 1: Right now? Where? What is you know? What is it
Speaker 1: that uh this we feel? That's a good good question.
Speaker 1: It was column I, column by I always have a
Speaker 1: title of the song before I have lyrics UM, and
Speaker 1: the title was just a placeholder that sparks some emotion
Speaker 1: related to the song for me, or or a concept
Speaker 1: with feeling UM. For the most part, man um. It
Speaker 1: kind of works in different ways depending on the song.
Speaker 1: If I'm if, if I have a it always starts
Speaker 1: with the melody for me, weirdly UM. On this one,
Speaker 1: it was it was all melodic and finding phrasing and
Speaker 1: words that fit that, and then a mood to fit
Speaker 1: the phrasing and words, and then trying to trying to
Speaker 1: carve out shape of a contour of the themes or whatever.
Speaker 1: I'm not someone who just kind of could just put
Speaker 1: put out words. There's always a central nervous system, like
Speaker 1: a like a some tripical motion that exists at the
Speaker 1: nucleus of every song or whatever that propels it, that
Speaker 1: gives it meaning and value to me, that make me
Speaker 1: not want to fucking die every time we have to
Speaker 1: perform the motherfucker, do you know what I mean? So
Speaker 1: finding that meaning was the hard It was the hard basket,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. And for some songs like
Speaker 1: The Kingdom Is Within You or You and Everything, the
Speaker 1: meaning approach many of the lyrics they're kind of already
Speaker 1: there um or or I had a tacit understanding of
Speaker 1: where that song was going to go, Whereas like with
Speaker 1: Full Bearance, I had an inkling of what I wanted
Speaker 1: the sort of sound live, but kind of changed and
Speaker 1: shifted and then it went back around to being what
Speaker 1: it was about. Does that make sense? So it just
Speaker 1: kind of depends on what song And I think for
Speaker 1: bearans always had a strong malondic component that tied me
Speaker 1: to emotions around that that were kind of like, you know,
Speaker 1: synonymous with those melodies. Um, they kind of just fed itself.
Speaker 1: I think you know, but that was a completed instrumental
Speaker 1: sucking or list a year ago, which is wild. Mm hmm.
Speaker 1: I think I read and I don't. I don't know.
Speaker 1: Maybe a miss understood this that the project began with
Speaker 1: the album's title. Did that more? I guess question one?
Speaker 1: Is that true? And question too? How did that kind
Speaker 1: of serve as sort of the uh, you know your
Speaker 1: your your load, star, your your your you know your
Speaker 1: guide throughout this? Um, I mean, Max do remember this,
Speaker 1: but I just started working on this albumen where we
Speaker 1: was living. It would just moved to London, m Jordan
Speaker 1: loved and and there's Plankton day on Pettonville, Pettonville and Caledonian.
Speaker 1: So that makes you answer looking for give you for that? Um,
Speaker 1: um Haven'tville Caledonian. So that was rightly where we were made.
Speaker 1: I can't even express to you how meaningful that neighborhood
Speaker 1: is because we used to live in Holloway um On, Caledonia, Road.
Speaker 1: What was that street Corporated station. So that was actually
Speaker 1: where I wrote The Angel of my Dead Years, where
Speaker 1: I started working on UM. When I started working on UM,
Speaker 1: what what turned into Unison Tender Garden, A little bit,
Speaker 1: A little bits are in there. UM. There's just a
Speaker 1: lot of stuff I started working on there, and I
Speaker 1: kind of I kind of had this vision of look
Speaker 1: because I knew my dad wasn't well and he was sick.
Speaker 1: I knew that one day I'd have to confront the
Speaker 1: realities of my my heritage in his upbring and I
Speaker 1: was like thinking about integrating some of that stuff. But
Speaker 1: I knew I wanted to use samples gentlemen, and so
Speaker 1: I feel like that was the genesis of where it started.
Speaker 1: Angel brill Time, however, tied everything into a cohesive hole
Speaker 1: for me that I came up with that album name
Speaker 1: in two eighteen May. I was walking around Angel the
Speaker 1: day that we found the house and we all lived in,
Speaker 1: and I was always been with you, like like every
Speaker 1: album with a there's a name a name. Before I
Speaker 1: remember being told like we're gonna we should make a
Speaker 1: father and lighting us now and been like okay, okay,
Speaker 1: like whatever the funk that means, you know at the time,
Speaker 1: which is a cool trade. Man. It's like it's cool
Speaker 1: to have like a north Star. It's like a dude
Speaker 1: in a band, Like yeah, it's it's weird because I
Speaker 1: always think of I always think of like it's gonna
Speaker 1: sound like the best pluck and pretensus bullshitever. But Thomas
Speaker 1: Pensioned grabbed his rainbow. There's that thing about, um, you
Speaker 1: never did the cannotion kid, And there's like six thousand
Speaker 1: different And I used to follow Twitter account years ago.
Speaker 1: That auto, that auto produces different grammatical variations that you
Speaker 1: never did the cannotion kid. Now for people who grab
Speaker 1: his rainbo, I don't want to sucking ruin it, but
Speaker 1: it's just like it's, um, it's for me. The the
Speaker 1: fluidity of that sentence is explored a lot, and not
Speaker 1: in the in the in the book, but in the
Speaker 1: fandom surrounding that. Hence why there's an order generated Twitter
Speaker 1: that generates like new grammatical variations. Just a simple nonsensical
Speaker 1: statement can have a lot of thematic weight depending on
Speaker 1: its interpretation. And I like that there's like almost like
Speaker 1: almost like plos use the term post structuralist. One of
Speaker 1: my fucking professor in Boston at Harvard, right, one of
Speaker 1: my sucking white collar professional Um, there's a sense of
Speaker 1: like each word donating denating something else, And so I thought,
Speaker 1: angel in real time, we'll live in Angel. My dad's
Speaker 1: an angel real time. You know. I just all these
Speaker 1: kind of images of contra up of this, this kind
Speaker 1: of relatively banal, benign sort of phrase, And I love
Speaker 1: how it's open interpretation to me but to others, but
Speaker 1: it meant something to me. Someone go farther in lightness?
Speaker 1: What the fuck is go farther? Why that word? Why
Speaker 1: up further? Why lightness? What is likeness? You know? I like.
Speaker 1: I like the idea of the English language being poised
Speaker 1: for interpretation always any given time, and a collection of
Speaker 1: you like the positions I mean I was using as
Speaker 1: a reference in Lennon Cohen's Various Positions, but it could
Speaker 1: also mean the positions on a football pictures that I
Speaker 1: think there's I think there's so much fluidity. So if
Speaker 1: I just come up with words that sound beautiful and
Speaker 1: they suggest something, they imply meaning that it perhaps fucking
Speaker 1: potentially something will come from it, Like if there will
Speaker 1: be blood? Do you know what I mean? Chunking express
Speaker 1: Do you know what I'm saying? Like? I like the
Speaker 1: ideas that so much, almost like Louis Carroll. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: all whimsy and bullshit, but to me, it makes them
Speaker 1: fucking conceptual. But but that's how I started everything. I
Speaker 1: feel like a title cinematic and it helps me derive
Speaker 1: meeting and shape and ark without having to do too
Speaker 1: much groundwork. You know, it's all about the big picture
Speaker 1: type stuff in the initial stages and planning record. How
Speaker 1: do you feel about I feel like there's sort of
Speaker 1: two schools of thought with with artists being asked about
Speaker 1: their lyrics. There are some who who will dive right
Speaker 1: in and almost treat it like a diary and tell
Speaker 1: you, you you know, what they were feeling where these came from.
Speaker 1: And then there are others who are you know, prefer
Speaker 1: to be a little more vague and really want to
Speaker 1: leave it open to interpretation and open to, you know,
Speaker 1: people to bring their own twist to it. How do
Speaker 1: you feel about that? How do you feel about discussing
Speaker 1: your your words? I trust people that not treat my
Speaker 1: fucking words as gospel, because that would be stupid to
Speaker 1: be true. It's anything that anybody in the public. Guy said,
Speaker 1: is titled with sucking Gospel. That would be absurd, right, Um,
Speaker 1: So I asked it. It's my ship. I'll say that
Speaker 1: A want about it. I respect people. I don't. Um,
Speaker 1: just straight up you know. I wasn't the thing with
Speaker 1: Trent Resident, who I like a lot. Um. He doesn't
Speaker 1: like to talk about meeting and songs. He even said
Speaker 1: that it ruins that. I'm sorry, I like ruining stuff.
Speaker 1: I was saying, I know Swift. He doesn't like beause
Speaker 1: I know Swift. He doesn't like to mention stuff, and
Speaker 1: she's obviously very talented, good at her job. Um, but
Speaker 1: I like to I enjoy ruining it for people. I
Speaker 1: think it's important to understand context. I'm I'm I'm a
Speaker 1: fucking layman student of history, and I have a very
Speaker 1: intense desire to keep reliving my connection to place and time.
Speaker 1: And so in order for me to do that, I
Speaker 1: do that through the meeting of very mediocre indie rock music. Um.
Speaker 1: And so the way did you want to stay? What
Speaker 1: I mean? So, these are the ways I like to
Speaker 1: approach the world and how I want to approach art.
Speaker 1: And I think people who want to leave it up
Speaker 1: to interpretation, that's cool. I think I think there's pretentiousness
Speaker 1: on my side because I feel like it's so what
Speaker 1: I have to say is so important and so meticulous
Speaker 1: that I have to share it with it. And I
Speaker 1: do understand it's probably criticism, but I would say, naturally
Speaker 1: people who want to keep it themselves. I don't. I
Speaker 1: want a big believed in this mystic in this mystical
Speaker 1: spiritualized great band, but spiritualized fucking um? What's the word?
Speaker 1: Focus focused around lyrics? So I mean, they're not going
Speaker 1: to say the world it's poetry and it can be
Speaker 1: like anything is up until to interpretation, even if I
Speaker 1: tell you the truth of what it means. So I think,
Speaker 1: I think that debate doesn't really rage in my head
Speaker 1: because I just don't care. It's not really part of
Speaker 1: what consumes my thought. I'm more concerned with wherever I'm
Speaker 1: communicating what I want to say effectively enough, not whether
Speaker 1: or not does that make sense to it or I
Speaker 1: feel like I'm I feel like it might be a
Speaker 1: pretty harsh answer to a really reasonable question. But no,
Speaker 1: not at all. I mean I in a lot of ways,
Speaker 1: I feel like you're being you're taking self deprecation to
Speaker 1: the level of a martial art. I should say, I
Speaker 1: was just we were just talking about this another interview. Man,
Speaker 1: I've just I've just been drawn. It's becoming my attention
Speaker 1: so often now I'm starting to think that if I
Speaker 1: ever do another interview again, I'm gonna have to be this.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have to do this cocky cock shure, fucking
Speaker 1: self assured kind of blow. You know, So next time
Speaker 1: I spake to you, you'll be like, have you been
Speaker 1: have you been smoking some really good ship? Because I
Speaker 1: hadn't planned on sharing this, but I guess in the
Speaker 1: interest of what you just said. I when I was
Speaker 1: a young boy, I lost a parent and this was
Speaker 1: more than twenty years ago, and just recently over Chris,
Speaker 1: Oh no no, I'm no, no, no, no, no, I am.
Speaker 1: Just recently over Christmas, a distant family member that I
Speaker 1: hadn't known got in touch with me and sent me
Speaker 1: a tremendous gift, the box of all sorts of teenage
Speaker 1: uh letters and diaries my mom and written in photos
Speaker 1: and stuff, and I it kind of made me think
Speaker 1: of of what you were writing on this album too,
Speaker 1: because I do we were you when I'm sorry to
Speaker 1: hear that. Not Oh no, no, I was. I was
Speaker 1: favorite people in the world, lost lost home on one
Speaker 1: of my favorite people ever lost a mom. She's little girl,
Speaker 1: so totally strongly, um, you know, totally strongly point oh no,
Speaker 1: thank you. I mean I I was twelve and I'm
Speaker 1: I'm thirty four now. I just I listening to your
Speaker 1: songs and the words that that you were saying, and
Speaker 1: even just you know this sounds corny, but even between
Speaker 1: the lines of the lyrics too, I it hit me
Speaker 1: in a personal way because I I sort of know
Speaker 1: on a certain level what you were singing about, sort
Speaker 1: of getting to know your parents after the fact. And
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, what's that ancient Egyptian expression, something
Speaker 1: like to speak a man's name is restore is to
Speaker 1: restore or him to eternal life, which to any that
Speaker 1: that is beautiful, I think I fucking eyed degicians. I
Speaker 1: think I stole that from a from a from a
Speaker 1: Doors interview. By the way, So for anybody thinks I'm
Speaker 1: actually well read, I'm not. That's I definitely took that
Speaker 1: from Jim Morrison. But the journey that you went through
Speaker 1: on this record, um, it connected with me even uh
Speaker 1: you know in ways that maybe you don't realize. And
Speaker 1: I'm sure with so many people too. I mean, at
Speaker 1: what point there's questions to both of you do you
Speaker 1: start thinking of the audience when you're putting songs together?
Speaker 1: I mean, all these songs of fragments of a grief eternal,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't never leave you. And I think there's
Speaker 1: a sense of this. I think there's a sense of
Speaker 1: disconnected this I'll always have with an audience, purely because
Speaker 1: my my my job, our job is too craft things
Speaker 1: that people consume. I say this in every fucking interview,
Speaker 1: but it's it's being a musician as a trade. You
Speaker 1: play a trade, were overpaid assholes most of where who
Speaker 1: do who do something? Rather Um it's but it's it's
Speaker 1: a profession that otherwise would have inspired, um, you know
Speaker 1: the kind of fandom that we see in they maybe
Speaker 1: the seventeenth there might have been the nineteenth might have
Speaker 1: been thinking from correct composers. But um, we're fortunate, We're
Speaker 1: fortunately that our craft is is is because you know,
Speaker 1: it is market speaking, um, considered to be worth more
Speaker 1: than it actually is. Um. So I think I think,
Speaker 1: I think what I'm trying, like Max you're gonna interrupt
Speaker 1: me with something self effacing before I go in for
Speaker 1: the kill. Was something like pejorative, So maybe you go,
Speaker 1: uh No, I was just gonna say, like, the entire
Speaker 1: thing is like I mean for me, that like music
Speaker 1: is just about making people like feel you know, like
Speaker 1: you know, like I don't know, like the you momi
Speaker 1: like the sucking, Like that's the job, man. Like the
Speaker 1: whole thing is like do I listen to this when
Speaker 1: I'm listening to the mix, and am I like massively
Speaker 1: affected by it? Um as a beautiful as it as
Speaker 1: it bringing out the beauty or like the meaning in
Speaker 1: the lyrics by accident or good ways is their contrast whatever?
Speaker 1: I think. I think that's what I'm trying to I
Speaker 1: think that's what I'm I think that's what I'm trying
Speaker 1: to gesture. Act. Look, it's just the job, and you
Speaker 1: can't help but think about where your table goes. If
Speaker 1: you've made a table, you can't help but think about
Speaker 1: like that's a great No, that's an incredible yeah. But
Speaker 1: I wonder what this thing that I've spent six and
Speaker 1: a half hours or six and a half weeks, sick
Speaker 1: and half years making I wonder where this is going
Speaker 1: to go. How the fund are you supposed to Not
Speaker 1: so for me, it's like if I'm making ergonomic chairs
Speaker 1: in my basement, you know, you want to make sure
Speaker 1: that people are fucking enjoying sitting there ass on them,
Speaker 1: you know, um, even if aesthetically they're not as pleasing
Speaker 1: as the ship you might get down at the fucking
Speaker 1: you know, the kyaka self deprecation is killing. No, but
Speaker 1: it's not. It's not, but it's I think there's something
Speaker 1: more reminiscent of the way that I grew up in
Speaker 1: the way they look at music, that it's the job,
Speaker 1: it's profession, and you want to think about where it goes.
Speaker 1: And any bit of handy work you do is a
Speaker 1: small mark on the planet Earth, you know, even the
Speaker 1: smallest piece of literature or and that's nice to think about.
Speaker 1: It's meaningless and it's bullshit, but it's still in some
Speaker 1: way lovely, you know. And I would like anything that,
Speaker 1: anything that I have to be reminiscent and reflective of
Speaker 1: the talent that surrounds me and the four other guys
Speaker 1: in the band, and also to reach people if they
Speaker 1: if they choose to be reached. You know that's an
Speaker 1: important thing, but it's hard. It's hard to balance because
Speaker 1: I'm the kind of I'm such a fucking people pleaser.
Speaker 1: Right if I think about what what the peanut gallery wants,
Speaker 1: then they're getting nothing the peanuts, you know, and then
Speaker 1: and they'll never change, They'll never change or something more
Speaker 1: more nutritious like pears gentlemen. So that is said to
Speaker 1: be I just don't have to be realistic about about
Speaker 1: how much of myself can give away to that thought,
Speaker 1: you know, because I'm prine to it. You know, I'm
Speaker 1: a total as Joyce Meyer the you know how joy Spyers,
Speaker 1: she's like as Christian authors appreciate No, no, no, I've
Speaker 1: never read any of the ship. How many jets does
Speaker 1: she have? That fucking bunch of jets of jets Jet
Speaker 1: happy Jet have appreciate Jet. But but this this thing
Speaker 1: called approval actics, as she talks about that, I vaguely
Speaker 1: remember while being well drunk at a Hillsong conference where
Speaker 1: I was talking, um, yeah, but that was suddenly like
Speaker 1: being such an approval actic. I have to balance how
Speaker 1: much I think about how this will be received for me.
Speaker 1: It's not necessarily like people, because people like life with
Speaker 1: dislike it. It's more like I think, I think growing up,
Speaker 1: I was I was really um overly what's the word overly,
Speaker 1: um overly like reverend to critical appraisal of my work,
Speaker 1: not realizing that critics are also people who have their
Speaker 1: own feelings, thoughts, biases, um, and they come and go
Speaker 1: over the times as well. And it was also doing
Speaker 1: a disservice to the to the to the role of
Speaker 1: the music critic and the music writer as you know,
Speaker 1: I treated them as you know, somehow different, which I
Speaker 1: don't think they would appreciate, because I think it's an
Speaker 1: important role in culture to be a writer of critic
Speaker 1: or someone who appraised this thing. I think that there
Speaker 1: is some importance that um. But that was like a
Speaker 1: struggle that had fucking years. You know. All I wanted
Speaker 1: was them fucking ten that it's ten or that bullshit,
Speaker 1: and um, it's not bullshit when it matters. But I
Speaker 1: think when I think about that's what I lose my
Speaker 1: way a little bit. Yeah, I mean, I think I
Speaker 1: think most critics that I'm no and that I'm tight
Speaker 1: with don't place a massive emphasis on their job as
Speaker 1: being the be all and end all, But they see
Speaker 1: it as part of an unfolding conversation. And for me,
Speaker 1: instead of being terrified at that conversation, I just sort
Speaker 1: of let it go and just I am happy to
Speaker 1: allow it um to continue on. And and I think
Speaker 1: that's been the biggest change in me, is like the
Speaker 1: sense that that any kind of approval outside of what
Speaker 1: goes on in here and what goes on in the
Speaker 1: room with those four other dives, um here be my self,
Speaker 1: my soul um and what goes on the room for
Speaker 1: other guys, that's possibly more important, um, not much more,
Speaker 1: but you know, that's what kind of war I need
Speaker 1: to gauge, you know, And you know there's I think
Speaker 1: that I think it's not about drowning at noise, because
Speaker 1: I don't necessarily believe, for example, that constructive criticism or
Speaker 1: engage men or you know, discussion is is is bad.
Speaker 1: I think it's actually really good. It's more about just
Speaker 1: choosing how and when I allow that stuff into my
Speaker 1: orbit that makes sense, and that that affects my RELACTIONIP
Speaker 1: with the music more than anything, or at least it
Speaker 1: used to. And you know, now having known many people
Speaker 1: in music writing and and you know, I've I've realized
Speaker 1: how completely immature and wrong I was to to fetishize
Speaker 1: its side. See what I mean, what did success look
Speaker 1: like to you when you were first starting out as
Speaker 1: a band. Do you say all this now I'm curious
Speaker 1: enough money for six hey? I mean yeah, chopping a
Speaker 1: sticky from work, chopping a sicky from work, and then
Speaker 1: not having to worry about whether or not I go back.
Speaker 1: That was it was, mate. I think I don't know.
Speaker 1: I think we are Um, I think I don't know.
Speaker 1: I think you're are more complicated your answer mine was
Speaker 1: kind of just um oh, ship, Like, here's an opportunity
Speaker 1: to be in an actual band that does this and
Speaker 1: tours and see see if they're a bit of the
Speaker 1: Western world. Not as much of the rest of it
Speaker 1: as we work as we want, but you know, see
Speaker 1: if they're a bit of all that play some sucking
Speaker 1: red venues. Um. I wanted to take it as far
Speaker 1: as I could, to be honest, Um, I really believed
Speaker 1: in it. I still do. Um, that's why I'm doing it.
Speaker 1: Um No, but I do think what about I do
Speaker 1: think I do think Um now I still have that
Speaker 1: like that ambition, but I do think, yeah, you kind
Speaker 1: of um Yeah. When I say when I talk about
Speaker 1: like people being a gig back, I'm not sort of
Speaker 1: saying it and make everyone like it or certainly not
Speaker 1: make critics like it, even though it's cool when they do. Um.
Speaker 1: It's it's more about like the ideal is like creating
Speaker 1: something of all that really affects us and like and
Speaker 1: I think inspires us, Like we don't. I don't think
Speaker 1: Gang of Us has ever tried. It's a bit of
Speaker 1: a met An album that you know, at the time,
Speaker 1: we didn't feel some sense. I mean, Dave might say so,
Speaker 1: but I certainly at the time where it's abelt like
Speaker 1: we were doing something really fucking special. And I really
Speaker 1: loved the songs and I loved performing them and I
Speaker 1: still do, you know, so for me it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm like, it's a weird car. It's like a mature
Speaker 1: ambition now, you know, when you're like twenty, it's like
Speaker 1: if we're not doing Madison Square Garden in two years,
Speaker 1: then like the world's the world's fucked. And then you
Speaker 1: realize your five years and like I just drove fifteen
Speaker 1: hours to like play the ten People in Salt Lake
Speaker 1: City or something, and you're like you know, actually you
Speaker 1: have not lived until you played Kilby Court. I loved
Speaker 1: that show. That was one of my favorite but I
Speaker 1: loved it. I loved it. I loved it without irony
Speaker 1: and it's like just the sweetest people turned out and
Speaker 1: it's sad to assume a couple of them are morements
Speaker 1: and they didn't drink um. It was, but it was
Speaker 1: one of my favorite. It was my favorite favorite favorite times.
Speaker 1: Like for me right, like the idea of success is pure,
Speaker 1: like do I have enough? Wanted to keep sucking lights
Speaker 1: on to give my wife a better sleep in and
Speaker 1: my dog enough medicine, Like that's the success thing. All
Speaker 1: the other stuff is cool, but playing Kilby Court felt
Speaker 1: so surreal. It's it's in for me. It's engaging these
Speaker 1: totally surreal environments now like things that things that helped
Speaker 1: me appreciate people to who they are when they come
Speaker 1: in the show seven people, no booze in a shed
Speaker 1: that said that to manage and watch the show that
Speaker 1: like he sat and just what's what's the NBA playoffs?
Speaker 1: He's like this, He's amazing. It was it was it
Speaker 1: was right on three one. Yeah, I thought that was
Speaker 1: awesome and my yeah, we was playing, and I reckon
Speaker 1: that most people stay home and watch the game. But
Speaker 1: that's that's not a good, that's a good. That's a
Speaker 1: good picture for me of what successful. So it's just
Speaker 1: having enough in my world to be able to do that,
Speaker 1: you know. But um, but that would be the same
Speaker 1: with any job. I don't necessarily attach too much financial
Speaker 1: like too much financial motivation or too much personal motivation
Speaker 1: too my job because it's a vocation. Um And whether
Speaker 1: like I could just as easy to have easily not
Speaker 1: have had a break as a lead singer when I
Speaker 1: could be still on unemployment, you know, I could still
Speaker 1: like what we do is completely lucky. So tying it
Speaker 1: in with some level of some some some kind of
Speaker 1: abstract some abstraction like success doesn't really make sense to me.
Speaker 1: Yeah you're not, you're not the one if you're in
Speaker 1: a band, you know what I mean, Like, you're not
Speaker 1: sucking neo Like, yeah, you're not, you're not. You're not.
Speaker 1: It looks a chosen fucking person. But it's so weird
Speaker 1: that reception that is a band, you're a total bastion
Speaker 1: of moral superiority and cleanliness and everything about your fucking
Speaker 1: like spot on and you just have all the right
Speaker 1: opinions sucking were like we was kids. We were we
Speaker 1: were was was worked, we was we was we were
Speaker 1: we were kids, right, you know, I was a barely
Speaker 1: fucking nineteen eighteen or something, which now seems that you're
Speaker 1: supposed to be so growing up. By that point, it wasn't. Um. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: you go into these things with kind of low expectations
Speaker 1: for big dreams and aspirations, you try to achieve them.
Speaker 1: You're not a fully formed person um at all. And
Speaker 1: I think that was what Yeah, that's kind of how
Speaker 1: I would what do you reckon? Max? Back me up? Yere. No,
Speaker 1: there's been a lot of We're a band that's had
Speaker 1: like a lot of like a lot of um, we're
Speaker 1: very lucky, man, Like I say, there's there's people better
Speaker 1: than us who aren't doing this, you know, um, but
Speaker 1: there's there's definitely been times where like we've been it's
Speaker 1: about like went that close to being like like the
Speaker 1: fucking Killers or something like like usually because someone saying
Speaker 1: bullshit too you know, I'm not saying recently, saying over
Speaker 1: the over the years, and then like yeah, and then
Speaker 1: it's just like you just get absolutely fucked, like you know,
Speaker 1: they're like you're like and then it's just like and
Speaker 1: then like the next months you're just like sleeping on
Speaker 1: floors or something like. Just I love that about music.
Speaker 1: It's like such a you have to you have to
Speaker 1: have obviously beyond it. That's like obsessing about the success.
Speaker 1: You you're just going nut. You like a shark and
Speaker 1: you just dive swimming. We we had like a number
Speaker 1: five album in Australia at at one point, and I
Speaker 1: was sleeping on someone's office floor a band on someone's office.
Speaker 1: I mean like like I had like the way that
Speaker 1: you relate to because in Australia, like we had no idea.
Speaker 1: We'd line up until we've moved, Like I'm fucking not
Speaker 1: shooting you. Look, we weren't like a big band. We
Speaker 1: were a touring band. We weren't like you know, we
Speaker 1: weren't this um we were what we are now. We
Speaker 1: weren't even close to it. Well, I had no fucking clue.
Speaker 1: Then we go back from Australia and doing all these
Speaker 1: shows and playing these kids that that was really how
Speaker 1: it was. We did some stuff and we played some
Speaker 1: festival slots, but they're all during the day, like we
Speaker 1: didn't have the same the same vibe, you know, when
Speaker 1: we just thought were another middling, middling kind of in
Speaker 1: the rock band amidst a seve decent ones. Yeah, man,
Speaker 1: and so when that one, so that one changed, So
Speaker 1: that whole perception changes. It only happens after the fact.
Speaker 1: And by this time gone back to Australia. My poor
Speaker 1: wife who had literally no fucking clue about how how
Speaker 1: successful we'd become in Australia because I fucking barely knew. I. Um,
Speaker 1: she comes and then you witnessed it. It's like, oh,
Speaker 1: I see, okay, Well was that gratifying for you? Was
Speaker 1: that terrifying for you? Was that confusing for you? Not?
Speaker 1: Particularly because I think we left Australia because the ground
Speaker 1: swell of fame and bullshit started to occur a little
Speaker 1: bit to me. Um, but you just think that, oh,
Speaker 1: this is just because you're in a band that plays
Speaker 1: indie rock music in a country of people. Um. It
Speaker 1: was starting for me to get overwhelming, um about positive
Speaker 1: where this would lead. Gentleman. Look, it was it was
Speaker 1: more about we left because of you know, I began
Speaker 1: to fear like what that would look like for my life?
Speaker 1: In a lot of ways, not just that was the
Speaker 1: only reason. That was a big thing for me personally
Speaker 1: and motivation, but it was a gratifying like I mean,
Speaker 1: it's gratifying if people like me. I enjoy that. I
Speaker 1: want to be liked by people, So people like my music,
Speaker 1: if my bandmates like me gentlemen, or if people just
Speaker 1: at least don't sucking totally despise me, and great, you know,
Speaker 1: and that was what the band. That was what when
Speaker 1: Go Father Enlightness became like kind of a thing Australia,
Speaker 1: it was that was really nice because it felt like,
Speaker 1: you know, I felt like all the lives I've been telling,
Speaker 1: telling myself, um about you know, that I'm a worthless
Speaker 1: sex ship delivering to anything with just those there were lives.
Speaker 1: It was gratification grow fling in that sense. But all
Speaker 1: this stuff I came along with it was a bit
Speaker 1: tricky for me personally. What do you recommxing. We have
Speaker 1: such different experiences, that's the weird things Like you're in
Speaker 1: a band, you're in the same band. We've done that.
Speaker 1: We've literally run a business together basically for ten years,
Speaker 1: like lived together. But like, yeah, so I can, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't really experience that ship. Man, Like unless I'm
Speaker 1: literally on stage, I can watch like our support act
Speaker 1: if we're playing like an arena and no one will
Speaker 1: come up, like I'm literally like I can have a
Speaker 1: bear I get like I did by the fucking security guard,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. Like it's like an It's
Speaker 1: like I wish that Dave could like switch out and
Speaker 1: like not have to deal with all that ship, but he,
Speaker 1: unfortunately's the sexy front man. So it's part of it.
Speaker 1: It's part of the gift. But let's not blow too much,
Speaker 1: like up me no, no. But I'm just saying it's
Speaker 1: a funny, like it's so it's so hard I almost
Speaker 1: can't weigh yet. Like it's not from like a yeah
Speaker 1: from it's not like like a band perspective. I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 1: like it's like ten kids that up. Oh my god.
Speaker 1: It's honestly, I love this, you know. That's all I think.
Speaker 1: It's not that it's not like there's this absurd level
Speaker 1: of invasiveness Like that's what I'm talking about. I'm just
Speaker 1: talking for the kind of person I am, Like I
Speaker 1: love people, and I want to be around people and
Speaker 1: hug them and say thank you. It's just that too
Speaker 1: many I feel like I'm disappointed. Everybody does not make sense.
Speaker 1: It's it's not like you. But yeah, because fucking carrot
Speaker 1: Top could walk around and I'm not using him as
Speaker 1: a as a as as a I'm not using him
Speaker 1: as like fucking as an easy target because like people
Speaker 1: like character, but someone who he's not like sup popular Australia.
Speaker 1: He could walk past me in Australia and more people
Speaker 1: will be interesting character gentlemen. But that's the extent. But
Speaker 1: even that extent for me is difficult, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. It doesn't really go well with the with
Speaker 1: the fucking you know, the lovable loser bullshit thing that
Speaker 1: that I've been promoted to everybody, um by the press
Speaker 1: in order to um prey on people's sympathies so that
Speaker 1: I can get their money. Um, it's no, it's it's not.
Speaker 1: It's not. It's not. The whole lovable is a beautiful
Speaker 1: of fatalism. As Robert Criscal would say about Prescrictor, it's
Speaker 1: not that, it's it's it's not. Actually, it's just a
Speaker 1: genuine discomfort with with what that looks like. For me.
Speaker 1: I have a real hard time of it. I also
Speaker 1: I didn't. I wish I was more like into it,
Speaker 1: you know, like you see fucking like football players here
Speaker 1: in the UKLA. I just saw a video of a
Speaker 1: particular player from a particular club saying this particular club
Speaker 1: and what and they just have the competence just like
Speaker 1: fuck you to your employer like that when they're paying
Speaker 1: your millions. But and I just I don't know, man,
Speaker 1: I don't have the confidence to be that the self
Speaker 1: belief it gets to be like that version that be
Speaker 1: to be that kind of person. General mean, Max and
Speaker 1: Jordan's yeah, there's because there's different kinds of gigs, man,
Speaker 1: Like we're lucky that we also, you know, we still
Speaker 1: get to meet fans and ship at some in some
Speaker 1: places we play, you know, and so will you know,
Speaker 1: they'll be you know, five hundred kids in a club
Speaker 1: or something and you can get you can kind of
Speaker 1: like go out and have bear. It's not that weird,
Speaker 1: you know. Kids. Maxa's kids like eighteen year olds like
Speaker 1: our music and I'm not sure if they do, yeah,
Speaker 1: Max says kids. Yeah, when Maxa's kids like usually the
Speaker 1: people who work shows, I like typically between the age
Speaker 1: of five to sixty and that no no, but no people. No.
Speaker 1: But I think I think you're being openly general to
Speaker 1: us because like the kids, they're not listening to our ship.
Speaker 1: I'm telling you, I've been on TikTok exactly once and
Speaker 1: they are not listening to You. Don't need some serious
Speaker 1: work made, some make some marine condo treatment, because it stop.
Speaker 1: Does this existing star when you are able to meet
Speaker 1: with these fans dot mean, is there anything that you
Speaker 1: can hear from them that makes you think, you know,
Speaker 1: the days of sleeping on the couch and driving you know,
Speaker 1: a couple hundred miles to play fifteen people and all
Speaker 1: the all that was worth it? Is there one thing
Speaker 1: you can hear from those folks that really just having
Speaker 1: just having those experiences, Jordan's fucking worth it is being
Speaker 1: a rock band. Isn't doing gloom blocker presentatives like representative,
Speaker 1: but it's just not so much of it is just
Speaker 1: laughter and fucking joy and and youthfulness and um you know,
Speaker 1: drinking and going to see different beautiful buildings across Europe
Speaker 1: and like so much of it is that. So when
Speaker 1: if someone comes to a show, I'm grateful, do you understand?
Speaker 1: But I don't have to meet the motherfucker. They could
Speaker 1: take it, but someone actually coming is important, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean they've taken the time, They've they've done what
Speaker 1: I did as a kid, Right, I listened to something.
Speaker 1: I loved it. I want to go see it like
Speaker 1: they've done what I did. You know that that for
Speaker 1: me is um, sorry Maxice talking over you, brother, But
Speaker 1: that for me, it's like I said, it's an indictment
Speaker 1: against all the bad stuff I called himself that I was.
Speaker 1: And it's confirmation that maybe my therapist and Max and
Speaker 1: the boys and my wife and my dad are probably
Speaker 1: right about it, but I'm not so bad, you know.
Speaker 1: It's it's confirmation of that fact. I like, I'm like,
Speaker 1: I like existing in that space. So when someone comes
Speaker 1: up and said, hey, great show man, fucking great audience,
Speaker 1: never great job being fucking yeah, and so it's so
Speaker 1: weird to be like, but I'm genuinely overwhelmed and feeled
Speaker 1: with like love for anybody who wants to see us play.
Speaker 1: You know, even if they just said see Donnie, which
Speaker 1: is I'm the same. You know, they're because they're massive
Speaker 1: now in the whale fans, and I love Tom Tom.
Speaker 1: Tom stands in my favorite thing man like Tom Stairs.
Speaker 1: There's a whole far there's a Tom Hobden adoration subcommittee
Speaker 1: meeting someone deep down. Yeah, Tumble, I know. But in
Speaker 1: the bowels of what depend they've got a special fucking
Speaker 1: c a constructive facility or the character mining for pictures
Speaker 1: of fucking Tom when he was a know of the world, gorgeous,
Speaker 1: gorgeous person. I love him well. I could talk to
Speaker 1: you all day. I want to especially say again I
Speaker 1: this album is absolutely incredible and it touched me deeply,
Speaker 1: and I thank you for that. From on a personal level,
Speaker 1: I guess my my last question to you, and I've
Speaker 1: got three pages of questions and I'm on one out
Speaker 1: of thin air right now that I'm making up on
Speaker 1: the spot you and you invoked uh Bruce a moment
Speaker 1: ago I was watching recently. I don't even remember what
Speaker 1: it was. He was doing some Q and a, uh,
Speaker 1: some audience Q and A, and somebody stood up in
Speaker 1: the audience and said, yeah, Bruce, you know, I've been
Speaker 1: listening to you for years and you've always been so
Speaker 1: generous with your your your lyrics and and song meetings
Speaker 1: and and just your your emotions. You really seem to
Speaker 1: wear your heart in your sleep. I feel like I
Speaker 1: know you do I And it was just such an
Speaker 1: amazing question, and I wish I could remember Bruce said,
Speaker 1: but I guess I kind of wanted to put the
Speaker 1: same question to to you both. With you know your
Speaker 1: your music. You're so generous with everything that you do,
Speaker 1: everything you put out there. Do we fans who know
Speaker 1: your music? Are we uh sort of allowed to feel
Speaker 1: like we know you in a way? Or is that
Speaker 1: those is there a division between uh, you know on
Speaker 1: stage and offstage. To know Max is to love and
Speaker 1: a dual Max, And anyone who doesn't love Max doesn't
Speaker 1: know Max. That's laughing about that anyway, anyone anyone, anyone's stupid,
Speaker 1: anyone's stupid, delusional, mean, or narcissistic enough not to love
Speaker 1: maxic as well? Um, second, does that you answer that
Speaker 1: for me? Then? I think, Um, I think I think
Speaker 1: Dave's an extremely um you hate this word, but authentic.
Speaker 1: But I think there's no question, there's no no like
Speaker 1: like you suck off man, like you're like you're literally
Speaker 1: like a beautiful, like super compelling, wonderful human being. And
Speaker 1: I think so people see Yeah, I reckon if people
Speaker 1: see day perform and the way he tries to reach everybody.
Speaker 1: Dave sees everyone. Dave's a guy who likes sees the
Speaker 1: dude in the corner of the room no one's talking to,
Speaker 1: and talks to him. So I feel like if you
Speaker 1: get that from if you get that from the gig,
Speaker 1: like you feel like you're connected to then that, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's knowing David. And we're also pretty fucking you know,
Speaker 1: basic bogan dudes, Like we're not. Um, I feel like
Speaker 1: Tom and Tom. Yeah, but like with us, man, we
Speaker 1: this would have just happened if you're in the green
Speaker 1: room the same conversation. There's no like, there's nothing performative. Um, really,
Speaker 1: I don't think about I mean, honestly, people probably wish
Speaker 1: there was more of it. Like that's why we stuck
Speaker 1: at social media, man, because we I'm actually as a
Speaker 1: real friend, you know, that's something funny. I don't think,
Speaker 1: oh ship being out the fucking TikTok, Like we just
Speaker 1: don't film each other. So like there's just nothing funny either,
Speaker 1: you know. But we're actually really funny, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, like actually really interesting guys. But no, one
Speaker 1: of the one of my biggest fears when it when
Speaker 1: it came to writing running music, is that people would
Speaker 1: look at me as I wasn't, you know. And I
Speaker 1: resent idle, and I resent idole and hero worship. I
Speaker 1: resent people who look at people in my position like
Speaker 1: where gods, we're fucking absolutely not. It's I find it
Speaker 1: repulsive the idea that somehow I've been treated any differently. Um.
Speaker 1: And I think because of that, there's a sense of
Speaker 1: candid and candor and the music maybe like I've given it.
Speaker 1: I've given it my own kind of broke the way
Speaker 1: I'm phrasings and maybe not in an Australian accent because
Speaker 1: I can't put Courtney by net can um uh. But yeah,
Speaker 1: my brokes in there, like my thoughts, my feelings about ship.
Speaker 1: I don't like the state, so that that's in there.
Speaker 1: It's a pretty big part of who I'm what I am. Ah,
Speaker 1: But I'm not one of them gads the flag pipes
Speaker 1: or maybe I am who knows. It's America. You can
Speaker 1: be anything you want. Um. I bet I've just been
Speaker 1: at it. I've been it, sorry, a little bit political
Speaker 1: human there for you. Um, I know how you Americans
Speaker 1: love politics. But I think now It's just a good question.
Speaker 1: But do you know what I mean? I wanted to
Speaker 1: think so you know, but you can't. If I guess it,
Speaker 1: there's a real maid is more intolerable and the Reverend
Speaker 1: than David Context. So maybe if you get to know
Speaker 1: that person and you still want my music and Jesus Cross,
Speaker 1: you don't base Cross. We hope you enjoyed this episode
Speaker 1: of Inside the Studio, a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: For more episodes of Inside the Studio or other fantastic shows,
Speaker 1: check out the I Heart Radio app Apple podcast forever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite podcast.