STACK#127 May 2016

MUSIC

NEWS

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faith no more return C ynics may scoff, but Faith No More are back with new album, Sol Invictus, after 18 years. The band, who just toured here for Soundwave 2015, first reformed for gigs in 2009 and have proved a potent live attraction. " The crowd thing was crazy – we always were a little bit of an odd band," says bassist Billy Gould, who's also produced Sol Invictus. But according to Gould, the group's community has never gone away. " Back in the day, we encouraged people to come on the road and follow the band around," he remembers. "We were playing shitty clubs, trying to get as many people on the guest list as we could. We had this little travelling group of kids, and that's continued. Some of them I still see when we play in London and there’s still a lot of friends in Australia now, who travel around. We have a community, it’s not cliquey at all." But given live shows started again in 2009, why so long for an album? "If you think about techniques and knowledge as tools, people have more tools to work with. I think people are more

Q1/ Good to Bad addresses hard realities in the country. Do city people get country people? I didn't grow up in the country, I just spend a fair bit of time there. I grew up on a freeway! The inspiration for the song came from too much Breaking Bad. I have a little side project called The Hillbilly Killers with Bill Chambers and Tim Rogers. I said to Bill, “I’ve written [about] this drug farmer, crazy...” and he went, “No. That’s a Catherine Britt song, save it for the album.” It felt like a Dylan/folkie melody. It's an interesting starting point – a song about a drug farmer. But I’ve had feedback about all the desperation and loss – people alone, out on those big properties they inherit... there are stories. So who knows? I might have nailed some Aussie story. Q2/ You went to a songwriting workshop with Steve Earle, how did that feed into the record? I was very suss on it. I wanted to know what Steve Earle had to say about songwriting. I’d have no idea how to 'tell' someone to write a song; it’s not a step-by-step process. He was just brilliant: the main thing around what he was teaching was what inspired him – the way Shakespeare structured his plays, the rhyming schemes, that sort of stuff. He had this amazing black American poet, young, beautiful, stunning woman screaming at you – rap poetry – really aggressive. Steve watched every single song, every single night. I finally got up and did Sweet Emmylou ; he came up and said “Who are you?” Catherine britt I recorded it live with a violinist and upright bass player. I did all my part and then sang his part separately – I went on and did his parts for him and then sent it to him, and then he just recorded it live in a couple of hours in New York studio and sent it back. Q4/ You recorded Boneshaker in New York State, near Big Pink (where The Band and Dylan made The Basement Tapes ); did you see it? It's just a big house on a back street. I drove past and they told me not to stop for too long, ‘cause the guy comes out apparently, with a gun, and tells you to move on. I took a quick photo and drove away. It was just a big house that’s pink, nothing special. Q5/ You remain the youngest Australian to play The Grand Ole Opry: what's the experience like? There’s nothing quite like the first time. I was living in Nashville. I was a regular by the end of my time there, which was just amazing. But you never quite get rid of that rush when you go up on stage, you stand in that little circle that everybody from Hank Williams to Elvis has stood in. It was Q3/ And he features on You and Me Against the World, did you do that face-to-face?

flexible on how to express ideas. You can learn of some of the dysfunctions you had when you were younger, and choose not to bring them to the present. I think we all had a bit of that." As for the seemingly prosaic title, Gould is matter of fact. "It refers to a sun worshipper. It’s a Roman thing, a Pagan thing. It works with the album." The record's strange, distinctive artwork (see below) comes from Ossian Brown, member of the bands Coil and Cyclobe. "Patton already had [Brown's] book, and then I mentioned it," says Gould. "That was pretty much where we were at, subconsciously. [Brown] contacted us, and asked about his photos – he had a couple that weren’t in the book. I don’t know if he knew what kind of band we were!"

Sol Invictus is out May 15 via Liberation/Universal Music.

N o matter your take on Australian Idol , it's undeniable both Stan Walker's vocal ability and stage presence are considerable. After winning Idol in 2009, he released Introducing Stan Walker , but it's his new album that is raising eyebrows and pricking up ears. Truth and Soul is a collection of standards by some of music's legends – everyone from Bob Marley ( Is This Love? ) to Otis Redding ( Signed, Sealed, Delivered ). Walker covering Marley isn't so surprising: he starred in New Zealand feature Mt. Zion about a young man who dreams of his band supporting the late reggae legend. Walker was also a judge on The X Factor panel that saw Natasha Kills berate the unfortunate Joe Irvine, and publicly backed the decision to sack Kills and her husband Willy Moon. But he's only looking forward with this new album of standards: "It’s not just enough to deliver a good, polished performance… they all deserve extra depth.” Stan Walker's truth in soul

Truth and Soul

is out now via Sony Music.

Florence & the machine Big, beautiful, soon!

A new album from the acclaimed UK act Florence and the Machine lands at the end of May. How Big, How Beautiful – the follow up to 2011's Ceremonials – sees the artist emerge from a period of some reinvention and seclusion. After coming off the road promoting her last album, still aged only 21, Florence ducked public life for a long period. “It was sort of a crash landing,” she freely admits. “I guess although I’ve always dealt in fantasy and metaphor when I came to writing, that meant the songs this time were dealing much more in reality.

Ceremonials was so fixated on death and water, and the idea of escape or transcendence through death, but the new album became about trying to learn how live." The new album is produced by Markus Dravs (who's helmed records for Bjork and Arcade Fire) and

also features arrangements by Will Gregory of Goldfrapp. Florence and the Machine also play Splendour in the Grass this coming July.

just like this ultimate thing: part of music history, and I’m all about that.

Boneshaker is out now

How Big, How Beautiful is out May 29 via Universal.

via Universal.

MAY 2015 JB Hi-Fi www.jbhifi.com.au

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