STACK #164 June 2018

MUSIC

NEWS

INTERVIEW

GABRIELLA COHEN T he second single from Gabriella Cohen’s new album is Music Machine , and it paints a pretty

come out of a relationship. It sounds like On The Beach by Neil Young, which is one of my favourite records. Vampire Blues , into Motion Pictures … it’s just a beautiful simmer”) and Miserable Baby , which features a super romantic baritone vocalist in the style of Sha Na Na’s Blue Moon . “I love Grease ! Did you know I love Grease ? I’m so glad you got Grease from that – that’s what I was going for,” Cohen says, adding that the singer is Arun Roberts, her sometimes bassist. But back to Grease . “Do you know if John Travolta actually sung? Is that his voice? He’s such a good dancer. Exceptional. Blows my mind. I watch it every couple of months.” ZKR

to France? I wanted to separate myself from ‘normal.’” Stand-outs on the remarkable LP include Mercy (which has the understated ‘70s rock feel of The Doors, with its laid-back harpsichord), Neil Young (“It’s one of the oldest songs on the record; I wrote it when I first moved to Melbourne in November 2015. I was just an angry stoner that had just

specific picture of Los Angeles within its balmy ‘60s jangle: “I saw lots of homeless people on the concrete/ While bikini girls strut down Venice Beach,” she sings. “Isn’t America like the complete extreme?” the singer- songwriter asks STACK . “Especially when I was in San Francisco: beautifully manicured streets and lawns, buildings are gorgeous, everyone’s very affluent. Then you’ve got homeless places that the whole city just ignores. It’s like they want to perfume the sewers.” But the song’s theme of the cogs of the music industry isn’t specifically about LA. “It’s just about how regimented things are,” she says. “No one seems to know what they’re doing, no matter what they are in the industry. Just because [the system] worked in the ‘70s doesn’t mean it’s going to work now, when artists have so much freedom to market themselves.” Cohen recorded and produced Pink Is The Colour Of Unconditional Love in a "gorgeous farmhouse" in Seymour (VIC) with her collaborator and engineer Kate Dillon. “I just knew that I wanted to relocate to do it,” she says. “Try and copy the Stones – you know how they moved

TOURING 8/6 - 29/6

Pink Is The Colour Of Unconditional Love by Gabriella Cohen is out June 1 via Dot Dash.

smile when you think about it. It was influenced by a pretty heavy incident that my mum told me about, where she was sleeping in a uni dorm one night and long story short, a fellow student's dad wasn’t too pleased that his son liked blokes. I kind of wanted to

jam once, and it was probably a quarter of the speed that we play it at now. I just kept pushing it faster and faster, and ended up doing a count-in thingy at the start. It’s funny how after describing the song like that, it’s actually a pretty deep song lyrically. It's about

did was watch the Arctic Monkeys' R&L festival set.

stadiums or tennis courts. Sweaty front bars and eager crowds, keen to see a band rip the head off a bandroom without remorse. That’s pub rock to me. It’s Australian music for everyone… well, everyone that doesn’t mind a few drinks and a game of darts, haha. In terms of international events, has Reading and Leeds always been a dream performance destination for the band? Reading and Leeds is one of those festivals that’s just a ‘dream stage.’ I remember back in high school and my family got broadband; literally the first thing I

Bible Camp gets my blood rushing every time I hear it. How did it come about?What is the back story behind the lyrics? Haha, thanks. I’ve always wanted to write a soul song over the top of brash rock 'n' roll guitars, so I’m glad that came out of the wash great. We were listening to a lot of Royal Headache at the time, and this kind of made me want to play every single song at a million miles an hour. I actually still remember when Brian brought the chords [for Bible Camp ] to a

write another path that this story could've gone down, where both people were able to share a moment, feel that lust for each other and then move on with their lives. They probably never saw each other again, but at least they had the time of their life.

moments in life that you hold on to – particularly in your youth – when you meet people, and things happen, and this stays with you forever. You might never see the person again, but it’s always in the back of your mind and makes you

Different Beings Being Different by West Thebarton is out now via Domestic La La.

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