STACK NZ Oct #67

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Toby Laing Fat Freddy’s Drop

Q1/ Unlike your previous albums, Bays was written mainly in the studio. How did you find that experience? It was luxurious, you know, to plan these sessions and jam for hours. Obviously you have to go back and comb though it but Fat Freddy’s have been together now for so long, we’ve got our own kind of culture, which makes the songwriting process really enjoyable. Q2/ Talk us through the process. Does someone bring a horn part or a bass line to the group and then you build it from there? The studio process was very different; it was a lot more coming from the ground up. It does all start with the simplest thing, a discussion about a certain type or vibe of a tune. Take for example Cortina Motors , which is kind of more extended dub techno kind of thing. That came about because a mate of ours came up to the studio and started playing the bass guitar there, and the tune grew from that. They all came about from us tinkering around with ideas we have talked about over the years that we wanted to realise; having time in the studio, we could do that. Q3/ It also seems a bit more percussive than previous records? Like I said, we had a lot more time to zero in on the basics of the track. I think sound quality is something we are all particularly interested in just because we have now had the experience of playing on some big stages. Q4/ You spend quite a bit of time in Europe these days – why do you think audiences there have embraced the band so much? We’re so grateful to the reception that we have received over the years. The reason it goes well is that it’s a huge and sophisticated music market in Europe; they have a broad range of tastes and are very open-minded. At the same time, all the different sub-genres and sub-cultures are strong and well represented, and a band like Fat Freddy’s can go there and do some good gigs and get the name out there. Q5/ Fat Freddy’s Drop have followed a distinctly independent path; it seems that your success has come up on your own terms? We never kind of expected the band to be an international touring act, and that kind of grew organically. We always had an idea of what we wanted to do: to make records and put things on vinyl, but we were not really interested in radio. In a way, that idea hasn’t changed – the cool thing is that it has worked.

Jon Hart fromAussie folk popsters Boy & Bear talk working at Peter Gabriel’s studio with iconic producer Ethan Johns. By Zoë Radas. UNLIMITED CHOICE

P eter Gabriel’s studio looks a bit like the isolated, wood-bound mansion from Ex Machina , and its insides might be even more magical. “It’s unusual for a studio, isn’t it,” Boy & Bear’s Jon Hart tells us. “It has a lot of vibe but it’s also got a lot of natural light. [Gabriel] has a ridiculous collection of

was getting recorded. Ethan was just sitting there listening to us play, he wasn’t listening back on speakers. It was just him being a listener in the room and being able to tell whether or not we had a take. And that was really exciting.” It’s clear that Jon and his bandmates are fanboys of the revered producer, but apparently their nerves cleared within a day or two. “I mean, he has

instruments, but Ethan [Johns, producer] has a collection that would rival Peter’s. It was a mix of his gear and Gabriel’s gear... a drum kit from the 1960s he’d played on a lot of Ryan Adams and Ray LaMontagne records, a

He has rock and roll stories that go back like you wouldn’t believe, because his dad worked with The Rolling Stones and The Beatles

rock and roll stories that go back like you wouldn’t believe, because his dad worked withThe Rolling Stones and

really niceWurlitzer, an old B3 organ, heaps of guitars, and a grand piano. The only thing I contributed was a Roland Juno from the ‘80s; it’s an amazing analogue synth.” In recording new album Limit Of Love , Johns and engineer Dom Monks managed to produced an extremely clean sound despite the fact there was no separate control room or partitions between players. The whole thing was taped in real time. “[Normally we’d] build the song in layers as opposed to capturing it live,” Hart explains, “and we realised there was a bit of a disconnect between [live shows] and what

TheWho andThe Beatles,” Hart says. “So when we had a down moment we’d talk Ryan Adams stories or Kings of Leon stories... it just went on.” The result of that snug rapport is a beautiful record which moves through several eddies of style: Hart’s own grace note-inflected piano on Where’dYou Go , the gorgeous arrhythmia in Man Alone , the spectre of Nick Drake on Fox Hole , Hart’s delayed and reverbed Juno on the wonderful Ghost 11 and the stand-out Just Dumb .

Bays by Fat Freddy’s Drop is

Limit of Love by Boy & Bear is out October 9 .

out on October 23.

OCTOBER 2015

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