STACK #186 Apr 2020

FEATURE MUSIC

the studio playing it over and over and over and over again, and I remember that night I had this intense pain in my arm because I just was not used to playing that much. But what he got out of us for that single was so far beyond what we would have been able to do if we‘d just gone in and recorded it, you know, in the first three takes or something; he really saw the potential of what we could do and knew what he could get out of us. “And then he records into this really big analogue desk and puts it through a tape machine so it‘s got that beautiful, textured

walk out into the studio. We‘re like, ‘Where‘d Paul go? Oh, okay...‘ and then he‘ll just come back and he‘s like, ‘Alright. Here‘s this pedal, go plug it in and see what you reckon of this one‘ - it‘s got no markings on it or anything, you just don‘t know what it‘s gonna be like and you plug it in. Or he‘ll be like, ‘Take this amp and go plug it in.‘ And that‘s the formula that you need.“ “Then, to record, we set up all together in this big warehouse room, fairly tight, with a couple of baffles in front of the guitar amps but not heaps more,“ McKechnie continues, “and we all play live and really, really loud so there‘s

young people are experts on topics before they‘ve even gotten to high school.“ Far Enough ‘s closing track, Pillow , contains a lyrical phrase that perfectly describes this sentiment: “I‘m often feeling doomed/ But don‘t mistake that feeling for apathy.“ McKechnie explains, “That kinda came about because of an interview I was doing with the first [self-titled] album. Some interviewer asked me, ‘Do you think that young people today are apathetic?‘ and I was kind of like, ‘No. What do you mean?‘ It sort of made me think about that, and the fact that sometimes young people get

sound that we really love. It‘s amazing! I wouldn‘t know how to work with anyone else.“ “It‘s quite an unconventional way of recording, I guess, to have an album that‘s recorded with all of the instruments in a room so close to each other, playing at the same time, but Paul has also played in bands for decades and has come and seen us play multiple times from when we were a little band all the way up to what we are doing now,“ Boyle shares, “and he understands what we want to capture and how we play live and how we want

told that they‘re just obsessed with themselves and they don‘t care about anything else, and they can‘t go out and protest or do anything worthwhile. There‘s so much crap that goes around and gets flung at young people and, yeah! That song‘s about all of the challenges that young people face with climate change and changes to the labour system and increased casualisation of the workforce

Shauna Boyle, Jenny McKechnie and Nick Brown

and facing an oncoming recession and everything

that‘s happening. And, in the face of that, young people are incredibly resilient, are fighting and are doing a lot, but it‘s no wonder that sometimes you feel doomed in the face of all of that. But, yeah! It doesn‘t mean you don‘t care.“ Pillow is also the perfect example of a Cable Ties song that took ages to pin down. “I started writing that when I was 25,“ McKechnie observes, “like, it says in the first verse, ‘I‘m 25,‘ and then it says, ‘I‘m 26,‘ and I was actually 25 and 26 when I wrote [those respective lyrics]... We took a few passes at recording that song.“ “It was a bit of a headache, but I think it‘s turned out really well,“ Boyle commends. McKechnie considers, “I think Hope , the first song, was the one that probably made me have the most tantrums [laughs]. I got sent to the isolation booth for a little while for some time out ‘cause I couldn‘t listen to it anymore. We nearly put trumpet in it!“ Boyle chuckles, “That‘s right! Paul [Maybury, producer] probably still has the stems for the trumpet part.“ Maybury also produced Cable Ties‘ debut self-titled set and McKechnie extols, “I worked with him with my old band, Wet Lips - he‘s just the best. We love the studio to start with: it‘s this big warehouse in Fairfield just full of all these incredible old vintage amps and organs.“ “There‘s a bucket full of miscellaneous guitar pedals with no names on them and, like, Jenny will be doing overdubs for a particular song, and we‘re thinking, ‘Oh, we kind of want something that sounds a little bit like this,‘ and he‘ll just like

to sound. So, you know, there‘s none of this isolating everything and making it super-crisp and clean and then mashing it all together, it‘s really just like, ‘Go in there, do what you do, play as hard as you can, we‘ll just capture everything and then pick the best one that we‘ve got,‘ you know?“ Although Boyle admits they find it difficult to listen back to all of the different versions - “Oh, there‘s a little fluff there, or a mistake there“ - she concedes, “But I think that‘s what gives such humanity to the record as well, like, it really sounds like there‘s people playing the instruments and when you hear those little imperfections it really – I dunno, it‘s just something that I have grown to love so much, because it‘s real humans giving their full emotion and energy into a real, palpable thing.“ McKechnie opines, “And, yeah, if you put

To say that young people are apathetic is just disgusting, really… young people are experts on topics before they‘ve even gotten to high school

quite a lot of bleed into the microphones and stuff. And Paul‘s just really, really good at knowing exactly when we‘ve got the take that has the right energy and feel, and sometimes

us in a modern recording situation...“ Boyle interjects with a laugh: “Oh, we‘d just melt down!“ McKechnie adds, “Well, we‘d melt down, but also we would just drain all of the blood out of the band. If I listened back to us recorded to a click track, individually tracked, I would hate it! It wouldn‘t be a band I‘m into. So it‘s a really essential part of the whole sound.“ BC

we‘re kind of like, ‘Oh, no, it wasn‘t the right one,‘ ‘cause of this little fuck-up or whatever, but after you go away and have a little break and come back and then listen to them, you realise that he just always knows which one‘s got the right feel. And he always knows exactly how hard he can push you and what you can achieve. So, for instance, when we did Same For Me , he just got us in

Far Enough

by Cable Ties is out now via Poison City Records.

67