Folks in Adelaide, Perth, New Zealand - A Quick Question For You
Folks in Adelaide, Perth, New Zealand and all the other places sometimes skipped by tours in this part of the world - a quick question for you.
Over the past 12 years I've always tried my best to cover as many cities as possible for the artists we promote. But over the last couple years, the costs of touring have gone up so much that I've been forced to book east coast only tours for a few acts. Whilst I'm happy about still being able to bring these cool artists around Australia, I'm not happy about how the economics have worked out. The reason I do this thing is because I love music and getting to share great musical experiences with people.
Obviously it depends on the artist and audience involved, but I've seen Canberra and Newcastle shows routinely sell more tickets than Perth & Adelaide. And P&A ticket sales tend to move much more slowly than other cities, which only adds to the stress for the promoter and the artist.
Many acts are not big enough to sell out a 500-1000 cap room, so for the acts we love who might draw 200-300 in Sydney/Melbourne, that usually translates to 100-150 payers in Perth/Adelaide. Whilst we're lucky that some larger venues will let us have a mid-week night with those numbers in order to present a cool show for people, it also means that it's a big risk. Even just 50 people less than expected could mean a gigantic loss.
The current situation means that in order for these kind of tours to make it to Perth or Adelaide without losing loads of money, if the ticket price is $60-70 on the east coast, the ticket prices for Perth/Adelaide would have to be $150 or more - and that presumes that all 100-150 people would actually show up at that price.
In the past I've just presumed this is too high and that people wouldn't be interested. But since I'm the kind of person who has flown around the world more than once to see my favourite acts, I appreciate that it's still cheaper than the alternative (flights, accomm, time off work to go to another city). So I thought I would check in.
If you're in these cities, would you still want to go see a show at the Rosemount, Magnet House, The Gov, Lion Arts or Jive for $150? Or would you rather pass on seeing that artist / go to another bigger show on the east coast?
No judgement here, just genuinely interested in people's thoughts.
Important to note that sometimes the 'selected cities' 'national tour' is dictated by an artist's availability, or venue availability, rather than by the economics of it.
There are other ideas, like offering a minimum two ticket purchase at the same ticket price as other cities, so that people can bring a friend for the same price. Or making the sales more transparent like a crowd-funding campaign where people can see how far off the show is from being able to happen in their city. However it's also important to be sensitive to the feeling and wellbeing of the artists themselves, who may not wish to be presented or marketed in this way, nor make it seem like they're holding fans to ransom.
The other idea - how about the promoter doesn't take a cut / the promoter does a better job making this band bigger etc. Well yes, I do all that already. I'm the fan who pays the most for my ticket, because if the tour was a $5,000 loss and I was at 2 shows, I just paid $2,500 for the privilege each time. Some artists are doing it for their livelihood and some are in it for the love, but at a certain point we all have to pay for our own lives and can't necessarily wear repeated losses.
Anyway, until math rock / prog / post rock is the new pop again, would love to hear everyone's thoughts (you can shoot me an email - my details are here).
PS I love these cities and I don't like the feeling that people continually feel like they get dumped on for living there, so please don't see this post as another one in a long list of complaints - just a genuine attempt to try to make it better and get more shows happening in more places.
Tour Diary: Deafheaven
After a run of shows I always have so much running through my mind. It’s been a while since I did one of these, so I figured it’s time to start sharing the journey a bit more.
Tuesday 30 May
Deafheaven are arriving in Melbourne today and the tour manager Benn is picking them all up from the airport. I’m always anxious to hear whether everyone arrived safely – and whether their gear did as well. The band are coming from a bunch of different cities around the US, with various connections. There’s plenty that can go wrong and it often does – in 2019, most of Russian Circles’ gear didn’t arrive until halfway through the tour. We had to scramble to find replacement pedals, guitars to get through the first few shows. Last year, some of Chelsea Wolfe’s gear and personal luggage was also delayed for a week. Fortunately, her drummer Jess had an air tag on her stuff, which enabled us to pick it up from Adelaide airport (when the airline had told us that it was in Sydney).
Anyway – Benn lets me know that everyone and everything has arrived safely. A miracle! Plus, he says the band are super chill and lovely guys. It’s my first time meeting and working with them, so it’s nice to hear that.
I also get confirmation that he has the in ear monitors we’re hiring for the tour, so all good there.
On my end, I’m playing an early show on the Gold Coast with my band and then flying home in the evening, for a precious few hours with my family before leaving again. Luckily I arrive just in time to say good night to my son before he goes to sleep.
Often the night before a tour is spent staying up super late to sort out whatever last minute crises have come up – or simply catching up on admin work. This time is different – I’m able to actually go to sleep by 11pm, albeit with a long list of stuff to do the next morning.
Wednesday 31 May
I usually take my son to preschool in the morning around 8am, so I booked myself a midday flight to allow time to pack any last minute things after dropping him off.
Of course today he has a massive sleep in, so I try to get everything done before he wakes up, as I know I’ll be rushing once I get back. I’ve already packed my personal stuff and the merch for Closure in Moscow into suitcases, I just need to pack our EFTPOS terminal, print a few pricing signs for merch and we’re good. Then I remember I also need to pack a selection of Toehider and Closure in Moscow LPs for signing, which I’m just about able to do before it’s wake up time, breakfast time & school drop off time.
Eventually I’m off to the airport with three suitcases laden full of stuff. The one day I need a trolley I can’t find one anywhere near the parking lot so I have to slog it out pushing them all the way to the terminal. Unfortunately for whoever is going to be sitting next to me on the plane, I’m now quite sweaty.
I’m Platinum on Virgin so I’m able to check in quickly and reward myself with a protein bar for the workout I’ve just done. Whilst sitting in the lounge I check in with Benn and he says that Deafheaven’s tech Greg has arrive safely, but his tech bag has not. Luckily this isn’t a showstopper – he’s already picked up some replacement items to get them through the show.
On arrival I get all the bags and take a cab straight to the venue to start unpacking things and setting up merch. Dan Stork, who is an old friend and also Deafheaven’s touring sound guy, is already there, along with Greg and the backline company. I go and introduce myself to Greg and say hi to Dan, who I haven’t seen in just about 12 months since we did the Chelsea Wolfe/Emma Ruth Rundle tour together. I say hi to Jake who is on lights for these shows, hug my favourite inhouse venue guys Teddy & Stev from Max Watts (also my favourite venue) and then get out of everyone’s way so they can set up.
At some point Shiv (guitarist) walks in and I introduce myself, then the Closure in Moscow guys and their sound guy Kev also arrive. We catch up a bit and I give them the records for signing.
I’m always interested to see how bands run their sound check. Deafheaven are pretty relaxed. They pull their sounds, play a couple songs, tweak some things and that’s about it. George the vocalist gives Dan some varying bits and pieces of singing/screaming. I’m immediately impressed by how effortless he seems to do the screaming and I’m quite excited for the show to see how it all comes together. ‘Infinite Granite’ is my favourite Deafheaven record, but I know they’ll play a mix of their whole catalogue, including the famous ‘Sunbather’ record, which turns 10 this year. That’s a long time since they caused ripples with their shoegaze meets black metal epics, but they’ve since released a series of well received records and continued to tour heavily. This year they’ve been on a massive touring schedule, playing shows with Coheed and Cambria across North America, as well as headline tours, festivals and travelling across the globe. They’ve only had a few days off between the last tour and travelling to Australia, so I’d forgive them for being exhausted and a bit cranky, but Kerry and George good naturedly introduce themselves to the Closure guys and then come over for a brief chat at the merch desk before heading off to rest and get some food before the show.
We’ve had a dozen boxes of merch delivered to the venue for Deafheaven and I’ve got a million other things to do on my laptop so it’s awesome when Alex and Kate who are doing merch arrive a bit early. I’ve already counted the Closure stock and some of the Deafheaven stock to give them a head start. They take it from here and I’m grateful they’re able to handle it all and set things up so nicely before doors open.
The past couple weeks I’ve been busy promoting this tour, but have also had 5 Bird’s Robe bands touring Europe and the UK (We Lost The Sea, Solkyri, SEIMS, Mushroom Giant & Svntax Error). There’s been a lot of admin and conversation to go along with it, but they’ve all just about arrived home by the time this tour is starting. So as the post tour admin kicks in, I’ve also got new releases and shows from Hemina, Big Red Fire Truck, Klidas, Hence Confetti, Tangled Thoughts of Leaving, Furnace and the Fundamentals and more to set up and promote. Plus an upcoming tour for Delta Sleep, which is being announced imminently.
Every spare moment to attend to all this work is helpful, but it’s also good to be on the ground at these first few shows to get a vibe for the band, the audience and monitor how everything is being run. My main priority is for the band to be happy, for the audience to enjoy themselves and for the shows to be successful, so that Australia becomes an attractive place for these artists to come and tour. We’re a small country with high costs for touring, so it’s hard to attract great bands regularly and make it a priority for them. For the bands who rely on touring for their income, they may eventually get here, but they have to prioritise the larger tours and festival offers they get in North America and Europe, where they can play 10-20 shows and make things more efficient and economical. In Australia, a ‘tour’ is usually about 5 shows and that’s it. Bands sometimes skip Perth and Adelaide, just because they’re smaller cities and the costs of flying there are higher than ever.
This time round, we’ve got quite a long touring schedule, just because of the way things have played out with timing and venue availability. The band play Dark Mofo on June 15, so after they play Melbourne, Sydney & Brisbane, they go to New Zealand for a week, then come back to Australia to do Perth, Adelaide, then Hobart. It’s far from my ideal routing, but it’s offset by plenty of days off and hopefully reasonable flying times – no red eye or crazy early morning flights. However that does mean the budget is a bit tighter as a result, so I’m anxious to make sure we’ve done everything we can to make it work.
Bird’s Robe’s digital content specialist Bridget arrives to help with sorting the merch and has also made Deafheaven branded cookies. Shiv is quite impressed when presented with these and by the time I make it backstage it looks like they’ve been well appreciated by the band (by virtue of a mostly empty box). Bridget did the same for the sleepmakeswaves tour last year when we first met and it’s a very much appreciated gesture!
Time is tight so Bridget and Chris from Closure pick up some food for me whilst we get the final things sorted for the show.
The opening act for tonight is Suldusk, who I’ve recently been chatting with after Emily (singer) reached out to me a couple of times via email. When I finally got around to listening to her 2019 album, I was blown away. As my friend Gilbert said later in the evening “it’s like a river flowing.” The mixture of gothic folk and metal is presented acoustically tonight and she effortlessly moves between soaring clean vocals and screams. I even get to witness a blast beat being played on a djembe by the drummer Zeb. Emily has clearly assembled an impressive cast of musicians (violin, bass, guitar, backing vocals) to bring the music to life and it’s well appreciated by the early audience. It’s my first time meeting Emily and the band in person. We don’t get much time to chat unfortunately, but it’s long enough for me to tell them they did an awesome job.
Closure in Moscow are an odd fit to the tour on paper, but I think it works. They’re more prog soul than post-rock/metal, but it’s a great palette cleanser before Deafheaven. They play a super tight and engaging set of both old and new stuff, including their two new singles ‘Better Way’ and ‘Primal Sinister.’ They sounded and performed great on last year’s sleepmakeswaves tour and they’ve picked up right where they left off. Tonight is a smaller audience than tomorrow is going to be, but it’s well received and I’m excited for tomorrow. I give the guys my feedback, which is pretty much just “that was great, keep it up.” Likewise for Kev their sound guy, who makes sure all the key moments fit right in the mix, including Michael Barrett’s delicious guitar solo in ‘A Night At The Spleen.’ The band are performing in front of Deafheaven’s gear, which means Chris (singer) is a bit closer to Sal (drummer) and the drums/cymbals than normal. This can make it quite hard to mix, but Kev is very experienced and handles it well. Chris also positions himself slightly to the right of the drums which spaces the stage (and also allows us to see Sal’s fantastic playing).
Deafheaven are up and launch straight into ‘Black Brick’ which is one of their heavier releases of recent times. I’m a drummer and it’s awesome to watch Daniel Tracy play these exhausting blast beats without missing a note. Their blend of shoegaze/indie pop/post-rock with George Clarke’s vicious screams is quite captivating. Daniel moves effortlessly between the fast metal stuff and more rock and roll drumming. It’s hard to do, because the technique for ultra fast stuff is often a bit different to more dynamic rock drumming, but he nails both.
Dan Stork has pulled a beautiful sound for them. Kerry & Shiv’s guitars shimmer either side of Chris Johnson’s warm bass sound. Daniel’s thumping double kicks are articulate, but don’t overwhelm the vocals or melody.
Tonight though, I’m most impressed by frontman George Clarke’s stage persona. He combines the energy of a black metal performance with the slinky hips of a Michael Hutchence and the blondy/brown haired swagger of a Rob Thomas. All the while creating his own unique aura, staring down individual members of the audience (including myself), commanding their attention and never once breaking character or intensity.
It's really nice to be able to watch and enjoy the show without jostling for position and that’s part of the reason for doing 2 nights in Melbourne. The shows have sold pretty well considering we only had 10 weeks to promote the tour due to the timing of the Dark Mofo announcement (we couldn’t announce beforehand and it wouldn’t have been fair to Mofo, who booked the band for 2022 before they had to cancel due to covid). But being a Wednesday, it’s a smaller crowd than tomorrow’s Thursday night almost-a-weekend show will be.
It still looks and feels great. There’s plenty of photo evidence too – we have a trio of legendary photographers here tonight, Nate Hill, Mark Hoffman and Nathan Goldsworthy are all capturing the action. I’m a huge fan of their work and they all capture different perspectives of the evening, which is awesome.
Alex and Kate are busy on merch all night for both Deafheaven and Closure which is great. Suldusk sell their own merch using their own square reader. New EFTPOS solutions have made things a bit easier for bands these days, especially since 98% of sales are on card now, compared to 5-6 years ago, when it was more like 50/50. You still need to hope that these underground venues have working wifi to process transactions. But at least you don’t have to walk down the street with $5k in your pocket.
All in all, it’s a great start to the tour.
I’m at the venue until 1am with Alex and Kate as they count out the merch and then off to the hotel to sleep.
Thursday 1 June
I always try to close the curtains as completely as possible in a hotel room to block out the sunglight. Unfortunately I’m unsuccessful, so I wake up earlier than I’d hoped. Two days in the same city is a rare opportunity to pay off the sleep debt that is accumulated when you’re a parent and a touring musician. No joy today, just a headache from being dehydrated.
Regardless, after rehydrating, I do some light exercise in my room and head to the gym to do some weights and run. I’d planned to run longer, but accidentally pulled out the safety switch on the treadmill which stopped it. Oh well.
I’ve arranged to meet up with Mike Mills from Toehider so he can sign some records for fans who’ve requested them from the Bandcamp store. I send out most of the Bird’s Robe band orders as I’ve got a contract with Australia Post which offers cheaper shipping than the bands can get on their own. Being in different cities does mean that requests for stuff to be signed are delayed sometimes, but I’m often travelling so we’re able to make it work.
It's always good to see Mike, we rarely get the chance to catch up in person properly, as we’re always so busy, or when we are together, it’s for a show, or something like that. We go for a walk, talk life, parenting, and next steps for Toehider. He’s in the midst of another 12 EPs in 12 months project, which is an immense task. It’s also very exciting for the fans on his Patreon subscription, who are getting so much new music from his genius level talent. I’m very grateful for his music, as well as his friendship. It’s been 14 years since we first met and he’s one of the guys I feel like I can just pick up with where we left off whenever we chat.
I go back to my hotel to get some more work done, then head out again to eat something and meet with Pat from Treebeard, who I’ve been chatting to over the past few months. We’re going to work together on their next release, as well as a re-release for their aptly titled ‘Nostalgia’ record. Pat is a nice guy and suffers pleasantly as I take an hour to eat a bowl of pasta.
After that I head straight to the venue to check in on Deafheaven’s sound check and get some more work done in the green room. Benn introduces me to a friend of his who works on giant art installations (like the upcoming ‘tree man’ in Melbourne). As I’m leaving to check on merch set up, the conversation turns to possibly working together on something ridiculous for a Furnace show in future. We shall see!
Everything is going smoothly so there’s enough time to go for sushi dinner with Closure in Moscow. Again, it’s rare I get to hang with the guys since they’re based in Melbourne so I’m grateful for every opportunity to bask in their reflected aura of silliness.
I’m back at the venue just in time to give Alex and Kate the cash float for merch and away we go.
Old mate Lochlan Watt is opening tonight’s show with his band RUN. Lochlan is the host of The Racket on triple j, as well as a cancer survivor and long time promoter and supporter of Australian metal, prog and post-rock. I haven’t seen him in person in years and it’s awesome to see him back on stage in full force. The band is tight and they seem cool, though I didn’t get much of a chance to meet them beforehand. I thoroughly enjoy their cover of ‘Iris’ by the Goo Goo Dolls.
Closure have a lot of love in the room tonight and they play well. Kev has the perfect sound for ‘Pink Lemonade’ and despite some issues with the bass, they look and sound great.
The room is full tonight (though not uncomfortably so) and I’m able to find time to chat with my old friend David, meet some of his friends and hang out a bit with Gilbert again.
Then Deafheaven come on and take things to another level. Prior to the tour I was most excited to see the newest songs live, but now I’m in awe of the whole show. I thought George was great last night, but he’s taken things up a notch this evening and it’s very much appreciated by the crowd. Shiv’s lead parts on ‘Worthless Animal’ absolutely shine and the overall emotional impact of the set reminds me of MONO, who we had at the same venue just a couple of months ago. I’m so stoked to be part of this and get to enjoy these shows. Lots of credit has to go to Dan on sound for knowing how to pull the best out of their live mix.
After the show I go in to see George and Kerry backstage and tell them as much. Some bands like to be left alone for a while post show, but they’re happy to chat. We share some fitness on the road discussion and Lochlan also mentions he got up to doing 400 pushups in a day, which is epic!
I get to see Dave Batty (manager of The Jezabels) and Nick O’Byrne (manager of Courtney Barnett) briefly after the show too. Both guys have been big supporters of our scene in the past and it was nice to see them again. As a promoter I’m also glad to get their feedback that they enjoyed the show and the production being up a level from the last time they were here.
Merch is crazy busy but Alex and Kate handle it like pros. Hopefully it’ll help with the budget for the band, who are sacrificing a lot of time away from home and a lot of days away to get over here.
Tonight is a long process of packing down and loading out – Melbourne Backline are trucking all the gear from Melbourne to Sydney, which helps avoid checking in 10,000 items at the airport. The truck is literally packed to the brim – so I’ve still got my suitcases to fly with again. Benn helps me walk them back to the hotel. It’s another workout so I have a protein bar.
I get to bed around 2.30am, which isn’t too bad all in all.
Friday 2 June
Thanks to the truck, there’s plenty of room in the van so I hop a lift with Benn and the band to the airport. Closure are already there checking in and we eventually make it to the lounge for some food before the flight.
When we land, it’s a long walk to the pick up area. There’s not much to carry except for…the three suitcases. And no trolleys in sight. So yeah it’s another workout and once the band, Dan & Greg are all there, I go back to my car and have another protein bar. Then I drive all the way home, to restock merch for a couple of the designs we’re running low on for both bands, then back to the venue.
I’m excited to see Deafheaven play at the Metro, it’s an iconic Sydney venue in the middle of the city. It’s a bit of a stinky stairwell and a rough load in, but otherwise pretty good.
Alasdair Belling (great drummer, plays with dip & Nesher) is an extra stage hand for tonight and a big help loading in and out.
James O’Connor (From The Pit) and Andy Dowling (LORD) are also here to help with filming more of the Bird’s Robe documentary. I do about 45min talking to camera about various things, before we get Benn Newby on to do his interview. Dan is too knocked out to get his done so we plan it for another time and James needs to set up to film the night anyway.
Mel McKenzie has come out of retirement to do merch for this show and promptly starts the sorting and set up process when she arrives. After getting some more work done on the laptop (it is Bandcamp Friday after all and we have a lot of products to put on sale!), I find myself with a moment to go eat something.
Somehow I end up with a protein shake and telling Lochlan that in tribute to him, I’ll be aiming to do 500 pushups between now and the end of the night. I set my timer and roughly every 10-15 minutes I try to find a spot to do a set of 25 pushups. I’m only up to about 225 when I realise I might not be able to make it. Still, I have to earn that protein shake.
Sydney is a busier show for me. I know more people here and I don’t get a chance to see as much of the show as I would like, between doing some urgent work backstage on the laptop, saying hellos and helping out at merch. Mel is a merch machine, but we have a lot of stock and I am still trying to work out the logistics of transporting it between shows later in the tour. I also jump on to cover merch for RUN whilst they are on stage. They actually sell some stuff during their set – I’m not sure if the guy is a super keen fan, or just liked the look of the shirt he bought.
I see enough of RUN and Closure to know that that played and performed well, with Kev pulling a great sound for them. There’s limited side of stage space at the Metro so I jump in to help a bit with the changeover after Closure finish, then leave it to Alasdair and the guys to do their thing.
Deafheaven put on another great performance – it’s exciting to see so many people in the room for them and a great response to their set. They get a huge cheer when George says they’ll be back. I’m not able to see the whole thing, but I make sure I’m in the room for ‘Worthless Animal’ which is fast becoming my favourite. Jake Bylsma is doing a wonderful job on lights here too.
There’s a huge rush on merch at the end of the night so I jump in with a second square reader and Mel is able to start the count out process around the same time that the backline is all being loaded out. I’m able to grab a few minutes debriefing and chatting with Lochlan and Chris in the dressing room.
By the end of the night the truck is jam-packed again, but we’re able to fit in some of the RUN guys’ gear to give them a bit more space in the car for their drive up to Brisbane. As the truck doors close I’m up to 475 pushups, but I’m out of time. It’s the end of the night. Sorry Lochlan, I have failed.
I get home and get to bed around 2.30am. It’s often hard when you’re buzzing from a great show, but the sleep debt ensures that I’m quickly down.
Saturday 3 June
I’m home for half the day so I get to do the morning sports run with my son, come home, have lunch together, then leave for the airport. This time I have four suitcases, but it’s less of a slog and therefore no protein bar required.
My flight is delayed but I manage to get moved to a slightly earlier flight and get to the venue with the remaining merch in just enough time for Sheree to finish counting and setting things up ahead of doors.
I meet a guy from Nambour and we chat over dinner about music and stuff. I make a note to check out his band God Hunter and to stay in touch about potential shows in Nambour.
The Triffid is my favourite Brisbane venue and it’s nice to be back. It’s big enough that the guys have been able to hang the Deafheaven backdrop to add some vibe to the back wall. It’s rare that we do a Saturday night in Brisbane, as often Melbourne and Sydney get the weekend shows, so there are a few more people from out of town than there might normally be.
I’m painfully aware that this is my last show of the tour, so I try to see as much as possible. Kerry from Deafheaven is also at the venue early to watch both RUN and Closure in full, as it’s the last show they’ll do together on this run. Between sets the bands are playing games backstage and I’m chatting intermittently with Benn and Sheree about logistics.
I finally get the chance to relax for a bit and go upstairs to watch Deafheaven with the Closure guys from the balcony. Dan has pulled a spectacular sound for the band and everyone seems to have a bit of extra energy on stage – Shiv and Kerry really go for it in the guitar breaks. George is his usual dynamic self. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed seeing these guys play.
Post show there’s the usual thanks and hugs as the guys depart – I’m always a bit sad to be leaving a tour, as you get into tour mode and live off the high of the shows and the moments of camaraderie backstage. But these days, with excellent people like Benn, Dan and co., I tend to no longer TM the tours myself, so I can spend more time with my family and more time working on other elements, whether it’s promotion, logistics or other projects (like the dozen or so new releases on the label).
Sheree completes a heroic stocktake as everything gets packed up and the various bands head off to accomm for the night. It’s a bit of an earlier start to the day tomorrow due to flight availabilities out of Brisbane, but nevertheless Benn hangs around until the very end to help me load all the remaining stuff into the van, then drives to the hotel and completes a perfect rear park in a very tight parking space.
Sunday 4 June
Not super interesting, but I’m up by 8am, out the door by 8.30am and at the airport by 9am for my 10am flight. It’s not super busy and I get some time in the airport lounge with Closure before they head home to Melbourne.
All in all, an awesome time seeing some truly incredible performances by these bands. I’m super excited for more in the future and there’s a lot going on.
If you haven’t seen Deafheaven live, I highly highly recommend it. It’s entertaining on multiple levels and they’re at the top of their game right now.
Closure in Moscow’s new album ‘Soft Hell’ is out on October 27th
RUN will be recording a new record over the coming months
Suldusk will have a new album out in the next 12 months as well
Good times to come!
Drums for Life – a Brief Tribute to Taylor, Chad, Stewart & Dave
In 2022, just after Taylor Hawkins passed away, I sent this message to Tim from sleepmakeswaves:
“I don’t know if it’s the same for you, but I wrote a bit in my diary about why I think it’s hit me like this.
Basically – music/drumming is such a huge part of my life and how I identify myself. By extension, my influences are like my biggest teachers. Taylor, Dave, Stewart & Chad are the guys I would study endlessly to develop myself. They’ve literally made me who I am. Sometimes I would even pretend to be them whilst I was playing.
So there’s that & the fact I wasn’t ready for it. 50 is too young. He seemed to be doing great. It’s a big shock. Scott Weiland was different, I think I almost expected it at some point. Charlie Watts was different, 80 isn’t super old but he had a great run and had been sick for a while. Plus you add the fact that Taylor was close with Dave, Chad & Stewart, which means anytime I play or listen to anything I can’t help but get drawn back to this.
And then there’s his family, which was the first thing I thought of. The kids are so young, it sucks.
I know I’ll be OK eventually but will probably take a long time.”
He replied soon after:
“Yeah dude…same. Feel that a million percent. X”
SO.
Life is too short to wait until someone’s gone to express yourself. Which is why I’m taking this time to write my little tribute to these guys. Not for them to necessarily ever read, or for anything other than to know I put this out into the world whilst they were alive, to show that appreciation now, rather than when it’s too late.
Don’t worry I’m not going to make this my life story, it’s a total drum nerd out.
STEWART COPELAND
I was aware of The Police and their stuff, but the time I truly fell in love with the band and Stewart’s drumming, was in the Australian summer of 2002. I went for a road trip with my cousin Arvind and he put on a greatest hits CD whilst I was waiting for him to pack his bags. When I heard the bass line for ‘Bed’s Too Big Without You’ I was fascinated. This was a famous band, who I knew for their 80s pop-rock hit ‘Every Breath You Take’ - but this was some weird music right?
I asked him to take the CD with us in the car and it went on rotation – when I got round to putting it on again at home, ‘So Lonely’ was THE track. It had one of my favourite drum beats, the half time/double time tempo, it had an awesome chord progression and a catchy melody. I literally thought it might be the best song ever and showed my brother Alex excitedly as soon as we got home. I insisted on burning a copy of the CD there and then for us to play on repeat thereafter.
Not to mention, there was EPIC HIHAT WORK, these little flourishes and things sprinkled in amongst the song like tasty little treats. And of course, every chorus, there was a delicious little drum fill leading into every off-beat hit.
Here are some time stamps to follow along & the full song/video below:
Now, I want to point out some key moments.
00:16 – snare double followed by hihat flourish (btw this also happens in ‘Roxanne’ from the same album)
1:13 how good does that flam fill into the hits feel?
2:12 THIS FILL – this little jagged, seemingly out of time collapse into the perfect spot. It takes some kind of foresight to place this kind of thing into a song. Sometimes you can plan it in advance like I would, or sometimes you just have the rhythm inside you.
This kind of insane trickery is partly why Stewart is so revered.
Now, let’s skip ahead.
When I first heard the song ‘Generator’ by the Foo Fighters, I loved the song, great melody, riff etc. But I also LOVED the drumming.
Why? Because listen to this at time stamp
2:15
It’s the same kind of fill. Not the same fill, but the same kind of thing.
And how about this tasty fill from ‘Times Like These’ by Foo Fighters?
2:16 Here it is again.
This is important. Because some time after I’d fallen in love with Taylor’s drumming, I found out he was a massive Stewart Copeland fan. Obviously, a drummer I liked gushing over another drummer I liked made me very happy. And I knew that Taylor, although much older and better at drums than me, was exactly like me in one way.
Every time he played one of those fills, it was like a little tribute to his own drumming hero. I spent years colouring in the gaps of my own band’s songs with little Stewart Copeland and Chad Smith references. And here was one of the world’s most famous and successful drummers doing it on a series of hard rock hits – in the same band as one of the world’s most famous and successful drummers, ever.
This is also important, because recently I read Stewart himself saying how Taylor used to tell him he ripped off Stewart all the time, but that Stewart didn’t hear the similarities in the music. So I wanted to put out into the universe – Taylor’s been paying tribute to you all this time man, he loved your drumming, as we loved his and yours too.
Oh and this? Time stamp the bell of the ride cymbal.
And
The whole approach to drums as not just a background instrument, but an important part of the colour and texture and memorableness of a song, it’s all there.
CHAD SMITH
Here are a few other things I love about Chad
Firstly, he has what my brother and I haved dubbed ‘THE GROOVE.’
The groove is just something you have, or you don’t. It’s the feel of the music, the innate vibe, the ability to swing and yet still be super tight. It’s mostly a funk thing I guess, at least that’s where our intent came from.
It’s hard to describe. Some people don’t have it. Some don’t need it necessarily – if you’re playing superfast thrash or punk, you don’t have the space between the notes to notice.
Once we came up with this term, we smugly anointed drummers who had it or who didn’t, until we came to Taylor and Dave.
Then we got stuck and our definition was undone. I couldn’t imagine Dave playing ‘If You Had To Ask’ by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, but equally I couldn’t deny that everything on ‘The Colour and the Shape’ not only sounded, but felt, amazing.
We expanded our definition to include a sub category – “THE ROCK GROOVE.”
Part of both of these, is the ability to hit hard. Man, I love the spectacle of a hard hitting drummer. I was absolutely taken aback when I saw how hard Chad hits even on some of the laid back material in their 1999-2000 era live videos.
Take a look at this:
Both Chad and Taylor play their single stroke rolls with a lot of power.
Another thing about Chad…oh yes, he’s into Stewart Copeland too!
I didn’t ever really notice it in his playing on Red Hot Chili Peppers and Glenn Hughes records. But when I watched his later solo stuff, I noticed he was doing hihat/rim click jams – again, just like I had been trying to imitate myself – inspired by this iconic intro to ‘Reggatta de Blanc’ by The Police.
Check this out:
Now, Stewart later explained he was messing around with echo boxes and stuff, but that didn’t matter to me. Here I was, trying to memorise the exact pattern of rim clicks and hihat taps so I could play it live. When Chad does his version, it’s Chad Smith groove + Stewart Copeland inspiration and sounds fantastic.
Recently, when reflecting on how I could articulate Chad’s style, I realised that he naturally features a lot of the same elements that make up Stewart’s style. Maybe this is more a comment on myself rather than him, but here are some examples.
His approach to the hihats. Listen to the opening of Californication & Scar Tissue, where he tends to open the hihats slightly on the first beat of the bar.
He also uses the dynamics of the hihats to build intensity, where people might normally hit a crash cymbal instead. Time stamp here in Californication:
His approach to the ride cymbal. Again, much like Stewart and Taylor (but in his own right), he doesn’t just play straight ride cymbal/bell patterns. He dances on them. Often live he’ll be playing the loud part on the ride cymbal, but not actually hit it for a bar or two. Watching him play is sometimes mind bending, as he makes it seem like time slows down without ever dropping the pulse of the song.
But even when he’s playing more restrained on recordings, these tasty little bell licks creep in – listen to how he hits the bell just before the chorus hits in Californication:
Oh he’s got chops. Man.
He rarely does flashy stuff on recordings, but listen to Purple Stain on the album Californication here. So good man, I could hardly believe it.
I used to get a bit annoyed that he wouldn’t cut loose more on recordings (for example the way Flea does), but this almost made up for it entirely.
Then I heard ‘Live in Hyde Park.’ It only took 2 minutes for me to realise that Chad had indeed not slowed down. Firstly there’s the opening jam, then it’s…just Chad shredding all over the set. Time stamp the fill at 1:38 which I must have played about 1000 times since then.
But it’s not just about chops and flashy playing. Playing like this is like coming from the school of Keith Moon. You have to be relaxed to be able to feel the music like this, see the spaces between notes and let loose across the kit. It’s a great feeling to have and a great way to play because you aren’t tight and you’re really vibing the music. Again, there are some styles of music where you have to be more precisely dialled in, but if you’re into this stuff, this is the top shelf version.
Time stamp 5:11 for this little fill before the second verse.
Also I love when he plays a fill then goes to the crash but hits the left crash slightly before the right crash. 6:04
Then, this lovely little sequence to re-enter the song at 7:00-7:06
Let’s go to Around The World and just listen to the first 1:30 and enjoy the interplay between the drums the bass and the vocals
Oh and that little drum fill at 1min, nice hey?
Oh and also this video was when I realised I could play the intro to ‘Can’t Stop’ but – not like this. THE POWER.
Just found this too:
One more thing. The age of these guys – maybe it’s from watching tennis, or swimming, where 30 used to be considered ancient.
But seeing RHCP play at the age of 60, with more energy than most other live acts.
Or even watching the above videos, when RHCP are in their 40s, with seemingly endless youthful energy.
Or Foo Fighters at 50.
Or even Stewart at 56 playing 151 shows around the world on the reunion tour for the The Police in 2007…90mins per night, with all the travel and everything else.
Man it’s hard to stay in shape on the road, unless you really focus. These guys are athletes and very inspiring from that perspective.
Yessh I haven’t even mentioned peak Stewart either? Here you go:
Look at this dude’s legs and arms. Look how he dances on the ride and the bell.
2:31 there’s that kinda fill again
2:33 that takes energy and accuracy man
3:08 to the end man I can’t even tell you how good this is, how hard it is and how easy he makes it look and sound.
DAVE GROHL
I can’t not mention Dave. I figured it out a bit later compared to the other guys.
Partly, because Taylor was in all the promo videos and touring for The Colour and the Shape, I thought it was him drumming.
Then I found out Dave was the drummer and realised I needed to add him to my top 4.
Partly, because I know of Nirvana, but didn’t know Dave was in both bands until around 2002 when the driver at my part time job told me (educated me) whilst listening to the radio.
Then, when YouTube came around and I saw one of these videos – it sealed the deal. I was all about hard hitting then – and Dave impressed the heck out of me with his power and passion on the kid.
Crucially, there’s also this drum fill:
Every Little She Does Is Magic at 2:56
This Is A Call at 2:01
Generator at 1:20 & 3:00
Hmm? HMM??!!
I LOVE IT
Simmer Down at 2:08
Listen mate, you still here?
Go to 6:15 of this video and just WATCH
(((O))) : Hidden Currents – a Look Behind the Scenes of the Bird’s Robe Collective
For the latest in our Hidden Currents series we asked Mike Solo to tell us about the Bird’s Robe Collective, an entity that supports, promotes, manages, releases records and everything else behind the scenes that allows the progressive bands we love to bring us the music we can’t live without. With a roster that includes sleepmakeswaves, Anubis, Lander Configurations, Solkyri, Pirate and many more, Bird’s Robe is an important part of the flourishing progressive rock scene in Australia.
We’re sure you’ll find Mike’s account as interesting and as much fun to read as we did, especially the “advice to others” section.
Origins
My band (super FLORENCE jam) was playing King Crimson, Mars Volta and Rush-inspired prog rock around Sydney and we were finding it difficult to land suitable shows. It was your classic case of not fitting in anywhere – we weren’t heavy enough for metal shows and we were too technical and loud to play with all the indie-pop bands. Our bassist Alex picked up on the idea of forming a collective, loosely-inspired around the success of the Elephant Six Collective, where a group of like-minded bands got together, organised shows and formed a label, eventually combining their audiences and creating something greater than the sum of its parts.
We thought a prog rock collective would be cool – all we had to do was find suitable bands. We stumbled across an awesome jam/math-rock/prog/psychedelic band called Captain Kickarse and the Awesomes one night and formed a firm friendship. A while later, I was walking past the Lansdowne Hotel in Sydney before a show and I heard a band playing King Crimson’s ’21st Century Schizoid Man’ – I ran inside and excitedly discovered a band called The Space Banditos. From there, I received a chance email about a New Zealand instrumental band called Kerretta looking for a Sydney show in June. They sounded cool so I got in touch with them and offered to help them out. I eventually had enough chutzpah to approach Dave Batty about letting us put together a show at Hermann’s Bar in Sydney. We billed it as a night of progressive rock/experimental music, told all our friends about it and waited to see what would happen.
Gladly, it somehow packed out – and we were on our way.
As it turned out, there were a bunch of musicians in the audience and they all started to get in touch with me about playing shows. Mutual friends turned me on to other acts like Meladora, AquaNaut and Shanghai. There was a chance/love at first sight moment when we met sleepmakeswaves at the Sydney Uni Band Compeition too (I had never heard this thing called “post-rock” before – I thought they sounded like an instrumental version of U2!). I did my own searching as well – the power of Myspace uncovered a few more interesting bands, like Meniscus and Space Project. It was around this time I first heard Pirate and Squat Club, both just starting out on the live scene and both amazing bands who brought new ears to shows and made them stay. Slowly, my band started moving away from playing prog rock, but the shows and community was flourishing, so I continued booking gigs. People appeared to be genuinely interested and excited to find shows entirely dedicated to serving an open-minded audience, so I kept doing it. I think the first product of this kind of thinking was Squat Club, who in just a short amount of time, quickly built a following based purely on their live reputation and word of mouth. It was exciting and unheard of for a band with barely a handful of shows to their name to then come back after a year away and headline to a packed house at the Bald Faced Stag.
I remember being so excited about all the great bands in Sydney that I wanted them to hear each other – so I organised an all-day event at the Annandale Hotel that I called ‘Featherfest’ and tried to get all of them on the one day. As it turned out, Pirate and Captain Kickarse couldn’t make it, so I organised another gig that they could play – I’ll never forget Captain Kickarse, Pirate, sFj and Squat Club being on the same lineup for the first time, watching each other from side of stage and getting all giggly over how cool it was.
I’m not sure how it happened, but eventually it seemed natural to convert Bird’s Robe into a label, rather than an intangible grouping of bands. It became clear to me that to reach a wider audience, bands needed to have good recordings, have these promoted and have something solid behind them to give support. We would all sit around complaining about how street press never reviewed us, or how radio never played our music. The obvious solution is that you actually needed to let them know you exist! I also found I had trouble promoting bands who I’d booked, because they didn’t have their music available anywhere.
One of the really early pie-in-the-sky ideas we’d discussed early on was the idea of putting together a supergroup to write and record together. There were so many awesome players in all these bands, it was obvious there was potential to create something special. It seemed natural therefore to launch the label with this being the first release.
We put the word out and got responses from a bunch of different bands, who Alex from Captain Kickarse then pulled together and produced a record with, on a zero budget, with all their own equipment. It turned out to be this amazing Zappa-esque concept record that they called ‘Musodynamics’ and got me really excited. As a huge music fan, it was incredible to think that all these great musicians who had been introduced to each other, enjoyed each other’s company to want to collaborate and make such awesome music together, purely for the love of it. Think about how people dream about their favourite supergroups with famous musicians – for me, this was just the start of a series of potential dream teams, all coming together under this Bird’s Robe thing, whatever it was. That was just too cool.
From there, I organised a gig, printed some CDs and we launched the label. Ever since, it’s been a steep learning curve, trying to figure out just how to do it – how to promote, distribute and sell this kind of music to people. I started contacting (or was contacted by) my favourite artists, with a view to joining the label. When sleepmakeswaves joined, it really brought an international spotlight to the label due to their large online following. When Anubis came on board, we saw yet another big jump in our profile due to their large fanbase in Europe, which in turn brought attention to the other great bands on the label. Being branded as a ‘prog’ label hopefully means that fans of each band feel confident enough that they will find something they like in exploring our shows or releases.
The logic behind the whole thing has always been inspired by the success of bands like The Mars Volta, Coheed and Cambria, PVT (formerly Pivot), Sigur Ros etc. We all know how popular Pink Floyd and Yes are, but they came out of the 70s. The other bands are far more recent prospects, who nevertheless have a solid audience, including in Australia. The expectation I went into this was thinking – if you’re good enough, those same people should like you too. The question was (and still is) how do you reach those people?
How the collective works
Or rather, how it doesn’t work. Bands always used to asked me “how do I join?” You don’t. In my opinion, any band that has ever played a Bird’s Robe show is welcome to identify as part of the Bird’s Robe Collective of bands.
The whole thing has moved away from being a true collective in the sense that I tend to do most of the admin work behind the scenes. Not all bands know how to do this stuff and I found that I enjoyed it and it helped me plan ahead. I still feel that what we’ve created is a great community of musicians and fans, which is what the aim was all along. I’m totally humbled and excited by the kind words that people throw towards Bird’s Robe.
The shows cover a wide range of genres – pretty much anyone with a penchant for being innovative would fit on a bill. The common factor is the audience, who is usually open-minded and looking for something a bit different, or even challenging. The expectation is that bands will promote their shows and bring their friends and fans with them to experience it and hopefully turn them on to another awesome group as well. I’ve booked so many bands over the last 4 years that I can’t list them all here. Some have broken up, some have gone on to bigger things, others are still around playing locally, supporting each other and creating something cool.
The label is a bit more exclusive, in that I only really work with bands who I think will benefit from my involvement in promoting and releasing their work. Just because someone isn’t on the BRR label doesn’t mean I don’t like them – they might have another label that works for them, or may prefer the independent approach. Even super FLORENCE jam didn’t jump on the BRR roster the moment it was created, simply because it’s wasn’t necessarily the best fit.
I also distribute albums – Serious Beak are on Art As Catharsis and Meniscus actually put out their album independently at first, but I help with distro, seeing as it’s obviously a good match and people browsing our website might like them too. International acts like Vampillia and Ruins-alone have other labels but Australia is neglected in their distribution network, so that’s why I offered to get involved. Not just because I love the bands, but also so that Australian fans can more easily access their music. Lately I’ve been learning more and more about how licensing works – when a label overseas wants to distribute an album here, but doesn’t have any local contacts, they may want a local label to release the music so that they can help promote it. There’s a lot of fiddling around with contracts, but I’m honoured that a legendary band like 65daysofstatic and their label Monotreme sees value in releasing their music here through Bird’s Robe. I honestly never thought that it would ever get to that point.
I have also started managing a few acts personally. Usually I kind of pseudo-manage bands through the work I do with the label or booking them. But at the moment I actually only directly manage sleepmakeswaves, Pirate and super FLORENCE jam. Recently I also came on as co-manager for The Red Paintings. Being a manager is a sort of all-encompassing role but it gives me the ability to help plan a path forward for the band to achieve its goals (or reset them if they might be a little too ambitious). The difference between me just giving advice and actually managing a band, is that I actually have the authority to go and make decisions on their behalf, which are (hopefully) in their best interests. Otherwise I’m just a voice on the side being encouraging and hopefully adding some value to whatever they want to do, whether it’s world domination, or just trying to get their music heard by people who will like it, or asking where the cheapest CD printing places might be, or looking for similar bands to play with.
Why BRC is different from just a manager or label or promoter. What bands get out of it.
The label and collective is probably more of what people like to call a “boutique” label/agency. In some ways it’s not much different from having a good manager or label or promoter, but I suppose these days the difference is that bands have someone who believes in them and what they want to achieve.
For me, most of this is just good business or common sense, but I try to work closely with each band, offer advice (if they want it) and generally help them achieve their goals. For some bands, world domination isn’t their goal – they just want to have fun and make a good record that people will get to hear. I’m happy to help make that happen. Other managers/labels may not be interested in that.
For bands who do want to kick some goals and push things as far as they can go – hopefully with some support behind them, it puts them in a position to be heard and for people to decide whether to support that journey.
The other thing is that I’m not in it to take people’s money. I’d like to not lose money on this thing, but not every decision is financially based. Some might see that as a disadvantage, but in the long run the reason people play music is to be happy – so that’s what I’m in the business of doing. If there is a great band that people really like, they’ll hopefully support them with enough money for them to keep doing what they do. That doesn’t necessarily mean making a living from music, but it might mean giving them the ability to record the next album, or to afford flights to play for people in other areas.
The thing I’m most proud of is that I feel there’s a real sense of community behind the label and shows. This isn’t exclusive to Bird’s Robe, many other labels have a warm, fuzzy vibe. But I know what it’s like not to fit in as a musician and it’s a great feeling to know that there’s some support and a home for your music. Every time a musician or fan tells me how much they enjoy being a part of this, I get a huge buzz.
I have to say one unforseen difficulty is when people approach me to part of BRR or want me to manage/book them and I say no. I can’t work on something I don’t personally love and I can’t spread myself too thin at the detriment of the other bands I like and my own life. And sometimes the music just isn’t the right fit. Feels bad to have to do exactly what other agents/labels have done to me in the past, but I do try to offer as much advice as possible to anyone who wants my help. Hopefully that’s worth something.
Another problem I’ve run into as things have gotten busier is scheduling – I can’t be in 2 places at once, but sometimes someone needs to be there to make sure things run smoothly at a show. To this end, it’s encouraging that the bands who want to play the most, are also willing to learn how to manage their own shows effectively. Working with people who are motivated and able to think outside the box is a real pleasure and makes my job easier (and cheaper, not having to travel all the time). At the same time, sometimes tour managing or promoting is a thankless task, so there’s few people willing to put their hands up to help – or who can commit to the time it takes to make it work. Clone?
What people bring to the collective
I’m really proud of the way things have turned out so far, because the fledgling success of the label and the bands hasn’t been due to just one factor. Everyone is bringing something to the table, whether it’s simply by telling their friends to come to a show, or sharing contacts. When sleepmakeswaves came on board for their debut album, they brought with them a huge online following and a great degree of goodwill towards the other bands on the label. Anubis, in a similar fashion, brought a massive overseas audience with them and a bunch of media contacts who were following the band, who were then turned onto acts like Toehider, Pirate, Squat Club and Meniscus.
Since the label started, we’ve been very lucky to have had the support of Australian radio, particularly shows aimed at promoting experimental music – Triple J’s Sound Lab and The Racket programs, Edge Radio’s Kaleidoscope Ears, FBi Rado in Sydney, 4zzz, Triple R, RTR fm and heaps more community radio stations have jumped on board to support these great bands. This kind of support is crucial to introducing bands to people in areas outside of where they live – particularly in a country like Australia, with such a dispersed population. On top of that there’s people such as yourself who support music by writing about it and helping spread the word.
Many lessons about management, publicity and touring I learned on the road with super FLORENCE jam over the past 7 years. Coming straight out of high school, we had no one to show us what to do, so we made it up as we went along. All this has given me a bit of on-the-road experience to share with bands who are now touring the country (and the world) – and it also gives me a bit of empathy when booking bands, who have to drive thousands of kilometres and spend time away from home to pursue their dreams. There’s always a balance you need to find between music, work, family, life in general. It works for some groups – but sometimes it’s the reason great bands break up, or never reach the level of recognition that some feel they “deserve.”
I sometimes wish I had been able to do some work experience at a big label, or booking agency, to learn how things work. Instead, I’ve had to make mistakes, try to avoid making them again and just talk to as many people as possible about how they do things, learning one new thing at a time. Sometimes you just have to ask, it can’t hurt.
Obviously, my buddy Alex Tulett has a lot to do with how we got here – he came up with the original idea, the name, and is always there to lend an ear to whatever I’m thinking of doing. Along with Adam and Laurence from sFj, he got me listening to all kinds of cool music and was cool enough to go talk to bands like i like cats, sleepmakeswaves and Captain Kickarse in the early days and sell them the story about being part of this prog collective and playing at our shows. He’s got his own projects going on now but will always be part of wherever this thing goes.
Other people are always contributing to the overall “scene” from outside BR too. Lachlan at Art As Catharsis, Ron Baumann, Lochlan from Monolith, Rob at Heathen Skulls, Dave Cutbush at Life Is Noise, Shaun at tenzenmen, Dave Batty from Custom Made/Artist Voice, Damian at Peats Ridge, Scott at Drum Media/TheMusic, Andrew Haug, Chris Maric from Drum, Dan at Harbour, Fenella Kernebone, Mitch Booth from Metal Obsession, Tim at Welkin, Tom from 10k Free Men, Brad and Salty who started OzProg… Even AJ and his huge Soundwave and Harvest Festivals. All these people (and more) continue to support interesting, underground, progressive, experimental, innovative music in some way, whether it’s playing in cool bands, promoting shows, giving local bands support slots, touring international acts or spinning them on the radio. Some people like Lachlan actively go out of their way to tell people about how good these bands are. Ron gave my band (and heaps of others) our first pub gigs and showed us how to run a show from scratch – he’s incredibly supportive of discovering and booking alternative music. It’s got less to do with what we do individually and more to do with the fact that we’re incredibly inspired by and passionate about this sort of music. That’s why we spent huge amounts of time (and money) on things that people would consider uncommercial.
Things to smile about
People familiar with Bird’s Robe would probably know all about sleepmakeswaves and Anubis. SMW have had such a fantastic response to their debut album, they’ve now been able to tour nationally for the first time, had the opportunity to support bands like Karnivool, Russian Circles, Mono, Tortoise and Boris – and have had such a boost in profile overseas that they were invited to play one of the headlining spots at Dunk festival in Belgium alongside 65daysofstatic, This Will Destroy You and Pelican. A year ago this would have been totally unheard of and beyond all our expectations. Not only that, the guys went to SXSW, played a small US tour and toured Europe. And now they’re touring China too! It’s exciting and seems all very heady and a massive tick off their bucket list – but it’s the product of serious hard work, time away from home, plus the support of fans, friends and family. They still don’t have any money and probably won’t for a while, as they have to repay debts from touring and find a way to fund recording their next album. But speak to any of them and I don’t think they would have traded these experiences for anything else, it’s been lots of fun.
Anubis still have a moderate profile in Australia, but in Europe, their album sales are going nuts. I’ve been at the post office pretty much every week since September last year, shipping hundreds of copies of ‘A Tower of Silence’ all over the world. They’ve been in the top 10 of our German distributor’s sales chart for months and continue to attract fans. It would be great to see them get up and be able to tour more as a result of this, but it’s difficult with families at home and the money required. Still, for a little band out of Sydney to do so well, it’s an amazing achievement.
There have also been so many other awesome stories since 2008 – Pirate have gone from being completely unknown, to dropping their debut album in 2011, touring with Floating Me, as well as selling a bunch of records in Germany; Meniscus released their debut album last year and just went off on their first European tour, including Fusion Festival; and Mike Mills, via Toehider, has finally started getting some recognition overseas, selling albums, getting some radio play and touring with Unitopia last year. Seeing Captain Kickarse and the Awesomes blow minds on their tour with Tatsuya Yoshida was also one of my proudest moments, along with Space Project’s sold out EP launch, the first Sydney Progfest, Featherfest, Mish’s album launch and of course pretty much anything Squat Club ever did. Now, Dumbsaint have an album out, Solkyri are recording a new release and of course The Red Paintings are going to head off and tour the world when their album finally drops…plus there’s a bunch more great bands who I’m looking forward to seeing in future.
I’ve had the pleasure of working with some amazing international artists as well – Vampillia absolutely blew minds on their first Australian tour in 2009 and Ruins-alone came to play Featherfest in 2011, which was a huge thing for me.
Most recently, I’m totally honoured that 65daysofstatic have chosen to release in Australia through Bird’s Robe. We met them at Dunk Festival and it was one of the best live shows I’d ever seen. I’m really looking forward to sharing their music with people here.
Overall though, the great thing is that any of these goal-kicking moments feels like a win for the team, not just one band. So many of these bands are fans of each other, it’s exciting for all of us when someone drops new music, plays a great show or gets a nice review.
Plans for the future
I thought last year was incredible, but 2012 has shaped up to be a ridiculously amazing year too.
The latest thing that I’m super excited about is bringing 65daysofstatic to Australia for the first time. They’re one of the best live acts I’ve ever seen and I’m stoked to be part of their first Australian trip. We haven’t announced the dates yet, but they are playing Peats Ridge Festival in December and we’ll be making some further announcements about headline shows pretty soon.
There is heaps more going on too – sleepmakeswaves and The Red Paintings have Australian tours coming up soon. Dumbsaint have just released their debut album and are touring, as well as supporting Grails in Sydney. Solkyri are promising a new release, which is super exciting. Mike from Toehider just sent me a new single which is insane, as you might expect. I’m also really hopeful we’ll see new stuff from Slimey Things, Pirate, Anubis and The Bird’s Robe Collaboration Band soon. Oh and the guys from Squat Club recently told me they’re working on new music and will all be in Australia in January for some shows, which is beyond exciting!
There are so many great bands I’d love to bring to Australia. It’s just a matter of money – flights and visas are expensive. It’d be great to help facilitate a return tour for Vampillia, or see This Will Destroy You or And So I Watch You From Afar out here for the first time. Maybe one day some of our favourite US bands like Vasudeva, Beware of Safety and If These Trees Could Talk can come out here as well. Hopefully I’ll have time to assemble another Featherfest lineup too!
There’s a few other things I’d like to do. Work on an online presence, find ways to connect with more people, open up more touring opportunities for bands overseas, encourage more collaborations. Push more great music in front of more people. Pirate, Tangled Thoughts of Leaving and Toehider are acts in particular I’d love to see getting some more recognition. It’s all very time-consuming, so it’ll take a while to achieve, but hopefully we’ll get there one day. I think I need a clone or something to help.
Advice to others
Love what you do. If you don’t enjoy it, there’s no point. If you’re in a band who wants to tour, you need to be prepared to work hard and be physically and mentally up for anything. If you’re managing or promoting, you need to be able to work through the tedious nature of digital uploads, packaging CDs and constant email communication (oops- ed) in order to help bands achieve something special.
Be organised – keep records, a contact list, do your accounting (a basic excel spreadsheet is all you need).
Seek advice – all you have to do is ask. It doesn’t hurt. The worst thing that can happen is that someone will ignore you. The best thing is that they will give you some advice that will prove invaluable to your future. You’d be amazed at how much a 30-second conversation could change your world.
Be realistic. If you’re playing the most complex, technical death metal known to man, you’re probably never going to get signed to a major label and play Wembley Stadium. You may, however, be able to sell out a local club and have the most loyal fans in the world. Don’t bother handing out flyers at the Usher concert – spend your time promoting to a suitable audience, if you want people to come to your show. Don’t just expect people to hear about you and just show up – there’s too much else going on for people to notice.
I know we all play for the love of it and music is subjective etc., but if you want to perform in front of an audience in public…be good. Please, do this. Every half-baked music concotion is just taking up the ear-space that a really good band could be filling. When you put your friends through an under-cooked performance, you’re wearing down their goodwill and making it less compelling for them to support you when you really want them to come. “We’re better now” is not a plea that works too often.
Play somewhere that you would actually go to see someone play.
Promote your shows.
Figure out what you sound like. People always say “we sound like nothing else”. It’s not true. Aside from that, when I ask “what do you sound like?” I’m not trying to pigeon-hole you, I’m just trying to figure out where you might fit in. You should be able to think of 3 bands who vaguely share some similarity to your band. Words like metal, pop and folk are also immediately useful.
Keep your bio to 1 page. No one will read any more than that. Don’t go off-topic in interviews and keep your answers short and to the point…oh wait…
Finally and most importantly…have fun!!
best,
Mike
Tour Diary: Dealing With Adversity on Stage
We played to our biggest crowd ever – approx.. 18,000-20,000 people. Literally twice as big as last year, which was then our biggest.
We felt good, I was psyched and feeling good.
Long story short, I broke both snare drums and had to play half the set using the lid of a case in place of a snare drum.
I had a choice, I could feel terrible and sulk the rest of the set and the day, or I could laugh at the situation and do my best and move on.
We got away with it. I could tell from the audience response.
I noticed it a couple weeks prior, they looked old. But I’d put them to the test at a couple gigs. But this was a big outdoor stage and I could play without holding back. I probably hold back at 90% of our shows, outside the Enmore or an outdoor festival, or The Star in Sydney. Even then, if the guys have trouble with monitors or it’s a short stage and I’m close to Tom & Marcus, I dial it back a bit.
First song was feeling good – I felt the snare loosen and saw it buckle and pop out. This had me worried – never mind, replace the snare.
Furnace did a good job bantering with the crowd.
Unfortunately by the time we hit Mr Brightside it had popped out again.
Before the show Rick had come up to me saying he loved my energy on the drums. That meant a lot. Now I was looking at him laughing at the destruction of 2 snare drums in 10minutes. I’m sure that’s not quite what he meant.
The stage crew reskinned one of the drums and it lasted through Don’t stop me now until it popped out and broke again.
I was at a loss so I flipped the snare around and played the batter head. Years ago I had been sold a batter head by an ignorant music store employee who sold it to an equally ignorant young me. I remember it lasting about 4 hours so I felt OK. This head lasted four hits.
So I tried with the other one and held back, just playing along the rim. That got me another four minutes.
I was pretty lost when one of the crew appeared side of kit with a snare drum case – OMG maybe the other band has agreed to lend me one, or they found another one?
Nope – they gave me the lid of the case. Haha OK well…Genius idea in fact. I hit it, hard and it made a cracking sound. Close enough.
Peering out at our sound guy Gav, I saw him fiddle a few knobs.
Of course trying to get a decent sound out of a snare drum lid means hitting hard, so I broke a stick fairly quickly. Then I broke another soon after. Luckily I had brought 10 pairs with me, so managed to make it through the rest of the set with another 2 sticks.
Digby came up and laughed at me and it reassured me everyone was having fun and doing their best to perform. The crowd was the most responsive we’ve had in a while and even cheering after the drum lid solo in ‘Shout’. I replaced the iconic drum fills in Bohemian Rhapsody with floor tom fills and tried to double every ‘snare’ build with as much kick and floor as I could for maximise power and vibe.
Post show Gav came up to me and pretended to throttle me – haha. I gave him a hug. Listening back you could tell it wasn’t a snare but it wasn’t…bad…
Writing a blog like this is a self indulgence, but maybe sharing these little stories could help a future Mike Solo prepare for a future gear fail and still enjoy the show. On paper, having no snare drum playing in front of 20,000 people seems like a recipe for long term sullenness. But honestly, I feel OK about it now.
Stuart came up and asked me if it ruined the show for me. Great question. No it did not. I felt disappointed for sure, but I still had a great time and we got a great response. I think if I’d seen the crowd die as a result then yeah it would have ruined it for me. But we pushed through and tried not to let that happen and it worked. At the end of the day you just have to prepare well, do your best and that’s it. I prepared with 2 snare drums – having just 1 would have been a whole lot worse.
By the way did I mention I also broke the hihat stand? Yes, had a second one ready to go…
It’s also a lesson in relying on others – I definitely would not have thought to play a drum lid. Maybe I would have gone to the cowbell, which would have been fine but definitely noticeable not a snare.
Anyway, 3 snares in future for sure, plus one of them at least being a steel snare. And I’ll have the snare case handy side of stage too just in “case.”…