Tričlanska avstralsko berlinska zasedba z nenavadno postavitvijo instrumentov. Fantje, ki obožujejo zvok starih plat in sebe opredeljuejo kot rock’n’roll soul. Pogovarjali smo se Joshuo Murphyjem.
V Slovenijo prihajate prvič. Imate kakšna pričakovanja, želje?
Nobenih. Veselimo se, da bomo v kratkem času lahko videli nekaj vaše države. Veselimo se spoznavanja ljudi in občutka mesta. Kot ste rekli, prvič prihajamo v Slovenijo in tega se veselimo. Radi spoznavamo nove kraje.
Prihajate iz Avstralije, živite v Berlinu. Ali je kak poseben razlog zakaj ste se preselili tja, ste dobili kakšne glasbene ponudbe?
S Spikom sva se preselila v Berlin na predlog najine založbe. Že prej sva igrala v bendu in živela v Londonu ter Avstraliji. Ker sva bila precej po turneja, je življenje na teh dbveh lokacija postalo predrago. Oba sva oboževala Berlin, in v letu 2013, ko sva se sem preselila, je bilo mesto poceni. In mesto je res kul. Našla sva prazno garažo, v njej naredila stanovanje in odprla trgovino. Connor se je sem preselil zaradi ljubezni. Spoznali smo se tukaj, Furious Few se je rodil tukaj.
Imate kar drugačno kombinacijo instrumentov v primerjavi s tipičnimi rock’n’roll bendi. Manjka vam bas, dodali pa ste električne orgle. Kako to?
No, ne bi rekel, da nam ravno manjka bas. To vidimo kot dejstvo, da imamo orgle. Za to je kar nekaj razlogov. Všeč so nam bendi s tremi člani. Mene pa je ideja o orglah res pritegnila. V desni roki lahko igraš temne melodije, z levo pa bas linijo in tako potreba poo basistu kar izgine. Glasba ne potrebuje dodatnih melodij in not. Basist bi bil enostavno preveč. Kopiral bi to, kar Connor igra na orglah v levi roki. Čeprav se ljudem zdi na začetku čudno, ta kombinacija glasbi daje poseben “flow”. Pridite na koncert, boste slišali.
Izdaja vašega albuma se bliža. Kaj je sporočilo za njim? Če pogledamo besedila, se album dotakne več problematik. Kaj vas je pripeljalo do tega? Je zato, da bi nas ozaveščali?
Besedilno je album o meni, ki postajam ozaveščen, raje kot bi naredil karkoli za kogarkoli. Pred leti sem se začel spraševati veliko reči, kar je bilo zelo pomembno, ko smo začeli postavljati koncept albuma. Najenostavneje, plata je postavljanju vprašanj. O sebi. O tem, kako je biti ozaveščen, kako vedeti kaj delaš. In vedeti, kakšen vpliv imajo tvoja dejanja na druge. Lahko je dober ali slab.
Glasbeno se opredeljujete kot rock’n’roll soul. Ponavadi, ko se pogovarjam z bendi, ki igrajo več kot eno zvrst, se nočejo opredeljevati. Kako to, da ste se odločili, da se boste opredelili tako ozko?
Vidim, kaj mislite, ampak jaz tega ne vidim kot ozko. Je enostavno način, ki opiše kaj delamom. Vse ima back beat, ritem v ozadju. Je groovy in miga, na vse lahko plešeš, lahko se umiriš. Kot tipični soul. Ampak je oblečen v plašč rock’n’rolla. Koncept ni zmeden. Vemo, kaj hočemo delati. Vemo, kako hočemo delati. Torej, rock’n’roll soul ostane.
Snemanja albuma ste se lotili na nekoliko drugačen način. Vse ste posneli v živo. Je za tem kak poseben razlog?
Vsem se nam je zdelo, da bo to pravi način. Vsi obožujemo stare načine snemanja, vintage zvoke in plate. Zelo velik del tega sta zvok in akustika sobe, filing, ko bend igra skupaj in posnetek le tega. Ideja, da se vsi posnetki razlikujejo. Nekateri so počasnejši, nekateri hitrejši. Če plastiš posamezne posnetke je vse zelo trdo in pravilno. Zaklenjen si na to, kar je bilo posneto pred tabo. Bobnar je pritrjen na metronom, organist se ravna po bobnarju, kitarist pa na oba. Ne dovoli ti svobode. Če pa stvari snemaš v živo, imaš roke odvezane. Vse skupaj postane bolj iskreno. In to se nam kot bendu zdi zelo pomembno.
Album je vse skozi zelo povezan. Ima rdečo nit, ki povezuje komade. Kako pišete pesmi? Jih napiše ena oseba, ali pišete vse skupaj?
Hvala! Kar slišite na albumu, je rezultat skupnega dela Jaz sem naredil nekaj prvih osnutkov, ki sem jih predstavil bendu. Rad imam, da ima komad smisel in center. Nujno mora imeti iskrico, nek presežek. Čutiti moraš bitje srca. Ampak to kar slišite na plati, je končen izdelek, ki smo ga resnično naredili skupaj. Za njim je trdo delo, prilaganje, spreminjanje tekstov, akordov, filingov komadov. Naredili smo vse, da bi bil komad perfekten. Album pa smo napisali v treh delih.
Standardno vprašanje. Če bi lahko igrajo s katerim koli izvajalcem, s kom bi si želeli igrati?
Uh … Jimi Hendrix, Gil Scott Heron, James Brown.
Imate kakšno sporočilo za poslušalce Radia Terminal?
Pridite na koncert!
Original:
You’re coming to Slovenia for the first time? Do you have any expactations, any wishes?
None at all, Just really looking forward to seeing what little we can of the country in the one day we are there. Meeting the people and seeing what the city feels like. Like you said, it’s our first time, so we are happy about that. We love seeing new places.
You’re coming from Australia but living in Berlin. Was there any special reason for you to move there? Any musical offers?
Spike and I moved to Berlin on the request of our old record label. We were playing in a band together and had been in London and Australia for some time. We had been on the road a lot and the cost of living in Australia and London was just becoming too much. We both loved Berlin, it was cheap in 2013 when we moved here. And we liked the city a lot. So we rented a small garage like studio in Lichtenberg and set up shop. Connor moved to Berlin to be with his Partner who is german. So we met Connor in Berlin, Furious Few was born in Berlin.
You have quite different combination of instruments than a typical rock’n’roll band. You’re missing a bass, adding organ. How come?
Well, we don’t see it as missing a bass. We see it as having an organ. There’s a few reasons for this. One is that we like 3 piece bands. And I really wanted an organ so that we could get those dark melodies of the right hand. The left hand of the organ handles the bass frequencies. So there was really just no need for a bass player. The music doesn’t need any extra notes or melodies. So a bass player would just be doubling connors left hand. And it’s not really needed. People find it strange at first, but it gives a different flow to the music. Come to a show. You’ll hear.
Release of you’re album is in a two weeks. What is the message behind? You say that lyrically album touches on topical issues. What lead you to that? Is it to make us conscious?
The album lyrically is about myself becoming conscious rather than to make anyone else anything. I just started to ask a lot of questions a few years ago, and as we started to put down the first drafts of this album that’s just what came out. The album is in its simplest form about asking questions. Asking questions of yourself. Being conscious and knowing why you are doing what you’re doing. Knowing that your actions have a ripple effect, and pushing towards the effect you have on others being a positive one.
Musically you describe yourself as rock’n’roll soul. Usually, when I talk to bands who play more than one type of music, they don’t want to put themselves in any style. How come you decided to describe yourself so narrowly? (Not that that’s a bad thing 😉 )
I see what you mean, but I don’t see it as narrow. It’s a way to describe what we are doing. Everything has a back beat, a rhythm to it. It’s groove based and it moves, you can dance to it, you can get down. Like a soul tune. But it’s delivered in a Rock n’ Roll style. The concept is not confused. We know what we wanna do. We know how we wanna do it. So Rock n’ Roll soul it is.
There was a different aspect of recording an album. You recorded it live. Any special reason behind that?
We all felt that was the way to go. We all love vintage styles of recording, vintage sounds, vintage records. A big big part of that is the sound of the room, it’s the feeling of a band playing together and capturing a certain take, a certain feeling that that one performance had compared to another. Some of the takes were slower, some were faster, they move and flow. With a layering up style of recording you don’t get that. You’re locked into whatever there is already recorded there to play to. The drummer can be locked to a click, the organ player is locked to the drummers recording, and guitar player is locked to the rest of the bands recordings. It doesn’t allow you to play free. Recording live and without a click gives more freedom. It’s more truthful, more honest. That’s something that’s really important to us as a band.
Album is really connected all along. It has a line you follow through all songs. How do you write songs? Does one person write them all or you write them all together?
Thank you. What you hear on the record is what we did together. I work on the initial first drafts of the songs, then bring something to the band. I always like to have a centre to a song first. It needs to have an initial spark, something that I’m excited about. A small heartbeat. But then what you hear on the record, the finished result, is really what we’ve done together. The ideas get moved around, structures changed. Chords changed, Rhythms changed. We really push hard all together to try different things to serve the song. We wrote this album as a three piece.
Standard question. If you could play with any band/artist live or dear, who would you play with?
Oh man… Jimi Hendrix, Gil Scott Heron, James Brown,
Do you have any message to listeners of Radio Terminal?
Come to our concert.
Zaslišala vodila Ana Medved – Annarch
