new QOTSA reminds me of old QOTSA, which is a very good thing indeed.
new QOTSA reminds me of old QOTSA, which is a very good thing indeed.
maccaartist asked: dont mean to be a pest but if you could like my facebook page it would be great facebook. com/MaccaArtist
Sure. Likewise: http://www.facebook.com/pages/These-Are-My-Twisted-Words-blog/223518530998316?ref=hl
It’s Sunday afternoon - what are you doing?
Are you sprawled out on the couch, stuffing your face with something sugary or deep-fried, watching daytime TV while nursing a hangover? Perhaps you’re plucking lint from your bellybutton, squashing it into little balls and assembling it into fuzzy micro sculptures on the coffee table? Or maybe you’re just plain bored? It’s Sunday, and you’ve got nothing better to do than dread the thought of another week spent wasting office supplies and laughing at your boss’ jokes (who you secretly despise). Well, I have a suggestion to make today a little more bearable: you should listen to Kashmere Club’s new single, ‘Soldier’.
If you don’t know who Kashmere Club are already, you really ought to. They’re three dudes from Melbourne who play classic rock & roll with a chic modern finesse; think slinky lead guitar breaks drizzled over a sturdy 70s-inspired rhythm section, with plenty of warm harmonies and melodies peppered throughout. I’ve been following them for a couple of years now, and like that prized bottle of Shiraz that’s gathering dust on the top of your kitchen shelve, these guys are only getting better with age.
Following the release of their debut EP in 2011, the lads are back with new single ‘Soldier’ from their upcoming sophomore EP, Lost & Sound. Check it out below. I think it’s an infectious little earworm if there ever was one.
Oh, and guess who produced the new EP? Chris Cheney. That’s right – he of The Living End fame. Not too shabby at all, right?
Yep.
Originally posted on Everguide.
It’s 7 a.m. when my phone rings. “Hello, is this Mr Jack Pilven?” enquires a polite female voice. “Um… yeah,” I grunt affirmatively, fumbling with the buttons on my mobile while dragging myself out of bed. “Great,” replies the eloquent stranger, who briefly explains that she’s calling from a conference centre before placing me on hold. Next thing I know, I’m making small talk with Funeral For A Friend guitarist Kris Coombs-Roberts. “Sorry if I’m a bit out of it, it’s first thing in the morning here,” I apologise. “Yeah,” chuckles Kris in a thick Welsh drawl, “it’s pretty much last thing at night here.”
Once we get past the awkward introductory banter, Kris explains that he’s just returned from a weekend in Cardiff and that he’s currently relaxing at home in London. While we’re oceans apart now, it won’t be long until he reunites with the rest of Funeral For A Friend for the band’s most extensive Australian tour yet. Armed with hectic and heartfelt anthems from their latest album Conduit, the band’s visit will also coincide with the ten-year anniversary of their debut, Casually Dressed & Deep In Conversation: an album still heralded as a post-hardcore masterpiece.
Though they’ve gone through many lineup changes over the years, Kris Coombs-Roberts has been there from the beginning. He’s been a creative force in the band’s ever-evolving sound, has a gnarly beard, and could shred your face off with one of his riffs. Oh, and he’s also a really nice bloke, too.
Jack Pilven: Not long until you’re back in Australia.
Kris Coombs-Roberts: Yeah, as a band we’re all really excited to get down there. It’s been a couple of years since we’ve done any Australian headline shows. The last couple of times we’ve toured as part of festivals, so to come back and do our own shows is really exciting. Plus we get to play some places we haven’t been to before, so we’re really looking forward to that.
JP: Most bands come out here and play all the major cities and then they fly out again, but you’ve managed to queue up 10 shows. That’s pretty amazing.
KCR: Yeah, it’s something we’ve been planning on doing since we first came over. We’ve always enjoyed playing in Australia but doing Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth and then going home… it just feels like a hell of a long way to travel to do a couple of shows. In all honesty, we’ve always wanted to try and spend a bit more time there and to see a bit more of Australia as well.
JP: You’re playing shows every night in Australia from May 8 to May 18, with the exception of a night off on the 13th. Is it exhausting playing shows night after night like this or do you get used to it?
KCR: To be honest, I prefer it. You get into a routine of playing when you’re doing headline sets night after night. For Matt (Davies-Kreye/vocals) I think a day off is essential, but for the rest of us I think we’d all prefer to be playing every day.
JP: And you’re coming back to showcase tracks off your new album, Conduit. What can you tell us about this one? Is there an underlying theme or concept behind the album?
KCR: Um, not really. We took quite a bit of time off to write the album and to reflect on what we’ve done as a band and the musical directions that we’ve taken in the past. I feel like when we were doing Tales Don’t Tell Themselves and Memory and Humanity we had a different kind of pressure on us as a band, especially in the UK where we were seen as spearheading a particular genre, one which we didn’t necessarily feel comfortable with. I think we did everything we possibly could to try and get out of that genre of music and to distance ourselves from it. What we’ve done with Conduit is focus on the simplest forms of music that we love the most, drawing on those early influences that inspired us to play in a band in the first place. I think that Conduit is - not necessarily a return to our roots because it’s a different lineup - but I think the ideology behind the band and the record has more in common with our first two EPs, Four Ways To Scream Your Name and Between Order and Model.
JP: As you mentioned, you get labelled as everything from emo and screamo through to metal, punk, and hardcore. Do you get sick of people trying to box you into neat genre categories?
KCR: Um, to be honest, not any more. As we’ve gotten older and grown up in this band we’ve realised that no matter what we do that’s always going to happen. It’s something people do so they can say, “Oh, if you enjoy this band then you might also enjoy this.” You know what I mean? Around the time that we started ‘emo’ was a bit of a dirty word and somewhere along the way it became the coolest thing on earth to be called an emo band. When we started, the bands that we were being compared to were… well not compared, but people were saying we were in the same genre as everything from Dashboard Confessional to Poison the Well, which obviously covers some massive differences in style. Sometimes it’s hard when you’re being labelled as something you’ve never said you were or something that can make people instantly dislike you before even listening to you.
JP: I caught the video for ‘Nails’ recently. This one looked like it would have been a lot of fun to make. Was it hard singing when you were having paint thrown in your face?
KCR: Pat (Lundy), our drummer, spent about eight and a half hours vomiting after doing it because he got paint in his gob, which he didn’t particularly enjoy. To be honest, the paint wasn’t the biggest problem, it was the fact we were shooting in a storage facility and it was absolutely freezing in there. Obviously when you’re covered in paint and you’re wet… it was really, really cold.
JP: I think the outcome was worth it. The video looks a million dollars.
KCR: Why thank you very much. Yeah, I think it was worth it in the end but the process was quite painful (laughs).
JP: And on the topic of paint, who designed the artwork for Conduit?
KCR: It was actually a good friend of mine, Matthew Evans, who was the original vocalist for Funeral For A Friend. Since he left the band, we’ve stayed in touch and we’re still good mates. He’s a really grounded artist and he’s built up a large portfolio of work that he’s started exhibiting in the UK. He goes by the moniker Snowskull. When we were looking at the album and thinking it was a return to the past, we thought it would be cool to get him involved in some way. We were originally going to talk to him about doing a piece for us, but then we looked through the pieces that he had and (the Conduit artwork) was exactly what we would have wanted him to do anyway – it was just insane that he’d already done it (laughs). So it worked out really well.
JP: Do you get up to any other creative practices outside of music?
KCR: I’ve been writing poetry since I was about 12 or 13. It’s something I do for the fun of it. I’ve been talking to Matthew (Davies-Kreye) about doing a piece together, combining poetry and art, which could be quite cool. But other than that, it’s not necessarily creative, but I’m a massive football fan.
JP: When you’re in Australia you should try and make time to see an AFL game.
KCR: I love Aussie rules! I get it on ESPN and I watch it just about every year. But because of the time difference, over here we get a lot of games starting early in the morning, so by the time it gets to the play offs I have to watch it online. I’ve been dying to go to a game when we’ve been down there but I’ve just never found the time.
JP: Fingers crossed you can squeeze in time to see one game.
KCR: Who’s your team?
JP: Essendon. And you?
KCR: I’ve got a thing for the Magpies. We had an Australian sound engineer and they were his team, so he introduced us to it and got us into it. It’s all about the clan!
JP: Essendon and Collingwood - the Magpies - are actually playing tomorrow, which is going to be a good game.
KCR: Oh really? I should check to see if it’s on ESPN. I’ll have to remember to wake up to catch it.
JP: Set your alarm. Okay, we’ve digressed a little bit here. But to get back to Funeral now, I know Matt Davies-Kreye is a vegan and is passionate about animal rights, but are you as well?
KCR: I’ve been vegetarian for about eight years now, I think? And yeah, I don’t buy leather. I believe in animal rights but at the same time, for me, it’s more about the way people consume meat now. Back when all meat was bought from the butchers you’d get it wrapped in paper, blood would be soaking through it and you’d know where it had come from. But now it’s all completely disassociated with the fact that it comes from an animal; it’s put in neat little polystyrene cases with clean wrap over the top and normally a picture of the animal looking really happy and a flag of the country that it comes from. I’ve got nothing against farming, but if animals were raised right then I think everyone on the planet could be vegetarian, do you know what I mean? I think it’s necessary to a degree that some people eat meat and others don’t, but like I said, with animals being treated well and looked after… I can understand that a lot more than battery farming.
JP: Is that something you’d like your fans to know you’re passionate about?
KCR: Yeah, I think so. But at the same time, it’s a bit hypocritical for me to say we stand for it as a band when there’s one vegan, two vegetarians, and two meat lovers in the band. Obviously I can’t speak for Rich (Boucher/bass) and Gav (Burrough/guitar), who eat meat, but I think we all feel quite strongly about things like that. From a personal standpoint, it’s something that I feel strongly about, but at the same time, I don’t want to be one of those preachy people and I’ll only give my opinion if I’m asked. I think people can make up their own minds.
JP: Fair enough. And how’s the dynamic within the band? You’ve had a few lineup changes over the past few years, so is everything cool at the moment?
KCR: Yeah, definitely. I think when people left the band it was always handled in the right way; nobody dragged things out or lied about things. Every time somebody got to the point where they felt they couldn’t do it anymore, they spoke openly about it. It’s pointless forming grudges with people if they honestly say they don’t want to continue doing something anymore. Twelve years of being in a band is a long time, you know? I’m 32 now and I’d just turned 20 when this band started, so a lot of things in my life have changed. I think the people who have come into the band… the best thing was finding likeminded individuals who love music and want to try and achieve the same things as you. They’ve definitely reinvigorated the band.
JP: Good to hear things are solid within Funeral For A Friend. Okay, I better start to wrap things up now, but before I let you go, the video for ‘Best Friends and Hospital Beds’ has a zombie infection theme going on so I was wondering what would be your plan for surviving a zombie apocalypse?
KCR: Okay, we actually did this top five interview for Virgin media recently – everyone was doing their top five favourite bands or top five favourite songs or whatever – but we decided to do our top five favourite crew members. And in that we actually answer what we’d do in a post-apocalyptic event, which is we’d find our roadie, Greg Winn. I’d personally find Greg Winn because if there was a zombie apocalypse I think he’d probably be the only human to survive it. I’d at least have a chance of surviving with him around. So my answer: find Greg Winn – guitar tech extraordinaire.
JP: Is there anything else you’d like to share with us just quickly?
KCR: Just that we’re really excited about coming down and doing these shows. And I’d like to thank everybody for sticking with us for the past 12 years and for still giving a shit about what we do. It means the world to us.
Funeral For A Friend Australian Tour:
Wednesday 8 May – The Rev, Brisbane
Thursday 9 May – Surfers Paradise Beer Garden, Gold Coast
Friday 10 May – The Cambridge, Newcastle
Saturday 11 May – Manning Bar, Sydney
Sunday 12 May – The Basement, Canberra
Tuesday 14 May – The Corner Hotel, Melbourne
Wednesday 15 May – Pier Live, Frankston
Thursday 16 May – Fowlers Live, Adelaide
Friday 17 May – Amplifier Bar, Perth
Saturday 18 May – Prince of Wales, Bunbury
Words: Jack Pilven
these are my twisted words.tumblr.com
