Tuesday night I chatted with Wolfmother’s singer/guitarist Andrew Stockdale. Their debut self-titled album has made a huge splash in their home country, Australia — landing them a J Award for best album, going Top 5 and certified platinum. Their new ep was released this week in the States, and Wolfmother’s debut album is slated for a May 2nd release on Modular People and Interscope Records. Wolfmother was also just added to the Coachella Festival line-up.

Purchase: Insound

Stream: Wolfmother - “Dimension” (Real | Windows)

This was one of those interviews that I had a whole list of questions ready to go and didn’t end up using any of them - except towards the end with MSTRKRFT and that just blew up in my face. Seriously though, this conversation had a life of it’s own… I tried just grabbing quotes but really this is worth reading as is.

Travis: So I just read the album went platinum there in Australia. You’re having a lot of success…

Andrew: Yeah, It’s great. It’s amazing seeing all these people liking our music.

T: .. and it’s just taken off. You spent the summer in LA recording the album. Correct?

A: Yes, we went over to Cherokee Studios and spent a month jamming and drinking the cheapest instant coffee that these tight ass business derelict guys could afford and almost poisoned ourselves. We did that for a month and then we went to - Dave (Sardy) came along - and he had these trunks full of guitars and amplifiers and he was like “The most important thing to me when I get the studio set up is creating a vibe for you guys.” You know and I was interested to see this so he brought out the cheapest little Christmas lights that you could probably get from some fucking supermarket around the corner and he was like “Yeah check the vibe. I put on these Christmas lights” and I was like “Yeah cool man…” [[laughs]] “.. that’s great. Thanks for the special touch, you know. I feel very important.” Yeah so we did that. And Dave had all these Engineers and his personal assistants running around… getting his new studio set up in Beverly Hills that he was designing for his next album. Getting them to change the tires on this 4×4 Range Rover. Lots of things were happening…

Continued

T: It must have been pretty exciting working with Dave Sardy on your first album.

A: Yeah, it was good to have someone who didn’t know anything about us and hadn’t heard the songs before. He just listened to the songs and he said “Woman is perfect. Don’t do anything with that. Appletree is perfect. Don’t do anything. I think maybe Dimension. the second time you do the second verse you do that riff 8 times maybe you should do it 4 times.” Because you know when you’re in a band and you play live you kind of like stretching things out and you kinda like playing that riff over and over and he was like, “For a record get to the point. Make songs move because people lose patience when they’re listening to stuff.”

T: Would you say Dave had an influence on your sound?

A: I don’t think he had any influence what so ever on our sound. We had our sound before we met Dave, and he knew that. He was like “You Guys, for a first record you sound like you’ve got a style and what I need to do is try to diversify.” He said that usually when a band records it’s first record… the hardest thing for him is to find their sound and define them. But we were so definitive with our sound he was like, “Well maybe you need one or two songs that are a little bit different.” What he brought to the table was like a way for us to communicate with each other.

T: How so?

A: For instance we never thought in verses or choruses or anything like that stuff. We never spoke about that once we played. We would literally just play. We would just play by listening. We would just play by ear. We’ve jammed for six years. And we would just follow each other and record it and listen to it later. But Dave was like, “Ok this riff is a verse and this riff is a chorus and this vocal thing here needs to - you can’t do this.” Because we wrote the songs so quickly, I did the same verse like 3 times. I couldn’t be bothered writing a second verse and a third verse. I just repeat the same thing and because we were just doing it live no-one ever noticed. Dave was like, “Oh and by the way I’ve noticed - I’ve noticed that this is the same verse.”

T: It’s different when you record it and people can pick up on that.

A: Yeah exactly so I was like, ok so I have to go back to the hotel and bloody start writing shit straight off. But yeah he just kind of look at each one of us and see what we were doing and picked up on our little tricks and just made us work a bit harder.

T: You have a retro 70s retro sound to your music. How relevant is that now in contemporary music and why do you think people are into it?

A: Ok, first of all with the retro thing I’d say that — you could say that — what is retro first of all? My thing is - show me - if this is a retro sound then what is a modern sound? Can you give me an example of something modern?

T: Well I mean I guess you could argue that everything is rooted in the past, but.. I think from listening to your stuff, from what I’ve heard, it’s very rooted in the 70s…

A: Well yeah I think everything is.. you know you listen to Bloc Party and that sounds like New Order. That sounds like Joy Division. And people think and people listen to that and go “this is new music.” It’s like man it’s just a verse and a chorus and it has the same effects and it’s the same as what was done back then. You know people are just rediscovering a thing that happened in the 80s. You could listen to Mars Volta and people go “This is progressive. This is modern music.” and you could say this is like Santana. This is like a Zomba rhythm from Spanish music that has been done since the 1930s. You know? I think every music - every form of music - there isn’t a form of music around now that you can say that this is a new type of music that no one has ever heard before, and I think some people put that pressure onto themselves to be like: “Hey kids, guess what. Here’s the new sound. No-one has ever heard it before. Everyone’s going to get into it, and everyone’s going to flip out.” The fact is that’s never going to happen. I think people thought during the 80s they thought: There’s a drum machine. We can use electronic amplifiers. We can use samples. We can loop things. And people thought this was a new type of music, but essentially even if you listen - it’s a different production and it’s a different way of making sounds - it’s still even - half the music from England is the same as blue music has the same structure as a pop song such as “Hard Days Night” - there’s a verse, there’s a chorus. Instead of doing a riff on a guitar you’re doing a riff on a keyboard or you do a riff on a sample, but essentially everything is interconnected and everything is a derivative and it’s not a negative thing.

T: No, not at all.

A: you got to look at a song. Number one you have a groove. You have a beat. Sometimes a signature beat is enough to make people get into it. And then you have the melody of the guitar. Then you have lyricism. Then you have someones voice and all these elements come together become interesting and somehow that is the synergy of the music. All those elements and they come together creating a great synergy that people go: “This is good. I don’t know why i like it. It sounds like this before, but I’ve never heard this before. I think I’ve heard it before. I don’t know what it is but i like it, and I want to see this band.” I think it’s a mysterious combination of so many variables, and the variables are infinite. That is why people will continue to make music as long as we possibly can because we can never do everything. There’s always other opportunities.

T: There are always places to go…

A: Yeah, I think somehow people got cynical after the 70s when all the new technology came in the 80s. Everybody was like, “There has to be a new sound, there has to be a new sound. What we did in the 70s never happened before. We started it and when we were young we never heard anything like it and these bands were the originators.” You know people have that philosophy of what happened back then never happened before, and they felt original. That’s a myth.

T: But that’s a myth of every generation. Wouldn’t you say?

A: Well, yeah. I mean if you look at Led Zeppelin they were sued by Chess Records because “Whole Lotta Love” was a total rip-off of Willie Dixon’s “You Need Love”, and they were criticized by the press for ripping off the blues and making millions of dollars and never giving any money to blues artists. But I think it’s just a phenomenon of every generation. You get a few people involved in the arts and the music, and they think something has to be new to be good. Sometimes it’s not entirely the case.

T: I agree with that. To back up a little bit to one thing you said before - obviously a lot of contemporary bands that are big right now have this throwback 80s sound and so maybe that is why you stick out so much is you’re not — it seems like what you’re doing is more what you really love opposed to what is really cool. Would you agree with that?

A: [[laughs]] Yeah, I mean yeah. That’s my philosophy. If you try to be cool you’re in dangerous territory because…

T: Well that is why I think your record is so solid — from what I’ve heard. It’s not about trying to be what it’s not. You know?

A: Yeah, just do it from the heart, and enjoy it. Follow your own idea of what’s right and what’s wrong and what sounds good and what doesn’t sound good, and that’s the only thing you can really go on and the rest is out of your hands. Whether it’s in style or out of style or the music - who knows? You can’t keep up with that stuff.

T: This is totally switching gears - but maybe not so much - I read a little blurb somewhere but can you tell me about the MSTRKRFT remix?

A: Mast… uh.. I’m not familiar… I haven’t heard.. [[laughs]] Who are they?

T: Do you know Death From Above 1979?

A: Oh yeah, yep.

T: It’s one of the guys from that and a producer. They’re a remix team…

A: which song did they remix?

T: I don’t know.. I just heard they remixed one of your songs. So you don’t know anything about that?

A: Yeah I haven’t heard about it.

T: Maybe it’s white label or something. I don’t know.

A: Well it sounds like a good idea. I’d love to hear it if they have.

It should be noted that this interview was conducted on January 31st. The next day MSTRKRFT added their remix of Wolfmother’s “Woman” on their Myspace profile. I don’t know if Andrew has heard it yet… but it is a good idea. Edit: The MSTRKRFT remix was removed from Myspace hours later.

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