Interviews : “I’m a big believer that an album is a capturing of a moment in time.” – An interview with DEAD

DEAD: A Melbourne sludge/punk band that requires just two members to complete their badass music; Jem on drums and Jace on bass/vocals. Definite proof of not needing a guitarist to be a good rock band. Their debut album “THUNDAAAAAH!” was released last year and rated a 9/10 by Metal Obsession (read the review here). Earlier this week, Metal Obsession caught up with drummer Jem to chat about their campaign Pozible, their new album, DIY merch and playing the screening of a film (which is tomorrow, the 18th of March, so read about it and attend).

Metal Obsession: For those who are unfamiliar with DEAD, describe the band in four words.

Jem: Awesome but surprisingly unpopular.

Metal Obsession: You’re running a campaign via Pozible at the moment to fund your next album, how does that all work?

Jem: It’s the same as a Kickstarter which some readers may be more familiar with. Basically people pledge money towards the recording costs and get stuff in return (depending on how much they pledge). We have a bunch of stuff up there like test pressings, one off drawings etc. So essentially we are selling things to raise money.

No money changes hands unless we reach our target of $2,000 (about 50% of our recording costs). We’ve just gone past $1,000 so I think we might make it.

In the last year we have spent more days away (on tour) than at home which has been great fun but left us broke. We’ve been unsuccessful with all our grant applications so we fired up this campaign. We will get this album recorded one way or another.

(Click here to check out their Pozible page)

Metal Obsession: Is the new album entirely written? How does it sound in comparison to Thundaaaah!?

Jem: We have two albums worth of material that we are currently working out how to divide up. But we will throw in a few last minute tracks too ‘cos we like the spontaneity. Jace writes a lot, there is never a shortage of material to work on. Currently it looks like the album we are about to make will feature more of the rock/metal songs. Well our version of rock and metal anyway. Most of the other songs look like they will go on a more ambient/experimental album if and when we can get into a studio again to record them.

If we make a more focused sounding album we can be more efficient with our limited studio time. And while we approach the studio very differently to the stage I like the idea of this next album being a fair representation of what our live show is like. It will be recorded in the same studio with the same engineer so sound wise it will share a lot with the first album. We seem to both agree we want this next album to be more bludgeoning than the first.

The first album was the first thing we ever did as a band, we had very little live experience together. So we had no idea what we were going to sound like and all the songs were new. The end result was fairly varied sound wise. I really like it as an album. You only ever get to make your first album once and that’s what that one sounds like. But neither of us want to make the same album again.

I’m a big believer that an album is a capturing of a moment in time. Particularly as we make ours in a few days. We’re a live band now, that’s where we spend most of our time so this album will reflect that. That’s my prediction anyway.

Metal Obsession: And what’s this about a remix album?

Jem: When we were making Thundaaaaah! we wanted to record multiple versions of most of the songs. Which was partly an influence from bands like Godflesh that have done that in the past and basically wanting to reject the standard confines of album recording most people adhere to. Which is that bands record one version of their song and that becomes the defining version from then on. We’re open to the idea of songs coming back for a second round on later albums. None of our writing is ever that rigid anyway, we’re always making adjustments and are not overly precious about preserving a song. We prefer to let it evolve.

Well early on in the recording process of Thundaaaaah! it became clear that we did not have the budget to make multiple versions of our songs. So we kept the multi track files with the intention of giving them to friends of ours to make their own versions with. We’ve only just now gotten around to instigating it.

There are about 10 people involved in the project (some are still confirming) and they range from engineers to noise musicians to bedroom recorders. They have all been given free reign to work with one or multiple songs off the album and make their own music with.

Metal Obsession: You guys have toured pretty extensively with DEAD, have there been any particularly memorable trips?

Jem: We’ve been to some fairly different places so they really have been all memorable to us. We’ve slept in far too many places I would rather forget. South East Asia was particularly good for me. Getting to play to my family in Malaysia was something I thought I’d never experience. The enthusiasm for punk rock in that region is really inspiring. It really gave us a kick up the arse each night to play the best set we could.

A lot of more out of the way places end up for more memorable shows. Big cities are not very personable I suppose and less people care you made the effort to go there. Albuquerque on the US tour was one of our cooler shows; a bloke gave me a knife half way through the set, I would not have know what to do with it had I needed it. In Cheney we played in a house built into a hill and it was so hot the walls were dripping the crowd stripped off. Total Fest in Missoula was incredible, wedged in between Thrones, Helms Alee and Big Business. Our label is based there too and there is an amazing community of people involved with music there.

Our first few trips to Adelaide were great also. The scene there right now is just kicking Melbourne’s arse and people came out to see us despite us having no recordings at all.

Metal Obsession: You’re playing at the screening of a film called “Kill All Redneck Pricks: A Documentary Film About A Band Called Karp” this Sunday in Melbourne, tell us a bit about that. I’ll admit I know nothing about it. Is it visiting other states as well?

Jem: The film has toured across Europe and the U.S. The film maker approached me about doing some screenings here and touring his band Fed X who are one of my favourite U.S bands and had a few records out on Wantage USA (our label over there). It will screen in other states eventually, I’m just in the middle of getting that happening.

It’s an exceptionally good film, well above your average music doco. The story of the band is so interesting regardless of your taste in music and the film maker did a great job of not including a bunch of pointless comments from famous people; something a lot of music doco’s seem to end up doing.

They were an intense live band and the film has captured a lot of that. Jared from Karp went on to form Big Business and plays in Melvins now too. We decided to have some live bands as part of screening ‘cos it just seemed the respectful thing to do! And Ritual Music is a great record store that totally embodies the “can do” spirit of this film.

Metal Obsession: What are DEAD’s plans for the rest of the year?

Jem: We’ll record our next album in May and it should be out on LP in Australia by November but it may end up being early 2013. The remix album will come out some time this year also. We head to Japan in September to tour and release our album there with Cyberne (who we toured with here in November 2011). We will probably tour Australia again in November/December, that depends a bit on whether I can get it organised in time. Somewhere in there we have a split 7” with No Anchor to release. We are also making a collaborative recording with a musical genius know as BJ Morriszonkle, and the plan is to release a zine at some point too. And we’ll keep trying to get to new places to play. So if anyone is reading this and wants us in their town they should get in contact.

Metal Obsession: What drew you to the whole DIY method of merchandise and packaging in the first place?

Jem: Initially it was economics and not really wanting to leave something I felt passionate about in someone else’s hands. I have always been in unpopular bands and when you don’t have cash coming in from shows you need to find the cheapest way to do things. I was 14 years old when I started doing this so pocket money was never gonna cover an album pressing. And then after doing that for a while you get very used to having total creative control so it becomes harder and harder to hand things over to someone else. For me the aim has always been to either produce merch myself or with the help of people who I share an ethic with and still keep it high quality/interesting. In the DIY world there is a lot of hand made merch out there that is really pretty crappy and uninspiring.

We source our blank shirts for merch printing at Op-Shops because we don’t want to support buying brand new, sweat shop made clothes and can’t afford to buy sweat free shirts new. It’s a practical way of adhering to our personal ethics. And that way each shirt is unique and we don’t feel like we’re dressing up robots out there.

Metal Obsession: And that method is used all throughout the records released under your We Empty Rooms label as well?

Jem: Yes it is and it seems more relevant then ever now that all music can be distributed digitally at higher quality than CDs. So if I am going to make something physical and charge people for it I see no point unless it is special. It’s a labour of love, if I charged for my time to make these records I’d have to charge an unfeasible amount for my records. So I just keep it to limited runs and if and when they sell out people can still access all the music online.

Metal Obsession: Speaking of which, any exciting releases coming out through that?

Jem: It has slowed down a bit of late. Right now the only things planned are DEAD records but if I find the time and funds

Metal Obsession: Any last words?

Jem: I think I may have already said too many mate.

Though I would like to direct people to this link if they like our tunes, want to hear a second album and want some cool and rare stuff. If you spend money on the internet it’s like you never really spent it anyway.

http://www.pozible.com.au/index.php/archive/index/4794/description/0/0