Mondo Bizarre Magazine Five Questions, Interviews

Five Questions: Ed Clayton-Jones

© Matthew Ellery

interview: Raquel Pinheiro; photos: Matthew Ellery; Ayahuasca stills: Cornelius Delaney

In these five questions Australian guitarist, musician and songwriter Ed Clayton-Jones and I speak about his new solo album Interloper and The Wreckery that released their first album in thirty years, in 2024. We also spoke about the differences of creating as a band and solo, changes in songwriter over the years, the physically of playing guitar, and differences in approach the guitar and the bass.

Ed Clayton-Jones has a career spanning several decades. Other than The Wreckery he have been part of Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, The Fabulous Marquises, Plays with Marionetter, Noah Taylor and the Sloppy Boys. Ed’s first album, Jackdaw, was released in 2021.

Ed is playing a show on Valentine’s Day, February 14th, at Darling Nikki’s, St Peters, Sydney. The evening comprises songs from the last 30 years of his career. Ed is accompanied by old friends James McNabb too (bass) and Barton Price (drums), and special guests Justine Wahlin and Last Motel. add on: Valentine’s Day concert was cancelled due to venue roof issues

01 – How does your creative process differ if composing for a solo album or for a The Wreckery one?

The answer is that it’s a lot easier composing for solo projects than for the Wreckery. There were two other writers to work with which is cool, I enjoy collaborating with Hugo Race and Nick Barker but one often has to compromise.

I rarely get to sit down and work on songs with other writers. It’s not like I don’t want to, It just doesn’t happen. I have enormous respect for Hugo Race and Nick Barker as songwriters so one has to respect their decisions relative to their own work. When you have to work something up from the beginning with a collaborator it requires resisting the urge to take control and steer the composition -conscious listening and discussion. The co-write I did with Barker, Alpha Ray was done on the fly in the studio, Nick wrote the chorus. In the past I would write music and leave Hugo to write the lyrics and I gave him a few ideas towards that idea. I was a little disappointed that he didn’t rise to that invitation.

© Matthew Ellery

The Wreckery of the 21st Century is not the same band, not having Robin Casinader was a blow. Robin had a profound influence on the performance of the band, he was often the musical director and arranger, he’s a very talented and disciplined musician and the contribution he made to Fake is Forever although done after the session supplied the X factor for the songs. I should say that Frank Trobbiani was incredible in his role, Frank played with Hugo, Robin and I in Plays with Marionettes and would have been the Wreckery’s first drummer had he not been embracing his career in commercial art. I love Frank!

The harsh truth for me is that bands are just as much about the players as the songs. There’s a tendency for people to get on nostalgia trips and there’ll be one surviving member of the original

02 – After a 35 years hiatus was it difficult to restart writing songs with The Wreckery? How has songwriting with The Wreckery changed between then and now?

35 years is a lifetime in any business. Things changed dramatically in this long hiatus. In the early 80’s we were doing things in a more organic way. Songs arrived in the rehearsal studio and arrangements were bashed out over time.

The Wreckery of 2023 was a different kind of band using more advanced technology. I live in a different city and didn’t do any rehearsals until the day before the sessions started. Hugo had done demo recordings of the six songs he co-wrote with his partner Allanah Hill. So we all knew what we were shooting for relative to those tunes.

© Matthew Ellery

The original brief I discussed with Hugo Race was that the record would lean back toward bands like the Gun Club so I was a bit surprised at what we got. It’s not a bad thing at all just a different direction. In the old days it was pretty difficult to get my songs into the set as Hugo and Robin tended to dominate the songwriting.

03 – Your new solo album was delayed because of The Wreckery’s album and tour. Meanwhile you changed some of the songs on Interloper. Why?

I had been writing and recording for Interloper throughout 2022 when the Wreckery thing came along. I felt to gain any traction for Interloper I needed to let The Wreckery take precedence because it was a budgeted project that would hopefully get more attention.

I was also doing the We Mainline Dreamers album with Garry Gray from the Sacred Cowboys. I wrote quite a lot of new material and I felt my newer songs were more interesting than those I had already set aside. As it turned out Interloper is quite a long record, 14 songs but there’s another albums worth of material that I have archived from the original project.

04 – Your friend Cornelius Delaney – Ó DubhTV – did the video for Ayahuasca, one of the songs on Interloper, and a short film based on the album. Cornelius aesthetics is very steampunk, very Mad Max. Do you identify with that sort of hopeless, media within media, apocalyptical vision? Does it reflect your songs?

Cornelius is a very close friend. We have a lot of similar views and come from the same scene so we do share aesthetic sensibility as well. I was blown out of the water by what he did for the Ayahuasca clip.

I had no input into the visual. Cornelius has been working on digital animations for years and he has incorporated his artwork into the overall aesthetic of his short films.

Ayahuasca still © Cornelius Delaney

I do tend to lean into the darker side, one can’t say we don’t live in an Orwellian society, we’re under constant surveillance, we are witnessing the rise of fascism world wide, a genocide playing out on live broadcasts, I don’t think we’re too far from Mad Max! Lexi my wife is a makeup artist and she worked on Mad Max Furiosa, so, very close !

05 – Of late, I’ve been very interested on the physicality of the electric guitar. Having the electric bass as my main instrument I was under the impression the guitar was far less physically demanding. No so. You play both instruments. What can you tells about the physical demands and the physicality and the playability of each of them? Did getting older influenced how you approach each instrument?

This is a great question. It’s easy to think that playing music isn’t a physical thing, more an intellectual pursuit but it’s very physically demanding. Particularly over time.

© Matthew Ellery

Guitars can be very heavy, Bass even more so. If you’re under lights on a stage for 90 minutes with a heavy guitar it’s pretty taxing once you’re over 50! I am infinitely better on the guitar than I was in my 20’s. I love playing and I love getting better at it, even now I feel I am getting better.

My approach to the bass is very different from when I was sharing bass duty with Barry Adamson in the Bad Seeds. I try to be a bit more melodic and more fluid than in the old days of pumping along with the kick drum. I always try to honour the song first and foremost. It’s always about reading the feeling and conveying the emotion.

Now, at 63 years old, I have arthritis in my hands and my spine, standing up playing has become a fairly painful experience so I am definitely changing my approach. I will be quite happy to have a bar stool to sit on when I play live. I’m amazed by how many of my peers are able to push through and perform but playing live can give you a bit of a dopamine boost!

 

Mondo Bizarre Magazine Five Questions, Interviews

Five Questions: Andrew Johnston – Repercussion Drums

Val di Fiemmi Kit © RD

interview by Raquel Pinheiro; photos: courtesy of Repercussion Drums (RD)

Andrew Johnson and I met through an interview I conducted with Simon Gilbert (of Suede). There were certain specifications regarding Simon’s 5000 years bog oak snare drum I needed to be certain of. As these things go, Andrew’s snares, drum kits, the wood he sources, how he crafts the drums marveled me and I have been wanting to interview him ever since. Andrew has had a few jobs, from city trader to freelance photographer, and has been drumming for the last 25 years. Andrew, for whom music has always held a strong interest, set up Repercussion Drums in 2017.

Repercurssion Drums specializes in making hand made snare drums and drum kits, in a workshop that sits in the shadow of the magical Glastonbury Tor. Andrew’s snares and kits have a unique look and the sound of the ancient landscape that sorrounds his worshop can almost be heard in the instruments he makes.

There is a lot to cover with Andrew. Here, we talk about thousands of years old wood, stave construction, colours, snare drums and other mystic, magical places.

Hollywood Bowl Seats – Wood for Drums © RD

01 – “We are on a mission to find wood that can tell its own story..” How does this sentence from your website translates into the drum? What story do the drums tell after being made and played?

I’m fascinated, and always have been, by the ‘sense of place’ that an object holds within it and its connection with the environment that it was surrounded by. An old bottle that you might find in an old house or in the ground, has a story within it, so in one sense it has ‘witnessed’ many things, however mundane they might be.

With the tone wood that I try to find, I am looking for a piece of wood that (if it could talk) has a story to tell. The wood from San Quentin prison that I bought from a lumber yard in California, was in place when Johnny Cash played a concert in the prison… hidden inside that wood is the story of that concert.

As humans we can perhaps feel that connection on some sort of level, I believe. It has no discernable and measurable effect on the drum sound itself, but it connects the player with the instrument on a fundamental level as she/he channel their musical idols in the pursuit of a perfect and heartfelt musical performance.

5000 Years Bog wood for Snares © RD

02 – What took you to search wood in both unusual as well as iconic places such as The Hollywood Bowl, San Quentin Prison Hospital, etc? You’ve incorporated the numbers of the Hollywood Bowl seats on snare drums. Why and what other delightful surprises do you incorporate on the drums?

Most of this is answered above but in the case of the Hollywood Bowl Series; this venue has played host to all the big stars of opera, swing, jazz and rock and in a sense, the seating at the venue has witnessed ALL of these performances – this fascinates me.

03 – What is stave construction, how does it differ from other construction methods and how it impacts the sound of the drums? Why did you choose this construction method?

Stave drums are built like a cooper makes a barrel. The drum consists of 20 staves, each one cut at a precise angle so that when they are all put together, they form a circle. Each stave is glued to the one beside it. Once the glue has set they are put on a ‘jig’ that removes the wood from the outside and inside (two separate processes), forming a perfect cylinder. There are several more processes before you have a working instrument.

The other method, and the one that is used by all the mass producers, is a wrapped ply method. Several layers of very thin plywood are formed around a metal cyliner and all glued together, producing a perfect cylinder.I chose the stave method because it accentuates the character of the wood in a way that is impossible for the wrapped ply method.Stave construction is not an option for mass production – too much waste, too many man hours, too many processes.

Detail of Stave Construction © RD

04 – You use 5000 years old English bog oak wood for some of the snare drums and kits you build. Are there differences, in technique and feeling, between working with thousands of years old wood and much more recent wood? Why and when did you start using 5000 years old English bog oak wood?

I love to work with the bog oak. It has a beautiful feel to it and every moment that i’m working with it i’m wondering what the treee that this piece of wood came from has witnessed. Given that it is over 5000 years old, did it ever see a human?, did a early ancestor touch this tree? Were it’s neighbours cut down to produce houses and boats? What was it like as sea levels rose and it was consumed by the bog which eventually claimed it etc., etc.

To work, it is similar to other oak but is a bit harder and more brittle which brings its own challenges! It is black due to the chemical reaction between the tannin in the wood and the qcidid conditions in the bog in which it has been sat. The longer in those conditions, the deeper the black of the wood.I’ve been using the wood for about ten years. I met a local wood worker who gave me a bit to work with and I was hooked – primarily to the history of this amazing resource.

5000 Years Old Bog wood Kit © RD

05 – One thing that stands out on Repercussion Drums kits are the colours. Liike the yellow, my favourite colour, on the Val di Fiemme kit. But there is a very special colour for you, Klein Blue.Why is it so, where do you source the pigment, what draws you to Klein blue?

As a part time painter, I have always loved colour. I remember going to an Yves Klein exhibition in London some time ago and being totally transfixed by his own colour, Klein Blue. It was as if you could dive into the painting… such depth of colour!! Many people have tried to recreate that blue – they get close but when you view it up against the real Klein blue you realise what an incredible colour Klein Blue is.

Klein Blue Snare – Hollywood Bowl wood ©RD
Mondo Bizarre Magazine Five Questions, Interviews

Five Questions: Pierre Omer

© Nozfets

We have a new space Five Questions. Five Questions is not dependable of a record release, tour or otherwise, although it may coincide with those. As is the case here. Five Questions is also not limited to music. What is the criteria? A very easy one. Something I like, and, or feel is relevant.

We start with Pierre Omer. Pierre Omer’s Swing Revue’s Tropical Breakdown is out on Voodoo Rhythm and currently touring Europe.

by Raquel Pinheiro

01 – What is your earliest musical memory?

My early life was between two countries and two languages, so the memories are mixed up… I have lullabies coming to my mind. Harry Belafonte in English and some bizarre French nursery rhyme out of the Middle Ages, hahaha!

02 – When did you start to be interested in Swing and why?

Somewhere in my teens. I heard old shellac records of obscure swing artists. I was fascinated by the evocation of another world, another time. At the same period, I started listening to Django Reinhardt. His guitar just rocks! So much energy and joy!

03 – Fado is one of your influences. How did it come into your life, and how does Fado present itself in your music?

I’m not a specialist in Fado at all, and one can’t hear any trace of it in my music. But yes, I am very touched by Fado, the same way Tango or Flamenco touches me. I feel something essential about this music, but I know I need to include a big part, not understanding how the words are used.

04 – How important is it to you on Pierre Omer’s Swing Review that the clothes, the visual and scenographic aspect of things fits into, translates, and, or give a sense of the Music?

I like to think of our tuxedos not only as a visual element for the audience but also as a way for us in the band to be focused and tight. I like to think of the Ramones and their strict outfits and disciplined attitude towards their music. I also like the idea that the tuxedo is a working outfit. Our work is to entertain. Then, the “artistic” aspect might appear or not.

05 – Which more contemporary elements do you incorporate in the Swing tradition, and how important it to you, despite the Revival of the title, to have a fresh approach to Swing?

The only fact that we have been exposed to all the music that has happened since the 1930s gives our interpretation of this music a different twist. It is also important that we are not jazz players. We have to struggle a little bit with this music, which gives us a different attitude. As much as I love this music, I have to play it in an iconoclastic way to pay my respects. I’m really not at ease with revival bands who play swing religiously!

https://pierreomersswingrevue.bandcamp.com/album/tropical-breakdown

© Olivier Jacquet