Interview: Art vs. Science
MYATS: How are you guys doing today? What are you up to?
JIM: We’re doing pretty good, we’re about to be kicked out of our living room, because we don’t seem to like getting up. We’re gonna drive today.. t’s actually a nice day, it’s really sunny. It’s a beautiful day to go for a drive.
MYATS: Yeah def, I just wanna lay in bed all day.
JIM; Ah, I could just lay in bed for hours and hours, but on a sunny day, I always think I should get up and do something.
MYATS: Having a good day so far?
JIM: Yeah, I’ve actually just been awake for the last two hours on Facebook and watching TV. Its nice having a day off on tour especially after spending the last two weeks in new york. We’ve had a few days off. I think the last two nights in ny we were up till 9 or 10 in the morning, at these big after parties.
MYATS: Oh wow, that’s some well-deserved rest! I was wondering Australian music scene is like compared to Canada, or Montreal? What are the differences when you go on tour? We know that in Europe bands get to stay with people rather than spend money on a hotel.
JIM: I don’t know that much about the Canadian scene.. I think Crystal Castles are from Canada, yeah?
MYATS: Yeah, they’re from Toronto.
JIM: We played a festival tour with them. I probably do know a lot of Canadian bands, but I just don’t know it!
MYATS: (laughs) Secret Canadians!
JIM: I just seem to get the vibe that everyone up there is real friendly. Not that Americans aren’t nice and lovely. We just kept saying that Canadians are a bit more chill, a bit more relaxed and just like to party. I don’t know, I guess there’s just a similar vibe, the mentality of the population is what makes the music scene. People back home tend to like the same style of music and like to dance on the weekend as well. I’m really looking forward to coming over there and playing there. I think after this tour I’ll be able to have a proper comment for this, (laughs).
MYATS: Definitely, but I agree with you on that. I have a lot of Australian friends here and they all seem to get along really well with everyone from Montreal and most places in Canada.
JIM: When you meet someone, it’s just like “Oh, you’re American.” “No, Im Canadian.” “Oh, thank goodness!” (laughs).
MYATS: Really, that’s so strange! Don’t worry, I confuse people all the time who are from Australia and New Zealand. They don’t seem to like it very much.
JIM: They do it to us too, though people will be like “Oh, you’re English! Where in England are you from?” “No, we’re not, we’re Australian”, but like everybody thought we were English.
MYATS: You recorded your debut album in one day, how did that go? That’s incredibly impressive. Did everything just go really smoothly, or is that how you wanted to go through with it?
JIM: It was actually our debut EP, it was only five songs. It was kind of like the start of everything right there, so.. We’d written all the songs, we had the structures down, we knew it was just a matter of getting the right gear and getting it right. The way we record is that, we just have like a live drum kit, we just go to the desk, and sit together and play, so it’s a very live sort of vibe… we don’t have a metronome or back ups really. We’re very free in sort about pushing the tempo so we don’t have to worry about anything. We’ve got sort of a live sound, and some of our songs you could hear when we actually slow down or speed up if you pay attention. Some of our songs we actually had to slow down on the recordings, because there is no metronome. I think it kind of adds to the feel of a live band. Instead of just having it sound like a live DJ, who is always right on the money. We kind of just went in there and we performed and we played. We played our songs, and after about three or four takes of each song, we just took the best one and we didn’t say: ”What parts do we want to change?” We already knew the parts we just hadn’t played them. It’s just a really efficient way to record anything. There are lots of other bands that go into the studio and pay hundreds of thousands of dollars a day for the studio, and write songs in the studio, which is quite expensive. You can write songs in rehearsal spaces, or a garage, and it’ll be much cheaper. I think if you’re paying for a studio you should be using it as a studio every second you can. I think it was more a matter of getting as much as we could out of that one day. We didn’t have much money back then, so we were like: ”Let’s do it in one day, and do as much as we can!” So that’s kind of how it worked!
MYATS: (laughs) for sure, the money is always an issue. What do you guys like to do with your free time. What is your ideal day off?
JIM: Um, I don’t know!.. Not having to travel anywhere, not spending hours of the day at the airport. Basically being able to stay in one place for the whole day, no driving. But actually, getting up and being excited for things you have to do, having a nice day, with warm weather. Um, we always seem to do exciting activities. Like, we’ll go… we were in Chicago last time, we hired jet skis and cruised around in Michigan. Another thing is we’ll try to find really high rocks and platforms to jump off into the water, for just a bit of thrill (laughs). When I was in Vancouver and had the day off, I went climbing up Whistler which was fun. We kind of do more extreme activities, like we go white water rafting, or go bungee jumping, or go jumping off –kind of like what we found in New Zealand– a canyon sling, which is kind of like bungee jumping, and we went paragliding off a mountain. Actually, that could have been the ideal day except that I was really hungover. So, I think the night before, we shouldn’t drink to make sure the day is good. Just being in a cool place with cool people and having some fun, adrenaline-filled activity to do.
MYATS: Awesome.
JIM: I just think that would probably be my ideal day off on tour. We’re really lucky to be able to play in these places with such amazing secrets.
MYATS: Wow, I’m a little bit jealous of your life! It sounds like you do a lot of exciting things.
JIM: I think its just very lucky that we get to go and play music in all of these places that have these activities, and when you haven’t been to that place before, and you really want to find out those cool activities.
MYATS: For sure. Did you learn anything from touring with Chemical Brothers, being a much older band? How was that?
JIM: It was amazing. I mean, we didn’t get to hang out with them so much, just cause, I mean we went out, and had a bit of a party. We were doing a festival tour with them at the same time as they were doing their individual shows. I mean we had a little bit of a chat with them, they’re nice fellows. The way they produce music is much different from the way we produce ours. We’ve always loved them, I think that one of the things we learned from them is that they have a massive visual show. These massive screen with crazy lights and these great visuals that go along with every song. Their light-technician guy actually does our lighting too, and he was cut out of our tour because he had to go around the world with the Chemical Brothers. I think that putting on a big, live show and on a greater scale, is really the main thing they brought. It’s just how they bring in different elements… they have one groove going for so long and you’d think that you can’t do that and you have to change the beat because people will get bored, but people’s attention spans are far more flexible than you think. Especially in those situations, when people come to be hypnotized by a big beat and a big group and they made us realize that maybe we could push things a bit further. It was really, really exciting to tour with them.
MYATS: Awesome! Yeah I love them, so that’s really sweet.
JIM: Yeah, we’ve really been into them since the day we started, so that was really really exciting for us.
MYATS: It must have been! Has the influx of dubstep changed your sound or direction at all? What do you think of it’s recent explosion onto the music scene?
JIM: Dubstep is really cool, I really like dubstep. Its one of those genres that, when it’s done well, anytime I hear it, I’ll just do that face… like, “Whoa!” There’s a little bit of a laugh, and then, “Oh shit, yeah!” Like, I don’t know I guess that’s one of the great things in music; it’s how it gets you and affects you. I think dubstep has gotten to the point now where it has become so ridiculous, and the sound is so insane… Skrillex is really cool, I really like Skrillex. Even though I like some of his songs, imagine showing them to your parents and grandparents and being like, “This is what is going to be popular!” They’d be like horrified. *Makes dubstep noises* like as many cool noises and sounds from machine guns that you can fit into one song. We’ve actually messed around every now and then playing dubsteppy kind of beats. Maybe one day we’ll wanna write a live dubstep song, too. I don’t like excluding anything just yet. It’s a fun genre though, I like listening to it.
MYATS: That’d be amazing, I’d love to hear a live dubstep song by you guys.
JIM: I don’t think I’ve ever heard a live dubstep song.
MYATS: Yeah, I don’t know either! So what are you guys listening to nowadays most?
JIM: All sorts of stuff. We started out with stuff like Justice, Chemical Brothers, Fatboy Slim, Daft Punk, Rage Against the Machine, the Beatles, but um… On this tour through America we watched something on HBO with a special about the life of George Harrison, which made me get into the Beatles again. But, yeah it sorta changes. Dan’s been listening to a lot of Pink Floyd.
MYATS: Sweet, so a lot of classics then?
JIM: I think anything that’s really an inspiration for writing and performing. The band The Hives are such an inspiration. Every time we see them it makes us want to be performers. I think they’re American, they were playing in New York when we were there.
MYATS: So since you seem to like the Beatles a lot, what is your favorite album by them?
JIM: I don’t think I really know which songs are on which albums.. I don’t know!
MYATS: Maybe a favorite song?
JIM: I think one that I play a lot, probably because I tend to always be up after a big night out early in the morning and sitting in a cafe somewhere is Here comes the sun.
MYATS: With such a wide variety in your style, what are your main influences?
JIM: Pretty much, yeah. We started out wanting to play songs like daft punk and justice and doing it live, but doing it live, it became… not that sound at all. It was really different. From that sort of scene… Beastie Boys we really like. The Beatles, AC/DC.. Dan’s a massive AC/DC fan.. and I think being at our live shows you can really tell through our performance. Any band that puts on a really good live performance, and I guess every other band that we’ve listened to growing up. It’s really hard, because every new song that we hear that we enjoy we take a little piece from that, and every band we see perform well we take something from it and add it to our stuff.
MYATS: On this current tour, what are your best memories?
JIM: To be honest, I had a really good time in New York, even though I cant really remember it (laughs). Actually yeah, we went to this dress-up after-party at a warehouse, and we went up these stairs, with these huge people, it was just really fun! We ended up at someones house at 7 AM and had some beers, then made it out by 10 and got some delicious bagels from the bagel shop.
MYATS: (laughs) When you party in Montreal till 10 am you can get fresh bagels too. What’s it feel like to live in a country that has the highest concentration of the world’s deadliest animals?
JIM: (laughs) Surprisingly safe actually! I think the people who make the biggest deal out of that are foreigners. I guess its like us with Canadians; people will be like, “Oh, id be scared of polar bears!”. I think that all the things that could kill you are usually not where you are living. There are redback spiders in the gutters when you pull the leaves out sometimes, but you just get the anti-venom and go to the hospital, and hopefully you don’t die or suffer anything too serious. The thing I’m the most scared of are the jellyfish actually.
MYATS: I think a lot of people’s attitudes is that – just let be and they’ll let you be.
JIM: And I think part of the tourism is to make people a little scared and excited. Look at all these things that could kill you. Everyone’s like “Oh, Australia! It must be an amazing place.” And it is an amazing place, but not for that reason.
MYATS: Yeah, more for the people and the beaches for sure. Well, thank you so much for your time, we really appreciate it! We really hope that you have a good show.
Interview conducted by Michael Colatruglio.
We had an awesome time talking with Art vs Science, and we can’t wait for their show this Thursday at Club Lambi.
