songs - songs

[Popfrenzy: 2009]

Remember when you had a passionate, fleeting relationship with that girl you met on holidays one summer? She was wild and unpredictable, one minute was french kissing you in the street for all the world to see, the next minute had you in desperate tears?
That isn't Songs.
Songs is that girl that you meet at a party and in under five minutes you are sharing personal jokes and making knowing eye contact. She's beautiful and interesting but she doesn't scare you or make you nervous. It's effortless.
That is what Songs is.

Songs sound is effortless. They sound just like a band should sound – it’s not pretentious or trendy or gimmicky. It has an easy rock n roll swagger with simple rhythms that you already know – but ones your ears already like. It’s as summery as sunshine but perfectly geared toward indoor listening on a rainy afternoon. The albums rolls over a bunch of influences: the 70s New York sound, fuzzy garage-punk, Eighties and Nineties shoegaze rock, Go Betweens-style post-punk… but even with a bunch of music history touch points, it still manages to sound like nothing else released this year.
Max Doyle’s vocals are proof you don't necessarily have to have the best voice to be a great singer. He knows his range and uses it perfectly to create a laidback, “i-don't-care” style that is a big part of the Songs sound. The gorgeous natural voice of bass player Ela Stiles is also heard throughout the album, backing Max up on tracks like 'Something to believe in' and 'Oh no', featuring on the track 'Retreat' and sharing duties on the wonderful call-and-response track 'Clouds' and one of the albums highlights 'Pain'. Balancing Max’s more darkly edged lyrics is guitarist Jeff Burgh’s fuzzy chords and echoing pop riffs, as well Steve Uren's addictive classic garage-style drumming.

No fleeting summer romance this one, we sense the start of a meaningful, long term relationship. “Songs” by Songs is not only a killer debut but is easily one of the top three Australian releases of 2009.

Album of the week was lucky enough to have a chat to songs drummer Steve Uren, here is what he had to say:


Album of The Week: Hey Steve - so what are you up to at the moment?

Steve: Right now I am actually at home, I work from home so yeah, couple of the other guys were busy so you got stuck with the drummer so i apologise if it seems like an awkward conversation, I will try and do my best. [cut to us loving him already]

AoTW: So how are you feeling on the eve of the album's release?

Steve: It's exciting, I think for all four of us it's a new experience - a new place to be at, to have a record and the support of a record label behind it.
It's exciting. We've had one review which, well the only review I have seen, which to be honest was almost embarrassingly gushing - it was kind of a sigh of relief as it came from a critic we respect probably more so than most so that's a really nice sort of start to whatever happens from here. But it's nice to get it out, we've sort of had it for a while and I guess we feel like essentially it's the end of that chapter and we an move on - even though people are hearing it for the first time. Having said that, it's great I'm not jaded enough or old enough to not be excited about having a record out, it's fun for us… so yeah its a good feeling. Don you have a copy?

AoTW: yeah we got it the other day - it's got the cheese on the front.

Steve: Right (laughs)

AoTW: Whats the story behind the artwork?

Steve: It's funny I done a couple of interviews and it's always the first question. Well, I think it's something that we'll get a lot and we think it will probably be called "The Cheese Album" now.
I guess we were asking for it. But essentially a photographer who is a friend of the band knows a sydney artist called Max Priestly and he had shot the still life for an art exhibition. We had this conversation about it because all four of us come from a slightly - you know - an artistic background, we have jobs and positions in the creative industry and so we decided it's nice to hand it over to someone else and work with other creative people and not just do it ourselves. But I can't remember where I was going with that but… the cheese.....oh....you know, aesthetically, for me I like it. It has this sort of eerie, sinister sort of undertone to it.
If you want to stretch it and find an angle, I actually think the music of the actual album has this unashamed pop moments and jangly melodies but there is a lot of themes or lyrical content that has been masked lightly by these catchy tunes. A lot of the themes Max [lead singer and songwriter] addresses are these ageing-rocker, darker, mysterious reflective themes about growing old, which if you want an angle that's sort of how I though about it… you know: this sort of harmony between this still life and cheese and maybe Max is this forty year-old songwriter who's talking about growing old. My point is, we're talking about artwork and I guess maybe my favourite album covers are ones which have iconic imagery on it - whether it be due to their good taste or bad taste. Some of my favourite album covers are probably the most cringe-worthy pieces of artwork you've ever seen, but they're recognisable in a record store and - if anything - what we have got going for us is that people will know that the "Cheese album" is our album. We sort of shot ourselves in the foot by calling ourselves "Songs" and making a record called "Songs", so you know if anyone has any problems with that at least we can point them in the direction of the "cheese album" cover.

AoTW: You all [the members of the band] come from different backgrounds. How'd you all meet up - have you known each other for a while?

Steve: Jeff [lead guitarist] and I grew up in the same town in New Zealand. We went to high school together, played in bands at high school, at art school in NZ and we both ended up in Sydney not motivated by music but more for creative reasons - we're designers so we can work here. So Jeff and I ended up in Sydney and have always known each other. Max is the editor and chief of a cultural/fashion magazine called Doingbird. So he owns and runs that. So Jeff met Max through that and they sort of talked about their mutual love of Flying Nun bands of New Zealand in the Eighties. Max is in his forties and he actual grew up in that era. And they sort of kick-started a relationship where they wanted to start writing music together and then they asked me if I wanted to play drums and I originally was like "you know what: I don't" (laughs).
…But they ended up sending me a song which I really liked so it started from there. And Ella [bass player] was um… she doesn't actually like me telling this, but she was actually a model. Max was shooting her one day when he was looking for a bass player, and I think he was generally asking anyone he was meeting at that stage. And she said she could play guitar - which she couldn't. She played the guitar really badly - trust me: i had seen her (chuckles). But Max gave the bass to Ella and it worked out... And that's how we met each other.

AoTW: nice.

Steve: Sorry that was probably really long...

AoTW: ha! No it's all cool. So how long ago was that?

Steve: About two years ago now - I lose track, but we have probably been playing together as Songs for about a year and a half.

AoTW: How long did the album take to record?

Steve: We we hired a studio in sydney for six days, and then we....do you know much about Casey Rice who recoded it?

AoTW: Only a little - I know he was involved with Dirty Three recordings...

Steve: Yeah - he's an American guy who lives in Melbourne via Chicago and has worked with Tortoise, but we basically flew him up. I would have loved to have gone to melbourne or maybe - you know sounds painfully cliched - but it would have been nice to have escaped to some rural New South Wales spot, but because of other commitments we couldn't.

AoTW: It sounds pretty rad...

Steve: Casey was great. He builds bikes, so he lent us two bikes and on the weekends we would bike to the studio then back to the city. It was a really lovely experience.

AoTW: What were the main influences for the band?

Steve: You know I think the EP was a real sort of small chapter for the band and it served a real purpose and that led a lot of people to believe that we had come from the same cloth as Flying Nun bands, but i feel that with the new album we illustrate that individually between the four of us we've got a tonne of various influences. I think we have a mutual love of, well like Jeff described to us, or quote another NZ musician called Bruce Russell, this idea of rock stupidity and art smarts? A combination of these two different approaches - this sort of juvenile activitiy which is plugging guitars in and making lots of noise, and there is nothing more juvenile than that but approaching it in a artistic way.
I think that more than any other influence is the idea that guitar music is nothing new and has been done a million times and will continue to be done, so I guess what influences us is knowing what we are playing and how to play it - whether its essential or not, whether its relevant or interesting on any level. You could probably bunch all our influences together and if you drew a diagram, at the top of the food chain it would all stem from a band like the Velvet Undeground.

AoTW: Yeah its an easy thing - and a good thing in a way - to reference bands that sound like "bands" so people can stick a label on you, but for bands it must be like 'oh we sound like us nobody else'.

Steve: For me the most unique thing about it is what the Songs sound, is probably the vocals which is the shared duty between Ella and Max. If you see the band live it unique to us - i mean we have a twenty-one year old lush quiet naturally talented female vocalist and Max is a forty year old with a kind of limitation on where his voice can go, but knows how to use it quite effectively… and that combination of those two vocalists is probably what makes Songs.

AoTW: So being from Album of The Week we always ask if you have an album of the week - do you have one or something you are really into at the moment?

Steve: (whistles)

AoTW: Yeah its a big question...

Steve: okay… I just downloaded the Nigerian artist Fela Kuti. I have been listening to it on repeat - its called"Zombie" [at this point, Steve runs to his computer to double check the name of the record]. Yes "Zombie": with an amazing master drummer in the band called Tony Allen - he's just a machine. That would be my album of the week.

AoTW: Awesome. Also, I really like the fact that you have an eleven minute song on there too - ballsy.

Steve: yeah well you know it seems like people don't do long albums anymore but we just thought lets do it (laughs) I think we are going to try and release it on vinyl as well which probably means its going to be double LP.

AoTW: Well the album cover will look awesome on vinyl.

Steve: Yeah… we could do a whole series of cheese shots, which would look awesome...

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