Three bees chat.
Buckland, Bardeau, and Brushtail (aka David Stewart, Griffin Reed-Lombardo, and Ryan Borrett) sat down at Tomich House to ruminate on new releases, the scourge of Spotify, PrOcEeSs, and inspiration.
Wednesday morning, February 24, 2021.
Ryan: What have you been listening to recently?
Griffin: Funny you should ask hey, because in the last week I've been listening to music like a maniac laughs Like I’ve been going on blogs and finding new releases and hearing some really cool stuff.
Ryan: Yeah sweet, like what?
Griffin: Hmm…Black Country New Road! They’re mad, check that out it's insane!
Ryan: I've been listening to their new album a lot recently these last two weeks too!
Griffin: That whole British scene...
Ryan: Ross, who used to live here, is super into that UK ‘post-punk’ sort of world, Speedy Wunderground I think is a label he’s mentioned, just killer...
Griffin: Also JPEGMafia. He's top five artists for me hey, super forward thinking. I'm not ashamed to admit a bit of Playboi Carti as well laughs
Ryan: How about you Dave?
David: Not heaps of new music recently, I go through phases. When I want to be making stuff I don't want to be listening to heaps, and vice versa as well. It always gets to a point where the scale tips and I want to do the other thing laughs
Griffin: Creative overload.
David: But yeah I've been listening to heaps of Jockstrap, Georgia Ellery from BCNR is in them too, they're super cool; I guess sort of neo classical synth stuff.
Ryan: Heard it called future pop? Names for genres are so dumb, like just listen to it laughs
Griffin: You guys into hyper pop or anything like that? Like 100gecs?
David: I think I've listened to a thing like...Stinky Horse?
Griffin: Stupid Horse! The whole album has dozens of genres throughout it, like a few in one song, just changes for no reason.
Ryan: Reminds me of the Pneumatic crew, they just put out a really cool compilation of heaps of different genres, a lot of stuff I’m not too familiar with but sounded pretty huge.
Buckland.
Tangle of Shame / B w/ U out March 17, 2021.
Ryan: Where do you reckon you find the most new music Dave?
David: Recently I’ve been new to the NTS train. Have you heard NTS before? They’re an internet radio station ran out of heaps of places, so many shows and so many guest programmers. You can search by genre, and there's so many different things. Can't find them a lot of the time on Spotify.
Griffin: Feel like there's a wave of people going away from Spotify and going straight to Bandcamp.
Ryan: I'm all aboard that train! I feel like there's going to be a tipping point where artists, or at least indie artists, abandon Spotify. Like eventually, how much bullshit can you put up with?
Griffin: They already have a monopoly. But another thing they're trying to introduce is to pay them money to boost your playlisting.
Ryan: And then it's back to basically just radio plugging!
Griffin: And then everyone is going to do that, and no one will benefit, and if you don't do it you're boned, so you've got to do it...
Ryan: And then there was that announcement last year about putting out 3-5 releases a year if you want to be successful on their platform. Look at the polar opposite, someone like D'angelo, 12 years between albums. Obviously he's a legend and before the time of Spotify to begin with, but that whole ditch the creative side and artistry attitude...
Griffin: Quality over quantity.
Ryan: I have faith that enough artists will find another way to do it...maybe Bandcamp will do a streaming service. You go on the homepage [of Bandcamp and it says like $500 million in the last year; they're doing really well.
David: And it's not that hard to download the album there and then put it on your iTunes anyway!
Griffin: Or YouTube.
Ryan: But then the cents per view is still not a lot through YouTube.
Griffin: Yeah pretty similar, do they play ads on those?
David: I think if they get enough views.
Griffin: I've been seeing those same two ads way too much, I watch that shit every day laughs
“You can’t record music every three or four years and think that’s going to be enough.”
— Spotify CEO Daniel Ek, July 31, 2020.
Ryan: Slight pivot, you both have solo projects; yours is coming real soon Dave, and yours Griffin has been on the block in some form for a year or so right?
Griffin: The first single I put out was 2019, but I didn't start gigging with it until later in the year, and I didn't actively start gigging with until sort of recently.
Ryan: It's interesting that sort of all three of us have started in bands, and then gone solo laughs Whereas other people start might solo, then the band becomes the band. Did you have some sort of impetus to go solo, like since you started making music, or was it one rehearsal like ‘fuck this I need to do my own thing’ laughs ?
David: I feel like heaps of the time when you're playing music there's always this individual part of it. You have to practice yourself. Sometimes with ideas you might think ‘this would be really good for the band...but also this could be really good for myself’ laughs I've been writing songs for a really long time by myself, but I kind of got to a point where they were really different to Man Sandal things, and they were just asking to be its own project. And then now I've got a band too with this project laughs
Griffin: It was pretty similar to Dave for me as well I think. I was with King Mantis, that was going since when were like 13 in high school.
Ryan: That's such a credit though, like something to be proud of - it wasn't just ‘oh we did that thing for a year’.
Griffin: Oh yeah I have no regrets with that at all. I started writing songs that were more suited to me I guess in the style, and closer to my heart. Because Mantis was pretty heavy, and had that more punky influence and a hip hop influence, but the singer songwriter thing is where my heart’s at at the moment. The pretty acoustic guitar balladry is pretty damn nice to my ears, so I just started writing those songs until the point I had a handful of them and then recorded them and started going from there. The original band for the solo thing was pretty much Mantis laughs with like one or two guys interchanged and then I slowly changed that. It’s a solo project, but it's a band. I don't like saying ‘I am Bardeau’, it’s ‘We are Bardeau’. I love the band dynamic, we sort of laid out the ground rules about how much is mine and how much is group effort, and we've come to a pretty good understanding like if I want a specific thing that's cool, but other times we've fleshed it out. Drew's really good for that
Ryan: Writing songs with Drew is a good time.
Griffin: Yeah I had a bit of writer’s block recently. Like I said, I love acoustic guitar songs, but I was a bit out of acoustic guitar songs, so said Drew play something, and it was beautiful!
Ryan: He comes up with ideas on the fly so well.
Griffin: We were in high school jazz class, and always before the teacher came he jammed on the piano.
Ryan: It’s cool that even though, in a different context, you had chemistry, or sort of ‘I know how this guy makes music’.
Griffin: And like friendship since year 8 laughs What about you Ryan?
Ryan: I feel like for me it’s kind of different, because I'll write a demo or an idea and I'll bring it to the band. We'll jam it and see if it works, and if it works it'll be a song, and if it doesn't really work, I'll be like ‘Well I still like it’ laughs And then I might use it to make my own track. But when I’m writing most ideas I'm usually thinking this could be a band one first, at least at the moment.
Bardeau.
Ryan: Along the same sort of line...what’s your process Dave for one of the tunes that’s about to come out, or just take one...Tangle of Shame?
David: Tangle came kind of quickly. I was reading a fair bit about Greek theatre and mythology, and that was where a lot of inspiration for lyrics came. I write a lot of hell sad and angsty lyrics I can't help it! laughs The only way I can offset that is by making it faster, and making it like a dance track laughs So I found a little drum machine and a little keys loop and guitar, and sung over it with a bassline, and that’s the whole track. It’s just under 2 minutes.
Griffin: For our ADHD riddled generation that’s pretty perfect.
David: And I gave it to Jeremy Segal who’s the producer, and he made it sound real pretty and then it was done. I kind of just wrote everything in demo form then worked some more stuff out in the studio.
Ryan: A bit of back and forth is always nice. What about ‘B w/ U?’
David: That was really different. I was sitting on it for a really long time there were a lot of versions. There were these versions that were like phat 2000s and 90s RnB laughs And so I thought ‘I like that, but I don't like you in my electro pop song’ laughs I got to a point where I was working on it every day for a few weeks and just not getting anywhere with it. I gave it to Jez, and said ‘This is going to be hell frustrating for you, but I don't really know how I want this song, but I like this idea’. We sat on it for few months, and he got this mix back that had some club banger elements! We were using this Porches album as a reference so heaps of fluttery synth sounds and luscious stuff.
Griffin: Their mix and masters are so different, so unique.
David: I got this track back that was completely different than what I had given him, but changed in a way that I was super happy with. I always wanted to include some clarinet of some sort of classical instrumentation in it, and Clancy, my lovely girlfriend who plays violin, tracked four violin parts with this really janky orchestra set up.
Griffin: I can't wait to hear it.
Ryan: Seeing the footage of the quartet under the chandelier is so epic.
David: Yeah that was heaps of fun as well! I’m looking forward to sharing all that with you too.
Ryan: The lineup for Buckland coming together is so tasty. It’s cool that you've done more strings for Man Sandal too.
Griffin: Those four part harmonies...
Ryan: And then you throw in the orchestra, and it’s just ‘yes’...
David: We met heaps of string players and thought ‘might as well’, with this song that was a good fit for it.
Ryan: What about one of the latest Bardeau tracks? Is the process always different?
Griffin: Yeah pretty much. One of them was from aaages ago when I was simping over my current girlfriend before she was my girlfriend. So it’s kind of my simp anthem laughs I kind of got it out in like 15 minutes, because it’s a pretty basic love song, but I think it has that endearing quality and it was kind of similar to that second song you said Dave. I had trouble presenting it originally. It was me and acoustic, and then thought ‘No that's boring’, and you try to add things, and then I wanted to totally fuck the acoustic guitar off! As we were going into record I didn't really know what I was going for. But then we ended up workshopping pretty hard with Matt Templeman, who’s the guy who recorded/mixed/mastered the tracks. He sort of is becoming a little bit of a musical mentor in that regard, giving ideas and helping me understand the perspective of the listener as well. I feel like it’s easy for us to get super caught up in how we feel and forget that other people will listen to this. We kind of tracked it pretty slowly and built it up. We added horns to it, and it’s now become this high school musical sort of vibe laughs And I imagine this sort of choreography, and we were gonna do a music video, but it sort of fell through...And the other one was sort of like that, but I wrote it in open D. You know how that can be, like put your fingers anywhere and it's gonna sound good.
Ryan: I've never really fucked around with alternate tunings much, have you?
David: Not really. I tried drop D so I play power chords.
Ryan: I remember early days like Everlong by the Foo Fighters!
Griffin: Ah yes... laughs
David: Heart Shaped Box?
Griffin: Two songs that JAG used to cover laughs
Griffin: Open tunings are so resonant and pretty. It took me a few minutes to figure it out and structure chords. I feel confident in my ability to come up with melodies. I’m not super confident in many things, but I feel good about that. I sort of wrote it then completely forgot about it, and then I was sitting down with my guitar a few months later and went through my voice memos and thought ‘how'd I play that though’? I wanted to release it, but wasn't sure how to. I really like that No Nomad split laughs
David: Mine’s a split too laughs
Ryan: I think it’s nice. It must have creeped back in a few years ago, and more and more artists have done it recently, I think it’s been good.
Griffin: I think you can create a pretty cool listening experience with a one, two.
Ryan: I think Cam put it nicely before we put it out. Sort of like what you said about the ADHD generation; ‘Nah don't do an EP, they'll just listen to the first two tracks then if they don't like it they won’t listen to the rest’.
Griffin: Singles are the thing in Perth.
Ryan: Everywhere.
David: Spotify...
Ryan: Did either of you have any particular stand out inspirations for you latest work? I feel so much can be subconscious, but was there anything that you think was on the mind, music or non music?
David: I think musically Jockstrap for sure, but I did also have a conversation with Jez about what the influences were for reference stuff for mixing. So Porches came up, and Kaitlin Aurelia Smith, she’s a musician who plays with modular synths and makes these crazy soundscapes. These New South Whales I'm really into, they do a really cool mix of hardcore music and pop as well, and Lyndon Blue was always a big influence; that dark art pop.
Buckland is meant to be a project, at least in the live show, that looks at that space in between live theatre performance and live music performance. So I'm now in the process of building that live show and taking inspiration from other performance forms.
Ryan: Any particular theatre makers or works that you've been inspired by, or thought about, or elements you’ve noticed creeping into your work?
David: I work with Rachel Dease a little bit and I went and saw the recent Perth Festival show ‘Hymns for End Times’ which she did with WASO. It was this album she recorded herself and then had an orchestra and a choir, and the whole thing was so performative. There was no talking. It was at His Majesty’s; she was in a chair for the first half, just still, but the way she holds you and her presence is just incredible, so she’s a big influence. A lot of theatre conventions can work really well. One idea is to have one thing, and then you slowly fill up the entire space with that one thing, or have a full stage to start with and then take it away, which is something people really like to watch.
Ryan: I'm so excited for that to come together.
Griffin: Is there a ballpark time of arrival for this project?
Ryan: The two tunes are coming out together on the 17th of March.
David: I think gigs are going to take a bit longer coming together with the band. I want to get the set tight with the band, and then get together with theatre makers and make that happen.
Griffin: That sort of thing hasn't happened a lot, at least from what I’ve seen.
Ryan: There's not really a lot of that...one thing that it makes me think of is Annika's other project ‘Great Statue’, when I saw that it had poetry and spoken word elements.
David: And other performance ideas, like the way she uses light and design aspects. I saw her show at Pig Melon which was really cool - they way that space is set up with heaps of blind spots - I feel like she was really using that. Being able to be seen or not seen, and having that agency to do that.
Ryan: How about inspirations for you Griffin?
Griffin: I rip off Bon Iver pretty much daily laughs I go through different phases and lots of different artists show up in different ways. There's this one Slaughter Beach Dog.
Ryan: Cool name! laughs
Griffin: He's one of the singers from Modern Baseball. He's one of my favourite songwriters and the way he writes chord progressions really resonates with me. It comes up subtly in my songs, because the presentation and delivery is pretty different, but some of the chord types I take inspiration from. I live for that changing bass note while the chord stays the same.
Ryan: I've been hearing that idea more and more in house music, noticing the subtle differences. I feel like that subtly is what may scare some some people off.
David: Is that boomer inclusive? laughs
Griffin: I’ve been getting more and more into beat tapes recently.
Ryan: My friend Sam recommended me Captain Murphy - one of Flying Lotus' side projects and I really like that.
Griffin: Austen's into his FlyLo.
Ryan: and Drew even.
Griffin: Oh really true!
Brushtail.
R: Your next few months are pretty clear Dave, but what’s on your horizon Griffin?
Griffin: I've got this one other song that I've been sitting on for quite a while. Ever since I wrote it I thought ‘yeah this is my best song’ laughs It’s really cool when you can write something and your brain doesn’t tell you it’s shit laughs
Ryan: Thats always helpful laughs
Griffin: I'm about to start tracking that. Aiming for about a July release, maybe a four track EP before the end of the year. For this upcoming project I do want to take it into a more band orientated direction. My favourite moments in the live show are when it gets really loud and distorted. Influences in that regard are like My Bloody Valentine and Broken Social Scene - those larger than life soundscapes, but they're still intimate. I kind of want to channel that into the recordings more. We had this folky direction with Matt recently, but maybe even with the newer ones we might track them live.
Ryan: Definitely recommend live tracking, we did it recently, and it was so much fun! We are a bit spoilt though with Cam, Drew, Austen, and David, just so tight…
Griffin: I’ve got Drew and Austen too!
Ryan: And so Aardvark headline show coming up? [Saturday March 13 at The Aardvark]
Griffin: Yeah that's soon laughs I was like ‘oh that's kinda far away, oh wait February is short’ so it’s pretty soon laughs