[Courtney Laura] Describe the process of writing and creating the new album
[Jeff Lang] Well it was probably created over about a two-year period of accumulation material for the album. Working along, writing songs, and I ended up with a pile of them. After a while I get kind of antsy to record, and it usually happily coincides when there is a stack of material to take some kind of shape. I look at what songs I feel strongest immediately about including, and then what songs fall into the gravitational pull of those to add to the album.
What inspired the album name, I Live In My Head A Lot These Days.
It just seemed to fit. It was actually a gift from a mate of mine, we were chatting in Canberra and he threw it into conversation and said actually there is your next album title by the way, you’re welcome. I said you know something Chris, I think you might be right.
Have you got any favorite songs on the album you’re looking forward to playing?
It’s funny how at a gig, different songs can be a bit of a flash point on different nights. It’s hard to say, different ones have a different connection from night to night. Some that definitely have some energy to them, a song like ‘I Want To Run But My Legs Won’t Stand’ feels like one of those that I cant wait to play live as it will have energy and a mood to it. It could be something like People Can Break Your Heart’ or ‘This City Is Not Your Home Town Anymore’, which are sparse and open can be something that connects on a given night depending on the venue and their audience.
What inspired the image for the album cover?
I couldn’t see the rabbits, people kept saying there are rabbits behind you and I turned around and they weren’t there. Freaked me out. I didn’t know what they were saying. A friend of mine, Lisa, took the photos and we were going for a Nightmare In Suburbia kind of feel, we wanted it to be borderline between creepy and disturbing and playful and kind of whimsical. Creating some kind of bridge between those things was the general idea for the look of it.
With this being the 15th studio album, how does it feel to reach this milestone in your career?
It doesn’t have a particular feel to it, I’m just doing my thing. I don’t feel particularly prolific because I always feel I could write more. I always feel there is this great period of time where I don’t come out with anything and then it all works out in the end. So it’s been kind of regular, the songs have shown up with regularity over time, but there might be six months of time doing gigs and not writing new songs which can be frustrating at times.
It really doesn’t have a distinct feeling of “wow I have done this many albums”, you feel like each time you are still learning as you go. I guess the idea is to never arrive, never really arrive somewhere, otherwise it’s over.
There is certainly gratitude if people stick with what you do and actually continue to enjoy it, you have to feel grateful for that if nothing else. It doesn’t feel like so much of an achievement on my part because I don’t really write the songs and think of how to record them based on anything except my own internal standards and trying to come out with something that feels like a valid expression of where I am at and a way of capturing it that feels like you have hit on something.
There is a “standards” check you put on your own stuff and it’s hard to pass it, but that’s where I create the stuff from, and then you feel grateful that anyone likes it after all that, because the audience reaction is not the primary consideration. I would go mad if I try to write songs that I think the audience would like, as everyone will have their own thoughts on what songs they would prefer. If you went around the country with a form asking what sort of song they want you to write, you would get as many different answers as people.
What are you looking forward to doing on this upcoming tour?
I am looking forward to being out with the band and giving these new songs a shake up and getting a chance to re-caste some of the old material a long side the new ones. It’s kind of fun like that, how a gig takes shape with which songs you play from which album and how you fit them next to each other. You can spark new energy in the older songs sometimes.
Do you find older songs that you wrote develop a new meaning for you over time?
Certainly, yes because I don’t write about specific events that happen to me. The stories just come into my head and then I will read it back and figure out what is being said. They are not fixed to a specific event in my mind when I sing them because they are not connected to one particular thing and I don’t need to reconnect with it. So overtime the resonance of a song will shift, especially if you haven’t played a song for a few years and you come back to it. Even the choice to come back to that song could be for a fresher meaning and new relevance. It’s nice if you can have that because otherwise they just become a noise that you make.
How has your music progressed over time with playing guitar and singing?
I really enjoy singing. I came to singing after playing guitar for a while and I always listened to people who played and sang and wrote their own material. The guitar playing was natural, it wasn’t easy but it felt natural and a normal thing to do. Singing, I had to decide that I wanted to do it and I had to start doing it. It was rough for a while there but I have always had a certain goal for singing and playing my own stuff. I always loved how Bob Dylan and Neil Young did their thing vocally. It’s not the sort of singing that would get you on a TV show, can you imagine Bob Dylan on The Voice, but the thing is they are so beyond all that. He is a genius of phrasing and if this doesn’t make you realise that opening your mouth to deliver a song is not about how many pristine notes you can fit into a run with the appropriate hand gesture. It’s about delivering the mood of the character whose point of view the song is about. And Dylan through the mid sixties to mid eighties – there are so many examples of how he could put you right inside the song. He is still an underrated singer
What are some of your favorite venues, and are there any you’re looking forward to playing in again soon?
It’s not any one type of venue. Sometimes a big outdoor festival thing can be awesome, then other times the smaller intimate thing is what you want. They all have their special charm. There are quite a few gigs on this run that I always look forward to playing in. Newcastle is a place I have played so much over the years and it’s so good to have a venue like Lizotte’s in Lambton which is a lovely place to play, they really respect the audience’s experience and the musical side of it completely, and it really makes a difference. There are a few around like that; Art Centre in Cairns and Fly by Night in Fremantle are just quality places to play.
When you are backstage, how does it feel when you step out to the crowd reaction? What goes through your mind?
I am always looking forward to it. I love to play. Performing is something I have done for so long and I still find it invigorating and something I enjoy to do. It’s usually just, here we go, you’re strapped into the ride, it’s time to take off. It’s exciting.
What do you do backstage? Do you warm up with routines or rituals?
We probably do without realising it. You would need someone to follow you around to tell you if you do. There is nothing specifically that I am aware of it, there is nothing in particular that I follow. I probably should do a few things, as I get older I should probably do warming up things so the body doesn’t fail on you, but at the moment it’s just goofing off with the guys and having fun.
What are some of the biggest lessons you have learnt over your career?
There are a lot of little things you learn, you expand your skills as you go along, like how to get the sound you want from venue to venue. Ways of recording, all that type of stuff. There are lots of little specific things.
Keeping a connection with why you started playing in the first place is important. If there is anything I would give as advice to someone starting out it’s to stay engaged, stay interested, and remember why you started playing in the first place.
The reason I started to play was because I fell in love with sound and felt compelled to get in amongst it and do it. If you keep that in your mind somewhere it helps you through the trying parts of it, the things you could get dispirited by, that make you feel like you’re wasting your time, because that’s always a possibility, that you are actually kidding yourself and that there is no point to it. It’s always in the back of your mind. Being exposed as the fraud is like a waking nightmare that a lot of people working in the arts industry feel. Keep in your head the reason you do it is because you love it and you felt compelled to join in and so you joined in. If you keep that in mind, you can reengage with that, then any hiccup can’t squash you. It’s not easy but no one said it would be.
The sound of the new album has been described as having a “depth of field”. Explain this process.
It’s a special sense. It wasn’t going so much for recreating an exact sound, but it was a launching off point, thinking about having a sense of space on those records. You could hear the drums being further away from you. If there was a horn player playing the melody he would feel closer to you with a richer texture rather than everything being right at you. Which is kind of a more modern way of recording and mixing. Having presence, making it fell like everything is up front. That can be exciting, it’s not a bad sound, but I found something appealing about that special quality.
It’s not new to me but I started thinking about it in terms of not recording it that way, but mixing it, that would impart that sense of depth of field in a different kind of way, to see if the end result is in any way appealing. So we ended up with this experiment with mixing the album by running every instrument through a speaker picked up by a stereo microphone in the middle of a big room. It was kind of fun, it was a way of also having a playful experience with the mix down. You do certain things a certain way, it was kind of fun not just for an experiment but in chasing a certain goal for the texture of the mix that you know when you hear it. It was a fun way to do that rather than just mixing and experimenting with more or less reverb, you were actually physically doing it. It was good, it was kind of a quick way of doing it actually. It probably took on average less time to mix than some of the other records I have done.
I’ve recorded all my albums in various different ways; there are no hard and fast rules about this stuff, if it sounds good to you then that is the way to go.
We are really looking forward to getting out there, hitting the road, having a go at some of these songs and rebooting some of the old ones. It should be fun.
Jeff Lang will be performing at the following venues during June and July –
Wednesday 25th June – Lizottes, Kincumber NSW
Thursday 26th June – Lizottes, Dee Why NSW
Friday 27th June – The Basement, Sydney NSW
Saturday 28th June – Camelot Lounge, Marrickville, NSW
Sunday 29th June – Lizottes, Newcastle NSW
Friday 4th July – The Caravan Club, Oakleigh VIC
Saturday 5th July – Thornbury Theatre, Thornbury VIC
Sunday 6th July – The Old Hepburn Hotel, Hepburn Springs VIC
Friday 11th July – Mullumbimby Town Hall, Mullumbimby NSW
Saturday 12th July – Visy Theatre, Brisbane Powerhouse QLD
Sunday 13th July – The Ruins, Darwin NT
Friday 18th July – Williamstown RSL, Williamstown VIC
Saturday 19th July – Street Theatre, Canberra ACT
Sunday 20th July – Beavs, Geelong VIC