Following the acclaimed release of his second record Go Forth, Find Mammoth, LAWRENCE GREENWOOD disappeared from the spotlight and embarked on a journey of self-discovery. He announced that he would no longer be releasing music under the stage name WHITLEY. Greenwood’s restless travels took him to far corners of the globe – into Peruvian jungles, The Netherlands and the Mexican coast. He was looking for answers and his search led him to making a stunning third Whitley record – Even The Stars Are A Mess. In this interview with NICK MILLIGAN, Greenwood reveals the discoveries that brought him back from the wild.
Have you been happy with the response to Even The Stars Are A Mess?
Yeah, it’s exactly what I had hoped for. Which was nothing too crazy and people who may understand it on a deeper level, rather than a peripheral pop tune passing through. Hopefully it could hold some sentimental value for people.
After you released your second record as Whitley, Go Forth, Find Mammoth, you said you were stepping away from the moniker. Is it fair to say that you were at odds with releasing music under that name?
Yeah, definitely. It was not necessarily releasing music as Whitley, but part of a very complex issue, which was that I felt very stunted by the environment I was in. I didn’t want to become someone that wasn’t nice to be around for the people I loved. So I really needed to develop as a person and I have put every effort into doing that. Hopefully my friends and loved ones have noticed a difference.
You journeyed to some distant locations – do you feel like you’ve found what you were looking for?
Yeah, I do. It came about through the strangest occurences though. I feel like the whole trip was information-gathering on what I’m like in different situations, and what other people are like, and what the best attributes are. The people who are successful at being happy and making others around them happy – what it is that they do and how they see things. It all came together for me when I was in the jungle. That’s when I really had what I would call a revelation of thought. I was able to consolidate all that information into some sort of cohesive desire – a map to navigate day-to-day life.
You wrote in your bio that you were in a “mode of excitement” on the Mexican coast when you called your record label, Dew Process, and told them you were making a new record. Was it a complete epiphany or had the idea of a new record been vegetating?
It had been going on for a little while, in the sense that I had started leaving notes on my phone – humming melodies and various little things. It indicated that somewhere in my subconscious this creative desire for melody hadn’t been killed properly and the weed was starting to grow back (laughs). Those notes started to turn into songs which turned into a production idea which turned into an album.
What had been the longest period during your absence that you went without writing a song?
I think there was probably a year where I didn’t touch an instrument or sing a song. There was a significant amount of time not playing music. Even when I started to fool around with playing again, it was very gentle. It ramped up when I went to Mexico. That’s when I really started going, “Ah, fuck this.” I had a lot of spare time and I carried a guitar around with me. So I knew I was going to head somewhere with it.
So does being back in Australia with a new record out feel very different to the release of Mammoth?
Yep, way way way more different. I feel so much more in control of my music, where it’s going, how I’m touring, how I’m being represented – something as simple as a photograph. I’m in total control and doing it myself. I have my fingers in the dirt.
One of the recurring aspects of your music has been a juxtaposition between musical mood and lyrical mood. Your upbeat songs tend to have dark subject matter and your darker melodies have more uplifting lyrics. Is that contrast something that interests you as a songwriter?
Yeah, definitely. You’d be surprised how many people have not picked that up. Juxtaposition, contrast… they serve the point of making someone more receptive to an idea. If I was going to sing about suicide or depression, it seems clever to have it in a pop song so people are more receptive to listening to it or maybe relating to it. Happy stuff can be sickly sweet when it’s in a pop song. If you put it into a more meditative, spacious cathedral then the words seems to carry more weight. I’m not sure why that is, but I like it.
On the opening track, ‘The Ballad of Terence McKenna’, you sing “It is not a mean world, it’s beautiful, I’ve seen it.” Was it a conscious decision to have this uplifting sentiment at the start of the record to set a tone?
Yeah, exactly. And it sounds like one of the darker [songs] – it’s the most extreme in that contrast. I had quite a big music journalist ask me why am I so depressed. I had to flatly tell them that they’d completely misunderstood the album. Then they proceeded to tell me that they hadn’t and that I was wrong (laughs). I just went, “Uh, alright, whatever.”
There’s a cyclic nature to the songs on Even The Stars Are A Mess – engaging uses of repetition. Do you feel like you approached song structures differently on this record to previous releases?
It’s vocally orientated, so the centre is the vocal. Whatever the metre of the melody is dictating to the guitar, that’s what should happen. Whereas before it was very rigid – here’s the pop structure, fit the melody in here. This one is more of a spaced out kind of feeling.
After some false starts in different countries, Even The Stars Are A Mess was eventually recorded in a former church in an Italian forest near Pisa. How did that setting influence the sound of the album?
It had more of an impact than I would give it credit for. Just because of the isolation. We were in the middle of a forest and we were the only building in the forest. It was like Hansel and Gretel – it was ridiculous. Colin and I were able to not be interferred with and have any outside opinions. It gave me the bravery to go for whatever I liked. There was no one there to ask, “Do you think that will get radio play?” It was a matter of what I wanted to hear coming out of those speakers that would please me.
You had attempted to begin recording the album in a number of different countries, like Peru and The Netherlands, but various circumstances prevented you. In a poetic sense, it was almost as if fate guided you to this church.
Yeah, definitely. It was the end of a very long, arduous, trying journey. But I laughed my way through it pretty well. You can’t call yourself an absurdist if you get frazzled. Each time [something went wrong], I was wondering more and more that perhaps I had been wrong on metaphysical speculation and in fact there was a God and he did hate me. But maybe it could be the other way.
Before entering the church and Italy to record, how many of the tracks on the album were already written?
All of them, with the exception of ‘The Ballad of Terence McKenna’ and ‘My Heart Is Not A Machine’.
So you must have had some idea of how the album would sound?
No, the sound of [the record] didn’t come until later. We first set up with a complete drum kit and a baritone and we started recording like that for a few days – just Colin [Leadbetter, producer] and I. I wasn’t feeling it, it wasn’t working and didn’t have the right sensitivities. Colin and I weren’t gelling as well as we knew we were capable of. So we both decided to strip it right back in terms of percussion and instrumentation. The more we were faced with the prospects of a minimalist production aesthetic, the better we became at making simple decisions.
You’ve got a headline tour coming up and an appearance at Splendour In The Grass. Your live shows now have three albums to draw upon that are quite diverse in mood. Is it a challenge in putting together a setlist?
It was, but with the new setup – which is a five-piece band. ‘Bright White Lights’ sounds quite good, as do all the songs off Submarine. But ‘Killer’, for example, doesn’t sound good. I’m going to do ‘Killer’ and ‘Head First Down’ solo, I think. To not try and be like the old music, but to try and have fun. Like that David Byrne thing with an acoustic guitar and a boom box.
If someone had played you Even The Stars Are A Mess around the time you were releasing The Submarine and said: “This is a record you’re going to release in five years”, what would have surprised you about it?
I think how well I sung. I know that sounds a bit cocky, but I’ve slowly become more and more comfortable with using my voice as an instrument rather than just a word delivery device. I think the connection I feel now when I sing would have resonated with me [five years ago].
Have you given any thought to how the fourth Whitley record might sound?
Yeah, there’s about ten different ideas. Maybe a more acoustic album, but not in a traditional way like a Jack Johnson-y, Ben Harper-y kind of thing. I really like Gillian Welch and David Rawlings. But still I have no idea.
Even The Stars Are A Mess is out now through Dew Process. Whitley performs on Saturday at Splendour In The Grass, Byron Bay.